Your Computer Cannot Pick a Random Number

Description:
Determinism is the whole point of a computer: same input, same output, forever. Which makes true randomness the one thing it physically cannot do alone.

A PRNG only looks random — feed it the same seed and it repeats the same sequence every time. So the seed has to come from physics. Since 2012 there's a circuit on the CPU die sampling its own thermal noise, and that noise is what encryption ultimately rests on.


#Shorts #ComputerScience #Cryptography #CPU #Randomness