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originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: Aazadan
The point is through that a random number generation system based on an algorithm can be considered to be deterministic hence it is not random really.
"We begin with the easy part. The measurement relies on small changes in the behavior of an electronic device designed to produce a random output. A random event generator, or REG, as used for the GCP data collection, is essentially a high-speed electronic coin flipper. Instead of heads and tails, the REG produces + or - pulses relative to a mean value, and these pulses are converted into 1’s and 0’s, the bits that are the language of computers. The bits can be counted, and stored as samples from a well understood mathematical distribution of random numbers. The device also is often called a random number generator (RNG), which is a name given to computer programs that produce "pseudo" random numbers. The REG and RNG devices used in the GCP are hardware sources of "true" random events — fundamentally unpredictable 1’s and 0’s.
There are three different random event or random number generators in use in the GCP network. They are all electronic and their different sources of "white noise" all depend on completely unpredictable quantum fluctuations. The PEAR REG is based on Johnson noise, the extremely low-level fluctuations in electron flow in a resistor due to thermal influences. It has a built-in logic transformation (XOR) of every other bit from 1 to 0 or vice versa, to eliminate in principle any bias of the mean output of the device. The MICROREG uses a Field-Effect Transistor (FET) for the white noise, and also has an XOR stage, in this case with a table of all bytes with equal numbers of 1 and 0. The ORION uses two diodes, each independently producing a random bitstream and in this case the two output signals are XOR’ed against each other. The Orions have no built-in protection against bias, so a computed XOR is imposed for this type in the egg software. "