* NAME
* VERSION
* SYNOPSIS
* DESCRIPTION
* METHODS
* DEPENDENCIES
* BIBLIOGRAPHY
* AUTHOR
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NAME
Crypt::Random - Cryptographically Secure, True Random Number Generator.
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VERSION
$Revision: 1.1.1.1 $
$Date: 2001/06/21 15:34:49 $
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SYNOPSIS
use Crypt::Random qw( makerandom );
my $r = makerandom ( Size => 512, Strength => 1 );
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DESCRIPTION
Crypt::Random is an interface module to the /dev/random device found on most
modern Unix systems. The /dev/random driver gathers environmental noise from
various non-deterministic sources including inter-keyboard timings and
inter-interrupt timings that occur within the operating system environment.
The /dev/random driver maintains an estimate of true randomness in the pool and
decreases it every time random strings are requested for use. When the estimate
goes down to zero, the routine blocks and waits for the occurrence of
non-deterministic events to refresh the pool.
The /dev/random kernel module also provides another interface, /dev/urandom,
that does not wait for the entropy-pool to recharge and returns as many bytes
as requested. /dev/urandom is considerably faster at generation compared to
/dev/random, which should be used only when very high quality randomness is
desired.
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METHODS
makerandom()
Generates a random number of requested bitsize in base 10. Following
arguments can be specified.
Size
Bitsize of the random number.
Strength 0 || 1
Value of 1 implies that /dev/random should be used for requesting
random bits while 0 implies /dev/urandom.
Device
Alternate device to request random bits from.
makerandom_itv()
Generates a random number in the specified interval. In addition to the
arguments to makerandom() following attributes can be specified.
Lower
Inclusive Lower limit.
Upper
Exclusive Upper limit.
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DEPENDENCIES
Crypt::Random needs Math::Pari 2.001802 or higher. As of this writing, the
latest version of Math::Pari isn't available from CPAN. Fetch it from
ftp://ftp.math.ohio-state.edu/pub/users/ilya/perl/modules/
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. random.c by Theodore Ts'o. Found in drivers/char directory of the Linux
kernel sources.
2. Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot and Scott
Vanstone.
__________________________________________________________________________
AUTHOR
Vipul Ved Prakash, <mail@vipul.net>
