From: Kirill Shutemov <k.shutemov@...>
Date: 2006-11-14T00:53:46+09:00
Subject: Re: External entropy pool for random number generator

On 11/13/06, Nobuyoshi Nakada <nobu@ruby-lang.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> At Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:14:33 +0900,
> Kirill Shutemov wrote in [ruby-core:09529]:
> > > Can you elaborate how much it is useful in general enough to make it
> > > built in?  The questions I have are
> > >
> > >   * why do we need to call srand every time?
> >
> > To make rand() not deterministic. The other way is modification
> > genrand_int32() to use entropy pool directly. It's more careful, but
> > it makes genrand_int32() ruby specific(code from  rb_f_rand() moves to
> > genrand_int32()). Should I do it?
>
> I don't think it enough general.  Couldn't OpenSSL::Random be
> an alternative?
Yes, it's an alternative, but not every platform have openssl. :(