Re: Intel announcements at RSA '99

[Colin Plumb]

> Steve Bellovin wrote:
>> Intel has announced a number of interesting things at the RSA conference.
>> The most important, to me, is the inclusion of a hardware random number
>> generator (based on thermal noise) in the Pentium III instruction set.
>> They also announced hardware support for IPSEC.

Ben Laurie responded:
> An interesting question (for me, at least) is: how will I know that the
> hardware RNG is really producing stuff based on thermal noise, and not,
> say, on the serial number, some secret known to Intel, and a PRNG?

I spoke to Intel and was most adamant about the need for access to
the data in the rawest, unwhitened form for characterization.

I didn't think of it at the time, but this has the added bonus that
deterministic systems have a harder time generating non-white noise, so
if you look at the bit stream and see a noise spectrum that corresponds
to the (claimed) underlying physical source, that is some assurance
against cheating.
-- 
        -Colin