>>>>> "Carlos" == Carlos Konstanski <[email protected]> writes:

Carlos> The reason I am using
Carlos> /dev/urandom is because I have witnessed other generators repeat
Carlos> themselves.  If someone were to get a sessionid that an administrator
Carlos> had previously, that could be enough to give elevated privileges in a
Carlos> webapp.

Are you confusing "guaranteed to generate a distinct series of numbers from a
limited set" with "random"?  It's starting to smell like you are.

If you want to ensure non-duplicate numbers over a range, deal from a pool
without replacement.  Don't count on a "random number generator" to not deal
the same number twice.

Remember: the sequence "5 5 5 5 5" is a random sequence (one of many :).

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<[email protected]> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside discussion

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