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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Sat Apr 10 1999 - 01:18:25
bram (bram@gawth.com)
Tue, 2 Feb 1999 10:30:52 -0800 (PST)
On 2 Feb 1999, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> Bruce Schneier <schneier@counterpane.com> writes:
>
> > Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> > >
> > >Is RC4 a good PRNG for monte carlo types? I mean, its a very good PRNG
> > >-- is it good enough for *non*-cryptographic use?
> >
> > I would think so. If it has problems in Monte Carlo tests, that would be a
> > VERY interesting cryptographic result.
>
> That's what I've always thought -- if there is *any* bad property from
> a Monte Carlo point of view it will be far worse from a cryptography
> point of view. HOWEVER, that seems to imply that there is no point in
> using linear congruential generators, since RC4 is trivial to code and
> use (insignificantly harder than a LCPRNG), and is far better at being
> random!
Is RC4 any slower than a linear congruential generator? If not, then you
certainly have a point.
I think LCPRNG's are really uber-fast in hardware, since they parallelize
so well.
-Bram
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Sat Apr 10 1999 - 01:18:25