Re: How to generate a random number?

[Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org>]

"Jeffrey W. Baker" <jwbaker@acm.org> writes:

> That is an extraordinarily bad idea.  Any person will be able to guess the
> sequence of random numbers simply by guessing the time at which your
> program was started.

And the impact of this depends on what the program is used for.  If
you're seeding the RNG for a crypto program, yes, this is bad.  If
you're seeding the RNG for a random sig generator, who cares?  Why use
up entropy for programs which don't need it?

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
The grass is always greener on the other side of your sunglasses.