Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

Someone have claimed that this is broken: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Sc00bz&#x2F;break-uheprng">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Sc00bz&#x2F;break-uheprng</a><p>The first criticism, while valid, is an anachronism as there wasn&#x27;t Web Crypto when this RNG was written. The other criticisms are fully valid though and should at least make everyone do a double take whether this is fine for their needs or not.

If the maker of ShieldsUp! claims anything, I am deeply, deeply, unconvinced.

Sorry to belabor something lots of readers already know: The long key may (or may not) be packed with entropy. But a pseudo-random number generator at best preserves the entropy in the key.

&gt; Latin Squares are ‘n’x‘n’ grids containing exactly one of each of ‘n’ symbols in every horizontal row and vertical column [...]<p>&gt; Although mathematicians have been unable to determine how many different 26x26 [Latin] Squares can be created, they have been able to determine that the number is at least 9.337 x 10^426, or approximately 2^1418<p>Seems surprising that the number hasn&#x27;t been calculated exactly. I&#x27;d have guessed it&#x27;s a mechanically solvable but tedious combinatorics problem, but obviously not.

Something about using a PRNG with a large internal state just to generate an output in a large space of possibilities feels wrong to me. If you have enough entropy to fill a high entropy RNG, why not use all that entropy to generate the output in the first place?<p>Also I&#x27;m curious how they generate the latin squares, their claims require a uniform distribution of some kind, which is interesting.

This is not a good way to generate &quot;secure&quot; random numbers, and the &quot;visits every possible state&quot; is not a good metric.<p>Computing the cryptographic hash of a 1536-bit counter will have better properties (and less handwaving) than this function.

Can someone explain to me the value of this? Like, is there value in the &quot;pseudo&quot; that you don&#x27;t get from a &quot;real&quot; one?<p>Like, I&#x27;m thinking of e.g. the Cloudflare lava lamp thing, and like, isn&#x27;t that better in every way?

Hrm, yea, sorry Steve but your dodgy practices mean that I&#x27;m not going to touch this with a barge pole.