Namecoin Forum

A colleague is about to launch a kick-starter program for an entropy generator dongle (OpenHardware) ... literally in that you can see the chip (transparent cover) and the code is open source so you can tell visually if any tampering. But if people want specific FPGA code blocks, I'd be interested in hearing just to get an idea of the chip space (and thus bill of materials).

Oh ... and for those not technically minded, entropy is used for randomness of random number generators.

For the more technically minded, how is this chip going to 'generate' (collect?) entropy? Is it even possible on an FPGA? Other devices seem to use some analogue electronics to measure something unpredictable.

John Kenney wrote:For the more technically minded, how is this chip going to 'generate' (collect?) entropy? Is it even possible on an FPGA? Othehhr devices seem to use some analogue electronics to measure something unpredictable.

See the (successful) kickstarter campaign https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mo ... -generator

combines 2 sources of noise
- avalanche diode that generates 'quantum noise'
- RF receiver with frequency hopper/sampler

I personally know the inventor and the pick & place facility is self-contained, and can be audited for closed room operation (no extra info to come in beyond specs). The theoretical basis behind the design is found here