Many of algorithms in cryptography depend on good random numbers, i.e. random numbers that are "real" random and not just generated by a so called pseudo-random generator.

You cannot create real random numbers using a computer and an algorithm. Only nature creates real randomness (just take a look around the next time you are surrounded by a group of people.).

Real randomness occurs in atmospheric noise, during radioactive decay, or in a lava lamp. Fortunately, you do not have to listen to an old radio the whole day or, even worse, deposit some uranium in your living room and observe it with a Geiger-Müller tube. Other people do so (in a slightly modified manner, of course) and they kindly make their results public.

There are at least the following web sites, that offer real random numbers for free:

• http://www.random.org - Real random numbers are generated from atmospheric noise on this site.

• http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits - The HotBits generator creates real random numbers by timing successive pairs of radioactive decays detected by a Geiger-Müller tube interfaced to a computer.

• http://random.hd.org - "This system gathers its 'entropy' or truly random noise from a number of sources, including local processes, files and devices, Web page hits and remote Web sites."

All these real random numbers can be requested via different HTTP interfaces that all look very similar. E.g. you can request a number of random bytes from any of the web sites above.

This project encapsulates all these very similar but still different HTTP interfaces and offers simple Ruby interfaces to get real random numbers from all the web sites mentioned above.

This library requires at least Ruby 1.8.x.

RealRand is available as a gem, so you can install it like this:

gem install realrand

Once RealRand is installed and your internet connection is up, generating real random numbers is a piece of cake:

require 'random/online'

generator1 = RealRand::RandomOrg.new
puts generator1.randbyte(5).join(",")
puts generator1.randnum(100, 1, 6).join(",") # Roll the dice 100 times.

generator2 = RealRand::FourmiLab.new
puts generator2.randbyte(5).join(",")
# randnum is not supported.

generator3 = RealRand::EntropyPool.new
puts generator3.randbyte(5).join(",")
# randnum is not supported.

The following limits do apply to the different functions:

• RandomOrg#randnum(number = 100, min = 1, max = 100) - You can request up to 10,000 random numbers ranging from -1,000,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 with this method. Of course, max has to be bigger than min.

• RandomOrg#randbyte(number = 256) - You can request up to 16,384 random bytes with this method.

• FourmiLab#randbyte(number = 128) - You can request up to 2,048 random bytes with this method.

• EntropyPool#randbyte(number = 16, limit_result = true) - You can request up to 256 random bytes with this method. If there is not enough randomness left in the pool, the result will be limited by default, i.e. you will get less bytes than requested. If limit_result is set to false, then the rest will be generated using a pseudo-random generator.

If you have to use a HTTP proxy, you can set it as follows:

require 'random/online'

generator1 = RealRand::RandomOrg.new
generator1.proxy_host = 'your.proxy.here'
generator1.proxy_port = 8080
generator1.proxy_usr  = 'your.user.here'
generator1.proxy_pwd  = 'secret'
puts generator1.randbyte(5).join(",")
puts generator1.randnum(100, 1, 6).join(",")  # Roll the dice 100 times.

All the services used in this library are offered for free by their maintainers. So, PLEASE, have a look at their web sites and obey to their rules, if you use their service.

Copyright © 2003 - 2015 by Maik Schmidt.