[GTALUG] Crypto Question: Where do you get your entropy

[Christopher Browne]

On 12 November 2014 01:22, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:

>
>   - Chris mentioned a Kickstarter(?) project that has produced what
>     they claim is an entropy generator on a USB stick.
>

Not Kickstartered, from a UK-based company...

http://www.entropykey.co.uk/tech/

"The Entropy Key uses P-N semiconductor junctions reverse biassed with a
high enough voltage to bring them near to, but not beyond, breakdown in
order to generate noise. In other words, it has a pair of devices that are
wired up in such a way that as a high potential is applied across them,
where electrons do not normally flow in this direction and would be
blocked, the high voltage compresses the semiconduction gap sufficiently
that the occasional stray electron will quantum tunnel through the P-N
junction. (This is sometimes referred to as avalanche noise.) When this
happens is unpredictable, and this is what the Entropy Key measures."

Priced at 36 euros in small quantities.
-- 
When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the
question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
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