Post
Topic
Board Project Development
Re: I am going to build a true random number generator ...
by
DeathAndTaxes
on 08/04/2014, 03:06:30 UTC
Lol.  No way you're going to steal my coins based on an "only" pseudo random key.
Anyway, not trying to rain on the parade here,  carry on!   Grin

I think you miss the point.  If a PRNG is secure then you have no problems.  Are you SURE your PRNG implementation is secure?  Coins have be stolen in the past due to flawed PRNG implementations.  Now it is unknown if it was just a flaw or an intentional weakness (put there by 3 letter agencies which know they can break unbreakable ciphers when they rely on weak random numbers).  Still it doesn't matter the coins were stolen just the same.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/08/google-confirms-critical-android-crypto-flaw-used-in-5700-bitcoin-heist/

Even if it was intentionally crippled it may have been for reasons other than Bitcoin, and some Bitcoin users just ended up in the crypto crossfire.  

Of course that isn't the only example not even recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/technology/researchers-find-flaw-in-an-online-encryption-method.html?
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1496724
http://eprint.iacr.org/2007/419.pdf

This isn't a commercial project, just something I want to do as a hobby.  If it goes anywhere I intend to make the hardware and software open source.  Hopefully that leads to other open and transparent designs.