[Newbies] Re: Tim's Fix for LargeIntger>>AtRandom

[Jerome Peace]

HI Randal,

I drafted two replies to this and didn't feel comfortable enough with
either of them to post.

I suspect you are right in what you say.

I am doing some experiments to find out.

So what do you suggest to solve the problem? 

More to my interest, what do you suggest as a test to prove the problem is solved to your satisfaction. What is a good or at least reasonable way to test the randomness of larger positive integers?



I want to emphasize that my coding is just for m 

(Learning from my own mistakes is the only sure way to get past my stubborn part.) 

Basicly, I believe you might be right an the PRNG stuff. 


--- On Tue, 8/5/08, Randal L. Schwartz <merlyn at stonehenge.com> wrote:

> From: Randal L. Schwartz <merlyn at stonehenge.com>
> Subject: Re: [Newbies] Re: Tim's Fix for LargeIntger>>AtRandom
> To: "Jerome Peace" <peace_the_dreamer at yahoo.com>
> Cc: beginners at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Date: Tuesday, August 5, 2008, 6:18 PM
> >>>>> "Jerome" == Jerome Peace
> <peace_the_dreamer at yahoo.com> writes:
> 
> Jerome> The objection Randal raised is that now it is
> using too many.
> Jerome> That's IMO a red herring.
> 
> No, it's not.  Multiple calls to a PRNG generate
> correlated numbers,
> which can be used for an attack.
> 
> You need to use a PRNG that in a single call gives enough
> bits.  And
> if you don't know that about PRNGs, you're not the
> one to be fixing this.
>
 
I have not set out to. Tim should be able to succeed. My purpose is to encourage him to contribute. 

I am interested in writing tests that can show whether a particular solution is working sufficiently or not.

> I talked about it in terms of entropy because that's
> the easiest way to see
> that you're not gaining anything except the illusion of
> gain, which will bite
> back some day.  You can't get 112 bits of entropy by
> calling a 56-bit PRNG
> twice.
> 
> It's not progress if it breaks it.

It was for the Gossamer Condor. 

More to the issue. Help design a test to prove if its broken or not.
> 
With respect,

Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace