[Newbies] What's wrong with this statement?

Randal L. Schwartz merlyn at stonehenge.com
Thu Jul 31 19:43:48 UTC 2008


>>>>> "Randal" == Randal L Schwartz <merlyn at stonehenge.com> writes:

>>>>> "Timothy" == Timothy J Miller <tmiller at mitre.org> writes:
Timothy> (2 raisedTo: 128) atRandom hex
Timothy> Gives me results like:

Timothy> B990880B732110000000000000000001
Timothy> BFD3A7B37FA750000000000000000001
Timothy> E0A6F981C14DF0000000000000000001

Timothy> Somehow I'm not buying the lower-order bits on this one.  :)

Randal> It's pretty likely you have a 16-bit random generator, so there just aren't
Randal> enough bits to make the low-order bits random in any way shape or form.

Err, uh, 64 bits of random.  But still not enough for a 128-bit random
number.

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
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