Squeakfoundation December 2002

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24 participants
33 discussions

Unrandom Random (was Two fixes I would like!)
by Ken G. Brown 04 Dec '02

04 Dec '02

An associate of mine has previously run into problems with utilizing underlying platform random number generation for encryption and security and had come across a site that plotted noise spheres for various RNG's. Unfortunately, the site is no longer accessible. He ended up going with the attached 'C' code for RNG, for use in the algorithms. When asked for a pointer to the www site, he said: > The site in question is no longer up. What it did was plot the "noise > sphere" of the output of numerous RNG's from different OS's to give a > measure of how good any encryption would be. Noise spheres of higher > dimensions are used to rate high-order correlations between samples in > sequences. I would suggest doing a search on "noise sphere". (if I recall > correctly, either the 'mathworks' site and/or the 'wolfram' (mathematica) > site(s) have a good discussion on the use of "noise spheres".) > > The DDJ mag (Doctor Dobb's Journal) site also used to have a good discussion > on the difficulty of artificially generated randomness as well. > > Windows 98/ME/NT4 did rate as among the poorest RNGs; Windows 2000 was much > improved and Windows XP rates as equivalent to many UNIX's. In any case, the > MAC (OS7 and later) and Linux (2.4 kernel) rated as among the best. > <snip> >We ended up using a RNG we found in the 95-03 version of 'snippets'. I have > included them here. Perhaps this information may help with the RNG considerations. Ken > -----Original Message----- > From: squeakfoundation-admin(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org > [mailto:squeakfoundation-admin@lists.squeakfoundation.org]On Behalf Of > Tim Rowledge > Sent: December 3, 2002 4:28 PM > To: squeakfoundation(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org > Subject: Re: [Squeakfoundation]Two fixes I would like! > > > John M McIntosh <johnmci(a)smalltalkconsulting.com> is claimed by the authorities to have written: > > > One of the issues is that on the mac the millisecond clock starts from > > zero at application start time, so this code > > Possible simple improvement; add a prim to return a seed. Each platform > can do whatever it can plausibly do (sounds like some OSs have some sort > of facility for random) and returns a number. Is a SmallInt good enough > or should we allow LPIs? > > If the prim fails then we fall back to the current case and nobody is > any worse off. > > tim > -- > Tim Rowledge, tim(a)sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim > Strange OpCodes: SDS: Sort of Do Something > > _______________________________________________ > Squeakfoundation mailing list > Squeakfoundation(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/listinfo/squeakfoundation

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Two fixes I would like!
by goran.hultgren＠bluefish.se 04 Dec '02

04 Dec '02

Hi gang! These two fixes would help SqueakMap a bit, could we perhaps take a look at them for 3.4beta: http://swiki.gsug.org:8080/sqfixes/2735.html http://swiki.gsug.org:8080/sqfixes/2786.html I haven't myself looked them over yet, but will. John McIntosh was a bit critical to the UUID-fix - but on the other hand hasn't AFAIK produced an alternative solution - I think he wanted to fix Random instead. Lex's httpget fix may of course produce more "errors in the face" (I am guessing) but in waiting for Michaels network rewrite it still seems like a better way than the current situation (where stuff "hangs"). regards, Göran PS. Scott - are you on the SqF list? In that case I can stop cc-ing. :-) Note: We (guides) have agreed to keep all (at least 99%) communication on that list thus keeping it in the open.

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Re: 3.4 now beta on internal update stream
by goran.hultgren＠bluefish.se 03 Dec '02

03 Dec '02

(I keep moving these threads out onto the list as we agreed) Ned Konz <ned(a)bike-nomad.com> wrote: > On Monday 02 December 2002 12:26 am, Scott Wallace wrote: > > I was uncertain, Ned, whether you were confident enough of your > > MoreFileFixes-nk > > dated 30 November 2002 that it should be published right away, so > > please let me know. If you wish, this can go out as the first > > update in the beta stream. Andreas, does this fileout have your > > ok? > > The existing code is buggy too, as it takes advantage of the response > to an illegal index passed to a primitive. > > The problem with the CS is that (although it's the correct Smalltalk > code) it exposes a (minor) bug in a couple of the VMs that is caught > by an existing test in FileDirectoryTests. > > I've posted fixes for this under Unix and Mac (untested); the Windows > VM works OK (I don't know about WinCE). > > We do need to fix this code, though, so that it works across > platforms; Tim was having problems on the Acorn. > > The bug is this: > > test for file existence in a directory > delete the directory > ask for an entry by number in the directory > you don't get a #badDirectory error since there is some cached > information in the VM > > I could modify the test to first check another directory, thereby > hiding the bug until we get VMs fixed. > > Suggestions? Are there any "good" reasons to hide it? Otherwise technically - I trust your and Tim's judgement. :-) regards, Göran

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Squeakfoundation December 2002