[talk] Testing Hardware RNG

[ori at eigenstate.org]

Quoth Isaac (.ike) Levy <ike at blackskyresearch.net>:
> Hi All,
> 
> Does anyone have any good reccomendations for tools or process testing to find good RNG entropy?  Is Diehard still a thing, (Dieharder?)
> 
> Context:
> I recall quite some years back, folks here testing some hardware RNG's with me.
> 
> On a lark, a hardware person I know just whipped up some hardware RNG prototypes, still playing with them, (usb thingies spewing bits).
> 
> Anyhow, it's been a while, and I'm interested in testing and test methodology, but can't for the life of me remember how we tested quality of entropy before.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Best,
> .ike

Note, while you can prove that a HW RNG isn't totally busted,
short fo reverse engnieering it with an electron microscope,
you can't prove it's not backdoored.