[talk] Testing Hardware RNG

[Pete Wright]

On 1/24/25 09:54, Isaac (.ike) Levy wrote:
> 
>> On Jan 24, 2025, at 12:07 PM, ori at eigenstate.org wrote:
>>
>> 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.
> 
> Noted!
> 
> The thing I find useful about this one, the person making it is just soldering one together with parts they have lying around (on a lark).  Even a knucklehead like me can visually inspect the circuit.
> A PIC chip is dumping to serial, perhaps that's the one tricky thing to validate?
> 
> I'll let em' finish and get it working before going into that fun :)
> 

keep us updated - sounds like a fun project!  it makes me wonder how i 
could pair something like this with my new flipper zero the missus got 
me for the holidays.

-pete

-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org