The Tor Browser / file comparison
comparison: security/nss/lib/freebl/mpi/doc/prng.pod
security/nss/lib/freebl/mpi/doc/prng.pod
- changeset 0
- 6474c204b198
equal
deleted
inserted
replaced
| -1:000000000000 | 0:ad4221b6f0da |
|---|---|
| 1 =head1 NAME | |
| 2 | |
| 3 prng - pseudo-random number generator | |
| 4 | |
| 5 =head1 SYNOPSIS | |
| 6 | |
| 7 prng [count] | |
| 8 | |
| 9 =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
| 10 | |
| 11 B<Prng> generates 32-bit pseudo-random integers using the | |
| 12 Blum-Blum-Shub (BBS) quadratic residue generator. It is seeded using | |
| 13 the standard C library's rand() function, which itself seeded from the | |
| 14 system clock and the process ID number. Thus, the values generated | |
| 15 are not particularly useful for cryptographic applications, but they | |
| 16 are in general much better than the typical output of the usual | |
| 17 multiplicative congruency generator used by most runtime libraries. | |
| 18 | |
| 19 You may optionally specify how many random values should be generated | |
| 20 by giving a I<count> argument on the command line. If you do not | |
| 21 specify a count, only one random value will be generated. The results | |
| 22 are output to the standard output in decimal notation, one value per | |
| 23 line. | |
| 24 | |
| 25 =head1 RESTRICTIONS | |
| 26 | |
| 27 As stated above, B<prng> uses the C library's rand() function to seed | |
| 28 the generator, so it is not terribly suitable for cryptographic | |
| 29 applications. Also note that each time you run the program, a new | |
| 30 seed is generated, so it is better to run it once with a I<count> | |
| 31 parameter than it is to run it multiple times to generate several | |
| 32 values. | |
| 33 | |
| 34 =head1 AUTHOR | |
| 35 | |
| 36 Michael J. Fromberger <sting@linguist.dartmouth.edu> | |
| 37 Copyright (C) 1998 Michael J. Fromberger, All Rights Reserved | |
| 38 Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH USA |
