Generating a string of random numbers is easy. The hard part is proving that they’re random. As Dilbert creator Scott Adams once pointed out, “that’s the problem with randomness: you can never be sure ...

Following a public comment period and review, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has removed a cryptographic algorithm from its draft guidance on random number generators.

To simulate chance occurrences, a computer can’t literally toss a coin or roll a die. Instead, it relies on special numerical recipes for generating strings of shuffled digits that pass for random ...

Randomness rules the very fabric of reality. So it only makes sense that scientists have figured out how to use nature’s randomness as a tool in our mundane world. Random numbers go hand-in-hand with ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has formally removed Dual_EC_DRBG from its draft guidance on random number generators. This is ...

A software routine that produces a random number. Used in applications such as computer games and cryptographic key generation, random numbers are easily created in a computer due to many random ...