prng.pod (1419B)
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