Re: Random #'s via serial port dongle?

[Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>]

The easiest way to get true random numbers on a PC nowadays is
with a sound board, preferably 16 bit. Just MD-5 hash some gibberish
speech and/or background noise.

I am looking at various ways of generating good random numbers for my
IP security protocol, so I'm thinking about this stuff. Unfortunately
I can't always depend on there being a sound board, so I'm still open
to other ideas. Recently I tried looking at phase jitter between the
CPU and timer crystals, but this doesn't work on every machine.
Timing keyboard hits is a tried-and-true technique in PGP, but I can't
necessarily rely on that either (I want this to work in a standalone
system that boots by itself). Suggestions would be appreciated.

Phil