Seeds

[Fredrik Lundh]

Mikael Olofsson <mikael at isy.liu.se> wrote:
> On 11-May-00 Ivan Van Laningham wrote:
> >  What's the best way to obtain seeds for random number generators?
>
> I don't know what's the best way (with respect to what, btw?), but I 
> usually derive the seed from the present time in one way or another.

RFC 1750 provides a whole lot of information on this topic:

    http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1750.html

   "Computer clocks, or similar operating system or hardware values,
   provide significantly fewer real bits of unpredictability than might
   appear from their specifications."

</F>