[Q]:Generate Unique ID's

[Paul Rubin]

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters <mertz at gnosis.cx> writes:
> |No, absolutely not.  If there's only 2^32 states in the RNG you can
> |expect to see duplicate UUID's after 2^16 rn's or so.  It's the same
> |principle as the "birthday paradox"
> 
> This is almost surely wrong.  Or at least if the discussion is still
> about PSEUDO random number generators (maybe I lost the thread, and
> Rubin moved to discussing a 32-bit hard random source).  Since a PRNG is
> a deterministic iteration of an algorithm, if some state N is the same
> as state M, then state N+1 is also the same as M+1.  Therefore, if N and
> M are seperated by only 2^16, then the cycle of the PRNG is ipso facto
> <= 2^16 (there's no room for 2^32 states then, reductio ad absurdum).

Sorry, I don't mean 2^16 consecutive rn's from the same generator.
It's a distributed application, these rn's will be coming from all
over, etc.