LavaRnd

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LavaRnd™ is a random number generator that works by measuring noise from a CCD (typically, an inexpensive webcam). The CCD is enclosed in a light-proof container, and operated at a high gain. The resulting images are not perfectly black—they contain noise. The LavaRnd system takes noisy data from the CCD and runs it through an algorithm called the Digital Blender to produce data that is more uniformly random. The resulting data is much more random than typical pseudorandom numbers.

The source code for LavaRnd has been released as free software (with an LGPL license). The authors of LavaRnd deliberately did not patent the method.

Landon Curt Noll, one of the developers of LavaRnd, was also a developer of lavarand.