6.1.1. The Fallacy of Complex Manipulation

One approach that may give a misleading appearance of unpredictability is to take a very complex algorithm (or an excellent traditional pseudo-random number generator with good statistical properties) and to calculate a cryptographic key by starting with limited data such as the computer system clock value as the seed. Adversaries who knew roughly when the generator was started would have a relatively small number of seed values to test, as they would know likely values of the system clock. Large numbers of pseudo-random bits could be generated, but the search space that an adversary would need to check could be quite small.

Thus, very strong or complex manipulation of data will not help if the adversary can learn what the manipulation is and if there is not enough entropy in the starting seed value. They can usually use the limited number of results stemming from a limited number of seed values to defeat security.

Another serious strategic error is to assume that a very complex pseudo-random number generation algorithm will produce strong random numbers, when there has been no theory behind or analysis of the algorithm. There is a excellent example of this fallacy near the beginning of Chapter 3 in [KNUTH], where the author describes a complex algorithm. It was intended that the machine language program corresponding to the algorithm would be so complicated that a person trying to read the code without comments wouldn't know what the program was doing. Unfortunately, actual use of this algorithm showed that it almost immediately converged to a single repeated value in one case and a small cycle of values in another case.

Not only does complex manipulation not help you if you have a limited range of seeds, but blindly-chosen complex manipulation can destroy the entropy in a good seed!