6. Pseudo-random Number Generators

When a seed has sufficient entropy, from input as described in Section 3 and possibly de-skewed and mixed as described in Sections 4 and 5, one can algorithmically extend that seed to produce a large number of cryptographically-strong random quantities. Such algorithms are platform independent and can operate in the same fashion on any computer. For the algorithms to be secure, their input and internal workings must be protected from adversarial observation.

The design of such pseudo-random number generation algorithms, like the design of symmetric encryption algorithms, is not a task for amateurs. Section 6.1 below lists a number of bad ideas that failed algorithms have used. To learn what works, skip Section 6.1 and just read the remainder of this section and Section 7, which describes and references some standard pseudo random number generation algorithms. See Section 7 and Part 3 of [X9.82].