

     * NAME
     * VERSION
     * SYNOPSIS
     * DESCRIPTION
     * METHODS
     * DEPENDENCIES
     * BIBLIOGRAPHY
     * AUTHOR
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                                          NAME
                                            
   Crypt::Random - Cryptographically Secure, True Random Number Generator.
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                                        VERSION
                                            
 $Revision: 0.31 $
 $Date: 2001/02/14 00:25:39 $
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                                        SYNOPSIS
                                            
 use Crypt::Random qw( makerandom );
 my $r = makerandom ( Size => 512, Strength => 1 );
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                                      DESCRIPTION
                                            
   Crypt::Random is an interface module to the /dev/random device found on most
   modern Unix systems. The /dev/random driver gathers environmental noise from
   various non-deterministic sources including inter-keyboard timings and
   inter-interrupt timings that occur within the operating system environment.
   
   The /dev/random driver maintains an estimate of true randomness in the pool and
   decreases it every time random strings are requested for use. When the estimate
   goes down to zero, the routine blocks and waits for the occurrence of
   non-deterministic events to refresh the pool.
   
   The /dev/random kernel module also provides another interface, /dev/urandom,
   that does not wait for the entropy-pool to recharge and returns as many bytes
   as requested. /dev/urandom is considerably faster at generation compared to
   /dev/random, which should be used only when very high quality randomness is
   desired.
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                                        METHODS
                                            
   makerandom()
          Generates a random number of requested bitsize in base 10. Following
          arguments can be specified.
          
        Size
                Bitsize of the random number.
                
        Strength 0 || 1
                Value of 1 implies that /dev/random should be used for requesting
                random bits while 0 implies /dev/urandom.
                
        Device
                Alternate device to request random bits from.
                
   makerandom_itv()
          Generates a random number in the specified interval. In addition to the
          arguments to makerandom() following attributes can be specified.
          
        Lower
                Inclusive Lower limit.
                
        Upper
                Exclusive Upper limit.
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                                      DEPENDENCIES
                                            
   Crypt::Random needs Math::Pari 2.001802 or higher. As of this writing, the
   latest version of Math::Pari isn't available from CPAN. Fetch it from
   ftp://ftp.math.ohio-state.edu/pub/users/ilya/perl/modules/
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                                      BIBLIOGRAPHY
                                            
    1. random.c by Theodore Ts'o. Found in drivers/char directory of the Linux
       kernel sources.
    2. Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot and Scott
       Vanstone.
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                                         AUTHOR
                                            
   Vipul Ved Prakash, <mail@vipul.net>
