This program produces entropy from a mouse. A mouse event generates several sources of entropy. The timing and the mouse coordinates could both be used as sources of entropy. To keep things simple only the coordinates are used. The primary goal on this program is to be easy to use and understand for experimentation.
The primary script in this directory is "entropy-source". The "bandwidth.py" module is used by "entropy-source" to calculate the bits per second of entropy being generated. The "ev-print.c" program is only needed if you have a buggy version of Python on a some big-endian processors (PowerPC). It is used to help correct some constant definitions in "entropy-source". There are also files under the "extra" directory. These are utilities for converting raw binary data into images. Sometimes it is useful to look at raw binaries as images as a way to spot non-random patterns in data. Some of the more interesting file are:
wl_to_rgb.py ppm_dump.py png_canvas.py canvas.py time_delta.py
If you wish to test the randomness of your entropy then you may want to install the following tools (these are Debian package names):
apt-get install rng-tools ent dieharder
-- Noah Spurrier noah@noah.org
LICENSE
This is free and open software. You may do anything with it.
This license is approved by the OSI and FSF as GPL-compatible.
http://opensource.org/licenses/isc-license.txt
Copyright (c) 2013, Noah Spurrier <noah@noah.org>
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