Cute mechanism, but only running it part time and storing random numbers for later use is asking for a security breach. If you can find out what random numbers are coming up, you win.
Vibratory bowl feeders pretty solve the problem of getting simple objects lined up.[1] Any object that isn't lined up properly gets dropped off the ramps back into the bowl for another try.
Agreed, but it sounds like this project was for fun and to make users happy, not to actually guarantee true randomness.
I would wager the amount of wear on the dice, and small flaws in each individual die, produce a non negligible bias to the rolls that could be avoided by using cryptographicly secure random sources.
If they start using these dice to generate cryptographic keys, I'll run for the hills, but so long as they are only used for playing board games over the internet, this is really cool.
> If they start using these dice to generate cryptographic keys, I'll run for the hills, but so long as they are only used for playing board games over the internet, this is really cool.
This just gave me a flashback to making cryptographic keys long ago, and adding in entropy by typing randomly on the keyboard.
Spoilers: he doesn't actually use the output of the machine to power his site. Not that he couldn't...
This pops up on HN or reddit every 3 or 4 years. I want to say he made it in early 2000s? I was in the cube next to him at the time... my only brush with greatness.
Vibratory bowl feeders pretty solve the problem of getting simple objects lined up.[1] Any object that isn't lined up properly gets dropped off the ramps back into the bowl for another try.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mejn0n4IslY