Re: new PRNG's

[KHMan <keinhong@...>]

On 5/5/2018 12:08 PM, Albert Chan wrote:
> Reading Vigna latest xoshiro paper (section 11, conclusion),
> next version of Lua will use xoshiro256** for math.random.
>
> Is it true ?
> Lua 5.4 ?
>
> http://vigna.di.unimi.it/ftp/papers/ScrambledLinear.pdf

IMHO, math.random is similar in purpose to C standard library's 
random function. It's pseudo-random, that's about it. It does not 
promise any quality specifications.

Are there serious flaws that disqualifies the current 
implementation from this purpose?

Is there a requirement for cryptographic-quality randomness? Is 
that a good idea? For what applications? If for crypto/security, 
is it normal for a base programming language library to embrace 
such capabilities? Shouldn't we use well-established libraries 
instead? If we crunch crypto in pure Lua, wouldn't a timing attack 
be easy?

I just don't see the point of this topic going on and on and on.

--
Cheers,
Kein-Hong Man (esq.)
Selangor, Malaysia