Originally used by space-age bachelors to illuminate their pads, Lava Lite lamps have been a perennial favorite of kitsch aficionados. But of the millions of lights sold since 1963, six have been assigned to a higher purpose - cryptography.
Silicon Graphics Inc. number theorist Landon Curt Noll, along with colleagues Robert Mende Jr. and Sanjeev Sisodiya, is employing the liquid filled lamps to help generate random numbers used in cryptography.
Here's how the Lavarand system works: A digital camera snaps a photo of six Lava Lites. A cryptographic hash formula is then used to reduce the photo data into a seed number. This seed is plugged into a "Blum Blum Shub" pseudorandom algorithm and presto! - out comes a cryptographically strong number. "It sounds far out," Noll admits, "but using Lava Lites to obtain random numbers is based on fundamental math and physics."
The scientists have applied for a patent; in addition to using the system at Silicon Graphics, the trio hopes to license the technology. "We have several interested parties," Noll beams.
ELECTRIC WORD
Crypto Lite
