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pwarren
rtl-entropy
C2013–2022
pwarren / rtl-entropy · Archived

rtl-entropy

An entropy generator using SDR peripherals, including rtl-sdr and BladeRF

8Distinct people
9Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
368GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

An entropy generator using SDR peripherals, including rtl-sdr and BladeRF

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year9 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2013-12-10 15:24:29 UTC to 2022-10-16 15:25:36 UTC.

012342013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20132014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20172018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

9 sources
I noticed that this hasn't been mentioned yet, so I'll bring it up here. While RF-based noise generators can be influenced by outside sources, using an RTL-SDR with https://github.com/pwarren/rtl-entropy can be a great way to get environmental RF noise. In actual reality, the generator won't be influenced, because it will require a strong signal, close by, likely transmitting illegally on the frequency you are listening to (of course, the attacker would need to know the frequency you're tuned to). Simple monitoring tools and scripts can be used to test the quality of the generator output. If the quality of the randomness begins to fail, as would happen with deliberate RF interference, then the script would stop outputting bits, and alert the administrator. Or, even better, switch to a different frequency, chosen at random by the kernel CS
Read the rest
PRNG. What's great about using the RTL-SDR as an RNG, is these devices are cheap (about $20) and can output 3 MiBps, which vastly out performs any USB HWRNG that I have personally tested for the value (bits per second per dollar). FWIW, random.org uses RF noise as the basis for delivering random numbers to the Internet. Anyway, FYI.
In ChaosKey: a Hardware True Random Number Generator That Attaches via USB
In Harnessing the Chaos of the Cosmic Microwave Background for Better Encryption
An RTL-SDR [0] commodity hardware device paired with rtl-entropy [1] seems to have great potential for filling this need. It has some nice write-ups [2][3][4] and ongoing development. 0: http://www.rtl-sdr.com 1: https://github.com/pwarren/rtl-entropy 2: http://blog.cros13.net/2014/08/cheap-entropy-using-your-rtl-... 3: https://pthree.org/2015/06/16/hardware-rng-through-an-rtl-sd... 4: http://blog.krisk.org/2013/12/high-quality-entropy.html
In Really Random Number Generator

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