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Difference between SGI classic lavarand and our LavaRnd

  SGI classic lavarandtm our LavaRndtm
Name Spelled lavarand, all lower case with 3 a's Spelled LavaRnd, mixed case with 2 a's
Action Uses images of LAVA LITE® lamps to produce seeds for Pseudo-Random Number Generators. Reference implementation uses lens-capped digital cameras to produce random numbers.
Generates Generates a 140 byte pseudo-random seed from a single LAVA LITE image. Requires one to seed a Pseudo-Random Number Generator with the lavarand output. Directly produces cryptographically sound random numbers. A single camera image frame can typically produce between 340 and 1420 bytes bytes of random numbers.
Performance Seed production rate was about 8000 bits of seed per second on a 200 MHz SGI O2 under IRIX 6.5. Can produce between 77477 and 206443 bits of random data per second using a Logitech QuickCam 3000 Pro USB camera running on a RedHat 9.0 Linux on a 1.6Ghz AMD Athlon.
Equipment Requires a digital camera and Lava Lite lamps. Because the lamps had warm-up times and because the light bulbs could burn out, 6 Lava Lite lamps were needed. The reference implementation requires only a low end low cost webcam.
Cost Equipment cost not including the O2 computer with O2cam: $180 US for 6 Lava Lite lamps. Equipment cost not including your computer: the cost of a low end webcam. USB web cameras cost as little as $25 US (in Aug 2003).
Size Requires 0.75m by 1.25m (~2 feet 6 inches by ~4 feet 1 inch) of floor space. Requires no additional floor space. The USB digital camera can sit on top of the computer.
Inventors Invented by Bob Mende, Landon Curt Noll, Sanjev Sisodiya in 1996. Invented by Landon Curt Noll and Simon Cooper in 2000.
Algorithm Method covered under SGI patent #5,732,138 Method placed into the public domain.
Trademark lavarand is a trademark of SGI. LavaRnd is a trademark of Landon Curt Noll and Simon Cooper. See our trademarks page for more details.
Availability Required special IRIX Specific software to grab the image from the O2 camera. An open source reference implementation will be made available.
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