Paranoid Entropy Gatherer

by Paul Wagenaars <>

The Paranoid Entropy Gatherer (PEG) is a Python script that collects entropy from various sources, both on the internet and the local computer. These sources include:

• Sound card (windows only)
• System's /dev/urandom or CryptGenRandom (using Python's os.urandom() function)
• System information (memory addresses, date, time, ...)
• Hard drive access time
• Loop in combination with high precision timer
• Internet timing (time to open and close a connection to an HTTP server)
• random.org - true random numbers
• GRC's Perfect Passwords page - pseudo random passwords

Download

Current release

• PEG 0.3

Links

• RFC 4086 - recommendations on randomness requirements for security,
• Fortuna prng - implementation of Fortuna, a strong pseudo random number generator described in the book Practical Cryptography by Niels Ferguson and Bruce Schneier.
• Windows Audio Recorder - PEG uses this Python script by John Popplewell to record noise from the sound card.