Cryptosystems Journal RANGER Device -- Introduction

The RANGER Device attaches to the PC's Parallel port and generates really random data by using an array of sixteen crystal oscillators.

Precisely how random? here is a Google Gemini analysis.

RANGER is an acronym for "RAndom Number GEneratoR".

Here is a picture of the world's smallest RANGER Device, made by Maurice Onraet:

Here is a picture of a RANGER Device made by Steve Evans:

The following are samples of really random data generated by The RANGER DEVICE, a hardware random number generator.

BOTH data samples and test results can be downloaded.

Each RANGER DEVICE data sample is 100,000 bytes, so the ten samples below are a total of 1,000,000 bytes.

RANGER DEVICE data sample #01 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #01

About RANGER01.BIN please note: David Johnston
(who wrote the book "Random Number Generators - Principles and Practices: A Guide for Engineers and Programmers")
reports this first file is not as high quality as the others below).
Perhaps (back in 1999!) I generated this first file in "fast mode" rather than higher quality "slow mode".
Files 2 thru 10 have:

calculated "Shannon Entropy" between 0.999999 and 1.000000 inclusive, and
calculated "Minimum Entropy" between 0.998387 and 0.999555 inclusive, and
calculated "Markov Entropy" between 0.996839 and 0.999054 inclusive (a measure of statistical independence).
compare those numbers to a "fair coin flip" which is 1.000000.

RANGER DEVICE data sample #02 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #02
RANGER DEVICE data sample #03 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #03
RANGER DEVICE data sample #04 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #04
RANGER DEVICE data sample #05 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #05
RANGER DEVICE data sample #06 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #06
RANGER DEVICE data sample #07 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #07
RANGER DEVICE data sample #08 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #08
RANGER DEVICE data sample #09 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #09
RANGER DEVICE data sample #10 ⇒ RANGER DEVICE test results #10

Want to see The RANGER Device in action, on Wednesday November 26, 2008?!?!

It was recorded the day before Thanksgiving, at 9:22pm
This is a 37-second video, recorded on a Minolta Z1 Digital Camera

Want to see what my circa 2007/2008 digital camera looked like?

Minolta DiMAGE Z1 Digital Camera

Sensor: 3.2 Megapixels.
Zoom: A massive 10x optical zoom (38–380mm equivalent).
Movie Mode: It recorded 640x480 video in Motion JPEG (.MOV).
Even though it was capable of 30fps, it defaulted to 15fps to save space on the small SD cards of the time.
Audio recorded at 64 kbps, 8000 Hz, mono.
introduced August 2003.
Original MSRP: $399 USD. (equivalent of $675 in 2026)
It was designed to bridge the gap between simple point-and-shoots and expensive DSLRs.
Its "futuristic" silver body was a nod to a 1968 concept camera (the Minolta 16 Electro-Zoom X).