I deep dived Random Number Generators with Chatty today.
My conclusion, if you do a dice roll right, it’s perfect. The problem is, you’re not going to do it right.
Which is why we have:
Pseudo...
I understand what you're saying. But in light of the Cold Card fiasco, if tomorrow's state-of-the-art cold storage signing device offered the following options for seed generation, which makes more sense (I'm going to use coin flips instead of dice for my example because it's easier to describe (and I like coins better) - but the same principles could be applied to dice)?
Option 1) Coin Flips - You will enter each of the results from 11 coin flips; 1 at a time. Do the coin flips for real, and do your best to ensure the coin(s) you use is fair. If you cheat and just pick heads or tails in your mind, your seed will not be secure! After the 11th flip, I will present you with the associated seed word. We will repeat for each word in your seed phrase. You can follow along with a widely available list of words to ensure that each word I give you indeed matches the 11 coin flips you entered. The flips you provide for the final word will be modified to incorporate a necessary checksum - which you can also verify against the results from entering your new seed phrase into any number of other signing devices by any number of other vendors - if you are so inclined (but the the entropy provided by your seed phrase less the final word is generally accepted as very, very good, anyway - indeed, the entropy from 23 words of a 24-word seed phrase is certainly more than overkill);
or, Option 2) Random Number Generator - I will provide you with a seed phrase generated by my RNG. You won't be able to verify this process at all for yourself. But, I've vetted it. And, it may have even been vetted by someone else as well. Trust me, Bro!
I would love to know if there's something I'm missing here, but if it's not absolutely necessary for a cold storage signing device to be using any form of an inherently not able to independently verify RNG at all, why take the risk?
Option 1) Coin Flips - You will enter each of the results from 11 coin flips; 1 at a time. Do the coin flips for real, and do your best to ensure the coin(s) you use is fair. If you cheat and just pick heads or tails in your mind, your seed will not be secure! After the 11th flip, I will present you with the associated seed word. We will repeat for each word in your seed phrase. You can follow along with a widely available list of words to ensure that each word I give you indeed matches the 11 coin flips you entered. The flips you provide for the final word will be modified to incorporate a necessary checksum - which you can also verify against the results from entering your new seed phrase into any number of other signing devices by any number of other vendors - if you are so inclined (but the the entropy provided by your seed phrase less the final word is generally accepted as very, very good, anyway - indeed, the entropy from 23 words of a 24-word seed phrase is certainly more than overkill);
or, Option 2) Random Number Generator - I will provide you with a seed phrase generated by my RNG. You won't be able to verify this process at all for yourself. But, I've vetted it. And, it may have even been vetted by someone else as well. Trust me, Bro!
I would love to know if there's something I'm missing here, but if it's not absolutely necessary for a cold storage signing device to be using any form of an inherently not able to independently verify RNG at all, why take the risk?
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