A wrapper for the NIST randomness beacon, a source of true random numbers
Project description
This is a python module to simplify using the [NIST randomness beacon](http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/ct/nist_beacon.cfm), a public source of truly random numbers.
From the project description:
> The Beacon will broadcast full-entropy bit-strings in blocks of 512 bits every 60 seconds. Each such value is time-stamped and signed, and includes the hash of the previous value to chain the sequence of values together.
Using the python wrapper is easy. To generate a random number:
b = Beacon() print b.last_record()[‘outputValue’]
The Beacon object will cache the timestamp of the last call and use that for the basis of next() and previous() calls.
There’s also a generator for convenience:
- for num in random_nums(3):
print num[‘outputValue’]
(Note, as the documentation says, WARNING: DO NOT USE BEACON GENERATED VALUES AS SECRET CRYPTOGRAPHIC KEYS.)
