Open AccessPortable true random number generator for personal encryption application based on smartphone camera
Author(s) -
Zhang Xuping,
Qi Li,
Tang Zhiqiang,
Zhang Yixin
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
electronics letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.375
H-Index - 146
ISSN - 1350-911X
DOI - 10.1049/el.2014.2870
Subject(s) - random number generation , computer science , nist , encryption , generator (circuit theory) , randomness , computer hardware , flash (photography) , computer vision , algorithm , mathematics , computer network , optics , power (physics) , statistics , physics , quantum mechanics , natural language processing
The true random number generator (TRNG) is an invaluable resource for many applications. Present TRNG methods all require specialised and expensive hardware, which are not suitable for personal use. A portable TRNG configuration is proposed, which is simply based on the camera of a commercial smartphone. No other auxiliary equipment except the mobile phone itself was needed, which offers a promising solution for personal encryption applications. With the flash lamp of the camera and the thumb of the operator, quasi‐uniform illumination was obtained, setting the image sensor at a working point where the shot noise of the photocurrent dominates the overall characteristics of the sensor output noise. Random bits were first produced according to the shot noise and then entropy enhanced by vector–matrix multiplication. A sequence of 10 9 bits was produced and its randomness has been proved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tests.