I was using my RSA token to generate an 8 digit random access code and it came up 595959xx

Come on, a pattern like that should never happen in a random sequence.  It must be broken.

+1

not to mention X is not a digit

you lost me at "RSA token"  but im gonna assume its funny

Posted by oldave on 3/6/2014 12:06:00 PM (view original):
you lost me at "RSA token"  but im gonna assume its funny

I had to Google it

x and x were also digits.....promise.....

lots of complexity, but it is just a system that generates one time use random - well almost random - codes for secure remote access to networks and the like

Isn't 595959xx just as likely a number as 548152xx? I get the pattern stands out, though. Your post should be reposted in the next, this game is so unrealistic because X would never happen in RL

Posted by milwood on 3/6/2014 12:47:00 PM (view original):
Isn't 595959xx just as likely a number as 548152xx? I get the pattern stands out, though. Your post should be reposted in the next, this game is so unrealistic because X would never happen in RL

eggzactly the point!

truly random number generators questionably even exist. there is actually like some atmospheric gauge RNG somewhere that uses some readings, which as far as they know, are truly random. these attempts at "true" RNGs are always hindered by the fact that you can't spit out millions in no time flat like you can with "artificial" RNGs

Posted by gillispie1 on 3/6/2014 4:25:00 PM (view original):
truly random number generators questionably even exist. there is actually like some atmospheric gauge RNG somewhere that uses some readings, which as far as they know, are truly random. these attempts at "true" RNGs are always hindered by the fact that you can't spit out millions in no time flat like you can with "artificial" RNGs

You might like this article, titled "Rand-Dumb or Random?"  This article was the first I'd heard of the atmospheric RNG you mentioned.  Interesting concept for sure.

http://www.soa.org/library/newsletters/compact/2010/july/com-2010-iss36-campbell.aspx

I get the snark, but for those who wouldnt...

There are lots of paterns when having RNG's. You will also have  585858xx and 474747xx and 575757xx etc, in fact, there are 100,000,000 possibles with 8 digits and there would be 10,000 possibles of three sets of two numbers and two randoms at the end.   And then you would have thousands that would have different patterns like 123123xx and 654321xx and 111111xx etc.

And as someone noted above, it has the same odds as any other number, even 111111xx.

Statistics is a strange bird. In those 8 characters, there are about 1,000,000 that have very distictive patterns.  So about 1 in 100 would have a noticable pattern. Or if your RSA token changes every minute, you would see a distictive pattern about once every two hours or a bit less.

so, you are saying that many random number generators have similar problems?

pseudo-random ;)