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From: Ethan Carter <ec1828@somewhere.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Truly Random Numbers On A Quantum Computer??
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2025 10:25:30 -0300
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

> On Sun, 30 Mar 2025 11:19:00 -0300, Ethan Carter wrote:

>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>> 
>>> On Sat, 29 Mar 2025 20:25:23 -0300, Ethan Carter wrote:
>>>
>>>> I get the feeling here that, by the same token, you could never have a
>>>> provably secure cryptosystem because someone knows the private key?
>>>
>>> None of our cryptosystems are provably secure.
>> 
>> One example of provably secure system is the one-time pad.
>
> But it’s not. Where do you get the pad from? Proof of security of the 
> system relies on proof of the randomness of the pad. Which takes us back 
> to square one.

I think your ``square one'' is that no system is provably secure.
This denies the work of various thinkers who have written definitions
and proofs.  A proof is usually work of mathematical nature, not of
engineering nature.  Randomness is assumed in all of these proofs, so
there is not a single step in them that's flawed in any way.

So I think your position is that the assumption of randomness is not a
good idea.  You seem to rather prefer to assume that randomness
doesn't exist.  But that's just another assumption.  And it's not an
interesting one.  It destroys a lot of good work.

Why is randomness assumed?  We can't calculate without it.  For
instance, what's the probability of getting a 6 in a fair die?  It's
1/6.  But that's not true in your choice of assumptions because you
reject the assumption of randomness.  What do you get as a result?  I
think none---you wouldn't have a model to work with.

--8<-------------------------------------------------------->8---
--8<-------------------------------------------------------->8---

What about the practical world?  We have enough randomness to run the
entire world as it is currently done despite the accidents we've had
and could still have.  So I don't think it's a good idea to say that
we don't have provably secure systems because someone may have
criticisms with respect to the quality of random number generators: we
have various systems that satisfy the definition of provably secure.