I said this in another comment, but while I agree that there is virtually no functional difference, and in the vast majority of cases truly random and functionally random are equivalent, that doesn’t mean that something which is functionally random is truly random.
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 11 months ago
But it is truly random for all intents and purposes, since the input is truly random. Just because the process contains deterministic steps doesn’t mean the input entropy isn’t true entropy anymore.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
And a pool is clean for all intents and purposes. There is still a distinction though. The fact that it is deterministic inherently makes it less random than true randomness.
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The input is not deterministic.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
If you take the original values used to determine the final “random number” and run them through the same sequence of calculations, you will always reach the same value.
We rely on the fact that the inputs are so numerous and/or difficult to replicate to deem the final value “random”. But that doesn’t mean that the value cannot be reached by a second party given perfect knowledge of the original state of all inputs.
True randomness, on the other hand, is impossible to calculate even with that perfect knowledge, because we aren’t relying on the state of inputs running through a calculation.