Re: Best random number

[hardburn]

It's certainly not rand(). Don't use rand() for anything that needs cryptographic-quality random numbers.

On some *nix systems, you have /dev/random. Newer Intel (but not AMD, AFAIK) processor's have a hardware RNG in the CPU. Since you mentioned XP, I'm assuming you need a cross-platform solution. You might want to take a look at what GnuPG does.

[kjd]

It is part of the Intel i8x0 chipsets, not integrated directly into the CPU (afaik). AMD's 768 chipset also has a RNG. These are supposedly seeded based on thermal noise detected by the chip. I've seen these mentioned in kernel config for both Linux and FreeBSD previously, but I'm not sure what level of support exists.

[fglock]

more on Intel Random Number Generator