Could a truly random number be generated using pings to pseudo-randomly selected IP addresses?

Question

The question posed came about during a 2nd Year Comp Science lecture while discussing the impossibility of generating numbers in a deterministic computational device.

Th

Answer 1

Eh, I find that this kind of question leads into discussions about the meaning of 'truly random' pretty quickly.

I think that measuring pings would yield decent-quality random bits, but at an insufficient rate to be of much use (unless you were willing to do some serious DDOSing).

And I don't see that it would be any more random than measuring analogue/mechanical properties of the computer, or the behaviour of the meatbag operating it.

(edit) On a practical note, this approach opens you up to the possibility of someone on your network manipulating your 'random' number generator.