[Python-ideas] Should our default random number generator be secure?

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 9:23 AM, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>
>> one desirable property of PRNGs is that you can repeat a sequence of
>> values if you re-seed with a known value. Does arc4random keep that
>> property?
>
>
> Another property that's important for some applications is
> to be able to efficiently "jump ahead" some number of steps
> in the sequence, to produce multiple independent streams of
> numbers. It would be good to know if that is possible with
> arc4random.

If arc4random reseeds with entropy periodically, then jumping ahead
past such a reseed is simply a matter of performing a reseed, isn't
it?

ChrisA