Software to measure the entropy of random data

Ulysses_ · 09-22-2010, 02:35 AM

Once random data is obtained by means other than a pseudo-random number generator, what software is available to measure the entropy or quality/randomness of the data?

paulsm4 · 09-22-2010, 03:33 AM

One simple approach might be to compute the standard deviation of some arbitrary sequence of your data:

Quote:

http://saliu.com/deviation.html

Standard deviation is a most fundamental element of randomness.

win32sux · 09-22-2010, 04:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ulysses_

Once random data is obtained by means other than a pseudo-random number generator, what software is available to measure the entropy or quality/randomness of the data?

Ueli Maurer came up with a popular test a while back. I'm pretty sure that if you google it you'll run into several software implementations of it. That said, you should keep in mind that there are certain inherent risks in relying on statistical analysis for this application. Nick Szabo elaborates on the issue in this paper, for example.

oherrera · 09-27-2010, 08:47 PM

You may want to take a look at a couple of programs that I developed a couple of years ago: (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ciat/). The programs are licensed under GPL3.

They were created to aid in finding sequences of encrypted (i.e. random looking) bit streams within non random structures (like programs), but you can apply it directly to pseudo-random sequences.

It implements some statistical tests defined in NIST's SP800-22 plus one statistical test developed by myself that uses fractional fourier transforms.

I hope it helps.

Omar