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- The Random.Secure module provides a robust and secure way to generate random numbers across each platform.
- This module is designed to leverage the underlying cryptographic services of each operating system,
- ensuring that the random numbers produced are high-quality.
- Because of this, this particular module does not provide a way to seed the random number generator.
- ## Windows
- On Windows, Random.Secure uses the Cryptographic Application Programming Interface (CryptoAPI).
- Specifically, it employs the `CryptGenRandom` function, which is part of the Windows Cryptography API: Next Generation (CNG).
- This function accesses the system's cryptographic service provider to produce a stream of random bytes.
- These bytes are considered cryptographically secure, as they are generated using a random number generator (RNG) that has been seeded
- with the current system time, process ID, thread ID, and various other high-entropy sources. The use of `CryptGenRandom` ensures that the
- randomness is of high quality and the API takes care of all the complex entropy management and seed generation.
- ## macOS
- For macOS, the Random.Secure module taps into the native Security framework, utilizing the `SecRandomCopyBytes` function.
- This function is a part of Apple's security best practices and provides an interface to a cryptographically secure random number generator.
- Unlike reading from /dev/random or /dev/urandom, which can be less efficient and direct, `SecRandomCopyBytes` ensures that the random data is
- retrieved efficiently and is of high quality. It automatically handles entropy pooling and reseeding, pulling from the same entropy sources
- that the OS itself uses for cryptographic operations.
- ## Linux
- On Linux systems, Random.Secure reads directly from the `/dev/urandom` device file.
- Unlike `/dev/random`, `/dev/urandom` does not block if there is perceived to be a lack of entropy; instead, it reuses the internal pool
- to produce more pseudo-random bits. This makes `/dev/urandom` suitable for high-throughput random number generation without the risk of
- stalling the application.
- The module manages the file descriptor for `/dev/urandom` efficiently, opening it once and reading from it as needed,
- which avoids the overhead of repeatedly opening and closing the file.
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