Le Monde sans puzzle

This week, Le Monde mathematical puzzle: is purely geometric, hence inappropriate for an R resolution. In the Science & Médecine leaflet, there is however an interesting central page about random generators, from the multiple usages of those in daily life to the consequences of poor generators on cryptography and data safety. The article is compiling an interview of Jean-Paul Delahaye on the topic with recent illustrations from cybersecurity. One final section gets rather incomprehensible: when discussing the dangers of seed generation, it states that “a poor management of the entropy means that an hacker can saturate the seed and take over the original randomness, weakening the whole system”. I am sure there is something real behind the imagery, but this does not make sense… Another insert mentions a possible random generator built out of the light detectors on a smartphone. And quantum physics. The society IDQ can indeed produce ultra-rapid random generators that way. And it also ran randomness tests summarised here. Using in particular George Marsaglia’s diehard battery.

Another column report that a robot passed the Turing test last week, on Turing‘s death anniversary. Meaning that 33% of the jury was convinced the robot’s answers were given by a human. This reminded me of the Most Human Human book sent to me by my friends from BYU. (A marginalia found in Le Monde is that the test was organised by Kevin Warwick…from the University of Coventry, a funny reversal of the University of Warwick sitting in Coventry! However, checking on his website showed that he has and had no affiliation with this university, being at the University of Reading instead.)