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The Lava Lamps That Help Keep The Internet Secure

The Lava Lamps That Help Keep The Internet Secure

Tom Scott
1 HN recommenders · discussed 2017–2024
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About this video

Tom Scott visits Cloudflare's San Francisco office to show the wall of lava lamps whose camera feed is used as a source of entropy for random number generation. It is a short explainer on how this helps secure internet encryption.

Why it appears in the archive

The go-to short explanation whenever lava lamps, entropy sources, or Cloudflare randomness come up.

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From the Hacker News discussion

ceph_ · 2017-12 · rec

There's a good Tom Scott video on this too. Like most of his stuff, it's well worth the watch. [VIDEO]

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Natfan · 2022-05 · reference

Alternatively, just do what Cloudflare does (did?), and have some cameras pointed at lava lamps[0]. [0]: [VIDEO]

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Karellen · 2024-03 · reference

ObTomScott: The Lava Lamps That Help Keep The Internet Secure [VIDEO] (Mention of the London pendulums at 2:39)

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