Stream Generator

Tags

cryptography

Is an algorithm to generate a sequence of bits (often randomly).

A stream-generator can be keyed meaning we can deterministically control the series of bits in the stream by assigning some key/seed to the stream at the start.

A stream generator can be seen as [see page 27, balanced] if it outputs 0 or 1 an equal number of times based on the permutation of possible inputs to the generator (if it takes any). For example a generator with 2 inputs can have \( 2^2 = 4 \) possible inputs meaning its balanced if it produces an output of 0 for two of the permutations and 1 for the two other permutations. This is a good property, any random number generator should do this because it implies there's no bias in it.