On: Quantum mechanics provide truly random numbers on demand

[JKCalhoun]

Write an array of random values to a hard drive — terabytes of them.

Dupe the drive.

You now have a matching pair of "one-time pads" for, I have heard, the hardest form of encryption to decrypt. I would think expect there is a business already doing this.

[Someone → JKCalhoun]

Used properly, encryption using one time pads produces data streams that are indistinguishable from uniformly distributed random noise and cannot be cracked (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad)

[dist-epoch → JKCalhoun]

It's harder to ensure that no one messed with the drives during transport than to give a small private key to the other party.

[gblargg → dist-epoch]

You also can't verify that the contents are genuinely random and not some re-creatable sequence by compromised generation hardware.

[cortesoft → JKCalhoun]

There aren't a ton of use cases for this that aren't met better by other cryptographic solutions.