{"id":89376,"date":"2018-11-25T13:30:05","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T18:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2022-08-23T15:51:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T19:51:30","slug":"how-lava-lamps-secure-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/how-lava-lamps-secure-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"How Lava Lamps Secure the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/a>The web performance and security company, Cloudflare<\/a><\/strong> provides security and domain name services for companies such as\u00a0Cisco<\/a> (CSCO<\/a>),\u00a0 FitBit<\/a>, OKCupid<\/a>, Uber<\/a>, and Zendesk<\/a>. It serves a total of 10 million website domains<\/strong> and the average Internet user touches its services around 500 times per day, according to its website.<\/p>\n

\"Cloudflare\"<\/a>The company hopes to leverage its solid reputation for its secure encryption<\/strong> into a 2019 $3.5 billion IPO.<\/a> Cloudflare’s reputation is based in part on a shelf full of lava lamps<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The lava lamps<\/a> in the lobby of Cloudflare’s San Francisco headquarters<\/a> ensure randomness<\/strong> for generating encryption keys<\/a>. ID Quantique<\/a> explains<\/a> that the strength of any cryptographic system<\/a> lies in its keys \u2013 the random stream of bits used by the cryptographic algorithm to transform plain text into ciphertext and back again.<\/p>\n

Lava laps provide Internet security<\/h3>\n

The secret to a secure key is the amount of randomness, or entropy used to generate the key. The greater the degree of entropy, the more secure the key<\/strong> is. Because conventional computers cannot generate true randomness<\/a>, information from inputs such as mouse movements, disc interrupts, or system timers are all placed into a \u2018pool\u2019 of numbers, from which a \u2018seed<\/a>\u2019 is picked. This \u2018seed\u2019 is then used in the pseudo-random number generation<\/a> (PRNG) which generates the keys.<\/p>\n

Instead of using mouse movements, disc interrupts or system timers, Cloudflare videotapes<\/strong> its wall of colorful constantly morphing lava lamps<\/strong> and translates that video information into unique cryptographic keys<\/strong>. The lava lamps work because fluid dynamics are hard, and no one has figured out how to predict the movements inside a lava lamp, let alone a wall of them. That means the random numbers being used in Cloudflare\u2019s encryption are effectively random.<\/p>\n

Nick Sullivan, Cloudfare’s head of cryptography, explained<\/a> that instead of relying on code to generate these numbers for cryptographic purposes, the lava lamps and the random lights, swirling blobs, and movements are recorded and photographs are taken. This footage is then turned into a “stream of random, unpredictable bytes.” According to Mr. Sullivan, “… this unpredictable data is what we use to help create the keys that encrypt the traffic that flows through Cloudflare’s network.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Cloudflare<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Sullivan continued,<\/p>\n

Every time you take a picture with a camera there’s going to be some sort of static, some sort of noise,” . “So it’s not only just where the bubbles are flowing through the lava lamp; it is the state of the air, the ambient light — every tiny change impacts the stream of data.<\/em><\/p>\n

The information is then fed into a data center and Linux kernels which then seed random number generators used to create keys to encrypt traffic.<\/p>\n

rb-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Who didn’t have a lava lamp in college? Not only is Cloudflare’s wall of entropy fun, but it makes it harder for bad actors to break encryption.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"groovy<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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