It could mean completely secure encryption of data, be it emails or voting - and even help beat climate change.

Researchers have revealed a groundbreaking new technique to create truly random numbers for the first time.

The new method creates truly random numbers with less computational effort than other methods, which could facilitate significantly higher levels of security for everything from consumer credit card transactions to military communications.

The new method takes two weakly random sequences of numbers, such as air temperatures and stock market prices sampled over time, and turns them into one sequence of truly random numbers.

HOW IT WORKS The new method takes two weakly random sequences of numbers and turns them into one sequence of truly random numbers. Weakly random sequences, such as air temperatures and stock market prices sampled over time, harbor predictable patterns. Truly random sequences have nothing predictable about them, like a coin toss. Advertisement

Described by one cryptography expert as a 'masterpiece,' the University of Texas at Austin research could have wide ranging implications.

'This is a problem I've come back to over and over again for more than 20 years,' said David Zuckerman, who led the study.

'I'm thrilled to have solved it.'Computer science professor Zuckerman and graduate student Eshan Chattopadhyay will present research about their method in June at the annual Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), the Association for Computing Machinery's premier theoretical computer science conference.



They publicly released a draft paper describing their method for making random numbers in an online forum last year.

Oded Goldreich, a professor of computer science at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, commented that even if it had only been a moderate improvement over existing methods, it would have justified a 'night-long party.'

'When I heard about it, I couldn't sleep,' says Yael Kalai, a senior researcher working in cryptography at Microsoft Research New England who has also worked on randomness extraction.

'I was so excited. I couldn't believe it. I ran to the (online) archive to look at the paper. It's really a masterpiece.'

The new method takes two weakly random sequences of numbers and turns them into one sequence of truly random numbers.

Weakly random sequences, such as air temperatures and stock market prices sampled over time, harbor predictable patterns.

Truly random sequences have nothing predictable about them, like a coin toss.

HOW IT COULD HELP SECURE DATA The new method takes two weakly random sequences of numbers and turns them into one sequence of truly random numbers. An important application for random numbers is in generating keys for data encryption that are hard for hackers to crack. Data encryption is critical for making secure credit card purchases and bank transactions, keeping personal medical data private and shielding military communications from enemies, among many practical applications. Advertisement

Previous versions of randomness extractors were less practical because they either required that one of the two source sequences be truly random (which presents a chicken or the egg problem) or that both source sequences be close to truly random.

This new method sidesteps both of those restrictions and allows the use of two sequences that are only weakly random.

An important application for random numbers is in generating keys for data encryption that are hard for hackers to crack.

Data encryption is critical for making secure credit card purchases and bank transactions, keeping personal medical data private and shielding military communications from enemies, among many practical applications.

Zuckerman says that although there are already methods for producing high-quality random numbers, they are very computationally demanding.

His method produces higher quality randomness with less effort.

'One common way that encryption is misused is by not using high-quality randomness,' says Zuckerman.

'So in that sense, by making it easier to get high-quality randomness, our methods could improve security.'