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The Lava Lamps That Help Keep The Internet Secure

Tom Scott1 HN recommenders · 2017–2024
4.3M views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2017-11-06

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.

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

CryptographyProbability & game theory

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3 comments from Hacker News

@ceph_2017 · in “A wall of lava lamps helps encrypt the internet”

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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@Natfan2022 · in “Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors”

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

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@Karellen2024 · in “The London office where swinging pendulums keep cyber threats at bay”

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

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