The Lava Lamps That Help Keep The Internet Secure

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  • čas pƙidĂĄn 5. 11. 2017
  • At the headquarters of Cloudflare, in San Francisco, there's a wall of lava lamps: the Entropy Wall. They're used to generate random numbers and keep a good bit of the internet secure: here's how.
    Thanks to the team at Cloudflare - this is not a sponsored video, they just had interesting lava lamps! There's a technical rundown of the system on their blog here: blog.cloudflare.com/lavarand-...
    Edited by Michelle Martin, @mrsmmartin
    đŸŸ„ MORE FROM TOM: www.tomscott.com/
    (you can find contact details and social links there too)
    📰 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER with good stuff from the rest of the internet: www.tomscott.com/newsletter/
    ❓ LATERAL, free weekly podcast: lateralcast.com/ / lateralcast
    ➕ TOM SCOTT PLUS: / tomscottplus
    đŸ‘„ THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: / techdif

Komentáƙe • 3,2K

  • @Angel_Underscore
    @Angel_Underscore Pƙed 6 lety +19434

    "Oh sh!t they're onto us"
    *moves a lava lamp 1mm to the left*
    "phew that was close!"

    • @frostfire533
      @frostfire533 Pƙed 4 lety +570

      Angel 2 years and u dont have a comment yet so i decided to change that

    • @mart1847
      @mart1847 Pƙed 4 lety +317

      Angel 2 years one day, and you only have 1 comment so i decided to change that

    • @person8064
      @person8064 Pƙed 4 lety +256

      Angel 2 years, 1 day, and 5 hours and you only have 2 comments so i decided to change that

    • @isaachlloyd
      @isaachlloyd Pƙed 4 lety +207

      Heja Angel, it's been 2 years, 1 day, and 6.3 hours. You only have 3 comments! And broski, so kind of me I know, I just had to change that

    • @KokkusKonsul
      @KokkusKonsul Pƙed 4 lety +286

      I love the internet,
      because of comment sections like this

  • @stripethecatsoldier
    @stripethecatsoldier Pƙed 4 lety +9234

    i can rest easy knowing that i'm being protected by a lava lamp

    • @zooty6
      @zooty6 Pƙed 3 lety +182

      An entire wall of lava lamps

    • @littlefox_100
      @littlefox_100 Pƙed 3 lety +54

      Ikr it’s very reassuring

    • @simonmultiverse6349
      @simonmultiverse6349 Pƙed 2 lety +57

      Java lamps: randomness found on an island in the Far East
      Fava lamps: randomness due to beans made famous by the film The Silence of The Lambs
      Cava lamps: randomness due to Spanish wine
      Lava lamps: randomness found by analysing the glow of a volcano
      Lava Lamb: a model of a farmyard animal carved from solidified lava
      Cassava lamps: randomness from root vegetables

    • @hwoods01
      @hwoods01 Pƙed 2 lety +3

      all it takes is getting to the software engineer. Compromise him and the lamps are a distraction.

    • @jarrodrees7272
      @jarrodrees7272 Pƙed 2 lety

      Lavae lampai*

  • @YellowLAVA
    @YellowLAVA Pƙed 4 lety +11275

    You could say, it's a firewall

  • @SlayCC
    @SlayCC Pƙed 3 lety +5970

    Just use a chicken and some pressure plates

  • @TomScottGo
    @TomScottGo  Pƙed 6 lety +5743

    This is not a sponsored video. I'll always declare if something is. I just emailed and asked if I could film their lava lamps!

    • @bayareajokester9456
      @bayareajokester9456 Pƙed 6 lety +168

      To be honest, you need a high IQ to understand that this video is not a sponsored video.

    • @thedude3651
      @thedude3651 Pƙed 6 lety +64

      Do you have to say it's a sponsored video because of British law?

    • @unknownemrys330
      @unknownemrys330 Pƙed 6 lety +106

      CZcams guidelines/rules- you need to disclose sponsored videos

    • @CybershamanX
      @CybershamanX Pƙed 6 lety +20

      This reminds me a lot of that scene from Johnny Mnemonic when they encode 3 random screenshots from the TV in order to encrypt the data stored in Keanu Reeves's head.

    • @dm4uz3
      @dm4uz3 Pƙed 6 lety +33

      this comment is one week old but youtube says the video was uploaded today
      are you a time traveler?

  • @evilutionltd
    @evilutionltd Pƙed 6 lety +3984

    It's certainly cheaper than hiring 256 nerds throwing D16's with hex numbers on.

    • @MichaelGooden
      @MichaelGooden Pƙed 6 lety +195

      Now I want a hex d16. Internet, please let this be a thing I can order online.

    • @neilisbored2177
      @neilisbored2177 Pƙed 6 lety +126

      How is anything cheaper than hiring 0 nerds?
      GET IT?
      No?

    • @coolguy284_2
      @coolguy284_2 Pƙed 5 lety +21

      @@ferulebezel roll a tetrahedron twice

    • @serglian8558
      @serglian8558 Pƙed 5 lety +5

      @@coolguy284_2 or get a d16 and paint it

    • @happyfakeboulder644
      @happyfakeboulder644 Pƙed 4 lety +3

      @@neilisbored2177 no, i don't get it

  • @spacedoutorca4550
    @spacedoutorca4550 Pƙed 4 lety +4249

    I was half expecting him to go “But lava lamps will only get you so far. That’s why I use
    D A S H L A N E”

  • @dang2443
    @dang2443 Pƙed 4 lety +1805

    I've been there. It's in their lobby at reception, so it's also a gimmicky "cool thing" to have at a tech office.
    It's not hidden in some back room. It's proudly on display.
    Having said that, imagine the technicolor carnage when the inevitable (larger than normal tremors) earthquake happens.

    • @kibe2134
      @kibe2134 Pƙed 2 lety +19

      They could just move the whole thing to South America.

    • @JonatasAdoM
      @JonatasAdoM Pƙed 2 lety +66

      @@kibe2134 South America would have lava for once hehe

    • @JonatasAdoM
      @JonatasAdoM Pƙed 2 lety +106

      Wouldn't that make for even more complex encryption?

    • @raimundohott9716
      @raimundohott9716 Pƙed 2 lety +10

      @@kibe2134 South america also has eartquakes.

    • @Srcsqwrn
      @Srcsqwrn Pƙed 2 lety +4

      Are earthquakes just a normal thing in America??

  • @smartereveryday
    @smartereveryday Pƙed 6 lety +2444

    Great video

  • @alekheuvel9801
    @alekheuvel9801 Pƙed 6 lety +7499

    Doesn't this basically mean that if a key was made during the making of this video Tom would be included in the key?

  • @E3kHatena
    @E3kHatena Pƙed 4 lety +2211

    Two fun facts:
    -Tom didn't necessarily need to approach Cloudflare about filming in front of the lava lamps as Cloudflare encourages people to come pass by, take photos/videos, and even put on approved demonstrations or performances in front of the lamps, as that introduces further randomness.
    -Their London office has a machine that utilizes the RNG data their offices have produced to spit out receipts that contain random numbers, phrases, Magic 8-Ball responses, mazes, sudokus, and QR codes.

    • @Nick-bb4nk
      @Nick-bb4nk Pƙed 2 lety +31

      Are the puzzles actually able to be solved?

    • @a2kvarnstrom80
      @a2kvarnstrom80 Pƙed 2 lety +19

      Another fun fact: no one cares

    • @mrrooter601
      @mrrooter601 Pƙed 2 lety +69

      thats freaking cool tho

    • @Bigjoebig
      @Bigjoebig Pƙed 2 lety +25

      Fun fact im homophobic

    • @ultragamer135
      @ultragamer135 Pƙed 2 lety +153

      @@a2kvarnstrom80 I care though.

  • @antoniomargallo5317
    @antoniomargallo5317 Pƙed 4 lety +7546

    So, this is how the CZcams algorithm works?

  • @marcinchaciej6528
    @marcinchaciej6528 Pƙed 6 lety +7111

    There is no better RNG than a box with a keyboard and a cat inside.

    • @RICDirector
      @RICDirector Pƙed 4 lety +575

      Disagree. Cat + box + keyboard = sleeping cat on keyboard, generating one or two characters varied only when cat stretches and goes back to sleep....

    • @gandalf1783
      @gandalf1783 Pƙed 4 lety +13

      onafixedincome What about Some Lion Babys or Animals that give born, and you count how many of them are coming out... 😂

    • @davidm.4670
      @davidm.4670 Pƙed 4 lety +18

      nah = wall avoidance etc skews # probability

    • @peteranon8455
      @peteranon8455 Pƙed 4 lety +27

      *shake shake shake*

    • @Kenionatus
      @Kenionatus Pƙed 4 lety +103

      Also usable for quantum cryptography. The cat can both press and not press a button at the same time ;)

  • @GnomeWrestler
    @GnomeWrestler Pƙed 6 lety +959

    This sounds like a fact you would tell your friends on a bet to secure yourself a 100% chance of winning, because who would believe the phrase "Cloudflare is encrypting your data by using lava lamps.".
    This is mindbogglingly simple and genius at the same time.

    • @mcgaffin4506
      @mcgaffin4506 Pƙed 6 lety +47

      This would result in a hour-lasting discussion between me and my friends, about how much the chaotic pendulum and the radioactive device counts into the encryption, about how true this phrase is.

    • @iau
      @iau Pƙed 6 lety +30

      My passphrase is now "Cloudfare is encrypting your data by using lava lamps.".
      Nobody will guess that!

    • @felixhultman8410
      @felixhultman8410 Pƙed 6 lety +28

      Sounds like something Beret Guy from xkcd would pitch at a company meeting.

    • @RainaRamsay
      @RainaRamsay Pƙed 6 lety +3

      +Felix 100% true

    • @DanieleGiorgino
      @DanieleGiorgino Pƙed 6 lety +8

      Pendulum should be deterministic, albeit chaotic. But the radioactive source is true randomness (as random as the universe provides)

  • @charlottebiscuit4133
    @charlottebiscuit4133 Pƙed 4 lety +467

    i really hope theres now some keys with encrypted pictures of tom scott standing next to the lava lamp wall now

  • @ZORU11
    @ZORU11 Pƙed 4 lety +901

    I wonder what cloudflare does to keep us safe
    Cloudflare: haha lava lamp go blob blob

  • @albertbatfinder5240
    @albertbatfinder5240 Pƙed 5 lety +1444

    Shouting “The Wall is Lava!!” at that office is the quickest way to get yourself thrown out.

    • @SanityDrop
      @SanityDrop Pƙed 4 lety +17

      Ha. Comedy.

    • @espen4330
      @espen4330 Pƙed 4 lety +57

      Quicker if you throw one on the ground and shatter it, and shout the floor is lava

    • @copterinx0468
      @copterinx0468 Pƙed 4 lety +4

      @@espen4330 Aw I was gonna say that...

    • @Hidde_
      @Hidde_ Pƙed 3 lety +3

      It's a firewall

    • @richardmillhousenixon
      @richardmillhousenixon Pƙed 2 lety +4

      Are you speaking from personal experience or....

  • @stevenbridges
    @stevenbridges Pƙed 6 lety +5430

    Damn this is clever! Who knew that lava lamps are keeping us safe 😂

    • @kasane1337
      @kasane1337 Pƙed 6 lety +30

      These lamps can't keep us safe knowing that you could easily just poke them to turn them into Aces.

    • @buzzlightbeer4215
      @buzzlightbeer4215 Pƙed 6 lety +10

      Tech people, of course :)

    • @jebbush4102
      @jebbush4102 Pƙed 6 lety +6

      Oi steven its nice seeing you here. I am very passionate about citrus fruit

    • @jenniferstill8041
      @jenniferstill8041 Pƙed 6 lety +2

      FELLOW MAGICIAN!!!

    • @TechDark
      @TechDark Pƙed 5 lety +1

      Cloudflare knew

  • @humter
    @humter Pƙed 3 lety +220

    I imagine that somewhere on the internet, there's a key that contains Tom Scott

  • @lordcatboygaming
    @lordcatboygaming Pƙed 3 lety +426

    I feel like a aquarium would be a perfect job for this fish never swim exactly the same in the same place with the same fish around them in the exact same spot its always totally random even the plants sway as the water currents clash with the side of the glass

    • @GussDeBlod
      @GussDeBlod Pƙed 2 lety +135

      aquarium would work, but more maintenance. have to feed the fish and all

    • @vibaj16
      @vibaj16 Pƙed rokem +20

      literally just pointing a camera at a blank wall would work just as well. The noise would be enough

    • @calacontent5727
      @calacontent5727 Pƙed rokem +27

      @@vibaj16 if it was that easy they would have done it. The position of the"lava" inside the lamp counts on the number generation. Even with noise, a white wall won't give you enough variety.

    • @chrismanuel9768
      @chrismanuel9768 Pƙed rokem +26

      @@calacontent5727 No, a blank wall would absolutely work, especially when it's in an active office reception area with changing light conditions. The lava lamps are a gimmick to draw attention. You can just use static background radiation for randomization.

    • @kyarumomochi5146
      @kyarumomochi5146 Pƙed rokem +13

      @@chrismanuel9768 Now add the static randomness of a wall + laval lamps randomness and you get why they use lava lamps

  • @hmmyesinteresting
    @hmmyesinteresting Pƙed 6 lety +2871

    I need a lava lamp next to my computer.

    • @dragoncurveenthusiast
      @dragoncurveenthusiast Pƙed 6 lety +135

      I HAVE a lava lamb next to my computer.
      Someone wanted to throw it away years ago. I rescued it.

    • @coolbrotherf127
      @coolbrotherf127 Pƙed 6 lety +25

      I had one until it stopped working.

    • @SamuelBoshier
      @SamuelBoshier Pƙed 6 lety +49

      I have a plasma ball next to mine. Does that count?

    • @nrellis666
      @nrellis666 Pƙed 6 lety +99

      I need a basket of kittens

    • @chookax
      @chookax Pƙed 6 lety +14

      Ok is this the new account that appears everywhere?

  • @HussainAHN
    @HussainAHN Pƙed 6 lety +1448

    God damn it Tom! How do you keep finding all of this interesting crap?

    • @catsdgs
      @catsdgs Pƙed 6 lety +14

      Ű­ŰłÙŠÙ† ŰčŰšŰŻŰ§Ù„Ù„Ù‡ it's not crap

    • @pix_d20
      @pix_d20 Pƙed 6 lety +123

      catsdgs it's a good kind of crap

    • @gulraizfarrukh
      @gulraizfarrukh Pƙed 6 lety +9

      Its not crap if its interesting 😂😂😂

    • @GrantSR
      @GrantSR Pƙed 6 lety +15

      Depends on your field of study, now doesn't it?

    • @Merthalophor
      @Merthalophor Pƙed 6 lety +12

      look a millimeter past your media bubble and you will see that _everything_ has interesting aspects to it

  • @sam23696
    @sam23696 Pƙed rokem +43

    The one in Singapore that uses a radioactive source really interested me. The pendulum and lava lamp are macroscale versions of the Singapore one in a way, and yet using radioactive decay to generate random numbers uses such fundamental physics. It's like they have directly linked their RNG to the fabric of reality itself. The code the universe was written in is effectively interfaced directly with cloudflare servers.

    • @abdirahmann
      @abdirahmann Pƙed 22 dny +1

      cloudflare servers is part of the code of the universe

  • @ticlazau7027
    @ticlazau7027 Pƙed 4 lety +360

    Step 1: get some lava lamp.
    Step 2: break into Nasa and the Pentagon.

  • @ThisLittleCriticSanad
    @ThisLittleCriticSanad Pƙed 6 lety +1876

    That is brilliant! And super mesmerizing!

    • @amany8538
      @amany8538 Pƙed 6 lety

      This Little Critic yes!

    • @buzzlightbeer4215
      @buzzlightbeer4215 Pƙed 6 lety +2

      They did not invent it. books.google.com/books?id=-yCWwricVlYC&pg=PA50. In the 1980s there were many people using fluids and lights and CCD to make random numbers. And some people used noise. (random electricity from Mic feed into a ADC). And quantum random numbers can be made with a smart phone but smart phones can be hacked

  • @VivienneGucwa
    @VivienneGucwa Pƙed 6 lety +384

    And then the company currently using a basket of kittens slowly, and surreptitiously raises their collective eyebrows...

    • @michaelr.7528
      @michaelr.7528 Pƙed 6 lety +25

      I personally use a erratically swinging lava kitten.

    • @asj3419
      @asj3419 Pƙed 6 lety +15

      ...that is radiocative.

    • @RICDirector
      @RICDirector Pƙed 4 lety +1

      Well, they HAVE to raise them slowly and surreptitiously...ever tried moving anything quickly around a basket of kittens? :P

  • @swisstroll3
    @swisstroll3 Pƙed rokem +30

    When I was writing computer games in the 1970s, I used the memory refresh register as my source of random numbers. Since my games involved a lot of human interaction, there is was adequate variation in activity to ensure that different games had different outcomes. The refresh register cycles through the memory to keep it powered, and has a large number of values each second. A weakness of the register is that numbers are sequential, but using them as a seed to a pseudo random number generator give a range of values.

  • @bkkz6769
    @bkkz6769 Pƙed 3 lety +71

    Cloudfare, this is the most insane idea I ve heard so far. Quite imagined randomly also. Who came up with the idea of videotaping lava lamps? That's really smart guys, keep up.

  • @LiveHedgehog
    @LiveHedgehog Pƙed 6 lety +963

    If you can start predicting those numbers, you can start breaking those locks. Which is why I'm here at the headquarters of Cloudflare, in San Francisco.
    Erm, phrasing XD

    • @Jamie-tx7pn
      @Jamie-tx7pn Pƙed 6 lety +155

      Tom Scott pro hacker

    • @casperes0912
      @casperes0912 Pƙed 6 lety +104

      No. You couldn't. You could predict the lava lamp's state, yes... But the exact amount of dust, the placement of the lamps, the amount of dust in the room, whether or not a car drove by, the exact angle of the camera and the quality of the camera (i.e how often does it take a photo, how high is the resolution, what colour space is it mapping it to), all contribute to the number

    • @CMDrRedstone
      @CMDrRedstone Pƙed 6 lety +8

      leave a camera in there

    • @bcubed72
      @bcubed72 Pƙed 6 lety +67

      _"Chris urquhart"_
      You clearly don't understand chaos theory. Even if you had the EXACT lava lamp, and put the EXACT same bubble pattern in it, minute differences (your exact voltage heating the lamp, error in exactly approximating the lava lamp, a 0.001C difference in room temperature) would propogate and quickly have your "copy" diverge from what it is modeling.
      It's a CHAOTIC SYSTEM. What you are proposing is aakin to forecasting the weather, a decade in advance, from today's known data. There's NO POSSIBLE WAY you could know the data precisely enough to do that...you could be pretty damn accurate for a week, then chaos would rear it's ugly head. (You forgot to account for that one butterfly in Madagascar that flapped its wings.)

    • @buzzlightbeer4215
      @buzzlightbeer4215 Pƙed 6 lety +11

      The sad thing is people think they are safe using ssl when they are not. Browsers always have " security.ssl.require_safe_negotiation" off. For mozilla firefox, in the address bar type about:config then enter. Then type ssl into the search box. Then look for security.ssl.require_safe_negotiation . Change it from false to true.
      *just a warning. websites with bad security won't work anymore* . And Some ads may disappear. Some insecure ssl advertisements were used by foreign governments to hack everyone's internet browsers. I don't know if they still are

  • @logan2669
    @logan2669 Pƙed 6 lety +120

    "What do you do"
    "I collect randomness"

  • @real_Clone_Gordon_Freeman
    @real_Clone_Gordon_Freeman Pƙed 4 lety +288

    How to Destroy The Internet: Turn off all the lava lamps and when they cool down and the wax settles at the bottom you can decode EVERYTHING

    • @mbfinocchiaro42
      @mbfinocchiaro42 Pƙed 3 lety +34

      The image noise

    • @mickys8065
      @mickys8065 Pƙed 3 lety +12

      @@mbfinocchiaro42 cover the camera

    • @Dicaso9
      @Dicaso9 Pƙed 3 lety +31

      @@mickys8065 still image noise

    • @gurin3702
      @gurin3702 Pƙed 3 lety +8

      @Liam Durr can't make code

    • @MinePlayersPE
      @MinePlayersPE Pƙed 3 lety +17

      @@gurin3702 replace camera with dummy that returns 0/black

  • @Abitibidoug
    @Abitibidoug Pƙed 2 lety +2

    Wow, that's amazing. I would have never thought of that idea for generating random numbers.

  • @jchoi5407
    @jchoi5407 Pƙed 5 lety +2099

    1:56 top left top line "uwu"

  • @achu11th
    @achu11th Pƙed 6 lety +1284

    And somewhere in future these lava lamps will be replaced by randomly selected schroedinger cats, because some mathematician accidentally makes it easier to predict lava lamps.
    So you might be not that far off, Tom.

    • @Latooni
      @Latooni Pƙed 6 lety +121

      If the singapore office is recording radioactive material, they're already using the mechanism behind the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment without the needless felicide

    • @achu11th
      @achu11th Pƙed 6 lety +18

      Latooni Subota But you know, cats are bigger than splitting atoms. There are so many different cat species out there that a cat popping into existing still very random as you don’t know how big it was and it fur color. An atom is a little more predictable.
      But I agree, if cats (although internet’s favorite, still manages to be difficult to manage), radioactivity is a close and good second option.

    • @d2factotum
      @d2factotum Pƙed 6 lety +2

      They should just use videos uploaded to CZcams in order--that ought to be sufficiently random for anyone, I should think! :)

    • @achu11th
      @achu11th Pƙed 6 lety +10

      d2factotum except for the fact, that you could hack youtube and filter the types of video you need to create the code for you. Nobody should know, that youtube is the source for the randomness in that case.

    • @achu11th
      @achu11th Pƙed 6 lety +1

      · 0xFFF1 yeah you could film the brains of randomly selected schroedinger cats. That sounds indeed better.

  • @dnsbrules_01
    @dnsbrules_01 Pƙed rokem +2

    One thing I thougth about is someone walking in front of the lamps changes it WILDLY. Also if some lamps die out (as lava lamps tend to do) it can be replaced whenever so long as a good majority are working. That also makes it harder to simulate since you don't know when a lava lamp will die.

  • @daniellluch7881
    @daniellluch7881 Pƙed 4 lety +58

    0:25
    -"Cloudflare is a-"
    Background noices:
    UUUUHHHGGGGG...

    • @iaial0
      @iaial0 Pƙed 4 lety +11

      and right after: wewebsites

    • @loopingdope
      @loopingdope Pƙed 3 lety +1

      gachimuchi

  • @RodrigoGraca31
    @RodrigoGraca31 Pƙed 6 lety +443

    "pointed a camera to a basket of kittens" ..... "that would be a high maintenance" Tom.... you know there's CZcams Live streams of baskets of kittens right.....? :P

    • @Satters
      @Satters Pƙed 6 lety +20

      and one of them is run by a guy from a software company !

    • @odyseya
      @odyseya Pƙed 4 lety +23

      Link????

  • @Paul_Lucas
    @Paul_Lucas Pƙed 6 lety +416

    Congratulations on 1 million subscribers. Very well earned. đŸ‘đŸ»đŸ‘đŸ»

  • @brunosco
    @brunosco Pƙed rokem +3

    Tom Scott, the genius of viral videos who’s not clickbait.

  • @JohnTaylorMusicClips53
    @JohnTaylorMusicClips53 Pƙed 4 lety +5

    I like how you manage to smile consistently in your videos and seem to genuinely enjoy life while I get annoyed when my dad comes in to watch the tv

  • @ReportSubject
    @ReportSubject Pƙed 6 lety +7791

    they should use edgy teens RAWR XD IM SO RANDOM

    • @scoomplers
      @scoomplers Pƙed 4 lety +363

      This joke is severely underrated

    • @RyanTosh
      @RyanTosh Pƙed 4 lety +592

      1. Pay a bunch of teens minimum wage to sit at a computer
      2. Run a chat program and let them talk to each other
      3. Add some bots (pretending to be people) to randomly change up the conversation
      4. Take the hashes of their conversation
      5. Profit

    • @user-pc5sc7zi9j
      @user-pc5sc7zi9j Pƙed 4 lety +218

      @@RyanTosh Why pay them?
      People chat in their free time.

    • @RyanTosh
      @RyanTosh Pƙed 4 lety +123

      @@user-pc5sc7zi9j That way there's a high demand. You also can't just take it from a public chat room, or other people could access the data you use for your security protocol

    • @charonder
      @charonder Pƙed 4 lety +14

      @@RyanTosh R/whoooooooosh

  • @CryTyped
    @CryTyped Pƙed 6 lety +40

    this is a really cool way for random numbers to be generated, much cooler than atmospheric noise!

    • @peterdvornik
      @peterdvornik Pƙed 6 lety +4

      When you're dealing with 10% of internet traffic, the cost of keeping a few dozen lava lamps plugged in is negligible

  • @GPismymom
    @GPismymom Pƙed 2 lety +3

    I almost instantly predicted what this was about when I started the video but I was like "that can't be what they are doing, that's way too weird and ingenious to actually work" but it turns out it's done exactly the way I thought it would.
    The world is a cool place...

  • @adamrumer2736
    @adamrumer2736 Pƙed 4 lety +9

    You’re one of the least toxic channels I follow. Genuine. Interesting. I love it.

  • @henkbarnard1553
    @henkbarnard1553 Pƙed 6 lety +561

    I like the Kitten idea better.

    • @MaraK_dialmformara
      @MaraK_dialmformara Pƙed 6 lety +46

      Yeah, lava lamps are cool, but Tom's channel needs more cats.

    • @CircsC
      @CircsC Pƙed 6 lety +25

      Fasten the lava lamps securely and let the kittens observe

    • @Skjoldmc
      @Skjoldmc Pƙed 6 lety +28

      Kittens are already running the internet enough.

    • @TorquemadaTwist
      @TorquemadaTwist Pƙed 6 lety +8

      CircsC
      Fasten lava lamps to kittens them observe.

    • @amirabudubai2279
      @amirabudubai2279 Pƙed 6 lety +23

      Then cat videos will literally be the backbone of the internet.

  • @paramost
    @paramost Pƙed 6 lety +201

    Good excuse to buy some lavalamps.

    • @rautsaurabh
      @rautsaurabh Pƙed 6 lety

      Paramost d
      VdrrtthhbhđŸ˜Žâ˜•ïžđŸ±đŸ˜“đŸ‘đŸ»đŸŒ’đŸŒžđŸŒ›đŸŒ›đŸŒœđŸŒŸđŸŒˆđŸŒˆđŸŒˆđŸŒˆđŸŒˆđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒŠđŸŒ’đŸŒ’đŸŒ’đŸŒžđŸŒžđŸŒžđŸŒ›đŸŒ›đŸŒ›đŸŒ›đŸŒ›đŸŒŸđŸŒ›đŸŒ›đŸŒžđŸŒžâ­ïžâ­ïžđŸŒŸđŸŒŸâ­ïžâ­ïžđŸ›đŸ›đŸșđŸ„đŸ”đŸŠđŸ‘đŸ»đŸ˜„đŸ˜Ž

    • @rautsaurabh
      @rautsaurabh Pƙed 6 lety

      Hi 👋 my mmkklîp

    • @voltaire6062
      @voltaire6062 Pƙed 6 lety +5

      "Hey Dave, I saw you charged 400 lavalamps to the company credit card."
      "Oh... Uh Yeah... It's for, uh... Cyber...security."
      "Brilliant! Dave you've done it again!"

  • @Hellboy_2109
    @Hellboy_2109 Pƙed 4 lety +1

    Never knew it worked like this. Love learning from your videos keep it up!

  • @HughManatea
    @HughManatea Pƙed 4 lety +5

    Dear god Tom Scott; ten years by and I have learned a lot.

  • @jumbazix4249
    @jumbazix4249 Pƙed 6 lety +84

    Thanks , *I feel much more secure now*

  • @Seegalgalguntijak
    @Seegalgalguntijak Pƙed 6 lety +742

    So if someone wanted a huge wall full of lava lamps in their own home, would they be able to point a high definition webcam at it and sell the randomness to other companies which need that for their operation, in order to get back a bit of the power cost for those lamps?

    • @undead890
      @undead890 Pƙed 6 lety +262

      I don't think that would be recommended mainly because the photos could be accessed by hackers and used to generate the same random keys. This is probably on a closed network making it very difficult to hack.

    • @Colopty
      @Colopty Pƙed 6 lety +381

      Anyone who cares enough about randomness to consider a solution like that are probably too paranoid to outsource it.

    • @p_serdiuk
      @p_serdiuk Pƙed 6 lety +76

      The pieces are inexpensive enough that any company that needs such setup probably already has one.
      Using a lava lamp to generate and re-generate your own passwords and keys is probably smarter.

    • @ShadowKick32
      @ShadowKick32 Pƙed 6 lety +27

      Yes they could, but, here they do it for free, so it's not gonna work.

    • @klaxoncow
      @klaxoncow Pƙed 6 lety +53

      No, because the duplication would compromise the "randomness".
      Think about it. You're pointing your camera at the lava lamps, running an algorithm to get a random number - e.g. 4589237598236529870 - and then you send out that exact same number to 100 companies.
      They're all getting the exact same number.
      So let's say that you're getting this feed of random numbers and so am I. We both get the number 4589237598236529870 sent to us. You use it to create an encryption key. All I have to do is use the exact same algorithms as you and the encryption key I get will be exactly the same. Thus, I can break your encryption.
      You can't duplicate random numbers and hand out the same numbers to different people, because that makes them perfectly predictable. Whatever number you were given is exactly the same number I was given too.
      Thus, if you were doing this, then you could only sell your random numbers to a single company.
      Either that, or you couldn't send out the same number twice. But that has its own problems, in that you have to obtain a random number, send it out, obtain a new random number, send it out, and so forth. You'd be limited in the amount of companies and / or the rate at which you could send out numbers, simply because of the time it takes to "round robin" through all your customers to hand them each a unique random number.
      (To explain, imagine that it takes 0.1 seconds to take a picture, process it and produce a random number. You have 10,000 customers. So to "round robin" through all your customers, giving them each a unique random number would take 10,000 x 0.1 seconds = 1,000 seconds or 16.667 minutes. So one particular customer only gets 1 random number from you every 17-ish minutes. If they need a lot of random numbers for cryptography, then that rate would just be much too slow for them.)
      No, if you're serious about your random numbers for cryptographic purposes, you can't source them from the same place as anyone else.
      You need your own source of randomness.
      Like, ooh, a big wall of lava lamps, say.
      Sure, choosing to use lava lamps, that's "theatre" to generate publicity. But the fact that they own their own source of randomness like this to ensure that it's totally unique and can't be duplicated, that's perfectly sound and logical security.

  • @billneo
    @billneo Pƙed 4 lety +1

    Quite interesting. And great smile at the end, Tom.

  • @digitaldigdug7811
    @digitaldigdug7811 Pƙed 2 lety

    Beauty given complex functionality. That's pleasing on a number of levels.

  • @pawelabrams
    @pawelabrams Pƙed 6 lety +42

    Yay! Someone uses lava lamps as source of randomness again!
    I've actually covered them briefly in my thesis - and then proceeded to extract randomness from movement of microorganisms :D

    • @foty8679
      @foty8679 Pƙed 2 lety +1

      That sounds cool

    • @SophiaLi-pv9ec
      @SophiaLi-pv9ec Pƙed 3 měsĂ­ci

      wait sorry i didn't read the replies before i said that

  • @Osira
    @Osira Pƙed 6 lety +5

    Thanks A LOT for all the work you put into sharing fun, strange and interesting information. I'm learning and having a lot of fun at the same time, and this has no price. Thanks again. Cheers!

  • @notprovided1131
    @notprovided1131 Pƙed rokem +9

    Making security fun as well as secure!

  • @sergeychistov8162
    @sergeychistov8162 Pƙed 3 lety +3

    2:52 left side mouse coursor moving! Btw nice video!

  • @AexisRai
    @AexisRai Pƙed 6 lety +146

    RANDOM.ORG uses atmospheric noise, but this is more my aesthetic.

    • @admkbldwn
      @admkbldwn Pƙed 6 lety +18

      qrng.anu.edu.au/ uses the electromagnetic fluctuations created by quantum mechanical virtual particles bubbling in and out of existence in a vacuum.
      Considerably more SCIENCE!, but not as a e s t h e t i c

    • @DogsRNice
      @DogsRNice Pƙed 6 lety +17

      Adam Baldwin I press numbers on my keypad to get random numbers
      111 uhh 1

    • @facespkz_osu
      @facespkz_osu Pƙed 6 lety

      DogsRNice i got that reference :)

    • @dorukayhanwastaken
      @dorukayhanwastaken Pƙed 6 lety +2

      Aexis Rai Did you mean: *__*

    • @GijsvanDam
      @GijsvanDam Pƙed 6 lety

      I read somewhere that a phone can use the static of the camera to do this, so it works even with the lens covered.

  • @ShawnRavenfire
    @ShawnRavenfire Pƙed 6 lety +6

    I remember reading an article back in '96 about that other lava lamp random number generator company. I always thought it was an interesting concept, and I wondered if anything ever became of it.

  • @androuser8104
    @androuser8104 Pƙed 4 lety +118

    so that's how my 3AM CZcams recommendations comes

  • @DeathBringer769
    @DeathBringer769 Pƙed 3 lety +8

    Years ago before this I always heard that using atmospheric weather data was the standard for a good seed/source for random number generation. This is a cool idea for an alternative though ;)

    • @tsm688
      @tsm688 Pƙed 2 lety +1

      It would be, but these days, wouldn't have enough bitrate.

  • @Ares-5933
    @Ares-5933 Pƙed 6 lety +3

    This does it, this is the video that made me subscribe. You find the most random and interesting topics to talk about in your videos. God speed Tom Scott, hope you reach 1,000,000 subs before the end of the year

  • @Storystein
    @Storystein Pƙed 4 lety +36

    This is one of the most hilarious and amazing videos I've seen on this channel.
    Also the one that sounds the most like an April Fools joke.

  • @ericcallender1575
    @ericcallender1575 Pƙed rokem

    Fascinating! Thanks for sharing.

  • @lalalalexie
    @lalalalexie Pƙed 4 lety +1

    I had already seen this but now I feel spooked out.

  • @michaelhiggins7365
    @michaelhiggins7365 Pƙed 6 lety +3

    Your videos and your explanations are nothing short of AMAZING! Not to mention, highly entertaining! Job well done my friend and Thank You !

  • @trejkaz
    @trejkaz Pƙed 6 lety +7

    There was also that machine which rolled real dice around and photographed them to generate random dice rolls, which you'd think would work pretty well for this use case too.

  • @alexanderthompson5713
    @alexanderthompson5713 Pƙed 3 lety +56

    TIL: The security of 10% of the internet is based on a wall of lava lamps.

  • @rrad8106
    @rrad8106 Pƙed 2 lety

    Awesome video!!! Being a retired cybersecurity architect, I can wholly appreciate this!

  • @madsfuldgas1166
    @madsfuldgas1166 Pƙed 5 lety +11

    PokerStars' headquarter in Australia has a laserbeam constantly shooting at a transparent mirror/glass thing. Sometimes the beam of light shoots through this material and sometimes it gets reflected and does not go through. That system is in their own words "100% random" and will decide how the cards are shuffled in every deck. Randomness is funny!

    • @YeeLeeHaw
      @YeeLeeHaw Pƙed rokem +3

      Funny how they claim that without an unbiased third party checking its legitimacy.

  • @NotFab
    @NotFab Pƙed 6 lety +7

    Being a CloudFlare client myself for a long time now, that is something I really didn't know about.

  • @GeorgeLevy
    @GeorgeLevy Pƙed 2 lety

    AWESOME VIDEO - thank you for sharing this!

  • @hartmutholzgraefe
    @hartmutholzgraefe Pƙed rokem

    Thanks for giving good old SGI credit in the end, for a nice trip down memory lane :)

  • @FrankieSmileShow
    @FrankieSmileShow Pƙed 6 lety +84

    If some jerk put black cardboard over the camera, then it would mean the visual component would be the same black screen! Though I imagine Cloudlfare also uses more typical randomness functions in their algorythm and are really using the image just as part of the seed for the randomness (maybe the other part being the unix timecode), so that this kind of malfunction wouldnt straight-up result in the keys becoming the same, they would just temporarily become easier to figure out, and probably not for long enough for someone to breach it.
    I wonder if they used a low quality camera on purpose that gets a good layer of extra noise in its image or something?

    • @realcartoongirl
      @realcartoongirl Pƙed 4 lety +2

      genjus

    • @Dhalin
      @Dhalin Pƙed 4 lety +25

      putting a piece of cardboard over the camera, would cause the camera to capture a lot of "static noise" ... a bunch of seemingly random dots all through the picture. Not ideal but it would still be at least somewhat random. Using a low-quality camera .... could actually be a decent solution, as it would indeed cause a lot of random colored pixels in the picture.

    • @wojtekpolska1013
      @wojtekpolska1013 Pƙed 4 lety +1

      @@user-qy4lp8wp5c yea because the imperfection is steady - it stays the same

    • @NoTraceOfSense
      @NoTraceOfSense Pƙed 4 lety

      Hash functions. One bit changes everything.

    • @NoTraceOfSense
      @NoTraceOfSense Pƙed 4 lety

      Hash functions. One bit changes everything.

  • @felenov
    @felenov Pƙed 5 lety +3

    Some networking gear uses voltages, temperatures and etc from the processors built in sensors. Also they try to sample the cable length, fan encoder data at random intervals, or just the minor noise that makes it through the optocouple

  • @user-fp3yc9hm6m
    @user-fp3yc9hm6m Pƙed rokem

    I hate how interesting your videos are and how much I love them.

  • @ayeshajaved4583
    @ayeshajaved4583 Pƙed rokem

    I can't make sense of a single bit of this information but it made me happy and amused

  • @gemmsquash
    @gemmsquash Pƙed 6 lety +4

    This is just one of the reason I love this world we live in. How incredibly great humans can be!

  • @joshuagranat4877
    @joshuagranat4877 Pƙed 4 lety +6

    I’m lightly baked and this is blowing my mind. I love lava lamps. I find their service of guarding 10% of the internet is delightful.

  • @thewhites454
    @thewhites454 Pƙed 2 lety +2

    Cape Canaveral used to keep an abacus in a glass case, with a notice saying "In emergency break glass"!! So much for high tech!

  • @ZanderSwart
    @ZanderSwart Pƙed 2 lety

    This was the best video I have seen on CZcams in over 30 days

  • @spindreams
    @spindreams Pƙed 6 lety +44

    So now all I need to do is hack into the video feed of their lava lamp wall and I have the seed for their encryption hashes.... w00t!!!

    • @Azettler1
      @Azettler1 Pƙed 6 lety +2

      SpinDreams exactly my thought

    • @rakerlad
      @rakerlad Pƙed 6 lety +26

      Then somehow determine the algorithm used to translate physical images into hashes, after determining the data that they transcribe them.

    • @shadow19
      @shadow19 Pƙed 6 lety +5

      Well sort of, they probably have multiple cameras looking at the lava lamps in different directions generating even more encryption hashes seems pretty hard to do anything with just their vid feed, you would also need their exact software to generate the "random keys"

    • @MrLongpointlessname
      @MrLongpointlessname Pƙed 6 lety +9

      If your camera feed was timed wrong (due to network lag, different computer, etc.) by even a a fraction of a second you may not get the same random numbers. A very small variation in speed or very small deviation from their process for generating numbers from that many continuously moving lava lamps generating that long of a number would lead to failure because a 99% correct key would be useless.

    • @jedigrandmaster6471
      @jedigrandmaster6471 Pƙed 4 lety

      ya know there are things that you can't just "hack into" right?

  • @jedidr4918
    @jedidr4918 Pƙed 3 lety +12

    “Who I don’t know pointed a camera at a basket of kittens”
    Me: MILLION DOLLAR IDEA! DIBS

  • @ZSchrink
    @ZSchrink Pƙed 2 lety

    Such a neat set of ideas!

  • @Dave-uniquenamehere
    @Dave-uniquenamehere Pƙed 2 lety

    This channel is so random.... I love it!!

  • @Joshverd
    @Joshverd Pƙed 6 lety +4

    This is absolutely insane. I now have 1000+ more respect for cloudflare.

  • @johnalanwalker
    @johnalanwalker Pƙed 4 lety +63

    You know this seems to be something thought up by Terry Practhet.

    • @happycamper4315
      @happycamper4315 Pƙed 4 lety +5

      Anthill Inside? 😉

    • @Hyrum_Graff
      @Hyrum_Graff Pƙed 3 lety +4

      Tom managed to get into Unseen University for the making of this video.

    • @Zerbey
      @Zerbey Pƙed 3 lety +3

      Leonard of Quirm drew it in the margin of one of his notebooks.

    • @Verklunkenzwiebel
      @Verklunkenzwiebel Pƙed 2 lety +1

      Foul ole Ron's conscious smell cloud? Not so far off of a lavalamp.. Ratinnabun anyone?

    • @R.M.MacFru
      @R.M.MacFru Pƙed 2 lety

      And they kept B.S. Johnson as far away from it as possible.

  • @DavidLindes
    @DavidLindes Pƙed 3 lety +2

    3:28 - I was fortunate enough to have been around for the genesis of that... to think, it all started with a lavalamp set up to play itself in a game of basketball! Back in good ol' Building 15... I've got a lot of fond memories from there. Before long, there 12 lavalamps (4 in each of 3 groups, on staggered 8-hours-on, 4-hours off cycles) in a data center (in another building). Fun times!
    P.S. How did I not see this video until now? Oh, I guess I wasn't subscribed... fixed!
    Thanks for refreshing the memories. :)

  • @lamichhane
    @lamichhane Pƙed 3 lety +1

    Tom just got those images which were turned into data and then used to encrypt some data, what a clever fellow

  • @whisk3675
    @whisk3675 Pƙed 3 lety +6

    This seems like something straight out of hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

  • @OnlyNotes
    @OnlyNotes Pƙed 4 lety +70

    I would hate to be the poor sap who assembled that shelf. Imagine having to run the nuts on either side of the boards down an entire 8 foot section of all-thread...

    • @LordWaldema
      @LordWaldema Pƙed 3 lety +19

      compressed air and lube could make this an actual fun activity...
      (that's a sentence I should use more often)

    • @UDumFck
      @UDumFck Pƙed 3 lety +17

      Yes. I immediately thought of the 1981 Hyatt Regency Collapse, which was effectively caused by contractors not wanting to do that.

    • @kibe2134
      @kibe2134 Pƙed 2 lety +1

      @@LordWaldema compressed air and lube can make anything a fun activity.

    • @MM-jf1me
      @MM-jf1me Pƙed 2 lety +2

      @@UDumFck Great reference-- applicable and evocative. (I think about that failure quite often and wish I didn't; it always makes me so sad.)

  • @ceramicbird456
    @ceramicbird456 Pƙed 2 lety

    I love the way Tom places a link to an issue from their blog that requires "technical background" to understand while in that very issue there is a link to a simpler one lmao
    Thank you for assuming we are all smart, that's so nice of you, dear Tom

  • @TurtleMC1993
    @TurtleMC1993 Pƙed 2 lety

    Absolutely love this chanel

  • @evandermursh8410
    @evandermursh8410 Pƙed 2 lety +6

    When a firewall isn't enough, the lava wall comes out

  • @burnzy3210
    @burnzy3210 Pƙed 6 lety +13

    i want to see the london office with the crazy pendulum

  • @kendarr
    @kendarr Pƙed 4 lety

    Holy cow, this is the beauty of simplicity

  • @pelago_
    @pelago_ Pƙed 3 lety

    That's so cool, great discovery mate

  • @DDendrite2
    @DDendrite2 Pƙed 2 lety +3

    3:45 SCIENCE!

  • @SatanDotExe
    @SatanDotExe Pƙed 6 lety +79

    Almost 1 million! :)

  • @fastst1
    @fastst1 Pƙed 2 lety +1

    SGI is alive and well, lavarand was weird at the time in the late 90's but well those folks at SGI would try anything once! I'd imagine most viewers have never heard of SGI, what a great place to work.

  • @imagreatguy1250
    @imagreatguy1250 Pƙed 7 měsĂ­ci

    Awesome vid, cool lamps.