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All x86 CPUs sold after 2015 or so have built-in hardware random number generators [1]. They get their entropy by sampling thermal noise on the input of a meta-stable logic gate [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDRAND

[2] https://www.electronicdesign.com/resources/article/21796238/...

mark-r
Is that just Intel CPUs or did AMD copy it too?
dragontamer
AMD CPUs have it, but have a different hardware design for its random number generator.

In both cases, RDSEED is "true random", according to Intel and AMD (though the specific argument for why it qualifies as true random differs on their designs)

RDSEED is like /dev/random while RDRAND is like /dev/urandom.

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