← Entropy Atlas
Public or distributed
Public randomness beacons
A beacon publishes timestamped random values that anyone can reference and verify.
Evaluation card
What “plenty” means here.
- Required property
- Unpredictability before publication, availability, authentication, and an unambiguous round identifier.
- If it fails
- The operator withholds unfavorable rounds, signs fabricated history, or becomes unavailable.
- Relevant attacker
- The beacon operator, network attackers, or users who can wait to choose which round counts.
- The Plenty Line
- Bind applications to a future named round, verify signatures, and define fallback and withholding behavior.
- Why more is not automatically better
- A larger value does not fix trust in the operator or ambiguity about when the value is selected.
Where it appears
Recognize the pattern.
- 01NIST Randomness Beacon
- 02drand
- 03public draw seeds
The Plentropy rule
Protect the requirement, then stop.
Bind applications to a future named round, verify signatures, and define fallback and withholding behavior.
Once that claim has comfortable evidence and margin, improve the next limiting factor instead of worshipping a larger entropy number.