Roll dice twice for each hex digit and then use the following table: First Roll 1 2 3 4 5 6 S 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 e 2 6 7 8 9 A B c 3 C D E F 0 1 o 4 2 3 4 5 6 7 n 5 8 9 A B C D d 6 E F * * * * There are also d16 dice marked 1 to 16, but you have to remember that 10 is A, 11 is B, 12 is C, 13 is D, 14 is E, 15 is F and 16 is 0. One source is:

Roll a die twice for each digit and then use the following table: First Roll 1 2 3 4 5 6 S 1 1 2 3 4 5 * e 2 6 7 8 9 0 * c 3 1 2 3 4 5 * o 4 6 7 8 9 0 * n 5 1 2 3 4 5 * d 6 6 7 8 9 0 * Roll the first die again when ever you get a *. Each random digit adds 3.3 bits of entropy. Note: You really don't need the table to use this method: Just roll a die until you get a number that isn't 6. Then roll the die again. If the second result is even, add 5 to the first number you got. Treat a ten as a zero.

Just roll dice twice for each character and then use this table: First Roll 1 2 3 4 5 6 S 1 A B C D E F e 2 G H I J K L c 3 M N O P Q R o 4 S T U V W X n 5 Y Z 0 1 2 3 d 6 4 5 6 7 8 9 If you only want letters, roll the dice again when ever you get a digit. Each random letter adds 4.7 bits of entropy.

To create passwords of maximum strength for a given number of characters, you must use all available symbols. This is especially important for most Unix systems where passwords are limited to eight characters from the 7-bit ASCII printable character set. The following set of three tables allows you to create such a password.

Some computer systems insist that a special character be included in your password. Here is how to make them happy. Roll the dice twice and then use the following table: First Roll 1 2 3 4 5 6 S 1 ! @ # $ % ^ e 2 & * ( ) - = c 3 + [ ] { } \ o 4 | ' ; : ' " n 5 < > / ? . , d 6 ~ _ 3 5 7 9

You need to do this if you want to insert one random character in your passphrase for added security, as mentioned in the main Diceware page. Here is how this is done. Pick the column in the table below that corresponds to the number of characters in the chosen word. Then roll one die and look up the number you get on the left hand side of the table. Insert the random character after the selected letter. Zero means put the random character at the beginning of the word.

QBasic can be found on the Win95 CD-ROM in the 'OTHER\OLDMSDOS' directory. All you have to do is copy QBASIC.EXE and QBASIC.HLP to your hard drive from the directory.

The dice has the face value of 3 , 4, 6, 8 and blanks. When the dice is tossed by the Challenger and it shows a 3 , 4, 6, or 8, the Defender picks one of his or her cards and forms a word of length no more than the dice number within the timeframe. If the Defender fails to form the word within the timeframe, he has to surrender one of his cards to the bottom of the draw deck.

We recommend the "Next MIDI Book" by Katamar Entertainment. Their phone number is 805-375-7388.

First, be sure you understand exactly what numbers mean in the old familiar decimal system. If I write 3409, what it really means is 3*1000 + 4*100 + 0*10 + 9*1... I can also write it as: 3*103 + 4*102 + 0101 + 9*100 (remember that 100 = 1). Now there's nothing magic about 10 - it was chosen because we happen to have 10 fingers. If humans had 7 fingers, you can bet that we'd be writing numbers like this: 3204 = 3*73 + 2*72 + 071 + 4*70.

You can read a brief explanation of how the dice work on our Lucky 6 page. The exact mathematical details are not available to players or members.

The notation "[0,1)" is common math notation for "zero to .9999999 etc" The Sun documents say this returns 0.0 to 1.0, but inspection of the source shows they are wrong. However, due to the inherent inaccuracies of floating point arithmetic, multiplying N by 0.999999 etc can result in an answer of N, not N * .999999 . So watch out when N is big.

When troubleshooting problems, it can be helpful to see the actual raw data being transmitted. Long strings of ones and zeroes are difficult to read, so the bits are combined and shown in hexadecimal. Each block of 4 bits is represented by one of the sixteen characters from 0 to F.

The standard module random implements a random number generator. Usage is simple: import random random.random()

rand() is used to generate a random number between its first value and its second value. Eg. var/num = rand(1,10) will set num to a random number between one and ten. prob() is used to check a probability out of 100; it will return 1 if the check is true, or 0 if the check is false. For example, prob(50) will have a 50% chance of returning 1 and a 50% chance of returning 0. prob(25) will have but a 25% chance of returning 1 and a 75% chance of returning 0.

A big part of the reason that we use hexadecimal is that it is relatively easy to convert between binary and hexadecimal. Hexadecimal numbers are closely related to binary, but they are shorter and easier to read than binary. Group the binary digits into groups of 4 starting from the right...

All stands in a group fire shoot, but they don't shoot all together. For example, when three rifle stands group fire, you don't throw the 9d6 all together (6d6 into cover); instead each stand makes it own attack with 3d6 (2d6 into cover). The advantage of group fire is not that you throw more dice, but that if any shooting stands suppress or kill, then initiative is retained, and all stands have the option to fire again.

Now you need to look at how to declare a pointer to function returning something, say, an object of type S. That's like this: S (*bar)(); Now assume that S is ''pointer to function returning pointer to char''. We get (char *) (*)() (*bar)(). So, the whole thing turns out to be (with appropriate parentheses) (((char)(*))((*)())(((*)((foo)))())([(N)])); This works because, in C, declaration reflects use, but it's one of those weird distorted mirrors. [a]

I've never done it, but I know it must be possible because the tgdb package in the Tcl archive uses all of those extensions with Expect. I've done this kind of thing by hand. It's pretty simple. But people tell me the make-a-wish package in the Tcl archive automates the creation of multi-extension Tcl applications.

We go to great lengths to make sure that the numbers are picked as randomly as possible. Why is that important? It assures that we get old and young people, rich and poor people, conservative and liberal people ? and everybody in between. Let's say the computer is about to pick a telephone number from your area code and telephone exchange. There are 10,000 possible telephone numbers.