DieCommie said:

The random value for the seed can be gotten by the thermal fluctuations in the chip, which are random

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Thermal fluctuations are random? Truly random?

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A really good physical phenomenon to use is a radioactive source. The points in time at which a radioactive source decays are completely unpredictable, and they can quite easily be detected and fed into a computer, avoiding any buffering mechanisms in the operating system. The HotBits service at Fourmilab in Switzerland is an excellent example of a random number generator that uses this technique.

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Undoubtedly the visually coolest approach was the lavarand generator, which was built by Silicon Graphics and used snapshots of lava lamps  to generate true random numbers.

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Here is the long technical analysis of it that I sure as hell havent read.
http://www.random.org/analysis/Analysis2005.pdf
But the very beginning is interesting

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Random numbers are crucial ingredients for a whole range of applications – including cryptography,
simulation, gaming, sampling and aesthetics - and their consumption is rapidly increasing. (Section 3.2)
There are essentially two types of random number generators – true and pseudo. The fundamental
difference between the two types is that true random number generators sample a source of entropy
whereas pseudorandom number generators instead use a deterministic algorithm to generate numbers.
In comparing true random number generators and pseudorandom number generators each have their
merits and limitations. Completely random true random number generators have no periodicities, no
predictability, no dependencies, a high level of security and are conceptually nice. Nevertheless they are
slow, inefficient and costly, cumbersome to install, their sequences are not reproducible and they are
subject to manipulation. The reverse is true of pseudorandom number generators. Which is better
depends largely on the application. (Section 3.3)

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BlueCoyote said:

Interesting topic.
Is randomness really inherent in our physical world system, or has there to be an influence from outside the system to 'produce' 'real' randomness (non-causality).
But even then, the system could be enlarged to enclose the external cause into a new inherent system, so how would the cause stay 'external' then ?

I am not deep enough in quantum physics, but may there not be an inherent cause for the perceived randomness there, too ? Is there really something not predictable by any means ?
Hot topic, even for 'free' will. Thanks for the thoughts

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