[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] Make rtpenc.c SSRC randomly set

[Måns Rullgård]

Luca Barbato <lu_zero at gentoo.org> writes:

> M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>> When will people ever learn that random != unique?
>
> The rfc uses the term random as in "anything would fit given it has 
> those properties",
> using a strong (unique) random number generator fits the requirements.

To answer myself: apparently not yet.

What's so damn hard to understand?  No matter how statistically
unlikely, two random (in some sense) numbers are *never* guaranteed to
be unique.  Random numbers are very useful in certain applications.
However, situations requiring unique identifiers are not among them.

If a unique, yet hard to predict, identifier is required, it can be
constructed from one unique (possibly predictable) part, and one
random (hard to predict) part.  Make the random part big enough to
satisfy whatever statistical properties are required.

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/00000/2000/200/2318/2318.strip.print.gif

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mans at mansr.com