1========================================================================
2
3Author Contact Information:
4
5 Robert G. Brown
6 Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
7 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
8 Phone: 1-919-660-2567
9 Fax: 919-660-2525
10 Email: rgb@phy.duke.edu
11 URL: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb
12
13========================================================================
14
15 Notes About the Tests in Dieharder
16
17Dieharder is original code written by and Copyright Robert G. Brown
18(with different code modules written over the period 2003-present). The
19tests included (or expected to be included in the future) in dieharder,
20are, however, derived from descriptions from several places.
21
22 * Diehard, a famous suite of random number tests written over many
23years by George Marsaglia. The original Diehard sources (written in
24Fortran) are (of course) Copyright George Marsaglia according to the
25Berne convention, where authors retain copyright with or without a
26notice in any original work. The original Diehard code written by
27Marsaglia did not include a copyright notice or an explicit license in
28or with the sources that have been made publically available on the web
29for many years. When contacted, Dr. Marsaglia has indicated his wish to
30restrict commercial usage of his code and permit only academic/research
31related use. For this reason the the algorithms are fully
32re-implemented, in original code, in dieharder to keep authorship and
33GPL licensing issues clear. However, all diehard-equivalent tests are
34clearly labelled as such and academically attributed to Dr. Marsaglia.
35
36 * The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
37Statistical Test Suite (STS) as described in publication SP800-22b.
38Although this test suite was developed with government support and is
39explicitly in the public domain, and is available in C source. There is
40some overlap between STS and Diehard -- for example, both have binary
41matrix rank tests -- but the STS focusses primarily on bitlevel
42randomness and the suitability of a random number generator for use in
43cryptographic applications. The tests described in SP800-22b that are
44implemented in dieharder are completely rewritten in original C by
45Robert G. Brown to keep copyright and GPL issues clear. All STS-derived
46tests are clearly labelled as such and are academically attributed to
47the various authors of the suite (Andrew Rukhin, Juan Soto, James
48Nechvatal, Miles Smid, Elaine Barker, Stefan Leigh, Mark Levenson, Mark
49Vangel, David Banks, Alan Heckert, James Dray, San Vo).
50
51 * Original tests or timing operations inserted by Robert G. Brown.
52Almost any distribution that can be computed on the basis of a source of
53random numbers with a derived statistic with known or reliably
54measurable statistical properties can serve as a test of random numbers
55using the general approach implemented in Diehard, the STS, Dieharder,
56and elsewhere.
57
58 * Tests described in Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming.
59
60 * User-contributed tests.
61
62 * Tests described elsewhere in the literature.
63
64In all cases some effort has been made to correctly attribute the
65originator of a test algorithm, and if there are any errors in this
66regard they will be happily corrected once they are brought to the
67attention of the author.
68
69========================================================================
70
71 To Build Dieharder
72
73Dieharder can be built from source in most cases by simply typing "make"
74on the command line while in the source directory. However, it does
75require certain resources to build, notably the Gnu Scientific Library
76in a revision no earlier than 1.4 (and ideally greater than 1.6). It
77has been tested primarily on gcc/linux-based systems, but should port
78well to any unixoid environment with at most some minor hacking of the
79include files or systems calls used.
80
81If one is using an RPM-based linux, the easiest way to simply build and
82install the library is to either take a chance on installing a binary
83rpm, preferrably one that was built on a system with the same general
84distribution and environment, or rebuilding the source RPM. However,
85RPM based installations are actually less desireable with a tool such as
86diehard than source builds, since part of its appeal is the availability
87of its source and the ease with which new tests or generators can be
88directly implemented.
89
90Dieharder is an open source project for a reason -- it simply is not
91possible to trust a test suite of this sort without access to the source
92because even a subtle error in the sources or data used to perform a
93test will cause the test to return incorrect answers, conceivably to the
94detriment of all concerned. With the source readily available, any user
95is free to examine or modify the source for any test and determine
96whether or not the test is working and participate in the critical
97process whereby academia arrives at a consensus truth.
98
99========================================================================
100
101 Licensing and Revision Control
102
103Dieharder is (as noted) Copyright Robert G. Brown, 2003-2006. It has
104been kept under revision control (first CVS, more recently Subversion)
105since the inception of the process in 2003 and all incremental changes
106to the code as it was developed are carefully documented.
107
108Dieharder was deliberately developed to by a GPL project, since
109alternative random number test suites were either incomplete with regard
110to the span of test possibilities of interest to the author, restricted
111or unclear about their licensing restrictions, or both. In addition, by
112integrating from the beginning with the Gnu Scientific Library (which is
113a full GPL project with the viral version of the license) it becomes
114itself a GPL project in any event.
115
116It is strongly suggested that prospective users of this test read the
117terms of the license included with this source distribution in the file
118COPYING. In summary, permission is granted to freely use and modify the
119sources and distribute the result or any binary objects derived
120therefrom as long as the terms of the GPL are abided by. These terms
121require the preservation of all copyright and license information in the
122sources and that the source of any and all revisions to the original
123dieharder code be made available upon request to any receivers of a
124dieharder binary, among other things.
125
126This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
127WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
128MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
129General Public License for more details.
130
131If any user of the dieharder program should revise the program in a way
132that is likely to be of use to others, they are encouraged to at least
133offer to contribute the revision back to the project (subject to the
134"editorial" approval of the primary author). Contact Robert G. Brown to
135arrange for such a contribution.
136
137========================================================================
138
139
140
141