I just tried to find out what the default random number generator of
the Go programming language is. The
source code for this RNG can be found in the file
rng.go;
the only reference in the source code is the cryptic comment algorithm
by DP Mitchell and JA Reeds
. Does anybody have a reference for this,
or can at least identify DP Mitchell
or JA Reeds
? Some
things I tried:
- I found one reference which claims that the Go random number generator is the same as used in Plan 9. The participants of this discussion seem to not know the origin of the method used.
- While searching for
Mitchell
in the context of random number generation, I found references to the following article: D. Mitchell,Nonlinear Key Generators,
Cryptologia, vol. 14, pp. 350-354, 1990. I hoped that this article may allow me to find an affiliation forD. Mitchell
, but unfortunately it seems to have been removed(!) from the journal. The table of contents shows a gap between pages 349 and 355. - A Google search for
mitchell reeds random number generator
shows no obvious good candidates.
Any hints about where the algorithm comes from would be most welcome.