Hacker News Reader

> Here's a sequence of outputs: 6,5,3,3,3,5. Does this information allow you to predict the next output? No.

Your prng looks like a truncated LCG, it could be broken if enough outputs are known. For example, 16 bits could be bruteforced in this case. If the internal state have more bits, depends on how much bits do the outputs provide, you could probably break it by Lattice (https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/37836/problem-wit...).

View on HN

This PRNG is a truncated LCG. It can be "broken" if enough outputs are known. But that's not news: _any_ PRNG can be predicted if enough outputs are known.

For this specific generator, knowing 6 outputs is not enough to pin down the seventh output. Not by using a NN, not by brute-forcing the possible starting seeds, not by lattice methods, not by solving a linear system over a finite field. Unless you know the internal state of the generator, you won't be able to predict the seventh output. And the first 6 outputs simply don't reveal enough information to recover the internal state.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com