Return to Answer

No. If the nonce is large enough then an autoseeded DRBG (deterministic random bit generator - NIST nomenclature) is just fine. I would suggest a nonce of about 12 bytes. If the nonce needs to be 16 bytes then you can leave the least significant bits - most often the rightmost bytes - set to zero for maximum compatibility.

Just using the cryptographically secure random number generators provided by the API should be fine - they should be seeded using information obtained from the operating system (possibly among other data). It never hurts to add the system time to the seed data just to be sure.

Alternatively you could use a serial number, but that would require you to keep some kind of state which may be hard across invocations. Beware that there are many pitfalls that may allow a clock to repeat itself (daylight saving, OS changes, dead battery etc. etc.).

It never hurts to double check that the random number generator doesn't repeat for a large enough output. There have been issues just with programming or system configuration mistakes, e.g. when a static code analysis for Debian caused the OpenSSL RNG not to be seeded at all.

No. If the nonce is large enough then an autoseeded DRBG (deterministic random bit generator - NIST nomenclature) is just fine. I would suggest a nonce of about 12 bytes. If the nonce needs to be 16 bytes then you can leave the least significant bits - most often the rightmost bytes - set to zero for maximum compatibility.

Just using the cryptographically secure random number generators provided by the API should be fine - they should be seeded using information obtained from the operating system (possibly among other data). It never hurts to add the system time to the seed data just to be sure.

Alternatively you could use a serial number, but that would require you to keep some kind of state which may be hard across invocations. Beware that there are many pitfalls that may allow a clock to repeat itself (daylight saving, OS changes, dead battery etc. etc.).

It never hurts to double check that the random number generator doesn't repeat for a large enough output. There have been issues just with programming or system configuration mistakes, e.g. when a fix after a static code analysis for Debian caused the OpenSSL RNG not to be seeded at all.

No. If the nonce is large enough then an autoseeded DRBG (deterministic random bit generator - NIST nomenclature) is just fine. I would suggest a nonce of about 12 bytes. If the nonce needs to be 16 bytes then you can leave the least significant bits - most often the rightmost bytes - set to zero for maximum compatibility.

Just using the cryptographically secure random number generators provided by the API should be fine - they should be seeded using information obtained from the operating system (possibly among other data). It never hurts to add the system time to the seed data just to be sure.

Alternatively you could use a serial number, but that would require you to keep some kind of state which may be hard across invocations. Beware that there are many pitfalls that may allow a clock to repeat itself (daylight saving, OS changes, dead battery etc. etc.).

It never hurts to double check that the random number generator doesn't repeat given enough amounts of bits (just to avoid programming or system configuration mistakes).

No. If the nonce is large enough then an autoseeded DRBG (deterministic random bit generator - NIST nomenclature) is just fine. I would suggest a nonce of about 12 bytes. If the nonce needs to be 16 bytes then you can leave the least significant bits - most often the rightmost bytes - set to zero for maximum compatibility.

Just using the cryptographically secure random number generators provided by the API should be fine - they should be seeded using information obtained from the operating system (possibly among other data). It never hurts to add the system time to the seed data just to be sure.

Alternatively you could use a serial number, but that would require you to keep some kind of state which may be hard across invocations. Beware that there are many pitfalls that may allow a clock to repeat itself (daylight saving, OS changes, dead battery etc. etc.).

It never hurts to double check that the random number generator doesn't repeat for a large enough output. There have been issues just with programming or system configuration mistakes, e.g. when a static code analysis for Debian caused the OpenSSL RNG not to be seeded at all.

No. If the nonce is large enough then an autoseeded DRBG (deterministic random bit generator - NIST nomenclature) is just fine. I would suggest a nonce of about 12 bytes. If the nonce needs to be 16 bytes then you can leave the least deterministic bits - most often the rightmost bytes - set to zero for maximum compatibility.

Just using the cryptographically secure random number generators provided by the API should be fine - they should be seeded using information obtained from the operating system (possibly among other data). It never hurts to add the system time to the seed data just to be sure.

Alternatively you could use a serial number, but that would require you to keep some kind of state which may be hard across invocations. Beware that there are many pitfalls that may allow a clock to repeat itself (daylight saving, OS changes, dead battery etc. etc.).

It never hurts to double check that the random number generator doesn't repeat given enough amounts of bits (just to avoid programming or system configuration mistakes).

No. If the nonce is large enough then an autoseeded DRBG (deterministic random bit generator - NIST nomenclature) is just fine. I would suggest a nonce of about 12 bytes. If the nonce needs to be 16 bytes then you can leave the least significant bits - most often the rightmost bytes - set to zero for maximum compatibility.

Just using the cryptographically secure random number generators provided by the API should be fine - they should be seeded using information obtained from the operating system (possibly among other data). It never hurts to add the system time to the seed data just to be sure.

Alternatively you could use a serial number, but that would require you to keep some kind of state which may be hard across invocations. Beware that there are many pitfalls that may allow a clock to repeat itself (daylight saving, OS changes, dead battery etc. etc.).

It never hurts to double check that the random number generator doesn't repeat given enough amounts of bits (just to avoid programming or system configuration mistakes).