Because computers don't understand words or phrases in the same way people can, they speak a language of their own, using only two symbols: 0 and 1. This computing parlance is known as binary code ...

The first versions of ASCII used 7-bit codes, which meant they could attach a character to every binary number between 0000000 and 1111111, which is 0 to 128 in decimal.

The result, a little less than seven minutes later, is 512 random bits of binary code – the equivalent of 2 (a number 155 digits long) possible random numbers. It is, the NIST declares, “the ...

Very little in this life is truly random. A coin flip is influenced by the flipper’s force, its surrounding airflow, and gravity. Similar variables dictate rolling a pair of dice or shuffling a deck ...