Interoperable Randomness Beacons

NIST Randomness Beacon (Version 2.0 Beta) -- work in progress

WARNING: DO NOT USE BEACON GENERATED VALUES AS SECRET CRYPTOGRAPHIC KEYS.

This prototype implementation generates full-entropy bit-strings and posts them in blocks of 512 bits every 60 seconds. Each such value is sequence-numbered, time-stamped and signed, and includes the hash of the previous value to chain the sequence of values together and prevent even the source to retroactively change an output package without being detected.

A selection of currently implemented calls are listed below. Users submitting a request need to provide the pulse generation time in POSIX format (number of milliseconds since midnight UTC, January 1, 1970 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time for more information and http://www.epochconverter.com for an online time converter.)

The reference document for version 2.0 of the beacon may be found at: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2019/NIST.IR.8213-draft.pdf.

Pulse at a specific (Unix) time (or next closest):

https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/pulse/time/<unix time>

Previous Pulse:

https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/pulse/time/previous/<unix time>

Next Pulse:

https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/pulse/time/next/<unix time>

Last Available Pulse:

https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/pulse/last

https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/chain/last/pulse/last

First Pulse of the first Chain:

https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/chain/1/pulse/1

Pulse <pulseIndex> in chain <chainIndex>:

https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/chain/<chainIndex>/pulse/<pulseIndex>

<unix time> - the number of milliseconds since 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z.

If a request for a Pulse results in no Pulse found, a 404 response is returned.

Schema

The data source schema for the NIST Beacon REST API described above can be viewed by clicking here.

Note: Not all browsers will display this file appropriately, you may get better results by saving the file locally and using an editor of your choice.

Certificate

The Certificate for each Pulse is available through the API: https://beacon.nist.gov/beacon/2.0/certificate/<certificateIdentifier>

Viewer

The example application below uses the REST API described above to navigate the data.

To visit an arbitrary time value please click on the input control containing the date and time value to display a calendar to select the desired value.