\textit{Section 9:
The authors say they replace the xor-like PRNG with a cryptographically secure one, BBS, but then proceed to use extremely small values, as far as a cryptographer is concerned (modulus of $2^{16}$), in the computation due to the need to use 32 bit integers in the GPU and combine bits from multiple BBS generated values, but they never prove (or even discuss) how this can be considered cryptographically secure due to the small individual values. At the end of 9.1, the authors say $S^n$ is secure because it is formed from bits from the BBS generator, but do not consider if the use of such small values will lead to exhaust searches to determine individual bits. The authors either need to remove all of section 9 and or prove the resulting PRNG is cryptographically secure.}
-A new section (namely, the Section 8.2) and a discussion at the end of Section 9.1 have been added to measure practically the security of the generator.
+A new section (namely, Section 8.2) and a discussion at the end of Section 9.1 have been added to measure practically the security of the generator.
\bigskip
\textit{In the conclusion:
\bigskip
\textit{There seems to have been no effort in showing how the new PRNG improves on a single (say) xorshift generator, considering the slowdown of calling 3 of them per iteration (cf. Listing 1). This could be done, if not with the mathematical rigor of chaos theory, then with simpler bit diffusion metrics, often used in cryptography to evaluate building blocks of ciphers.}
-A large section (Section 5) has been added, using and extending some previous works. It explains with more detail why topological chaos
+A large section (Section 5) has been added, using and extending some previous works. It explains with more details why topological chaos
is useful to pass statistical tests. This new section contains both qualitative explanations and quantitative (experimental) evaluations.
Using several examples, this section illustrates that defective PRNGs are always improved, according
to the NIST, DieHARD, and TestU01 batteries.
\bigskip
\textit{The generator of Listing 1, despite being proved chaotic, has several problems. First, it doesn't seem to be new; using xor to mix the states of several independent generators is standard procedure (e.g., [1]).}
-The novelty of the approach is not in the discovery of a new kind of operator, but on the way to combine existing PRNGs. We propose
-to realize a post-treatment based on chaotic iterations on these generators, in order to add topological properties that improve
-their statistics while preserving their cryptographical security. In this document, generators that use XOR or BBS are only
-illustrative examples using the vectorial negation as iterative function in the chaotic iterations. Theorems 1 and 2 explain how to
-replace this negation function, that leads to well known forms of generators, by more exotic ones. However, the choice of the vectorial
-negation for illustrations has been motivated for speed.
-
-Indeed, to the best of our knowledge, all the generators proposed in the literature mix only a few operations on previously obtained states:
-arithmetic operations, exponentiation, shift, exclusive or. It is impossible to define a fast PRNG or to prove its security when
-using more complicated operations, and the number of such operations that are mixed is necessary very low. Thus almost all
- up-to-date fast or secure generators are very simple, like the BBS or all the XORshift-like ones. In a certain extend, they are all similar,
-due to the very reduced number of efficient elementary operations offered to define them.
+The novelty of the approach is not in the discovery of a new kind of operator,
+but consists in the combination of existing PRNGs. We propose to realize a
+post-treatment based on chaotic iterations on these generators, in order to add
+topological properties that improve their statistics while preserving their
+cryptographical security. In this document, generators that use XOR or BBS are
+only illustrative examples using the vectorial negation as iterative function in
+the chaotic iterations. Theorems 1 and 2 explain how to replace this negation
+function, that leads to well known forms of generators, by more exotic
+ones. However, the choice of the vectorial negation to illustration our work has been
+motivated by speed.
+
+Indeed, to the best of our knowledge, all the generators proposed in the
+literature mix only a few operations on previously obtained states: arithmetic
+operations, exponentiation, shift, exclusive or. It is impossible to define a
+fast PRNG or to prove its security when using more complicated operations, and
+the number of such operations that are mixed is necessarily very low. Thus
+almost all up-to-date fast or secure generators are very simple, like the BBS or
+all the XORshift-like ones. To a certain extend, they are all similar, due to
+the very reduced number of efficient elementary operations offered to define
+them.
\bigskip
We agree with the reviewer in the fact that using coprimes here will improve
the period of the resulted PRNG. Nevertheless the goal of this section was to
-pass the Big Crush battery, and we achieve that with proposed combination of
+pass the Big Crush battery, and we achieved that with the proposed combination of
the three XORshifts.
\bigskip
\textit{Thirdly, by combining 3 linear generators with xor, another linear operation, you still get a linear generator, potentially vulnerable to stringent high-dimensional spectral tests.}
-This first generator has not been designed for security reasons, but for speed: the
-idea was to provide a very efficient version of our former generator that can pass
-TestU01, and linear
-operations are a necessity when speed with pseudorandomness are desired. If the desire is to use a fast and statistically perfect PRNG, then simulations
-proposed in this document show that this first PRNG is suitable. However, we have neither
-claimed nor proved that this generator is secure. Indeed, we have only shown that some
-chaotic iteration based post-treatment, like the one that use the vectorial negation,
-can preserve the cryptographically secure property (while adding chaos), if this property has been established
-for the inputted generator. As the inputted generator is not
-cryptographically secure in the example disputed by the reviewer, we cannot apply this
-result. Indeed the first part of the document does not deal with security,
-but it investigates the speed, chaos, and statistical quality of PRNGs.
-A sentence has been added to clarify this point at the end of Section 5.4.
+This first generator has not been designed for security reasons, but for speed:
+the idea was to provide a very efficient version of our former generator that
+can pass TestU01, and linear operations are a necessity when speed with
+pseudorandomness is desired. If what is needed is to use a fast and
+statistically perfect PRNG, then simulations proposed in this document show that
+this first PRNG is suitable. However, we have neither claimed nor proved that
+this generator is secure. Indeed, we have only shown that some chaotic iteration
+based post-treatment, like the one that uses the vectorial negation, can
+preserve the cryptographically secure property (while adding chaos), if this
+property has been established for the inputted generator. As the inputted
+generator is not cryptographically secure in the example disputed by the
+reviewer, we cannot apply this result. Indeed the first part of the document
+does not deal with security, but it investigates the speed, chaos, and
+statistical quality of PRNGs. A sentence has been added to clarify this point
+at the end of Section 5.4.
\bigskip
question of key size.
-Most of theoretical cryptographic definitions are somehow an extension of the
+Most theoretical cryptographic definitions are somehow an extension of the
notion of one-way function. Intuitively a one way function is a function
easy to compute but which is practically impossible to
inverse (i.e. from $f(x)$ it is not possible to compute $x$).
attack, that is computing $f(y)$ for all $y$'s of the good size until
$f(y)\neq f(x)$. Informally, if a function is one-way, it means that every
algorithm that can compute $x$ from $f(x)$ with a good probability requires
-a similar amount of time than the brute force attack. It is important to
+a similar amount of time to the brute force attack. It is important to
note that if the size of $x$ is small, then the brute force attack works in
-practice. The theoretical security properties do not guaranty that the system
-cannot be broken, it guaranty that if the keys are large enough, then the
+practice. The theoretical security properties do not guarantee that the system
+cannot be broken, it guarantees that if the keys are large enough, then the
system still works (computing $f(x)$ can be done, even if $x$ is large), and
cannot be broken in a reasonable time. The theoretical definition of a
secure PRNG is more technical than the one on one-way function but the
keys/seeds are large enough.
-Nevertheless, new arguments have been added in several places of the revision of our paper,
-concerning more concrete and practical aspects of security, like the
-$(T,\varepsilon)-$security notion of Section 8.2. Such a practical evaluation
-has not yet been performed for the GPU version of our PRNG, and the reviewer
-has true when thinking that these aspects are fundamentals to determine whether
-the proposed PRNG can face or not attacks in practice. A formula similar to what
-has been computed for the BBS (as in Section 8.2) must be found in future work,
-to measure how much time an attacker must have to break the proposed generator
-when considering the parameters we have chosen (this computation is a difficult
-task).
-Sentenses have been added in several places (like at the end of Section 9.1)
-summarizing this.
+Nevertheless, new arguments have been added in several places of the revision of
+our paper, concerning more concrete and practical aspects of security, like the
+$(T,\varepsilon)-$security notion of Section 8.2. Such a practical evaluation
+has not yet been performed for the GPU version of our PRNG, and the reviewer is
+right to think that these aspects are fundamental to determine whether the
+proposed PRNG can or cannot face the attacks. A similar formula to what has been
+computed for the BBS (as in Section 8.2) must be found in future work, to
+measure the amount of time need by an attacker to break the proposed generator when
+considering the parameters we have chosen (this computation is a difficult
+task). Sentences have been added in several places (like at the end of Section
+9.1) summarizing this.
\bigskip
\textit{To sum it up, while the theoretical part of the paper is interesting, the practical results leave much to be desired, and do not back the thesis that chaos improves some quality metric of the generators.}
-We hope now that, with the new sections added to the document (like the Section 5), we have convinced the reviewers that to add chaotic properties in
+We hope now that, with the new sections added to the document (like Section 5), we have convinced the reviewers that adding chaotic properties in
existing generators can be of interest.
\bigskip
\textit{Typos and other nitpicks:\\
- Blub Blum Shub is misspelled in a few places as "Blum Blum Shum";}
-These misspells have been corrected (sorry for that).
+These mistakes have been corrected (sorry for that).
\bigskip
\textit{ - Page 12, right column, line 54: In "$t<<=4$", the $<<$ operation is using the `` character instead.}
