CADET: Investigating a Collaborative and Distributed Entropy Transfer Protocol

The generation of random numbers has traditionally been a task confined to the bounds of a single piece of hardware. However, with the rapid growth and proliferation of resource-constrained devices in the Internet of Things (IoT), standard methods of generating randomness encounter barriers that can limit their effectiveness. In this work, we explore the design, implementation, and efficacy of a Collaborative and Distributed Entropy Transfer protocol (CADET), which aims to move random number generation from an individual task to a collaborative one. Through the sharing of excess random data, devices that are unable to meet their own needs can be aided by contributions from other devices. We implement and test a proof-of-concept version of CADET on a testbed of 49 Raspberry Pi 3B single-board computers, which have been underclocked to emulate the resource constraints of IoT devices. Through this, we evaluate and demonstrate the efficacy and baseline performance of remote entropy protocols of this type, as well as highlight remaining research questions and challenges in this area.