Date: 2026-04-14

# Generating Secure Random Numbers in R

#### 2026-04-14

The `rand_bytes` function binds to RAND_bytes in OpenSSL to generate cryptographically strong pseudo-random bytes. See the OpenSSL documentation for what this means.

    rnd <- rand_bytes(10)
    print(rnd)

     [1] 34 e2 4a 25 cd 73 85 de 95 bb

Bytes are 8 bit and hence can have `2^8 = 256` possible values.

    as.numeric(rnd)

     [1]  52 226  74  37 205 115 133 222 149 187

Each random byte can be decomposed into 8 random bits (booleans)

    x <- rand_bytes(1)
    as.logical(rawToBits(x))

    [1] FALSE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE

## Secure Random Numbers

`rand_num` is a simple (2 lines) wrapper to `rand_bytes` to generate random numbers (doubles) between 0 and 1.

    rand_num(10)

     [1] 0.96906176 0.41778484 0.94975631 0.06627767 0.43209330 0.08892813
     [7] 0.21694530 0.50693878 0.82981567 0.63119208

To map random draws from [0,1] into a probability density, we can use a Cumulative Distribution Function. For example we can combine `qnorm` and `rand_num` to simulate `rnorm`:

    # Secure rnorm
    x <- qnorm(rand_num(1000), mean = 100, sd = 15)
    hist(x)

Same for discrete distributions:

    # Secure rbinom
    y <- qbinom(rand_num(1000), size = 20, prob = 0.1)
    hist(y, breaks = -.5:(max(y)+1))