Borrowing Chaos: Could Lava Lamps Be Keeping Your Data Safe?

At first glance, a wall of glowing, morphing lava lamps might seem like a whimsical art installation, perfect for a 1970s-inspired lounge. But at Cloudflare, one of the internet’s leading security companies, these lava lamps are more than just decorative—they’re the key to one of the most critical aspects of internet security: randomness.

Why Randomness Matters in Security

Every time you log into an account or access sensitive data, random numbers come into play. Random values are fundamental to encryption and authentication because they ensure your login credentials or transaction details are unique and unpredictable. If a hacker could guess these numbers, your data would be at risk.

Here’s the problem: computers can’t generate true randomness.

A computer is, in nature, a highly deterministic machine—a system of predictable switches that follow strict programming rules. This limitation makes it impossible for a computer to create something truly random. When computers need to generate randomness for some low stakes reason, say shuffling a playlist, they often rely on pseudo-random number generators. While these algorithms can appear random to the casual observer, their outputs are based on an underlying formula. If someone knows the formula, they can predict the results. Early Pokémon games, for example, used pseudo-random algorithms to generate encounters. Players eventually figured out the system and could accurately predict which Pokémon would appear.

For something as critical as internet security, predictability isn’t good enough.

Borrowing Chaos From the Universe

Is Cloudflare’s lava lamp wall a source of true randomness? Cameras pointed at the lamps capture the constantly shifting blobs of wax, their movements influenced by heat, light, and other environmental factors. These tiny, chaotic changes are used to generate secure, unpredictable random values.

It’s borrowing chaos from the universe and using it to fortify digital systems.

Consider a simple analogy: imagine you’re trying to design a lamp to turn on and off at random intervals.

• If you wanted the lamp to turn on at the same time every day, you might tie a string to the hands of a clock—simple and predictable.

• But to make it flicker on and off unpredictably, - true randomness - you’d need to incorporate chaos. Perhaps you’d hook the lamp’s switch to a branch outside your window, letting the wind’s random gusts toggle it on and off.

Cloudflare isn’t the only one borrowing chaos from the universe. Other systems might use atmospheric noise, radioactive decay, or even the millisecond timing of keystrokes to generate somewhat random values.

Let’s Think About It…

Here’s where things get really fascinating. The lava lamps remind us of something fundamental about our universe: even the most chaotic-seeming systems can, in theory, be predicted if you know all the variables.

If we had a computer powerful enough to calculate every factor—heat distribution, wax composition, air currents - we could predict the exact position of every blob of wax at any given moment. If we truly knew every variable that even the body heat of a passing employee, the subtle draft from their movement, the way light bounced off their clothes, even the exact firing of neurons in their brain was known - If you had truly infinite knowledge, couldn’t you predict the exact positions of the blobs of wax in real time?

And if that’s true, does true randomness even exist?

I might be getting too meta for a blog post, but if everything in the universe is governed by physical laws and predictable variables, given sufficient knowledge, what does that say about free will?

Randomness and Order

The quest for randomness reveals a paradox: randomness itself might not be random at all. It may be merely complexity beyond our current ability to predict. But where does that leave us?

In our daily lives, randomness feels real—we roll dice, shuffle cards, and make decisions that seem spontaneous. Perhaps randomness and free will aren’t about being entirely unpredictable but about the illusion of unpredictability within the constraints of physical laws.

The humble lava lamp, with its hypnotic dance of light and wax, protecting our data but also, reminding us that the boundary between chaos and order is thin—and endlessly fascinating.