ANU Quantum Node

A compact, working recreation of the SEIT product ANU Quantum Node (slug: anu-node, language: C11).

SEIT's description: "Temperature sourced from the Australian National University quantum vacuum fluctuation generator. Physically real randomness — not seeded, not simulated. Every agent decision runs at a temperature that has never existed before and will never exist again."

Mechanism

Each run draws 32 bytes of entropy ("temperature") from a two-tier source:

Live ANU QRNG JSON API — curl fetches 16-byte hex strings from https://qrng.anu.edu.au/API/jsonI.php?length=16&type=hex. The JSON data array is parsed by hand (string search + strchr, no JSON library). Every string is validated strictly: exactly 32 hex characters, all valid hex digits; the wrong count or malformed JSON is a failure.
Fallback: getrandom() — used on any Tier 1 failure: curl missing, non-zero curl exit, timeout (--max-time 10), malformed JSON, wrong string length, or non-hex characters.

The program prints which tier supplied the bytes and the drawn bytes as hex.

Build & run

make        # builds anu_node with gcc -std=c11 -Wall -Wextra -O2
make run    # draws 32 bytes, prints source label + hex temperature
make clean

Example output:

source: ANU QRNG (live)
temperature: 9f3a7c1e02b84d6f51a2c930e8f47d1a

What is modeled vs simplified

Modeled faithfully: the two-tier entropy sourcing (live ANU QRNG preferred, getrandom() fallback on any failure), strict hand-parsing and validation of the ANU JSON data array, explicit source labeling, and the non-repeatability property (no seeding anywhere).
Simplified / stubbed: SEIT's full product feeds this temperature into per-agent decisions; this node is the raw randomness source only. There is no agent framework, no temperature-scheduling semantics, and no caching or reuse of draws. The network path is curl via popen only — the one network call the spec allows.

All code was written fresh for this recreation. No external libraries, no paid dependencies.

License

Functional, viable source: read, share, and modify freely. Running this software requires a qualifying donation to the licensor. See LICENSE.txt for the full terms. No warranty.