CHANCE ENCOUNTERS.

The article discusses random numbers and their influence on espionage, science and reality itself. Particular focus is given to the use of random numbers by the NKVD, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, in the Soviet Union. Additional topics discussed include computers their use in generating random numbers, concerns that the Internet might be running out of random numbers, voiced by the physicists Jane Nordholt and Richard Hughes, and the notion of a random reality.