Lava lamps loving Cloudflare is a major player in content delivery networks (CDNs) and internet security.

Founded in 2009, the company has since rapidly grown to become a crucial component of the internet’s infrastructure. At first glance, the company’s portfolio has over 50,000 clients. However, its encryption technique might just blow your socks off.

Typical cybersecurity companies encrypt data by using (often predictable) computer-made algorithms and codes to design an encryption seed. Cloudflare on the other hand, uses (completely unpredictable) 90’s décor to create its seeds. This process relies heavily on random numbers, as they form the foundation for the complex algorithms that create encryption keys. The more unpredictable these random numbers are, the stronger the encryption becomes.

Kitsch is king

Among the usual office trappings of its San Francisco office, one will encounter a spectacle that seems oddly out of place: a mesmerizing wall of lava lamps, their waxy innards bubbling and churning. But this isn’t just an aesthetic choice. These lamps play a vital role in the unseen world of internet security.

Cloudflare utilises a system affectionately nicknamed “Lavarand”, where a camera continuously captures images of the ever-shifting lava flow within the lamps. These images, with their unique patterns and colour variations, translate into a stream of random data. Computers can then convert this data into numbers that contribute to the generation of encryption keys.

The beauty of lava lamps lies in their inherent randomness—the constantly changing flow ensures a virtually inexhaustible source of unpredictable data. Visitors are encouraged to gaze at the lamps—the more heat generated, the more randomized the lava lamp patterns will be.