I am a little curious about the cute little kaleidoscopic images associated with each user on this site. How are those generated? Possibilities are:
- A list of images is already there in some folder and it is chosen randomly.
- The image is generated whenever a user registers.
In any case, I am more interested in what kind of algorithm is used to generate such images.
It’s called an Identicon. If you entered and e-mail, it’s a based on a hash of your e-mail address. If you didn’t enter an e-mail, it’s based on your IP address.
Jeff posted some .NET code to generate IP based Identicons.