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Canada's 'Random' Immigration Lottery Uses Excel, Which Isn't Actually Random
- mrunkel 8y agoUmm. Yeah. No. For cryptography purposes, yeah, not random enough. But to pick a name out of a list of names that is probably pretty randomly loaded into excel, I'd say yes, this is random enough to be fair.
- bluesign 8y agoThe problem is not the RNG here. Problem is the trust to the guy in front of Excel, and this process is not verifiable.
- B1FF_PSUVM 8y ago> this process is not verifiable Probably could be, along the lines of game-theory cake-sharing: "I cut, you choose." Say, one official supplies N names, another supplies N random numbers.
- maaark 8y agoCanada's not doing "I cut, you choose." It's doing "I cut, he chooses, you don't get to eat."
- luk32 8y agoThat was my 1st thought... Yeah ok, so the random function is not statistically good... How exploitable it is? What is the easiest vector of attack against the lottery? If the poor rnd was the biggest flaw the system would probably be really good. I don't know but peculiar choice of perspective seems baffling and undermines the credibility of source imho. Also, the process might be random if the original input was, so the whole premise of the article might be moot. I find the style quite tabloid-like.
- shrx 8y agoOriginal article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-anything-would-be-better-critics-warn-ottawas-family-reunification/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-anything-woul...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bryanlarsen 8y agoThis non-story is a dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17270754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17270754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17282156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17282156