Subject: Re: Nomcom 2007-8: Randomness Sources for review

From: Suresh Krishnan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 13:57:37 -0400

Hi Lakshminath,
   I think these sources are reasonable. I just require some
clarification about the lottery numbers. From your examples, it was not
clear to me how the lottery numbers will be entered as inputs to the
3797 algorithm. The algorithm recommends that the numbers be sorted in
some order.

Your example for Euromillions was

=>We input 11 16 17 22 34 5 6

This is not sorted in any order. Do you consider the star numbers to be
different sources? Is the input order specified like this

* normal numbers in ascending order followed by the stars in ascending order

It would be nice to clarify this while announcing the sources.

Cheers
Suresh

**********************************************************************
NOTE:(Original mail sent only to [email-masked]. Responding to 
[email-masked] since the ietf announce list is moderated.)

ORIGINAL MAIL

Folks,

As per the announced timeline 
(https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/show_nomcom_message.cgi?id=1231), 
which is 3777-compliant, the method of random selection was to be 
announced on July 6, 2007. I am presenting it earlier for your review.

In the past few cycles, nomcom chairs have used Wall Street's trading 
volumes as the sources of randomness to RFC 3797 random selection process.

However, I don't currently subscribe to the Wall Street Journal :) and 
besides RFC 3797 suggests that stock prices and/or volumes are a poor 
source of unambiguous data anyway, so I chose the following randomness 
sources; please review them and let me know if there are objections. The 
following dates assume that I can actually publish the list of 
volunteers on July 6th 2007 (as of today that has a high likelihood).

1. EuroMillions  Fri July 13, 2007 Results:

http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/p/results/results.do

All 7 numbers (5 numbers from 1 - 50 and 2 Lucky Stars from 1 - 9)
Results available online around 10 PM UK time.

e.g., Fri  Jun, 22 07 results 11 16 17 22 34 05 06
We input 11 16 17 22 34 5 6

2. US National debt ("Debt Held by the Public"), published by the 
Treasury department as of July 12, 2007 (Published on July 13, 2007)

"The system is updated daily with the previous day's data. The update 
typically takes place around 3:00 pm EDT."

That according to

"
-Will
Web Development Branch
Bureau of the Public Debt"

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Last 8 digits, ignore the commas and periods from the "Debt Held by the 
Public"

e.g., Fri June 22, 2007  4,950,586,161,721.14
We select  16172114

3. US National debt ("Intragovernmental Holdings"), published by the 
Treasury department as of July 12, 2007 (Published on July 13, 2007)

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Last 8 digits, ignore the commas and periods from the "Intragovernmental 
Holdings"

e.g., Fri June 22, 2007    3,852,643,882,285.79
We select  88228579

4. Lottery again, Megamillions

http://www.megamillions.com/winningpicks/last_25.asp

All 6 numbers (including the Mega Ball) from the drawing on July 13,
2007 (at 11:00 pm US Eastern time).

e.g., Fri June 22, 2007 result 11, 14, 21, 24, 31, 23
We input 11 14 21 24 31 23

All the inputs are to RFC 3797 selection algorithm. There is source code 
in that RFC and an example.

regards,
Lakshminath
Nomcom 2007-8 Chair

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From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:08:55 -0700

Thanks Suresh.  Good question.

My intention is to enter the numbers as I included in my email (and as 
they are published by the various sources).  The source code in 3797 
includes a sorting algorithm and that takes care of the randomness 
algorithm requirements; there is also an example in that RFC.

If you are interested, please run the algorithm against the sample 
input; I can do the same and we can compare results (but that is not 
necessary though).

thanks,
Lakshminath

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From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 11:42:21 -0700 (PDT)

I was under the impression that the use of WSJ data was adopted 
because it is easily verifiable and reproducable, after all there 
exists a PRINTED copy of the newspaper for any given day. I am not 
sure you could "reproduce" the national debt (for example) at a given 
point in time if someone disputed the result and wanted to run the
algorithm themselves.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

---

From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 12:26:28 -0700

Thanks Ole.  You bring up a good point.  I have taken it into 
consideration before selecting the randomness sources.  Lottery results 
are archived for obvious reasons.  It turns out the US Treasury 
department makes the archive since 1993 available.

The archives are available at the following locations for time-delayed 
verifiability:

http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/p/results/resultsHistory/resultsHistoryAction.do
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
http://www.megamillions.com/winningpicks/last_25.asp

best,
Lakshminath

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From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 23:12:32 -0700

Following up on this thread, if there are any objections to the 
randomness sources at this time (after taking my clarifications into 
consideration), please do let me know.  I need to finalize this before 
the deadline tomorrow to stick to the timeline.

thanks,
Lakshminath

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From: Suresh Krishnan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 11:27:58 -0400

Hi Lakshminath,
   In light of your clarifications, I have no further objections.

Thanks
Suresh

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From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 09:08:35 -0700

Thanks Suresh.

regards,
Lakshminath
(Speaking as nomcom chair in this thread)

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From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 09:08:35 -0700

Thanks Suresh.

regards,
Lakshminath

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From: "Eastlake III Donald-LDE008" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 13:55:53 -0400

Lakshminath,

I think you have an excellent list of Randomness Sources, although the
use of 8-digit integers made me go check the reference code in RFC 3797
to be sure it would work with integers that large :-)

Use of stock prices in the past has had problems and potential problems
with rounding, changes between fractional and decimal pricing, trading
suspensions, mergers/splits, and differences between the WSJ print and
web information.

Thanks,
Donald

-----Original Message-----
From: Lakshminath Dondeti [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 2:13 AM
To: Ole Jacobsen; Suresh Krishnan
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Nomcom 2007-8: Randomness Sources for review

thanks,
Lakshminath