
Canada using Excel function for immigration lottery - hyfen
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-anything-would-be-better-critics-warn-ottawas-family-reunification/
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jedberg
All the other points about the unfairness makes sense, but the complaint about
the poor random number generator does not make sense.

This isn't a multistep process that the "adversary" has access to. It doesn't
matter how bad the random number generator is or even if it is predictable.
Sure you could bribe the person putting it into excel I suppose, but you could
do that anyway and just have them switch numbers around.

This is a silly complaint. Yes it is a bad random number generator, but
predicability of the sequence isn't an attack surface in this use case.

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stormbrew
So much this. In order to 'attack' this, how would you go about that? Somehow
control who applies for the program so you wind up with an expected number?

And the gambling comparison is particularly bad. Excel is presumably not
picking the same seed every day, no matter how bad it is. It's probably using
time() when it's loaded, which is not great but also not visible to an
'attacker' and not consistent.

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jnwatson
Man, people are picky today. This isn't a public webapp, this is a spreadsheet
that is controlled by a trusted party. Yeah, it isn't the state-of-the-art
RNG, but given that it is only picking 10000 numbers, I would say it doesn't
need to be all that good.

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danso
The complexity of random-number generation is well-known to programmers, but
the inability to generate random numbers for "real-life" selection algorithms
has had major life-or-death implications:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_(1969)https://en...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_\(1969\)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_\(1969\))

> _People soon noticed that the lottery numbers were not distributed uniformly
> over the year. In particular, November and December births, or dates 306 to
> 366, were assigned mainly to lower draft numbers representing earlier calls
> to serve...Analysis of the procedure suggested that mixing 366 capsules in
> the shoe box did not mix them sufficiently before dumping them into the
> jar._

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gburt
I went ahead and flagged this. It is not HN quality. It is not even Globe and
Mail quality.

The other comments have already expressed why that is the case - but in
summary, there is no security flaw coherently expressed here, Excel is
possibly the _right_ tool for the job (it saves tens of thousands of dollars
of custom software development through government acquisition programs) and
the editorialism in the title was unnecessary and further hurt the credibility
of the "point."

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CurtHagenlocher
Since Office 2007, Excel's random number generator has been implemented using
a Mersenne Twister.

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remarkEon
Why would a lottery be used at all for picking “winners” for immigration? On
multiple levels that seems unfair and wrong.

~~~
stormbrew
If they were actually accepting all applications that meet the criteria, that
would make first come first serve more fair, but there are quotas so they
_have_ to reject N-1 applications regardless of their application.

Lottery systems are generally considered fairer than first come first serve
because they don't advantage people who apply early. Especially in an
immigration-related process where circumstances are likely to dictate when you
can apply, not everyone will have an opportunity to 'get in early'.

If you have a way to make the process simultaneously non-random, fair, and not
have a cap (which I personally would probably be fine with eliminating but is
presumably a non-starter for various political reasons), I'm sure some people
would love to hear about it.

~~~
ihsw2
Sure, just make the process much more restrictive. The idea is to take in the
best, not help the most vulnerable.

~~~
mortehu
> The idea is to take in the best

Is that really the purpose of the _family-reunification program_?

~~~
ihsw2
That's a typo.

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oliwarner
This is plenty Random Enough(TM).

TFA makes it sound like spending $10M on consulting for a "true" random source
here is more appetising; that it would be any different, objectively better.
It's nonsense.

Be happy your government is using the tools it has rather than putting every
function out to tender (as seems to happen in the UK).

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threatofrain
This is more of an amusing statement of how much of the world runs on Excel.

~~~
sverige
I used to use Excel's RNG to determine random winners for various drawings at
work, including such momentous things as shift bid winners when there were
more otherwise equally positioned people than available slots for a specific
shift.

Excel is far and away the best product Microsoft has ever produced, and
definitely one of the top five applications ever developed by anyone. It's one
of the most useful and flexible tools for all kinds of practical analysis
involving just about anything mathematical. Another example is that handful of
us once used it, quite successfully, to manage a particular $500MM book of
business for a very large insurance company.

In fact, the only people I've met who really hate Excel are developers who
find they're not as necessary as they wish they were because regular managers
are able to figure things out and make reasonably good decisions without their
help or input because they have a good grasp of Excel.

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kevin_thibedeau
“We stand by this randomized selection process as a sufficient means of equal
opportunity for all who look to express an interest in sponsoring their
parents and grandparents.”

Ignorance is bliss. Math class is tough.

~~~
white-flame
Random selection is literally equal opportunity.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
The selection isn't random. Cargo culting the magic number machine is the crux
of the problem.

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jinonoel
"The Liberals introduced a lottery in 2017 in an effort to make the system
fairer – previously, applications were accepted on a first-come, first-served
basis."

What's not fair about first-come, first-served? Why would a lottery be fairer
than that?

