Slashdot Mirror
Canada's 'Random' Immigration Lottery Uses Microsoft Excel, Which Isn't Actually Random (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Last year, Canada introduced a new lottery system used to extend permanent-resident status to the parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens. The process was designed to randomly select applicants in order to make the process fairer than the old first-come, first-served system. There's just one problem: the software used to run the lottery isn't actually random. The Globe and Mail reported the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) uses Microsoft Excel to run the immigration lottery to select 10,000 people for permanent resident status from a field of about 100,000 applications received each year. Experts warned that the random number generating function in Excel isn't actually random and may put some applicants at a disadvantage.
First, it's best to understand just how the lottery system works. An Access to Information request filed by The Globe and Mail shows that IRCC inputs the application number for every person entering the lottery into Excel, then assigns them a random number to each using a variation of the program's RAND command. They then sort the list from smallest to largest based on the random number assigned and take the first 10,000 applications with the lowest numbers. The system puts a lot of faith in Excel's random function, which it might not deserve. According to Universite de Montreal computer science professor Pierre L'Ecuyer, Excel is "very bad" at generating random numbers because it relies on an old generator that is out of date. He also warned that Excel doesn't pass statistical tests and is less random than it appears, which means some people in the lottery may actually have a lower chance of being selected than others.
First, it's best to understand just how the lottery system works. An Access to Information request filed by The Globe and Mail shows that IRCC inputs the application number for every person entering the lottery into Excel, then assigns them a random number to each using a variation of the program's RAND command. They then sort the list from smallest to largest based on the random number assigned and take the first 10,000 applications with the lowest numbers. The system puts a lot of faith in Excel's random function, which it might not deserve. According to Universite de Montreal computer science professor Pierre L'Ecuyer, Excel is "very bad" at generating random numbers because it relies on an old generator that is out of date. He also warned that Excel doesn't pass statistical tests and is less random than it appears, which means some people in the lottery may actually have a lower chance of being selected than others.
Why not just accept all the immigrants who show up? That's what they tell the US to do, right?
It doesn't matter whether the "RND" function is ideally random in a mathematical sense. It only matters whether the "random" number generated is independent of the identities of the people applying to be admitted.
The story is about an issue that is completely irrelevant.
It doesn't matter whether the "RND" function is ideally random in a mathematical sense. It only matters whether the "random" number generated is independent of the identities of the people applying to be admitted.
It isn't even that. Just because the distribution of random numbers isn't random it doesn't mean the sort order based on that isn't random. For example, suppose my random number generator only put out numbers divisible by 1/(2^16) which is what a finite precision binary based system is going to do. This distribution isn't random because it's zero density at many possible floating point values. Yet the sort order might be perfectly random.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin. -- John von Neumann
As long as no one knows what the biases are, there is not an actual issue. Probability, at least for these purposes, is epistemological.
That said, they should not use proprietary software. Public money, verifiability, freedom and so on.
Regardless of Excel's poor random function, the way this is being described as being done, it sounds pretty legit and random enough. There's no bias on assigning the random number to each name, and the name itself isn't being used to generate the random number. So this should be fine.
Just because it doesn't meet some math/computer geek's standards of proper random number generation, doesn't mean it's not useless for this application. I say thumbs up. The RNG being perfect isn't really necessary.
"When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It's only painful & difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid." --someone
Some people will tell you that quantum uncertanties introduce randomness, but my theory discounts that.
Please tell us more about your theory. I'd be interested in reading about it. And if I sound snarky, sorry, but I was predestined by the universe to ask you that question.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
That's effectively the position of Democrats.
Didn't seem to be Obama's position; he still holds the record for most immigrants deported in any presidental administration, 2.7 million: http://immigrationimpact.com/2017/01/04/deportation-numbers-2016/
(although Donald may be working on breaking that record)
Unless they let entrants pick where they are in the list, it doesn't matter if the random number generator is not completely fair.
Maybe it's biased such that entrants 50,000 - 51,000 are much more likely to end up sorted to the top, but unless the entrants can choose where they are in the list, I don't see why that really matters. Sure, someone that controls the list could move their friends to that range to make them more likely to end up at the top, but they could also move their friends to whatever random numbers and up at the top.
Actually, I've seen exactly the opposite analysis.
Democratic politicians want more legal immigration but less illegal immigration. Legal immigrants vote and pay taxes, illegals don't.
Republican politicians want less legal immigration, but more illegal immigration. Illegal immigration depresses wages, meaning more profits for corporations. (Even if the corporations don't hire illegals, the illegals have a downward pressure on all unskilled-labor wages).
Gizmodo just discovered what a PRNG is
What's wrong with first come, first serve?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
The initial conditions for the Universe were set at the Big Bang, and everything that follows is deterministic.
This demonstrates a rather painful lack of understanding of quantum mechanics, which generally accepts that God does play dice (or as Niels Bohr put it, stop telling God what to do.)
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I don't see a lot of consistent application of principles from them. I've yet to meet one that turned down free medical care when they needed it. I've known a lot of libertarians who go to the VA long after they've left the military. I know a lot that work in psuedo private sector jobs like the defense industry. My personal favorite is a libertarian friend of mine who gets it from his dad, but has severe health problems. He's come up with some of the craziest justifications to square his LIbertarian ideas with the fact that he needs medicine to live but can't afford to buy it himself (and wouldn't be able to even in a perfect libertarian world since his illness is bad enough he can't work).
Even Ayn Rand took social security in her old age. Though to her credit she had to be convinced to take it rather than die in the street. Her writings weren't profitable until the Republicans decided they needed an intellectual
My experience with Libertarians is they're folks who never grew out of that phase in your teenage life where you really, really hated being told what to do. You know the one. It's when you're just starting to realize how capable you are, when you're at your peak of learning capacity and you're figuring things out faster than the adults. And you really are (teenage brains work that way).
What I find especially maddening is the libertarians who rail against coastal elites and SJW and are perfectly OK with billionaires having unlimited wealth because, hey, they earned it by virtue of having it. Never mind the fact that money is power and you can't be free in a world with that much wealth inequality. After all, you're not free if somebody controls your access to food, shelter, healthcare, education and transportation (the latter needed to access the former). You're one week's food, one winter's cold or one pill away from slavery. True freedom only arrives when everybody has their needs cared for not because they can threaten or cajole people into getting it but because they're humans, and humans have a right to those things.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The story is about an issue that is completely irrelevant.
It doesn't matter whether the "RND" function is ideally random in a mathematical sense. It only matters whether the "random" number generated is independent of the identities of the people applying to be admitted.
With no intention of diminishing the importance of your statement; that is blindingly obvious. There are two other excellent points raised by others in the comments here: that imperfect randomness does not make the process manipulable by immigration candidates and that sort order of assigned imperfect random numbers can itself be perfectly random.
The story is mis-reported as a scandal; there is in fact no scandal whatsoever. So who made up the fake news? Tom Cordoso is the author of the original story at the Globe and Mail which the Gizmodo article linked in the Slashdot summary cites. Cordoso quotes Université de Montréal computer-science professor Pierre L’Ecuyer as saying “Anything would be better” [Than the Excel random number generator] but, crucially, Cordoso omits the context of that comment. Was L’Ecuyer referring to its suitability for this particular method and application, or was he commenting on its suitability for general use, including, for example cryptography? In neither the Gizmodo nor Globe and Mail articles can I find any mention of an expert unambiguously expressing judgment on the immigration randomization method specifically. A close reading suggests that the criticism originates with the journalist, and that he deceptively implies it to be the opinion of experts.
Some enterprising citizen journalist should contact the cited experts and ask them 1) Did their comments refer to general usage of the Excel random number generator or specifically to the immigration randomization methodology. 2) What is their opinion of the immigration randomization methodology 3) Do they agree with the points made here about it being a nothingburger 4) Have they read the Globe and Mail article, if so do they believe that their comments were wrongly contextualized.
If anyone does that, it would be nice to see a followup article here on Slashdot.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.