Author Topic: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up  (Read 114364 times)

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Offline Samogon

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #300 on: March 06, 2016, 02:01:25 am »
No one has ever questioned the randomness of my Wobulator program or other method. That's insignificance in the bigger question here of who should be included/excluded.
Nobody would question it even if you finger point with eyes closed to the name.
It us just nerds discuss technicalities of truly hard task of randomization.
As it appears bigger issue of aka entitlement or eligibility or even rationing. Even distribution socialistic way aka sell then and buy beer party :))))
 

Offline tech5940

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #301 on: March 06, 2016, 02:18:44 am »
I like the idea of giving Aussies an extra vote since they are missing out on the daily draws with Keysight.


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Offline Brumby

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #302 on: March 06, 2016, 03:38:06 am »
It us just nerds discuss technicalities of truly hard task of randomization.

I may not have commented about such things in this context, but I felt somewhat self-conscious when reading that.   ;D
 

Offline PA0PBZ

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #303 on: March 06, 2016, 09:33:08 am »
I'm actually considering that, giving an extra vote to aussies who got screwed over by Keysight's lawyers.

But... but...  :'(
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Offline alter Ratz

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #304 on: March 06, 2016, 09:28:34 pm »
You could go "old-school" and have people send in a postcard and then you could draw from a box/barrel/bag.

The Hellointernet podcast did this recently when they held a vote in their flag referendum.
http://www.hellointernet.fm/podcast/53

I also find this idea very compelling. A software drawing is nice, you have all the numbers. But havig a huge Box of Postcards would be very cool. However, finding duplicate entries could be quite serious work  ;-)
 

Offline Muttley Snickers

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #305 on: March 06, 2016, 10:59:27 pm »
If the forums search engine is used to identify the term "I'm in" nobody wins....... :-DD

Believe me I've already tried it...... :-BROKE
 

Offline broz

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #306 on: March 06, 2016, 11:44:45 pm »
I think it would be nice and most importantly, fair, to give at least an additional "ballot" to the Aussies and any other "participants" from countries where Keysight for one reason or other could not give scopes away this time around.

I'm actually considering that, giving an extra vote to aussies who got screwed over by Keysight's lawyers.

I, myself, would be perfectly content giving an extra entry to anyone in ANY country that got screwed over by Keysight (so long as it's verified that they are actually in said country and not just changing their country to match...).

And yes, this is coming from someone who lives in Canada and is eligible for the Keysight draw, thus making myself only qualify for one entry into the EEVblog special scope draw.
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Offline rs20

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #307 on: March 07, 2016, 03:12:35 am »
I'm actually considering that, giving an extra vote to aussies who got screwed over by Keysight's lawyers.

Implementation detail: giving every Keysight-rejected person an extra vote using Webulator might be taxing (i.e., going through the entire "I'm in!" forum thread and typing people from these countries twice). However, here's an algorithm for achieving exactly the same effect:

1. Draw random person from "I'm in!" forum thread
2. Check person's country of residence on forum*. If person is from Keysight-reject country, they win! Exit algorithm.
3. Otherwise, flip a coin 50-50.
    a. If it comes up heads, that person wins! Exit algorithm.
    b. If it comes up tails, restart from step 1.

This way, you only have to inspect the country of a handful of forum entries; but everyone has a mathematically identical chance to if you had doubled votes by inspecting all the entries.

The downside is that if you're doing this as a live stream, any person subjected to step 3b would be very sad.

* Are we going to see a flood of people changing their forum flags to Australia? Probably not, if they're planning to actually receive their oscilloscope...
« Last Edit: March 07, 2016, 03:18:15 am by rs20 »
 

Offline opticpow

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #308 on: March 07, 2016, 04:33:11 am »
I think it would be nice and most importantly, fair, to give at least an additional "ballot" to the Aussies and any other "participants" from countries where Keysight for one reason or other could not give scopes away this time around.

I'm actually considering that, giving an extra vote to aussies who got screwed over by Keysight's lawyers.

Being a Aussie, I'm in favor of that  :-+
 

Offline apis

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #309 on: March 07, 2016, 03:20:25 pm »
Is there a problem with just grabbing some numbers from random.org's generator and running the drawing yourself?
The drawing service at random.org makes sense, because in theory you could manipulate the drawing. random.org publishes the winners on their website.

Didn't Dave do it live on web cam last time? But still tricky, because the last digit on multimeter could be faked and live using random.org could be faked as well. The only trusted way to do it would be a independent 3rd party random number, which everyone can see, like some national lottery, then hashing the values and using it mod number of EEVblog names to draw a winner, and publishing the EEVblog names prior to the lottery drawing (looks like a market niche for another webservice). But we trust Dave, so no problem with the last multimeter digit :)

Hmm, I was thinking it can't be done without a trusted 3rd party as well but then I had this idea:

When planing the contest Dave creates a secret message with the following contents:
* A large random number (much larger than the largest expected number of contestants)
* Some additional non random information: the date when the contest ends, rules, pictures etc.

Dave then hashes the message with a secure hash algorithm (sha-256 or whatever is considered secure at the time). The message is secret and is put in a sealed envelope and the safe (looks good on video :D). When Dave announce the contest he also publish the message hash (but the message is still kept secret of course). He also has to set a strict final date of the competition.

(Now everyone else saves the hash on their local hard drive to be able to verify the result later.)

After the contest ends Dave remove any invalid entries, he now has a list of all valid entries in the order they signed up. He then opens the letter and reveal the message with the random number. He then calculates X = (R mod N) + 1 Where R is the random number and N is the number of entries in the list (i.e. valid contestants). The winner is th X:th entry in the list.

The nice thing is that everyone can check that the published message hashes to the same hash that Dave published when the contest began. That way everyone knows Dave hasn't changed the number R after the contest to manipulate the result. Also, although Dave knows R during the contest, since he can't control in which order people sign up or how many will be signing up (N) he can't tell someone to sign up as a certain number that he know will win since the winner will depend on how many sign up before the end date, N, as well as the order.

Some remarks:
* If Dave wants to extend the contest period, say a week, because there isn't enough contestants he could do so but in that case he should decide to do so long before the original end date so there's no suspicion he is trying to change the winner by inviting more contestants (and thereby changing N).

* The secret message need to contain non random information as well or else it would be relatively easy for Dave to select a new number that generates the same hash, some extra non-random information makes that practically impossible.

* Dave could try to manipulate the result when he decides which entries are valid and which are not (and thereby manipulate both the order and N). So he should also decide on some easily verifiable criteria before the contest so anyone can check that the resulting list of valid entries are fair. The signup tread is public so everyone should be able to generate the same list of valid contestants as Dave.

* If someone is selected that later turns out to be invalid for whatever reason it's not a problem (because that would be hard to predict and thus hard to manipulate). Just explain what happened, remove that person from the list and redo the calculation.

These things are tricky so i might have missed something but I believe it should work? :-/O
« Last Edit: March 07, 2016, 03:23:48 pm by apis »
 

Offline FrankBuss

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #310 on: March 07, 2016, 03:55:41 pm »
These things are tricky so i might have missed something but I believe it should work? :-/O
I think this would work, because it would be difficult to manipulate the contestants list (but needs to be public). Regarding the hash: you only need to hash the random number, if it is long enough (so that others can't bute-force it), no extra data needed, because the probability to find a hash collision is 4.3*10-60 (see here) for SHA256. But might be easier to choose a small number and some random text, to use a calculator later to do the mod operation.

Of course, it is all theoretical, I'm sure he doesn't cheat in any way, so any random number generator works.
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Offline apis

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #311 on: March 07, 2016, 05:21:20 pm »
Regarding the hash: you only need to hash the random number, if it is long enough (so that others can't bute-force it), no extra data needed, because the probability to find a hash collision is 4.3*10-60 (see here) for SHA256.
You are right, I was thinking of another version first where Dave would encrypt the message and then reveal the key, in that case it might be a problem but with the hash version it should be ok. Although there might be a possibility of someone discovering R using a rainbow table so adding some text as a salt might be good. :)

But might be easier to choose a small number and some random text, to use a calculator later to do the mod operation.
Yes, that would be nice. As long as the number R is larger than N it should work.

Of course, it is all theoretical, I'm sure he doesn't cheat in any way, so any random number generator works.
Yes, didn't mean to imply that I don't trust Dave either, just thought it was an interesting problem. It would be a nerdy way of picking a winner. :D

Using the website random.com might be risky though. Even if Dave is unlikely to be affiliated with them it's not so far fetched to believe someone else who joins the contest could be, then they might manipulate the result to pick themselves as a winner. I guess in that case Dave could scramble the list before he generates a random number but in that case he is back in control again. In theory he could manipulate the list so the random number matches whoever he choose, or else he would publish the list first but then someone at random.com could manipulate the result... So, I'm not sure that another website would be worth the trouble.

Anyway, I'm fine with however Dave chooses the winner. :)
 

Offline tino_so

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #312 on: March 07, 2016, 05:47:52 pm »
No one has ever questioned the randomness of my Wobulator program or other method. That's insignificance in the bigger question here of who should be included/excluded.

I agree, even a pseudo-random process should be more than plenty for this contest, anything else is just overkill. At least I have not seen anyone suggesting that Dave invites an auditor from KPMG to be present during the draw.  ;)

But, don't get me wrong, if there is a thread specific to Random number generation, I am sure it will be a hit.  :-+
 

Offline Towger

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #313 on: March 07, 2016, 05:51:45 pm »
I think all of you are forgetting Dave modus operandi.  Maximum return for least expenditure of energy.
Ok... I'll go back to scratching my arse...
 

Offline FrankBuss

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #314 on: March 07, 2016, 05:52:43 pm »
Using the website random.com might be risky though. Even if Dave is unlikely to be affiliated with them it's not so far fetched to believe someone else who joins the contest could be, then they might manipulate the result to pick themselves as a winner. I guess in that case Dave could scramble the list before he generates a random number but in that case he is back in control again. In theory he could manipulate the list so the random number matches whoever he choose, or else he would publish the list first but then someone at random.com could manipulate the result... So, I'm not sure that another website would be worth the trouble.
Right, this is the reason I suggested http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/ct/nist_beacon.cfm because I guess it is more safe to trust NIST than some company like random.com. And if Dave would specify a timestamp in the future, everyone could verify it, if he publishes the list of names prior to that date, too. This would be safe, if you trust NIST.

But publishing all names might be a privacy problem. If this is a problem, he could publish the SHA256 hashes of all names, with some salt (needs to be sufficient long to avoid brute-force cracking). When the random number gets published at NIST, he could reveal the name and salt for the hash at this position, then everyone could verify it, without knowing the rest of the names on the list, and it would be still 100% provable fair :)
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Offline SeanB

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #315 on: March 07, 2016, 07:02:12 pm »
Auditor and drawmaster could be somebody like Doug Ford, would be nice to have him back in one of Dave's videos.
 

Offline apis

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #316 on: March 07, 2016, 08:03:19 pm »
But publishing all names might be a privacy problem. If this is a problem, he could publish the SHA256 hashes of all names, with some salt (needs to be sufficient long to avoid brute-force cracking). When the random number gets published at NIST, he could reveal the name and salt for the hash at this position, then everyone could verify it, without knowing the rest of the names on the list, and it would be still 100% provable fair :)
That way you don't have to trust NIST either! First publish the hashed list and the time the NIST number will be picked. Then afterwards reveal winner and the salt. All names should have the same salt so you could check that your own name was indeed on the list as well. But you can only find which entry is yours after the salt is revealed, that way a clever NIST technician in need of a new scope can't manipulate the result. That would be both protect privacy and be "tamper proof" (as long as the EEvblog and NIST isn't colluding) ^-^
 

Offline station240

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #317 on: March 08, 2016, 07:27:25 am »
All this talk about which random number generator/method to use skips over step one.

Step one: take out the trash.
Close the thread for the draw, then spend a day (or write some magic mysql code) to find those with low post counts that didn't even have 10 posts when they entered.
Then take said list of remaining low post counts, and remove the spammers that just made 10-20 dribble posts to qualify.

Dave can then announce he had X entries, but only Y were valid.

As for the idea of giving Australians a second vote, an easy way to do that is to make a list (username, post#), and add that number to the total entrants. Eg if 500 entries, and 50 Aussies, then the random generator gets 0-550, if the result is over 500, refer to the list.

Usually people who create these sorts of giveaways have the scripting to run the draw ready, so they know it works with the rules (and vis versa).
 

Offline Helix70

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #318 on: March 08, 2016, 01:08:36 pm »
Use all the invalid entries as a seed for choosing the winner. There are heaps of single post entries in there now!
 

Offline Brumby

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #319 on: March 13, 2016, 01:57:26 am »
« Last Edit: March 13, 2016, 05:21:07 am by Brumby »
 

Offline Muttley Snickers

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #320 on: March 13, 2016, 02:02:37 am »
I suspect that there wont be a winner, only a recipient.... ;)
 

Offline rx8pilot

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #321 on: March 13, 2016, 02:34:48 am »
my whole family is watching.... could be a sweet break for my micro business.

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Offline broz

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #322 on: March 13, 2016, 02:48:53 am »
Watching where? :popcorn:
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Offline rx8pilot

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #323 on: March 13, 2016, 02:53:17 am »
Watching the blog/YouTube since we don't know where the announcement will be.

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Offline broz

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Re: BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up
« Reply #324 on: March 13, 2016, 04:41:10 am »
Edit.
I just noticed Dave has closed the entries for the competition and I didn't notice the final count before closing but it doesn't seem like he weeded out very many. And good on him for that.

If I remember correctly, the count was somewhere in the mid 900's...but I could be wrong
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