Subject: Randomness sources for the IETF 2021-2022 Nomcom Selection

From: NomCom Chair 2021 <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2021 12:42:20 -0700

Per RFC 8713 and using RFC 3797 "Publicly Verifiable Nominations Committee (NomCom)
Random Selection", the following are the seeds that will be used on Tuesday, July 6, 2021.

Notice that Random Source 1 is drawn after the end of the current challenge period:

    Monday, July 5, 2021 at 23:59 UTC: Deadline for raising issues on the qualified volunteers list

** Random Source 1 - EuroMillions Lottery **
** Date - Tuesday, July 6, 2021 **
EuroMillions Lottery Results
https://www.euro-millions.com/results 
Tuesday, July 6, 2021 Results:
https://www.euro-millions.com/results/06-07-2021 
  (7 numbers, in ascending order, including the "Lucky Stars": 5 "Main Numbers" between 
  1 and 50 and 2 "Lucky Stars" between 1 and 12)

** Random Source 2 - US Power Ball **
** Date - Saturday July 3, 2021 **
Powerball Lottery Results
https://www.powerball.com/
Saturday July 3, 2021 results: 
  (5 numbers, in ascending order, between 1 and 69 plus 1 number between 1 and 26) 

** Random Source 3 - Australian TattsLotto **
** Date - Saturday July 3, 2021 **
TattsLotto Results
https://thelott.com/tattslotto/results 
Saturday July 3, 2021 results:
(6 winning numbers, in "numerical"/ascending order, between 1 and 45; no Supps numbers)

** Random Source 4 - Japan Lotto 7 **
** Date - Friday July 2, 2021 **
https://en.lottolyzer.com/result/japan/lotto-7
Friday July 2, 2021 results:
(7 "winning numbers", in ascending order, between 1 and 37)

Gabriel Montenegro
NomCom Chair 2021-2022
nomcom-chair-2021 at ietf dot org

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From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2021 16:35:42 -0400

Hi  Gabe -

I need to throw a spanner into the works and suggest you can't do it the 
way you propose.

First, you may want to give yourself a few days between close of 
challenges and doing the pull.  If there are challenges and they need to 
be resolved, you need to be able to reschedule *before* ANY of the 
random sources are resolved without looking like you're putting your 
thumb on the scale.  If you've already resolved the randomness, it's 
possible to game things a slight bit by announcing changes of 
affiliation or withdrawals.

AIRC last year had some issues with respect to affiliation and 
disqualification that were worrisome.

So instead do in order:  1) Close the challenge period 2) resolve any 
challenges, 3) THEN announce the *future* randomness sources - in that 
order.

Second, all but source 1 is sampled PRIOR to the final finalization of 
the list and that's just wrong.

Mike

On 6/30/2021 3:42 PM, NomCom Chair 2021 wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> IETF-Announce mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce

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From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2021 17:26:48 -0400

Some more math:

Once sources 2-4 fire they are just known constants in the selection 
algorithm and can be discounted for randomness purposes  from the time 
they fire until the selection process occurs.   The last item (source 1) 
which is the only one still unfired by midnight 5 July, works out to a 
maximum of 46.7 bits of entropy  (e.g. Log2(50^5 * 12^2)).    The 
possible set of results is 112.5 trillion different random value results 
vs 89.2 trillion selection results (not considering passovers for 3rd 
organizational  and assuming 10 selections without replacement from a 
pool of 117) - small enough perhaps that if you ran a lot of 
simulations, you might find some interesting statistical possibilities 
on the final composition of the panel if you removed one or two 
carefully chosen people from the pool at the last moment.

RFC 3797 suggested a need for no more than 47 bits for a pool size of 
120, but that document was written near the beginning of the modern GPU 
era and the explosion of computing power from that.     My guess is that 
47 bits of entropy for a pool of 120 is way too small for safety and it 
may be useful to readdress this in a later document.

Mike

On 6/30/2021 4:35 PM, Michael StJohns wrote:
> Hi Gabe -
>
> I need to throw a spanner into the works and suggest you can't do it 
> the way you propose.
>
> challenges and doing the pull.  If there are challenges and they need 
> to be resolved, you need to be able to reschedule *before* ANY of the