On Thu, 11 Aug 2011, David Mathog wrote: > Since this is very OT, I'll try to keep it short. > > Here is the problem - imagine a group of people who neither know nor > trust each other, yet must agree on the fairness of a single random > number. Basically they are going to have a lottery. They aren't > organized enough to generate such a number themselves - it must be found > from some process already active on the web, and be so obviously "fair" > that they won't argue about that. Everybody must be able to obtain it > freely from a web connection.
http://www.random.org/ sincerely, rgb > > Can any of you think of a source on the web for a set of small files > with these properties: > > 1. from a trusted source (here this mostly means the data is generated > for some other innocuous purpose) > 2. represents a largely random process (temperature readings, > stock market values, etc.) with a set generated at known intervals, > preferably daily (at least M-F) > 3. are never, ever, revised > 4. are distributed reliably (for instance, signed files) > 5. are publicly and freely available > 6. can be obtained reliably (is available from many sites) > > So far I have looked at stock market values and weather data - without > much luck. > > You would think the S&P 500 is the S&P 500 and one could look it up on > any site and get the same data. Not so! Check the Yahoo and Google > financial sites for the first few weeks of Jan. 2011 and you will find > digits that differ between the two sites in every single column. Not > every day mind you, but often enough that it isn't reliable. Heck, the > volume numbers differ by large factors between the two sites. So just > choose one site and go with that? Not so fast - if the single source > goes down the data is unavailable, and there is no guarantee that the > site (which is not party to this particular use of their data) might not > revise the page or choose to block it entirely. > > Or weather data, right? Lots of random bits there and we trust NOAA. > But good luck with criteria 3-6. In particular, they don't give data > out for free. In theory no US Government site should, since they are > supposed to charge to recover distribution costs. > > Criteria 4-6 are typical of software distributed on mirror sites, but so > far I have not found any physical measurements which are distributed in > a similar manner. > > Thanks, > > David Mathog > [email protected] > Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] sponsored by Penguin Computing > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf > Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:[email protected] _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
