Re: [Eligibility-discuss] On 3797 alternatives

["Rob Wilton (rwilton)" <[e-mail]>]

For me, the risk that an organization might game the system (e.g., by declining a nomination position to ensure that a preferable candidate to chosen instead) is probably several orders of magnitude higher than the risk of an organization being able to control or manipulate 3 separate sources of random data on the Internet.

For the initial ballot, use something like a major lottery.  But if the ballot needs to be rerun because someone can’t serve then allow other more expedient sources of random data to be used to mitigate unnecessarily slowing down the process.

Regards,
Rob


From: Eligibility-discuss <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Rob Sayre
Sent: 31 May 2023 23:01
To: Donald Eastlake <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [Eligibility-discuss] On 3797 alternatives



On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 2:31 PM Donald Eastlake <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 2:43 PM Rob Sayre <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>
> I'm not really here to sell drand, but it does meet the requirements on paper: "the source is announced before the ceremony starts...".

No, in my opinion it does not. The title of the document starts with
"Publicly Verifiable ...". Perhaps I should change the name to
"Publicly Persuasive...". Would a member of the public believe drand
is as honest as a major government run lottery? I think not.

I'm not sure what "publically persuasive" would mean. I don't really see why a "major government run lottery" would be more believable here, but it's of course totally subjective.


> Presumably you'd pick a drand iteration number from the future, and use that. The draft is a little confusing in using stock tickers, because "Section 3.1: Sources of Randomness" of RFC3797* says not to do that...

And that section gives specific reasons why not.

Yes.


> While I agree that entropy "sources exist", the debate here is guidance on picking a verifiable one.

I think it needs to be not just mechanically verifiable but also
persuasively random.

Yeah, it can be taken pretty far, even aside from quantum computing:
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ssl/lava-lamp-encryption/

The penultimate section is my favorite:

Do all Cloudflare offices have the lava lamp wall?
---
The other two main Cloudflare offices are in London and Singapore, and each office has its own method for generating random data from real-world inputs. London takes photos of a double-pendulum system mounted in the office (a pendulum connected to a pendulum, the movements of which are mathematically unpredictable). The Singapore office measures the radioactive decay of a pellet of uranium (a small enough amount to be harmless).

At the bottom there, you get "LavaRand"*, which covers "Randomness Mixing". I don't think the IETF really needs to purchase a double-pendulum for this task, though. This stuff is persuasively random, but not verifiable.

thanks,
Rob

* https://blog.cloudflare.com/lavarand-in-production-the-nitty-gritty-technical-details/