even if the numbers generated aren't 100% the order in wich you enter is supposed to be another random factor, unless you allready sampled enough giveaways to know that i spend all day watching giveaways progress and only enter when I'm 42.
So the secret is... 42
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Pit Fights, for every entry a convict is chosen and given a number. They all then enter the pit and fight to the death, the last Covict standing goes free and his number is the entry that wins!
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This is true, each one is manually selected based on my daily horoscope.
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it picks a number, multiplies it by the number of entries, and then divides that by a random number. That entry number will win. (pulled that out of the top of my tired brain)
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You won't be able to consistently guess who's going to win, thats random enough for me.
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Considering how much he's given away and how many giveaways he's entered and then taking into account the fact that a lot of his wins are for giveaways with less than 100 entries I think we can still say its random enough.
This person has just improved his odds by entering contributor and group giveaways
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It's as close to random as computers can get. That's pretty fucking random. Don't make dumbass topics.
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Good. Wise reaction. You'll probably survive next Tuesday.
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It's as close to random as computers can get
I know what you mean and for all intents and purposes you're right...but no, it's not. Unless they're filling their entropy pool with a Geiger-Müller tube hooked up to the server and a source of radioactive decay events able to maintain it, e.g. caesium-137 (not just cosmic background radiation) then it's not as close to random as computers can get. ;)
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I find that hard to believe, thejadefalcon & Yatterman would have to run in their wheels non-stop at over 88mph to generate the 1.2 Jiggawatts needed.
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"Why do I never win while others win all the time? I know, the random number generator is a lie! To the forums to make this thread again!"
(edit: The OP states this is not a "why do I never win" thread and more about curiosity as to the actual method for SG's random numbers. It sure looked like a whiner thread at first glance, though. Be clear about your intentions, people.)
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i dont know too much of coding, but dont they have a math function for a random number?
like, Math.random() would be between a decimal between 0 and 1, then multiplied by the number of entries. every person has a unique number between 0 and (number of entries), if their number is picked they win.
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it puts a number of electrically charged balls (ions) within a rounded faraday cage, then the cage is spun in a given direction by the electrical current passing through it. After a random amount of time in which any possible ball is "tumbled" an old lady then opens the cage, places her hand into the cage and selects a ball with her myopic eyes closed. The number on the ball is called out over a loudspeaker. If the number called matches up with the final square on a row of a 5x5 grid the "winner" calls out "Bingo!" thus ending the competition.
If you haven't yet gotten your bingo card from the login page on your account then you will effectively have no chance of winning. Gotta know the rules to play the game.
Sincerely,
Zel
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But how is the random amount of time selected? Is that also done through bingo?
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It's pseudorandom (like everything else in computing that's called "random"), which is virtually indistinguishable from actual randomness considering the simplicity of choosing a number out of 10-1k entries.
If you ever want to get into CS, you'll run into this and may find it interesting. I love the math concepts behind it since they're simple but tricky at the same time.
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Nothing in the world is really random, so... Well. It's as random as computers can get, as someone has mentioned already.
I'd rather ask - what's the seed. Is it taken from time, number of participants or what? (my guess it's a combo of few things, that's how I'd do it, so people won't have any possibility of getting the seed out and using it for their dark purposes)
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I'd assume it's time-based as people usually do it that way, but anything beyond that is pretty much irrelevant so long as the order & number of contestants is different for each giveaway.
Then again, SELECT * FROM participants ORDER BY RAND() WHERE giveaway = 42 LIMIT <number of copies>. Who cares how it works in the background.
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Considering that you don't get to determine when the giveaway is picked except at five-minute intervals, I really doubt that SteamGifts is vulnerable to exploits on the random number generator -- ESPECIALLY since you also don't control how many entries there are. Even if cg published the algorithm for all to see, what're you going to do about it? It's a closed system as far as us users are concerned.
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I am not mad because I am not winning. I simply want to know what mathematical function they use to determine the winner. Are they using the clock to generate randomness, as most rand functionas are, or are they calculating it based on entries? Does the amount of entries affect the result in any other way than setting the range? I program so I know how to use it, but I want to know what THIS site is doing.
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You'd have to know in advance how many entries there were going to be if you were going to attempt a "in the right place" attack by pre-guessing the seed and plugging it into the formula, so I doubt an attack on the giveaway picker is going to be particularly feasible, especially since the repeatability rate is essentially nil.
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The link is to an Australian National University page, and the first thing it says on the index page aside from naming itself is this: "This website offers true random numbers to anyone on the internet. The random numbers are generated in real-time in our lab by measuring the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum."
Their non-bare-IP address is http://qrng.anu.edu.au/ if that helps. This also might help you Google them, from their about page: "We are the secure quantum communication group of the ARC Centre of excellence for Quantum Computing and Communication Technology (CQC2T). We are hosted by The Department of Quantum Science of the Research school of Physics and Engineering at the Australian National University."
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+1! Thats exactly why it should not be a problem.
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There has to be a specific formula for the function that chooses the giveaways, because computers are designed to perform specific repeatable tasks according to instructions, and they aren't programmed to "disobey" code. Unless SteamGifts is pulling from a highly entropic source like quantum fluctuations (this link is for real), it is generating pseudo-random numbers (because the random numbers are generated by the computer, and computers are repetitive and therefore predictable) that are not truly random and do have a pattern. This pattern is observable with enough repetitions and can be predicted and exploited. However, for the reasons I explain in my reply to SFaPiL immediately above this, it's not going to be a problem on SteamGifts.
What was that about making a fool of yourself?
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If it wasn't random and there was in fact some sort of system or patterns to win, why the fuck would anyone give that knowledge away to people like you? If it wasn't random and someone knew about it I doubt people would be using a site like this knowing people knew how to cheat the system.
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It is not random, and yes, there is some system to the randomness. I am not planning on using it to win, as it is almost impossible to do so. It is not worth it. I somply asked for the sake of interest. Is there something wrong with that?
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If you wanted to know what the actual routine was, why not just open a support ticket asking cg to tell you? The chances of random users knowing how the underlying code works (assuming they even understand how to code) is pretty low, especially since it's all being done in a black box.
You could probably infer at least a few things if you performed a statistical analysis on all 79,000+ giveaways and started crunching numbers, but then I'd start to wonder what all that effort was for except to try and find a flaw in the system (for whatever reason).
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I will tell support that you sent me when they get a flood of questions NOT related to a problem.
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I believe I'm the only one that understands what you're asking. Yes, every program claiming to generate random numbers truly generates pseudo-random numbers. Some pseudo-random number algorithms are better than others. For the purposes of this website, we're not dealing with extremely large numbers or large amounts of data, so pseudo-random algorithms probably work fine. Random.org generates numbers about as random as I've ever heard; though, I can't be sure Steamgifts uses random.org or not.
Source: read about Monte Carlo.
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From the code:
// Generated by rolling 1d6, guaranteed to be random
$winner_id = 5; // may or may not be xarabas' user id ;)
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I wonder if anyone here happen to know how the winners are selected. And inb4 "IT IS RANDOM!!". It can not be random, as it is done by a logical core. Anybody know?
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