Huge cut in Premium Bond Interest Rates

cvd

is independently tested each month by an independent actuary appointed by the government and the draw is only valid if the output passes tests that indicate it is statistically random

The Government Actuary Department - the same people who thought Equitable Life was OK. Indeed, there is absolutely nothing at all in actuarial training which equips them to perform this task.

However, I agree with your essential point that Ernie cannot be "manipulated". Any non-randomness should still be unpredictable.

That is the real reason why a pseudorandom number generator is not used -the rule might be leaked or discovered and so it might then be possible to predict or "manipulate" to some extent.

Oblivion

owner wrote: »

3. ERNIE 4 uses thermal noise in transistors as its source of entropy for generating random bond numbers; the original ERNIE used a gas neon diode. In each case the randomness of electrons and natural unpredictable variance of the physical processes involved mean that systematic trends and similar cumulative effects that affect any pseudorandom number generator are reduced greatly, if not eliminated.

I love it when you talk dirty.

So, we'll just have to hope there are no extended power cuts then :rotfl:

Dave.