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(Answer) (Category) distributed.net Faq-O-Matic : (Category) Statistics, Graphs, and other Statsbox things : (Answer) Do random blocks show up in stats?
Yes, and no. Like all blocks, randoms are subject to de-duping at the keymaster. This means that only the first person to submit any one random block will be credited for that block in stats. If two clients pick the same random block, only the first client to submit that block will be credited on stats.

You might assume, though, that the odds of duplicate random blocks is quite slim but in reality that's not always the case. There are two additional factors involved. Random blocks are not chosen from the entire keyspace, but rather we've pre-defined some slices of keyspace as random slices, and when your client picks a random block it will come out of one of these areas. Which slice to use is determined by the keymaster and communicated to your client when it connects to the network. What this means is, the ratio of tested / untested keys in a random prefix can vary tremendously. As more and more random blocks are turned in, the current random keyslice gets more and more full and the odds of your client picking a duplicate block increase.

While allowing the clients to pick randoms from the entire keyspace might seem an attractive concept, there are two reasons why this is not wise. First, it wouldn't make any sense if we were 90% complete, since 90% of all randoms would end up as duplicates. Secondly, we are unable to track the entire keyspace on the keymaster. We can only accept blocks from "open" keyslices that are being actively tracked. If a block arrives at the keymaster for a keyslice that isn't open, it is discarded and will not be reflected in stats. Since we are limited in the number of keyslices we can simultaneously track, it's necessary that we be able to control which areas from the keyspace a client pulls random blocks from.

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