[Domenic_S]

That usually makes sense when the object in question is fungible -- whether the person waiting for the bus was Joe or John or Jeff makes no difference.

But it's needlessly confusing to use "random" to describe something that's represented numerically unless it's mathematically random. "Arbitrary" or "unknown" is better.

[irremediable]

Agreed that it's a bit ambiguous, but in modern British English this usage of "random" is really common. I didn't even think about the headline until people started discussing it.