we are not picking ASes at random. The AS-set announcements are part of new techniques we are developing for ISPs who wish to discover how their prefixes are seen by the rest of the Internet. We believe this will come to be a useful tool for operators.
However, since this is still work in progress, and in scientific research there is no room for second place, I can't really reveal any more than that at the moment.
I would like to point out, though, that our research group does have a proven track record in the field network discovery (examples available on request), and has created software useful to the operator community such as BGPlay [1][2].
That said, if you want us to exclude those ASes from our AS-sets, then we will do so.
So, the ASn's are not picked at random, yet mine might be included if I don't specifically ask for them not to be included, yet you decline to tell how my ASn might have been selected for this. So, yes, please do keep my ASns out of this cloak and dagger research. I would have thought it prudent to seek permission from the particular ASn operators before even considering using them for this experiment. Regards James PS, curious if AS7007 is part of your set of selected ASns, however they may have been selected.