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Iowa man convicted of lottery rigging scheme granted parole

124 points| crescit_eundo | 4 years ago |pahomepage.com | reply

105 comments

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[+] calibas|4 years ago|reply
For those curious about the technical details of how he did it:

> Here’s how the Multi-State Lottery Association’s random-number generators were supposed to work: The computer takes a reading from a Geiger counter that measures radiation in the surrounding air, specifically the radioactive isotope Americium-241. The reading is expressed as a long number of code; that number gives the generator its true randomness. The random number is called the seed, and the seed is plugged into the algorithm, a pseudorandom number generator called the Mersenne Twister. At the end, the computer spits out the winning lottery numbers.

> Tipton’s extra lines of code first checked to see if the coming lottery drawing fulfilled Tipton’s narrow circumstances. It had to be on a Wednesday or a Saturday evening, and one of three dates in a nonleap year: the 147th day of the year (May 27), the 327th day (Nov. 23) or the 363rd day (Dec. 29). Investigators noticed those dates generally fell around holidays — Memorial Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas — when Tipton was often on vacation. If those criteria were satisfied, the random-number generator was diverted to a different track. Instead, the algorithm would use a predetermined seed number that restricted the pool of potential winning numbers to a much smaller, predictable set of numbers.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/03/magazine/mone...

[+] elahieh|4 years ago|reply
Now if he'd just taken that one level deeper, and had code to pick the Julian date of the rigged draws on days that _appeared_ random, but actually weren't ...

At NSA there's a "Peter Jenks Award" for people who do this sort of thing. Great story which started with LFSRs in the 60s.

https://www.cryptomuseum.com/intel/cia/rubicon.htm

[+] bourgoin|4 years ago|reply
Here's what I'm wondering, and pardon me if this is a stupid question:

Why go through all of the trouble generating true randomness with a Geiger counter just to use the result as the seed to a PRNG, rather than using your true random method to generate the lottery numbers directly?

[+] eihli|4 years ago|reply
Not directly related but while I have the eyes of some technical people reading about the lottery, I want to throw this out there.

I have 4+ years worth of daily scratch off lottery ticket results from a dozen or so different states.

Every day, the state updates their website with the numbers of tickets remaining at each ticket level. I've been scraping that and saving it.

If anyone would find this data interesting I'd be happy to share the SQLite database. I just ask that you share your code/queries and what you find.

- Are the grand prizes truly random? Or are they stratified?

- Do games end with an unusually high number of grand prizes unclaimed?

- Is there a buffer when a game is first released when no grand prize is possible?

You could scan some Working Papers to get ideas of things to check the integrity of: https://docs.zohopublic.com/file/pze38fbeed85562834d5696105b...

Those working papers have things like "guaranteed low-end prize structures" per pack of tickets.

Tips based on those working papers:

- Buy from a fresh pack until you get a winner then stop. Since there's a guaranteed number of winners per pack, each loser you scratch improves the odds for the rest of the pack.

- Don't buy from a pack that's already had a big winner. Most working papers stipulate no more than 1 large prize per pack.

[+] rbassett3|4 years ago|reply
I am a university Prof and a statistician. I'd love to get these data into my courses if you are willing to share it. It's a great example that students can easily relate to.
[+] stainforth|4 years ago|reply
To #2, as typical consumer walking in to buy a scratch-off, it's unlikely you will know the results of a in-use pack.
[+] YeBanKo|4 years ago|reply
I would be interested, if you are willing to share the data. Actually, I am thinking now: what if you introduce some anomaly in the data. Something like the man did in the article (draw from a different distribution), and a challenge would be to detect it.
[+] m4tthumphrey|4 years ago|reply
A relative did this math the.. not so legal way... and the most he "won" on about 50k cards was £100.
[+] comrh|4 years ago|reply
> he could be forced to return to prison in another state if he doesn’t pay required restitution.

Repaying $1.6 million in restitution in six years as a felon just out of prison seems pretty impossible.

[+] tehwebguy|4 years ago|reply
What even is the point of restitution at this point? The state practically re-victimizing victims of financial crimes, “You can be made while, but only if the convicted can survive society’s collective blood lust and never makes another mistake for the rest of their life” lmao
[+] vkou|4 years ago|reply
Then I guess he'll going back to prison.
[+] chris11|4 years ago|reply
I think the original title, Iowa man convicted of lottery rigging scheme granted parole, works better.

He was a software engineer who worked on rng software for state lotteries. And he was charged with installing code on lottery computers to predict winning numbers. It sounds like a legitimate conviction to me.

[+] dang|4 years ago|reply
We've reverted the title now. Submitted title was 'Iowa man convicted of defrauding lottery with predictive code granted parole'.

Submitters: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[+] mmcconnell1618|4 years ago|reply
Does this mean that only one person reviewed the code or that he was able to hide the predictable algorithm so well it passed review?
[+] charcircuit|4 years ago|reply
From the current title I expected him to have cracked the state of a PRNG in order to be able to predict what the next numbers would likely have been.
[+] jjallen|4 years ago|reply
I wish there was a straight forward, linear way of calculating prison time for dollars spent. IMO there should be a 1:1 correlation (or something along those lines) for how much prison time someone does for each dollar.

It seems that a decent number of people do relatively little prison time for stealing millions of dollars while others that steal a much smaller amount still spend a long time in prison.

[+] wackro|4 years ago|reply
Prison time is based on harm (or so the theory goes). How much harm is done by any action to its victim is subjective to the victim's circumstance.

Calculating harm isn't a maths problem, which is why judges exist. Moreover, wishing that prison time were directly proportional to monetary loss would be an abandonment of morality.

[+] jesprenj|4 years ago|reply
> This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.

lol

[+] ipnon|4 years ago|reply
Guessing they don't do pull requests at the Iowa Lottery
[+] jmcgough|4 years ago|reply
Makes you wonder how often this happens and someone gets away with it. If he'd quit after one or two wins (or at least not had someone try to claim Iowa's prize in the most suspicious way imaginable) he could have quietly retired.
[+] tpoacher|4 years ago|reply
That "Our European visitors are important to us" message though...

(immediately followed by what is effectively a "but screw you guys")

[+] h0l0cube|4 years ago|reply
A related story on the Darknet Diaries podcast about how the Puerto Rican lottery was rigged:

https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/101/

[+] vmception|4 years ago|reply
tl;dl?

nobody has time for that or a transcript full of the podcast’s time wasting sensationalized format

am curious about it though!

[+] paulpauper|4 years ago|reply
doesn't federal not have parole
[+] HWR_14|4 years ago|reply
Federal does not have parole. It does have a "good time" system where sentences can be reduced by ~15%, and I would expect most white collar prisoners to be able to stay out of trouble.

Just a note - People who have been in federal prison over 35 years, before the law changed, are still eligible for parole.

[+] handmodel|4 years ago|reply
The state of NH makes it an option for lottery winners to keep their identity private. I know this decision was praised but to me without full transparency those close to the process will be tempted to pass winning tickets to themselves/family/friends.
[+] a2800276|4 years ago|reply
You're not anonymous to the lottery, just to the general public.
[+] adolph|4 years ago|reply
I donno about New Hampshire but he’d definitely be better off as “Florida Man”