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Iowa man convicted of lottery rigging scheme granted parole
- chris11 5y agoI 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.
- mmcconnell1618 5y agoDoes this mean that only one person reviewed the code or that he was able to hide the predictable algorithm so well it passed review?
- dariusj18 5y agoSounds more like he was able to install software on the same computer to use the same RNG as the lottery. In essence not doing anything to the original code, but using known information about it to get similar enough results.
- chris11 5y agoThis article goes into a lot more detail. It looks like it was just two lines of code. But apparently the codebase actually had backdoors already present. His employer, MSLA doesn't come out looking good. After winning a few lotteries Eddie actually reported the security hole and suggested a fix. It was ignored. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/investigations/2018/03/15/how-gaming-geek-checkered-past-pulled-off-biggest-lottery-scam-u-s-history/397657002/ https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/investigations/...
- charcircuit 5y agoFrom 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.
- dang 5y agoWe'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 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- blamazon 5y agoHey dang, I see that this guideline is not currently duplicated on the submit page. Is there a reason for that? It seems like it would be useful as a reminder to submitters.
- dang 5y agoWe generally don't put reminders like that on things, partly because we don't want to be nannies, partly because it's hard to know where to stop with such measures, and partly because of laziness. Or inertia, to be more polite.
- ipnon 5y agoGuessing they don't do pull requests at the Iowa Lottery
- comrh 5y ago> 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.
- vkou 5y agoThen I guess he'll going back to prison.
- tehwebguy 5y agoWhat 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
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- handmodel 5y agoThe 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.
- adolph 5y agoI donno about New Hampshire but he’d definitely be better off as “Florida Man”
- a2800276 5y agoYou're not anonymous to the lottery, just to the general public.
- handmodel 5y agoI think that's my point. The lottery itself is not going to have the manpower to check if every winner was or was not childhood best friends with workers at the lottery. Being in the public would be more likely to bring that to light + would scare people off.
- calibas 5y agoFor 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/money-issue-iowa-lottery-fraud-mystery.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/03/magazine/mone...
- bourgoin 5y agoHere'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?
- danielvf 5y agoI'm guessing because the lottery system needed to generate a large number of random numbers (given that they are running lots of lottery systems), and this gives a fairly verifiable way of doing that from one initial chunk of randomness. That said, I don't work in this area, so you should give my comment very little weight. :)
- sjg007 5y ago
- h0l0cube 5y agoA related story on the Darknet Diaries podcast about how the Puerto Rican lottery was rigged: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/101/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/101/
- vmception 5y agotl;dl? nobody has time for that or a transcript full of the podcast’s time wasting sensationalized format am curious about it though!
- h0l0cube 5y agoI rather enjoy the format and suspect other people do too, so I won't be the one to give away any spoilers
- alasarmas 5y agoI, and perhaps other people, believe that there isn’t such a thing as a spoiler for a work of nonfiction. Is the aforementioned podcast presenting a factual account?
- tomc1985 5y agoDarknet Diaries tells its stories through interviews with people who were there and the podcaster's own experiences and research. I am not sure I would call the account 'factual', but he makes his best effort to get as close to the source as possible. More like investigative journalism. In any case, not sure I agree with the attitude regarding reading a transcript. Does everyone expect the "facts" (whatever those actually are) to be handed to them on a silver platter or something? No juice no squeeze...
- vmception 5y agoWhen most of these events can be explained in two and a half minutes but the podcast has to stretch it for hours with expose’, yes.
- paulpauper 5y agodoesn't federal not have parole
- vmception 5y agoits not federal prison
- HWR_14 5y agoFederal 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.
- eihli 5y agoNot 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/pze38fbeed85562834d5696105bc58aca2666 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.
- rPlayer6554 5y agoWow I'd be very interested in that
- YeBanKo 5y agoI 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.
- rbassett3 5y agoI 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 5y agoTo #2, as typical consumer walking in to buy a scratch-off, it's unlikely you will know the results of a in-use pack.
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- jesprenj 5y ago> 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
- jmcgough 5y agoMakes 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.
- jmcgough 5y agoRelated: Dr. Joan Ginther, PhD statistician, who quietly won $21M across several lotteries and has kept a low profile since. https://www.businessinsider.com/4-time-lottery-winner-not-exactly-lucky-2011-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/4-time-lottery-winner-not-ex...
- bin_bash 5y agowow a real life Oceans 11 story—and it's hard to believe she's innocent here
- skilled 5y agoBlocked in EU. 12ft[0] lets you read it. [0]: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pahomepage.com%2Fnews%2Fnational%2Fiowa-man-convicted-of-lottery-rigging-scheme-granted-parole%2F https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pahomepage.com%2Fn...
- greatgib 5y agoThe usualy stupid blocking message: "Our European visitors are important to us." So, important, that we block you from reading our shitty website...
- qwerty456127 5y ago> serving a 25-year prison sentence for rigging computers to win lottery jackpots for himself, friends and family This is outrageously absurd a human has been put in prison, let alone for 25 years, for such a bullshit reason. Many murderers and rapists in many countries get less.
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoMany murderers and rapists in the same country get less. Much less.
- Beltalowda 5y agoThe NYT article says: "In Iowa, which has indeterminate sentencing, a 25-year sentence could mean Tipton is released much sooner; Sand expects Tipton to be released by the Iowa Board of Parole within seven years." Turns out that "indeterminate sentencing" works by giving a range (min to max years), and after min years the parole board will evaluate the case and, apparently, often release people well before the max years.
- mschuster91 5y agoWhat the f..k? From the prisoner's perspective, that's as if their freedom would be subject to a gamble, and a rigged one at that given discrimination issues.
- jjallen 5y agoI 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 5y agoPrison 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.
- namelessoracle 5y agoThis is an interesting thought experiment. Harm is relative right. Steal 10 million dollars from a family owned small business that leads to their bankruptcy and the family homes being lost? Life In Prison. Steal 10 million dollars from Bezos? Fine. This actually seems somewhat reasonable to me, I have a feeling you are more likely to get punished stealing from Bezos than the family business though.
- wackro 5y agoYes. It's no secret that in the real world justice favours the wealthy, for more than just the fact that money buys the best lawyers.
- bambax 5y agoNo. Guilt is based on intent, not harm. And there are many victimless crimes (like buying controlled substances) where the harm is zero and the penalty far from zero.
- tpoacher 5y agoThat "Our European visitors are important to us" message though... (immediately followed by what is effectively a "but screw you guys")
- jdefelice 5y agoI can't read the article as I'm in the EU but Criminal podcast had a great episode about lottery rigging. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-160-hot-lotto-3-12-2021/ https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-160-hot-lotto-3-12-2021/