3 ms·

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 fo

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.

mmcconnell1618 5y ago
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?
- dariusj18 5y ago
  Sounds 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.
  - lolinder 5y ago
    He did alter the code. See this comment for details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30188266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30188266
    - dariusj18 5y ago
      Oh, yeah, that should have been caught.
- chris11 5y ago
  This 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 ago
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.
dang 5y ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- blamazon 5y ago
  Hey 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 ago
    We 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.

mmcconnell1618 5y ago

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?

dariusj18 5y ago
Sounds 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.
- lolinder 5y ago
  He did alter the code. See this comment for details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30188266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30188266
  - dariusj18 5y ago
    Oh, yeah, that should have been caught.
chris11 5y ago
This 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 ago

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.

dang 5y ago

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

blamazon 5y ago
Hey 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 ago
  We 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.