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Allegation: Lottery Official Hacked RNG To Score Winning Ticket
SternisheFan writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica about what may be the most movie-worthy real-life crime story of the year so far: Eddie Raymond Tipton, 51, may have inserted a thumbdrive into a highly locked-down computer that's supposed to generate the random numbers used to determine lottery winners, The Des Moines Register reported, citing court documents filed by prosecutors. At the time, Tipton was the information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, and he was later videotaped purchasing a Hot Lotto ticket that went on to fetch the winning $14.3 million payout.
In court documents filed last week, prosecutors said there is evidence to support the theory Tipton used his privileged position inside the lottery association to enter a locked room that housed the random number generating computers and
infect them with software that allowed him to control the winning numbers. The room was enclosed in glass, could only be entered by two people at a time, and was monitored by a video camera. To prevent outside attacks, the computers aren't connected to the Internet. Prosecutors said Tipton entered the so-called draw room on November 20, 2010, ostensibly to change the time on the computers. The cameras on that date recorded only one second per minute rather than running continuously like normal.
"Four of the five individuals who have access to control the camera's settings will testify they did not change the cameras' recording instructions," prosecutors wrote. "The fifth person is defendant. It is a reasonable deduction to infer that defendant tampered with the camera equipment to have an opportunity to insert a thumbdrive into the RNG tower without detection."
In court documents filed last week, prosecutors said there is evidence to support the theory Tipton used his privileged position inside the lottery association to enter a locked room that housed the random number generating computers and
infect them with software that allowed him to control the winning numbers. The room was enclosed in glass, could only be entered by two people at a time, and was monitored by a video camera. To prevent outside attacks, the computers aren't connected to the Internet. Prosecutors said Tipton entered the so-called draw room on November 20, 2010, ostensibly to change the time on the computers. The cameras on that date recorded only one second per minute rather than running continuously like normal.
"Four of the five individuals who have access to control the camera's settings will testify they did not change the cameras' recording instructions," prosecutors wrote. "The fifth person is defendant. It is a reasonable deduction to infer that defendant tampered with the camera equipment to have an opportunity to insert a thumbdrive into the RNG tower without detection."
I'm actually surprised there haven't been more cases of insiders rigging lotteries.
I should think knowing all of those zillions of dollars are just sitting there would cause more people to decide to see if they could get away with it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And now for a follow-up question: Why exactly was a "highly locked-down computer" set to automatically execute code from flash drives?
Why do people who have access to the computer also have the ability to control the cameras?
Splitting responsiblity this way is such a basic and obvious security measure.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Neither is the computer though. I wonder what the difference is and if it actually is significant enough to matter. I'd just go with a set of dice, buy new dice for every drawing and pick some random person on the street to roll the dice each time.
He's got the winning lottery ticket, there was a malfunction with the camera's. So far I haven't seen any 'evidence' that that person actually did it. He might have been in cahoots with his co-workers. Splitting the ticket 2-5-ways is still pretty lucrative.
If he did it, he was pretty dumb to think he could get away with it. He should've
1. Remained anonymous (if possible, some lotteries allow it, some don't), let his lawyer pick up the money
2. Gone for a lot lower number (winning low enough so you can get a cash payout at the shop (~$600/week is still a nice bonus))
3. Allowed enough time for the evidence to be destroyed (video camera's probably overwrite old stuff every n months) then played and collected. If you implement your own RNG, you could easily predict numbers in advance.
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