How two brothers allegedly pulled off multi-state lottery scam

[groundloop]

Source: CBS News

<snip>

Tommy Tipton, a former Texas justice of the peace, was arrested Wednesday in Iowa. He and his brother, Eddie, are accused of taking part in a conspiracy, allegedly rigging six lottery jackpots in five states to try to gain more than $19 million, reports Josh Elliott of CBS News' digital network, CBSN.

<snip>

Unlike Mega Millions and Powerball - which use ball machines in their drawings - the Tipton brothers allegedly targeted lotteries where winning numbers were selected by computers.

Prosecutors say they discovered unauthorized codes on the computer in Wisconsin during drawings that fell on certain dates and times. The codes directed the computer not to randomly generate numbers, but instead to use an algorithm whose results could be predicted.

Eddie Tipton, a former security director at the multi-state lottery association, had helped build the computer.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/eddie-tommy-tipton-brothers-accused-of-multi-state-lottery-scheme/

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Gee, not too far fetched to replace the word 'lottery' with 'election' is it?

[hobbit709]

1. The lottery officials obviously can check the code running in their machines.

too bad election officials can't examine the code in their machines.

[Land Shark]

3. They can check, but it doesn't prove there is no virus or additional code

If it were possible to check code to make sure the code matches some original or master code, then viruses could always be eliminated, but they can't always be detected prior to being activiated.

[hobbit709]

4. Actually the voting machines are all "proprietary" so no one knows what code is supposed to be ther

[thesquanderer]

6. Yup. Ridiculous that they can basically claim "trade secret"...

...on code that could basically be written by any first year programmer.

"see this button press, increment that counter by one..."

And to add insult to injury, no required paper trail for a recount. There's no reason the voting machine couldn't spit out an ATM-style paper receipt which you could check and then deposit into a secret ballot box in case it was needed for recount.

I understand why Sanders does not want to make this an issue now, because it could be interpreted as conspiracy theory stuff to deny him the election. But if he manages to get elected, I hope he makes this an issue. For some reason, I think it's more likely that he would be more interested in this issue than Hillary would, but I hope that, if she gets elected, she pursues it as well.

[Land Shark]

2. Just remember, lotteries can be rigged, but not slections, ok?

(Sarcasm alert)

[Ford_Prefect]

5. The voting machine coding is so simple a 6yr old with an X-box could hack it and NO One would know.

It really is that simple. It had to be to meet the contract specifications for support by staff with minimal computer skills. It was also intended to be hackable from day one. Your TV set has better encoding and security by comparison.

[sofa king]

7. How close does this come to Harriet Miers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Miers

Her tenure has also been criticized. In 1997, the commission under Miers hired Lawrence Littwin as executive director but fired him five months later. At the time, the contract to operate the lottery was held by the politically connected GTech Corporation,[16] which had obtained the contract with the help of a former Lieutenant Governor of Texas (Democrat Ben Barnes).[17] Littwin, as director, began an investigation into whether GTech had made illegal campaign contributions and whether GTech owed the commission millions of dollars for breaches of its contract. He stated that Miers ordered him to stop the investigation. He brought a lawsuit alleging that he was fired in retaliation for the investigation and to ensure that GTech would keep its contract.[18]
According to Texans for Public Justice, GTech paid Littwin $300,000 to settle the suit.[19]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTECH_S.p.A.

http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2015/12/investigation-of-multi-state-lottery.html

[mpcamb]

11. I always wonder why Texas didn't investigate this one-

https://harpers.org/blog/2016/01/the-luckiest-woman-on-earth/

The Luckiest Woman on Earth
Three people win the largest Powerball jackpot in U.S. history; Nathaniel Rich profiles a woman who won millions in the Texas lottery on four separate occasions.

[PSPS]

8. This doesn't belong in LBN.

[groundloop]

9. Thanks for your concern

[keithbvadu2]

10. The first cheating in gambling was probably developed later in the same day

that gambling was developed.