Security director rigged lotteries with code
No one say anything about playing with balls.
New evidence in an Iowa case shows a former security director at the Multi-State Lottery Association used code to rig draws. If someone made an 80s wish fulfilment movie for hackers, this might just be the plot. Or at least, until the whole getting caught part. Eddie Raymond Tipton was convicted for jackpot-fixing last year, but much of the prosecution's case was based on circumstantial evidence -- as the number generators involved had since been destroyed. A new filing on Wednesday this week claims to show that investigators have recovered code that proves the draws were fixed.
The prosecution suggests that the lottery machines were programmed/tampered with after (or during) a security audit. The added hack picked three specific dates (all of which related to lotteries involved in the case), and if two other conditions were met, the machine wouldn't use the regular random number generator, instead it'd pick the winning set from an algorithm. Tipton would be able to use this algorithm to predict the winning numbers claim the prosecution. Investigators were able to use the same code and methods to predict the exact same winning numbers.
The new evidence will help prosecutors figure out to what extend other parties were involved in the lottery rigging, and related crimes. Tipton's original downfall was security camera footage showing him buying a $16.5-million winning ticket, along with some hot dogs, at a Des Moines gas station. Tipton's brother, Tommy, gave testimony at the time saying the person looked nothing like Eddie, who doesn't even like hot dogs, reports ABC news. Surely suspicions were raised immediately. After all who doesn't like hot dogs?
