GLUG: GLUG lotto blotto (fwd)

[Soren Aalto <soren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> Hi all,
> 
> On Friday, I went to pay my water and lights at the local post office....
> and of course noticed the Lotto cashier. It wouldn't hurt I thought, and on
> my way home I sort of pondered the chances of winning and whether you could
> put a computer to work to 'crack' it. (Or a network of computers like
> Seti@Home.) My concluding thought was to use a computer, not based on
> common-or-garden semiconductor physics, but on quantum physics, to generate
> the winning number ;)
> 
> But there's another more nefarious option.
> 
> I have a friend who worked as a 'customs officer' for a foreign governent -
> and he is something of a forged passport spotter (and passport forger
> himself).
> 
> He said it would be very easy to change the numbers on the lottery ticket.
> It's ordinary paper with dotmatrix printing, nothing like a passport or ID
> document. A child could do it, he said, on any given Sunday.
> 
> The only catch is I suspect the organisers of Lotto has some record of all
> issued tickets - with the tendered numbers -  so they would probably know
> your ticket is fake. Or would they?

I assume so -- I haven't seen an issued ticket, but doesn't
the printer print out some junk on it that looks like a 
recipt?  There is probably some number in there that
serves as a validity check, and probably something like:

   machine-ser# : hash of (machine-ser# + user selection)

where the hash is computed using a key stored in something
vaguely tamperproof on the machine & the key is probably
unique to that machine (but also known, only in encrypted
form, in a database somewhere at lotto headquarters).

So, you'd have to get hold of the key for a particular 
machine to generate a winning ticket...and even then,
there appear to be other checks and balances. 

--
Soren Aalto <soren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Internet guy, University of Zululand 
If Bill Gates had a nickle for every time
Windows crashed...oh wait, he does.