Story Archive

Exploited

In 2009, Vladimir Putin made gambling illegal in Russia, which led to a glut of cheap, used slot machines on the market. Some were snapped up not for underground casinos, but for study. “Russian hackers” were looking for weaknesses in the machines, and they found some, says Florida’s Miami Herald. They developed a smartphone app to watch the computerized slot machines and indicate exactly when to hit the “spin” button to win. It works because the machines aren’t really random: they use “pseudo-random” number generators instead. “The reason we call them ‘pseudo’ is that if you look at the stream of numbers they generate, they satisfy many of the qualities of randomness,” says John Robison, author of The Slot Expert’s Guide to Playing Slots. “But in the end, there are always patterns. It may be two billion times before the pattern repeats, but it’s going to repeat.” By exploiting that discovery, the “Russian hackers” have reaped millions from American casinos with what experts call “the most lucrative cheating scheme ever devised” against slot machines. (RC/Miami Herald) ...If you think that’s impressive, you should see what they can do with a voting machine.