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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 05 2015, @03:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the corrupt-random-number-algorithm dept.

Aleksandar Vulovic, czar of the Serbian state lottery, has resigned from his position after winning numbers were mysteriously broadcast on television before they had been drawn.

Allegations of fraud abound on every hand following the incident, reports the Associated Press.

In what was presented to the public as a live broadcast on Tuesday evening, one of the numbers in the winning combination was revealed before the number appeared to be drawn.

"That sparked accusations that the numbers had been chosen in advance," according to AP.

Vulovic has denied there was any dodginess and explained that the incident was due to a "technical mistake".

He added that he was stepping down from his position, not out of guilt, but out of "moral obligation".


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  • (Score: 2) by skullz on Wednesday August 05 2015, @05:31PM

    by skullz (2532) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @05:31PM (#218659)

    Looked to me like the fancy graphics program they were using almost-live didn't support backspace characters. Either that or he was doing it live in some Adobe thing.

    I imagine the look on the poor guy's face was similar to that when you release a patch Friday afternoon and your boss immediately calls you to say the servers are down. During a convention. Live. Right after you learned your spouse and you were expecting a baby.

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 05 2015, @06:10PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 05 2015, @06:10PM (#218687)

    Only slightly off topic I grew up in a state that added lotteries when I was a kid so there was considerable interest. For math class we got to plot frequency of digits coming up using those new fangled home computer thingies, etc.

    Anyway one of many dumb teen conversations revolved around there was a hot-ish MILF-ish woman in a very hot dress doing the lotto ball drawings and several / most of my friends claimed there were precisely 60 videos of her drawing each ball out of the machine and regardless of where the numbers came from the woman was merely assembled recordings. I was vindicated when she actually dropped a ball on camera one day. For that decade it would have been computationally impossible or at least extremely improbable, but technology changes and now that would be a total consumer level home computer achievement.

    If I recall correctly the live lotto show was a 60 second commercial break right before ST:TNG. Not reruns, the original series run on ... UPN or something like that? On thursday nights at 7pm central? Maybe? Or was it 8pm? Ah the good old days.

  • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday August 05 2015, @08:38PM

    by inertnet (4071) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @08:38PM (#218760) Journal

    Ah yes, we acknowledge for the youngsters why one should never release updates on a Friday, while that guy is getting himself a new pair of glasses.

  • (Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Thursday August 06 2015, @10:30AM

    by wantkitteh (3362) on Thursday August 06 2015, @10:30AM (#219026) Homepage Journal

    Imagine the emotional rollercoaster he must of been on.

    - Ah crap, I've typed the wrong number. How embarrassing, the boss is gonna give me one of those looks later.
    - Oh SH*T! I've typed the next ball instead of a correction. I'm a dead man, I wonder if my boss or his boss will kick me out the door?
    - ... Well damn, would you look at that? I might get away with this yet!
    - Ooooooh, that's not a good news story. I wonder if I should resign before my boss fires me from a cannon on the roof.
    - Whoa... so if my boss has quit, who's gonna fire me?