Silk Road forums

Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: kmfkewm on February 23, 2012, 11:45 am

Title: proposal for people running lottery drawings and other such things
Post by: kmfkewm on February 23, 2012, 11:45 am
I posted this in Obamagirls thread but since there are a few people doing lottery drawings I figure I might as well make a thread just for it. If you follow this protocol you can prove that you are not running a rigged lottery, should put your customers at ease:

Quote

Actually you can verify randomness of the winning number as well as create a publicly audited trail:

Everyone who buys a ticket should be able to contribute a hashed string to the drawing, publicly in a thread. For example, if I buy a ticket, my post might look something like this:

"44 -  f83c8339f054e4e8dcc0c7654cb5e4ed"

the next persons post might look like this

"12 - a1b2f6b60148eb3e8fb710ca03b3f929"

etc.

at the end of the drawing, everyone should have a small time frame in which to 'unblind' their hash, for example I can show that the md5 value of 63247236723 is  f83c8339f054e4e8dcc0c7654cb5e4ed , and the next person shows that the md5 value of 37263746299 is a1b2f6b60148eb3e8fb710ca03b3f929. At the end of the drawing put everyones strings together in the order they were posted, for example: 6324723672337263746299 and take its md5 value: 08ea086631a1a1e32743e4e04c0cb1e9

then you can make the winning number somehow based on the resulting hash. Maybe take the first 5 numbers added together as the winning number: 0 + 8 + 0 + 8 + 6 = 22 is the winning number. So the person who picked 12 wins because they are the closest. The winning number would be between 0 and 45.

Now no one person can determine the final number because everyone who participates influences it. The entire process can also be audited by everyone. Problem solved.
 

edit: people shouldn't be limited to posting the hash of a number, that way there is more randomness and hash values can not be easily brute forced. They just need to verify what hashes to the string they post.

edit II: Obamagirl should also post a hash value and be the last person to unblind it prior to the drawings conclusion, that way the last person can not see what the current number is and decide not to unblind their own if they are the winner
Title: Re: proposal for people running lottery drawings and other such things
Post by: kmfkewm on February 28, 2012, 02:04 am
Sorry but your integrity doesn't count for anything versus a cryptographically provable system. Honest people lie sometimes, math never lies.

Maybe I will just make my own lottery using this protocol, I bet everyone will use it since it will be possible to prove the winner was randomly selected. But I probably wont because I really don't give a shit lol.

Do your lottery however you want, you can have people trust you, or you can use a system that proves the winner is randomly selected, it doesn't matter to me (I am not the one who had people accuse me of running a rigged lottery, imo you should be happy I showed you a system that will let you prove them wrong).