FairDice innovative open source initiative
August 27, 2004
A press release from a little known, open source, non-profit UK-based
outfit called Fairdice - Sourceforge had everyone scratching their
heads following its appearance late in the week.
In the press material, company spokesman Douglas Reay announced
the initial release of software designed to prevent the rigging
of games by online casinos, promising that, "This will
deal a bitter blow to conmen and criminals in the gambling industry,
and clear the way for the honest online casinos who give their players
a fair chance.
"Currently the only way the honest online casinos have to show
they are trustworthy is to invite auditors occasionally in to check
on things, and many players don't trust that. Too many get ripped
off once and never come back. The problem is, when a casino says
they've shuffled a deck of cards fairly, how can you know if they
are telling the truth?" he asks.
Using the Fairdice cryptographic protocol, Project Fairdice is offering
casinos another way, inviting honest operations to involve themselves
in the project by enabling their sites to use the gratis Fairdice
software, thereby proving to the players that their random number
generators are not "fixed".
The release referred interested parties to a website, but that did
not explain adequately how the software works, or give any detail
on the development, verification and qualifications of the people
behind it. So InfoPowa sent emails asking. Unfortunately due to
what Fairdice explained later was a technical problem, the emails
bounced.
Having fixed the problem, communication was finally achieved and
the questions asked.
As we went to press, the following had been established:
- The software is free and open source.
- Both the players and the casino use it. (it works alongside
their
existing software, with modification).
- Fairdice doesn't analyze the transactions - it actually generates
the random numbers.
- Independent verification of the technology is "...in the
process of being carried out".
- Douglas Reay studied Physics at Trinity College, Cambridge,
England, and went on to work as a software engineer at places
like Xerox PARC and The MathWorks.
To find out more about Project Fairdice, visit http://fairdice.sourceforge.net/
or phone +44 1223 426485.
After some initial difficulties, InfoPowa managed to contact the
lead developer at Fairdice, Douglas Reay. We forwarded the following
lay description of how one of the mathematically oriented posters
at Winneronline interpreted this idea:
"It is an implementation of a cryptographic protocol
to generate random
numbers that are acceptable to both parties.
"Let's say we want to toss a coin. I don't trust you,
you don't trust me, but we can agree that we each toss a coin, and
if we both get the same result, then we call it heads, otherwise
we call it tails. As long as at least one of the coins is fair,
the outcome will be fair, and neither party has an interest in using
a biased coin, because it could be exploited by the other.
"Fairdice is the same sort of thing done electronically.
The general idea of such protocols is that I generate a random number,
you generate a random number, I send you an encrypted version of
my number, you send me an encrypted version of your number, then
we both calculate the same number somehow. If there is ever a disagreement,
we can both reveal the numbers we generated and do the calculations
to decide who is right. I had a quick look at the website, I did
not see any information about which protocol they use, whether it
is new or previously known."
Reay has responded, confirming that this description is "Spot
On".
"In this case the means of combining the two numbers
is taking
the modulo. And the Fairdice apps hide all the nasty stuff. All
the host (the casino) has to do is tell the fairdice server "I
want to run a game called XYZ and produce a random number between
1 and 6". The player tells the fairdice client app "I
want to join the game XYZ".
"All the rest gets done automatically. The client and
server talk to each other and come up with the random number. They
tell it to the host. And when the game is over they tell it to the
user (the player). And if either participant tries to cheat, the
fairdice apps spot this and let everyone know."
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