IPT develops software for electronic sweepstakes

Methodology guarantees randomness, reliability and speed to draws

 
The Information Technology, Automation and Mobility Center of the Technological Research Institute (IPT) has developed an electronic lottery system that includes the development of software with an algorithm for the random distribution of numbers. In addition to being agile, the great differential of the methodology is the impossibility of addictive draws, common in other similar electronic tools, ensuring reliability to the process.
 
The system created at the IPT relies on algorithms of different qualities to generate the numbers and works with a 16-digit key, called 'seed', which is drawn and then inserted into the software before the random distribution of the data. This key guarantees the security of the system, preventing the predictability of results in different processes.
 
The software was successfully used in the draw for 104 apartments at Bela Vista G, a development in the center of São Paulo, carried out by the Housing and Urban Development Company (CDHU) in July 2017, and also in prize draws in incentive programs from the city of São Paulo. Nota Fiscal Paulista, Nota Fiscal Paulistana, Nota Salvador and Nota Paraná.
 
Public bodies and private institutions that need to manage sweepstakes can adopt the solution, avoiding the traditional resource of the globe and numbered balls, which are exhaustive and present operational difficulties for large-scale sweepstakes. The software has the capacity to classify up to eight million participants. “If the entire population of the central area of São Paulo managed by the Sé Subprefecture, for example, participated in the draw, there would be 431,106 participants. This means that the software would take 13 seconds to perform the operation”, explains Alessandro Santiago dos Santos, a researcher at the IPT.
 
There are no privileges among those drawn: the system analyzes the entire universe of subscribers and distributes the results evenly among the subgroups. The system created by the IPT uses a scientific base endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in the United States, adopted in advanced encryption, the same used by the US government in digital security issues.