I have two questions regarding a contest currently being promoted by a soda company. To begin, you get an eight digit code that you enter on the website to receive one entry into a drawing.
How does the soda company generate this code? Is every code unique? Would there be a way to figure out the ‘key’ to the code and then make up your own codes that would fool the system into thinking you had valid soda pop tops?
My gut instint is that the company has a system, so that they do not have to keep a massive database recording every code they have released, but if someone knows for sure, I would love to hear about it.
Secondly, I am curious why whenever you hear about one of these contests, they are always “void where prohibited by law.” Where do these unlucky folks live who can not claim their ‘free 20 oz. product’ when they win?
Howstuffworks didn’t have the general information, but the first link nails the void where prohibited inquiry.
I assumed the codes where in a table (which was generated via some logic) and that when entering the code the table is checked. Many contests with entries are handled this way. I guess the code buys you entry, but not so sure it needs to be unique.
Once you enter your info, it then becomes unique. It’s just a silly way of getting you to enter with some certainty you are purchasing something (and every contest allows you some way of entering w/out purchase anyway). Don’t know if the contest is code based…it’s entry based…and your entry is your information, which is garnished via Yahoo profiles.
So, don’t focus on the codes so much, they make you think you are special, when you are not.
Depending on how similar these two might or might not be, when you register computer software with the CD-key from the product packaging, you are NOT comparing this number to a database of sorts. A simple algorithm (well, not all that simple) is used to compare those letters and numbers to some sort of key.
The giveaways online are perhaps just as FilppyFly has suggested, a large database is filled with codes and those are “checked off” as each new entry is submitted to their website. Although, an algorithm similar to the one I described above is also a logical explanation.
Honestly, I don’t know how long these codes are that are on the pop bottles, but I’m assuming they are NOT as long as a CD-key for a software application. This being true, it is probably easier to “hack” an algorithm for the pop cap contest than it would be to hack the software registration CD-key. This lends itself to the thinking that the online giveaways are based on various random codes that are all stored in a database on their webserver.