Silicon’s Odyssey gets state OK

Gary Thompson

Friday, March 21, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Like fans at a title fight, two dozen Silicon Gaming Inc. employees roared their approval when the Nevada Gaming Commission gave the state's final OK to the company's new high-technology gaming device, the Odyssey.

Their euphoria spilled over into the hallways, where several phoned friends to exclaim, "We're rich!" and "We made it!"

And like a title fight, the ringing cheers were followed by some raucous chest-thumping from Silicon's president, Donald Massaro, who confronted somber arch rival Steve Weiss outside the Commission chambers Thursday.

"Hey Steve," Massaro shouted at the Casino Data Systems Inc. chairman, "we're going to Mississippi (for licensing) next and I hope you're there, 'cause I love kicking your ass in front of my people."

Weiss didn't respond directly to Massaro, but hinted the next battle will be fought in the video-gaming marketplace rather than before gaming regulators.

"There are hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of titles of computer game software that embody high-resolution graphics and stereo sound," he said, acknowledging key elements of Odyssey's appeal to gamblers.

"The reason nobody's applied the great graphics and music to practical designs for gaming devices is that -- until now -- it's been illegal to use that technology."

"That technology" is the focal point of a bitter feud between Silicon and other slot and vide-game makers, the most outspoken of which has been Casino Data Systems.

International Game Technology, Alliance Gaming and others have privately conveyed misgivings about use of the technology to regulators, though Weiss is the only Silicon competitor who objected publicly.

They contend it doesn't comply with a state regulation barring game programs that can be altered in certain ways, making it vulnerable to hackers capable of bypassing security measures to rig jackpots.

Silicon contends Odyssey is the most secure slot and video game available today, and that the objections are based on competitive fears rather than legitimate security concerns.

Wall Street analysts and a bevy of high-profile gaming executives who've invested in Silicon believe it can capture a significant share of the gaming-machine market, today dominated by IGT.

On Thursday, Massaro prefaced a detailed and highly technical description of Odyssey's security measures with a plea for license approval, saying the machine "is not only our first product but it's our only product, and the future of our company and our employees is at stake."

He said Silicon has spent three years and $20 million to develop Odyssey, working closely with the State Gaming Control Board laboratory to ensure its high-tech circuitry and software -- which uses Random Access Memory programs to power its Pentium microprocessor -- would pass regulatory scrutiny.

He described the elaborate security measures, which include a data-encryption system licensed by RSA Data Security that provides each Odyssey game with a unique "fingerprint" that is checked once every 10 seconds.

"If one byte of a 400-megabyte program is altered, the fingerprint won't match," said a Silicon executive. "You can't create a program this machine will accept as one of its own if the fingerprint doesn't match."

Likening the RSA technology to Star Wars security programs and missile launch codes, Massaro said it would take 50 computers working simultaneously six years to break the RSA code Odyssey currently uses. If the numerical base is doubled, he said, "the time goes up by a factor of 100,000."

Weiss, though, noted that Israeli cryptographer Adi Shamir -- the "S" in RSA -- has developed a system to crack "almost any secret-key cryptosystem."

Secret-key systems are tougher to break into than public-key systems of the type licensed by RSA, which are the centerpiece of the Odyssey's security systems. The RSA systems use multiples of very large prime numbers as keys.

According to Science magazine, Princeton University computer scientist Richard Lipton and his colleagues "found that they can crack virtually all public-key systems."

Though the required method "limits the scheme's practicality, a determined hacker could use it -- if the stakes were high enough," the magazine said.

Safely past regulatory hurdles here and with firm orders to install about $12 million in Odyssey games at Nevada casinos by year's end, Silicon is setting its sights on the nation's second-biggest gaming device market, hoping to gain a license in Mississippi before 1998 begins.

Its employees and investors are reveling in victory, and its opponents gearing up for a rematch.