Method of selecting a contest winner

Abstract

A method is disclosed that provides a secure and easily auditable drawing for a contest winner. The disclosed method includes A) computing a participant hash for each participant, B) selecting a portion of the participant hash, C) determining a participant numerical value based on the portion of the participant hash for each participant, D) selecting an external information source, E) determining an external hash based on the external source of information, F) selecting a portion of the external hash, G) determining an external numerical value based on the portion of the external hash and H) determining a contest winner by comparing the participant numerical values with the external numerical value.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.