sigh...if they only realized it wasn't JUST nionio, it was most likely a whole slew of players. does anyone have a full list of suspected screen names? Thanks. At this point I feel like a major poker publication has to publish something alerting the wider poker community to these allegations. At this point, it's pretty clear UB is doing a poor job communicating with the pubilc.
dlpnyc21

I don't understand why people in here believe that major poker publications have any credibility on these issues.

They're not journalistic enterprises - they're advertising vehicles. Their actions on AP showed many of them to be entirely uninterested in putting the interests of their readers ahead of the interests of their advertisers.

What were their specific actions on the AP situation? I didn't follow that closely. All I knew was that eventually the potripper thing was a HUGE deal, and it even got written up in Steven Leavitts blog in the NYT, which multiple people NOT in the poker world sent me. Essentially, I just want to get the word out. What is the best way to do this?

The poker 'media' was almost entirely useless until the last possible moment.

One magazine's entire coverage (I forgot which one) of the AP issue was something along the lines of: Absolute Poker has been given a clean bill of health thanks to a security upgrade after recent problems with their security system. Players are now more secure than ever before....

Places like the Levitts blog - and other places outside the normal poker world - were far more helpful in reporting these things than outlets within the poker world.

Those outlets within the poker world seem to have no chinese walls between those people responsible for advertising decisions, and those responsible for editorial decisions.

Of course, this is largely generalising across a large group of organisations and brands, and obvious does not apply to every poker media outlet.

I let my affiliate know I would not be playing at UB until this was resolved and he sent an email to whoever his contact at UB is. The reply...

"We are doing a full investigation regarding that account. Both internal and external persons are working on it.

If any unfair advantage was used from hacking or anything like that, ALL players will be compensated.

Everyone will be informed as the investigation finishes."

i got this hunch that the investigation will never end

As usual I come to see interesting information like this very late because I only lurk here from time to time.

I find this post very interesting and like the issue and information. Just like sometimes you know exactly what your opponets cards are after a few streets, I have come to believe that cheating is actually occuring in online poker. I know it but I can not prove it. The AP scandal was an extreme version of it which made it easy to prove, and even then it took very hard work.

IMHO the most difficult cheating to detect and prove is when a player manages to invade the computer of oponents and see their hole cards. With that type of cheating, the host site is not an important factor. The leak actually comes from a players computer not the host site. If one plays on a good host site that has perfect practice and technology to protect the players, the weak link remains the player's computers.

IMO, the more involved in the game a player is, the more at risk he becomes. Do you have a version of pokertracker or pokerstove installed on the same computer that you play poker with (I have no proof of anything here, just suspicions)? Do you trust the source where you got those softwares? I can picture a cheater who wrote some trojan, stuck it into a pirated version of some poker program that he then gives away for free and we (we thought is was great to get that software for free) install it on our computers. The cheater then sits down at his computer and looks at the list of people broadcasting there whole cards to him and then he makes his game selection...

How do you prove that? Is it in the best interest of the Host Sites, who are best placed to investigate and pove this, to investigate? If they actually found out this type of cheating existed would they let us know? I guess not!!! The host site job is the safety of their system not all of the player's computers ; that is (y)our job. Just do not count on the host sites to scare players (their market) away.

+1. Never did good against him, and thought he played weird. I am going to search some old hands versus him in a bit.

It is very obvious that you do not have a solid understanding of technology. It is VERY easy to prove one way or another if your PC is sending information to another computer.

If you are thinking that the people that have produced some of the common poker tools like PT and PAHUD are some how cheating you, you are sadly mistaken.

If you think it is not in the poker sites interests to try and prevent something like this from happening you are sadly mistaken.

The BS you are posting is the type of thing that you should be vetting thru people that have a clue when it comes to technology and not encouraging urban myths.

Percula,

Thanks for the response. You bring some good points it it will allow me to clarify what I mean. The following paragraphs responds to your points in the order of your four paragraphs.

It is probably very easy for you to prove if a computer is sending information while it is happening (but not for me). However, I would argue that proving what actually happened after the fact is way more difficult to do (like in the case of a poker site investigating after the fact).

I do not think that the people who have produced some of the common poker tools are actually cheating me. Those (PT or Stove) were used as examples of how a cheat could introduce some bad program onto someone’s computer. There are plenty of other ways to get bad software on a computer.

I actually think it is in the best interests of poker site to prevent something like this from happening (actually I agree with you one this one). However, I do not think that this falls within their power to prevent (I actually had discussions with some poker site on this very topic). I think that my original intention regarding this point goes more along the lines of ''I do not think that it would be in the best interest of poker site to actually admit that this has happened or could happen without actually having a concrete way of fixing the problem. Brinying doubt to the security of online poker is not in the poker sites best’s interest.

I am sorry you think that my post is all BS but I have done my homework and discussed this with poker sites, a security software company, a a good friend of mine who has some 15 years experience as a consultant in computer networking. The poker sites have told me that their software is safe, that the card information is only sent to me and that during the hand they do not know themselves what my cards are. However they also told me that the safety of a player's computer does not fall within their responsibility (I agree with them). The security software company response to my questions showed me they had no clue what I was talking about. Finally, my computer savvy friend told me that the type of cheating in question here was actually quite easy to implement.

One thing is for sure. If you going to gamble money on line and are serious about it, make sure your computer is as secure as possible. There are some grood posts in 'computer Technical Help' under Other Topics, about improving the safety of your computer for online play.

JFJB,

IT is not pratical for some sort of trojan or other malicious software to do what you describe.

Amongst other issues:
-not everyone playing in these games has PokerTracker (or other software) installed on their machines.
-the PCs of players involved in these games are not easy to identify out of millions of PCs on the internet
-literally zero confirmed reports of this sort of software have been found on the PCs of players involved here
-if the breach was on the client side, the cheating would not be only happening at the only online poker operator to share ownership and offices with Absolute Poker
-the sheer diversity of client setups make this unlikely
-i imagine that the computer security levels (and computer security awareness) of people playing these games is higher than the average internet user

Could we please get a cliff notes update from the past 7 days, if there are any updates? Thanks guys.

Yes, please, possibly someone who took the lead early on in this thread maybe? It would really be appreciated.

It seems this forum has split into two discussions, one being the hard realization than online cheating has occured more than once and may possibly be more common that we thought, and the other being the investigation of the UB/NioNio incident (+ poss others).

A new post with cliffs notes would be excellent at this point for the purposes of the investigation, and this thread can continue for those who want to discuss the possibilities of continuing online cheating on UB or AP. Just a thought.

i'm not really up to date what's happening at UB or AP.
just wanted to say that you have some very weak points there.

that doesn't matter at all.
if you knew only the hole cards of ONE player at your table, you would have a HUGE edge, even if you sucked at poker - and i surely would call this cheating.

that's not how trojans work.
if a hacker managed to distribute let's say a modified version of PT to a couple people, those peoples computers would automatically connect to the hackers computer when online, tell him the IP and allow communication.

maybe. i don't know about this.
but i know that there used to be a warning on 2+2 that the PT website was hacked.
so the hacker could have easily put up a modified version of PT during that time which people who didn't get the warning would have downloaded.

that's true. it would be equally likely at every poker-site.

a trojan would probably send a series of screenshots of the players PC, so it doesn't matter at all what client the player uses.

probably. but it doesn't change the fact that this form of cheating is possible.

Here´s an example of how it can happen:

http://www.pokersourceonline.com/new...-explained.asp

ty good read

btw:
and nice 1st post after 2 years regged..lol

You muppets are abusing the word "possible."

Of course it is "possible" that a number of diverse PCs playing high stakes poker have been hacked using some entirely secret and unknown technique. However, it is not likely, credible, or reasonable.

But the cheaters have won over a huge number of different sessions, against a huge variety of different opponents.

To say that every table had at least one infected client is stretching credibility.

My point was that restricting this "trojan" to just the involved players is impossible - and if you're not restricting this trojan to just the involved players, then you're incredibly more likely to be detected by security folk.

You can't simultaneously argue that there is some secret, undetected, trojan, and then not recognise that the widespread distribution of such a device is literally impossible without detection.

That's ok. I do.

Except that misunderstands what happens, because there was no modified version of PT that was distributed. There's no other way to describe this - because there simply was no modified version distributed from the PT website.

You're creating false possibilities that rely upon not knowing the full circumstances of what you describe to be possible.

I was referring to the diversity of PC setups by players, running on different operating systems and so on.
Of course it is possible. No one doubts that.

...which is also an example of how this stuff can be detected.

Trambo is the real superuser imo.

UltimateBet $25.00/$50.00 No Limit Hold'em - 2 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BTN/SB: $15923.00
BB: $11923.50

Pre Flop:
BTN/SB raises to $150, BB raises to $550, BTN/SB raises to $1550, BB calls $1000

Flop: ($3100.00) Q 7 5 (2 players)
BB checks, BTN/SB checks

Turn: ($3100.00) K (2 players)
BB bets $2500, BTN/SB calls $2500

River: ($8100.00) K (2 players)
BB bets $7873.50 all in, BTN/SB calls $7873.50

Showdown:

SENDTHADOLLAZ shows 9c Ac.
SENDTHADOLLAZ has 9c Ac Qh Ks Kd: a pair of kings.
trambopoline shows 9h 7c.
trambopoline has 7c Qh 7s Ks Kd: two pair, kings and sevens.


Hand #50476854-1984 Summary:

$.50 is raked from a pot of $23847.
trambopoline wins $23846.50 with two pair, kings and sevens.

I didn't read it all, but from what I read it's a pretty scary article. Please tell me this thing has been corrected/no longer exist!

Ok, update from the last 7 days.... nothing expect for that vague statement that Jimmy posted

Originally Posted by jimmy13 View Post

On Saturday, January 12, 2008, UltimateBet was notified by customers
that a player with the online handle 'NioNio', demonstrated an unusually
high winning percentage. Upon receiving this notification, UltimateBet
immediately launched an internal investigation.

We have also engaged the services of an expert third-party to help us
determine whether or not this allegation of suspicious play is accurate
and we are in open discussions with our regulatory body, the Kahnawake
Gaming
Commission (KGC), regarding this investigation.

We want to make it clear that UltimateBet takes all allegations of
unfair play very seriously, and we want to extend our strongest possible
assurances that we will do our utmost to protect our players and our
company from every and any form of cheating. We also recognize the
importance of communicating timely and accurate information regarding this
incident to our customers as we learn the facts.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you require further assistance or
additional information.

I mean, based on this email it looks like they're only investigating this account but I was told by Phil about 2 weeks ago that supposedly they started the investigation looking at about 100 accounts and have narrowed them down to <10. He was unable to tell me the specific names of these accounts.

see this thread http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...t=1&vc=1&nt=13 for more information about rbcalc.

There's plenty of viruses out there: trojans, keyloggers, rootkits.

Josem,

Since you think I am a Muppet, well then, let me abuse the word possibility further...

You are so animate about discrediting this form of cheating maybe it means you have something to gain from making sure that most players actually think it is not possible. I wonder what that could possibly be!

A) No one as stated that there is at least one infected player on every table. If you are cheating I guess you then pick the table where you know the cards of a least one player.

B) There are numerous example of such poker malware detection and other posters have given links to them in this very thread. I also take the numerous accounts of players reporting that their account was robbed, most probably by key logging software to steal the passwords, as a parallel to the type of cheating in question here. Except that stealing hole card information from players would leaves less of a trail and still gets you the cold hard cash.

C) Even if your affirmation is true and there were no modified version of PT distributed through the official PT website, there are just too many ways to distribute bad software, it can not be ignored nor dismissed. Not just PT or PS, what about an Excel spread sheet! The ways are numerous. I remember an instance of a post here on 2+2 where someone had posted an invitation to download a picture. Instead you got a program installed on your computer.

D) What!!! The diversity of operating system. Really!! Now it is your credibility that is taking a hit.

E) We both agree that it is possible

F) It can be detected; it has been detected and will keep being detected. In the mean time do not be a sucker and protect you computer and money.

All in all Josem, if I get it right, your message is: do not worry folks these muppets do not know what they are talking about, they are not credible and border on the conspiracy theory. No worries guys, keep doing what you have been doing, do not change anything.

The Muppets message is: be careful guys, the possibilities for being cheated out of your money are there and there have been instances of detection. Make sure you protect your computer as best as possible. Be careful what you install on the computer you play online poker with.

Now I will let the readers choose what they believe and take the best course of action for their own best interests.

Look, its a great idea to make sure your computer is safe- have anti virus, dont accept downloads from strangers etc etc etc. Yeah, i understand and i think we all do.

But that isn't the case here. Virtually all the high stakes players on ub who were victims here play on other sites (like FTP and Stars). None of the cheating- no one was playing with unbelievable stats preflop and postflop and winning at the rates they did at a site other then UB. So to assume its the fault of the players for getting a virus installed on their computer- its just unbelievably unlikely.

Furthermore, as anyone who played against these alleged cheaters can tell you- did they seem to just gang up on one player in particular. These players seemed to have done an excellent job of not going to showdown w/out hands that seemed somewhat reasonable (compared to the potripper scandal etc).

First off, I never said anything like that! But just like the poster above said, of course you should keep your AV up to date, don't take programs from strangers etc. This just has nothing to do with this thread!

Second, please stop derailing this thread with your wild ideas. In this instance, the cheating was not done in the manner you suggest. You said yourself that you don't have a solid grasp of computer security and had to discuss it with other people. Then trust those of us that have that knowledge when we say that in this instance, the cheating was most likely done by someone inside.

Please PM me if you want me to explain why.

JFJB et al

Stop posting about hacking in this thread, if you want to post about hacking, take it where it belongs.

As has been stated repeatedly in this thread, not only by statical/math people but by IT professionals there is virtually no chance that this issue is a client side issue. The issue is solely on the server side with UB. Rather the superuser gained rights from the inside or outside is still up for debate, the idea that the HS players were hacked is not up for debate.