That'll be pokerstar's vip store's biggest seller next year...

Doubt it will happen because of how bad the PR would be but I feel Stars should consider e-mailing all EPT players from the last x seasons, at least where it's known to have had cases (Jason Koon, etc).. The sad/scary thing is I'm almost sure there are cases of people being affected who are just unaware and it sucks but perhaps almost anyone could have been targeted..

Wow, got really pain in my stomach by just reading this story.
Thanks for sharing and using so much energy on this Jeans,
I think it will be benefitial for everyone (and the more "heat" around
it, the more stars/arts/police will do to get to the bottom of this.)

Im really glad you found out this so early before you actually got "cheated"
I am also very interested in if you were "random" targeted or "hand picked"(which I think its more likely; since both you and 0human0 got targeted).
I think a high-tech IT guy would be able to answer what the trojan/programs are setup to do.

Really hope the national police gets to the bottom of this, best of luck.

Oddsen.

j. heart, you think his friend was behind this but:

a) his friend was seen playing in the main event
b) this happened to multiple players

That makes no sense. I doubt his friend could be calling rooms to scout targets, sneaking all around the hotel, and stealing and replacing laptops, ALL while playing in the main event of EPT.

I realize that with any case the most likely suspects are always those closest to the victims. Hey, I've watched enough police procedurals and crime shows, like every other amateur sleuth on here. But this clearly looks like someone had inside help at the hotel to deal with key card access, phone number and locations/names of guests (even after they have changed rooms). And with those very short timespans where OP was in and out of the room and missed the culprits they were watching the room and knew exactly when to get in and out. I'm 99% sure when/if this is all unraveled you're going to find some kind of crime ring/team who bribed and/or worked with someone at the hotel, whether it's maids, security, concierge, whatever. This smells like quite a few people may have been paid off. But nothing about it sounds like something the guys friend had anything to do with.

just read the OP. (also read your other thread).


As soon as i read the other thread, i sent a message to someone i stake who is staying in the same hotel. as soon as i linked him, he replied to me "hmmmm" and said that "this morning i didnt find laptop in my room" he did mention that he was really drunk, and could have just missed it, but doubtful. the laptop would be on the table/whatever.


he is going to just get a new computer i think or just reformat it completely.


seems ridic this happened. gl with figuring it all out

Not sure if the hotel staff is somehow involved but if the purpose was to implant a trojan in order to superuse high stakes players later, which seems to be what everyone thinks, I do not see how this scam doesn't involve other high stakes players. I mean, who's gonna seat at 0Human0 and jeans tables to superuse them? It cannot be a random newly created account who made a first deposit for hundred thousands $$$ and seats with no playing history at all.

Durrrr referred to the Swedish guys who did the same kind of thing a while back, Fast_Freddie, Terror of Sweden, etc... I may be wrong, but if I remember correctly, these guys were HS regs.
With all the previous scandals, cheaters have learned a lot, and I imagine it would be very easy for a smart HS reg to superuse and not getting caught.

Jeans, 0Human0 and other HS players who stayed in this hotel really must get an expert to look at their computer and find if anything has been installed and then removed, I don't know much about that but maybe if something can be found it's possible to see what it's made for and who it is programmed to communicate with.

One major thing thats only barely been mentioned:

There is no clear crime here. People outside online poker nerd world aren't going to understand the implications of temporary access to a high-stakes player's computer (as pokerstars said). Police and hotel security can not be expected to do much here. Nothing was stolen! Even if they understood the problem, there's no proof that there IS a trojan, and if you find one AND found the perpetrator, good luck proving it was him! And if you proved it was him, is installing virus' a big crime? He hasn't "stolen" your money yet via super-using. There's just nothing to go off of.

You need to be smart about your actions to save time and heart-ache. What are your goals? Secure your accounts, spread the word? Good do that. Switch hotels ASAP obv. Catching these people would need way more effort and evidence than anything you can come up with this week. Not gonna happen. Pokerstars can't really be held accountable, though they do come off a bit incompetent in their efforts to communicate with hotel.

I have all the sympathy and concern as all the rest of you. I'm just saying outside the online poker sphere, no one else will. They can't.

i hope everyone obv gets things sorted but tbh regarding the spanish police i can't see them commiting any resources at all to this. Imagine when the policeman goes back to the station obv not knowing the implications or poss amounts of money that could be involved saying the guys want it investigating further-
"So the guy got his computer back but he wants us to find the ppl that might have put a nasty program on it?!!?"

cant see them spending another minute on it tbh with all the robberies, muggings thefts etc in barcelona

wouldnt encrypting hard drives and operating systems stop this? do high stakes people not do this?

did they find any info about the guy on tape?

So from now on, even if we always take our laptops with us every time we leave a hotel room, we are still vulnerable with our mobile phones potentially anywhere, since thieves can still steal your valuable encrypted data without even touching your phone. I'm assuming that if you play rush poker from your mobile, that your password would be exposed to the thieves too. Obviously, same goes if you use a wifi network with the laptop you are now walking around with.

I just read this the other day on DM..............scary ****.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...l-details.html

Crazy story.......I hope in the end these thieves get caught, and better safeguards are in place where events are hosted to protect the players. Best of luck, Jens.

Well. I get the gist of what you're saying, but that's a bit of a stretch to say police and the hotel security at a 5-star hotel wouldn't have HUGE concerns about illegitimate access to a guests room and that no crime occurred. If I break into your room and "borrow" your laptop for a few hours are you saying it's not a crime as long as I return it? lol.

And I disagree with people that say the hotel and police won't care about this. The more press the better. No 5-star hotel wants to be implicated in inside theft/access to guests hotel rooms. That's about as bad as it gets for them pr-wise, whether it's poker players or a hookers convention. Now, the 1-star place that charges by the hour might not care, but I guarantee you 5-star resorts value their reputation more than almost anything. Stars and/or the press should keep the pressure on to make sure this hotel is forced to accountability. The more heat this gets the more likely they are to solve it, and that the police will actually want to do anything.

That seems super ****ed up.

The russian hackers strike again

If local or national police need a value to justify a report even though laptop was returned, tell them it was damaged and unusable. Then assign a loss as the full value of the laptop and its contents.

I think that at this point some pro-active action needs to be taken. PokerStars should absolutely put on their website clear instructions for security for laptops, from BIOS passwords to a random passkey program much like what Daniel Negreanu put in place when his account got hacked.

Most security personnel are paranoid by nature so the hotel security staff acted really strangely. Since poker player's online play was the target, calling it an inside job by the hotel is stretching it a bit, because online poker play to the average thief hitting hotel rooms does not sound logical. More likely is that they copy the hard drives and l;ook for credit card information, addresses, bank accounts, etc. It just seems more likely that any trojans put in would be to pick up financial information.

If it is a ring of thieves who are themselves poker players, hitting multiple stops on the EPT in order to super-user their way to a big score by rigging the computers to see hole cards, this is a very big deal and part of a longer term plan.

Thanks to the OP it is clear that any laptop carried between events needs to be replaced. An upgrade will do you all some good and that takes care of the problem for good. A clean sweep changing all passwords is a good policy once a year anyways.

PokerStars is obv taking this very seriously but will be stonewalled by the hotel. The hotel obv has a problem. BTW the lack of corridor cameras in five star hotels is relatively common, to allow guests privacy on who enters their room, if you get what I mean.

Door key lock logs, elevator cameras, Stairwell camera (if they have them), and lobby cameras should allow them to identify EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE PEOPLE THAT ACCESSED THAT FLOOR IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO AND AFTER THE DOOR KEY WAS USED.

You will have a list with photos of about five people if that. The hotel is totally negligent in not identifying quickly the few people on the floor when the lock was opened.

Enhanced security for five or six "poker floors" should solve the problem but only if the hotel actually cares enough to apologize. No apology is as good as saying "Meh, it happens ... tough I guess". The hotel should care. Otherwise, new hotel.

Interesting, You now realise that you are a suspect right?


EDIT: I don't mean to say you are shady, but if there are cameras, you are the person who physically had the laptop and they could pin this on you.

Laughable security breaches and crazy / obvious hacking attempts, this is a complete farce if PS don't come back with something concrete, disgusting op read - GL Jeans

...finishes his drink and takes a 4-hour nap. The end.

Wow the story just keeps on getting sicker...

omg man. let us know updates

i think jeans89's and 0human0's laptops having both been stolen makes it unlikely that there havent specifically highstakes pokerplayers been targeted, unless an extremely high number of rooms has been broken into

It would keep your data safe, as long as you knew that someone had tampered with your computer, and only once (see Evil Maid Attack). You'd need to reinstall anyway but that's what backups are for.

The hardware could also have been tampered with (less likely, since that would be both more sophisticated and require more time), so there's that. But at least you'd be aware of your options and could make a rational decision about what to trust. If the risk was huge, you'd simply toss the computer and migrate your backup to a clean one.

It's very important to realize that when someone has had physical access to your computer, all bets are off, even with full disk encryption. But your data will still be safe as long as you move on to a clean system.

Found this via a points/travel blog I follow.

http://pointsfamily.com/cautionary-t...lessons-learn/

I will be sure to let the ritz carlton management know about this story. It's unacceptable for this to happy especially at a $600+/night hotel. I will also post this on flyertalk.com. There should be an active ritz representative there.

Surprised no one has yet suggested setting up a honeypot sting: bring a beater laptop with you to your next live event, leave it in plain view in your room and set up a camera in the room to catch all the action. EZ game.