Just cleaned up the racist derail. If any more posts like that come up the deletions will include infractions & temp bans.

Hotels in on it I bet, or atleast some rogue employee's. I mean, camera's are down? come on

+1

Originally Posted by 46&2 View Post
I would think, in a serious instance like this, you will be better served taking some time out of your party schedule and actually participate in some of the suggestions being offerd.

You seriously need to think about your decisions moving forward at this point.

Not only are you helping yourself in this matter, you need to understand you will be directly helping others that may be vulnerable to attack in the future.

Im sorry this happened to you, I truly am. But you have a rather large opportunity (&platform in 2+2) to benefit this community as well as the poker community in general IMHO.

Its honestly not only all about you at this point given the situation IMHO. Think about the others you can help. Go big or go home.

For yours,mine, and the communities sake, please do not quit on this one... take the time and do what needs to be done.

When this is over with the happy ending that it deserves, I buy you a 5th and help you finish it.

Regards,
Jonathan

Great post! I hope that Stars will not back down as well. Especially after the standard behavior of the hotel security staff, as it was portrayed.

This. I use KeePass + half a dozen of my own short and easy two remember passes which i add to the KeePass passwords and ofc tokens for every bank, broker and those poker sites that uses them.

I haven't read everything, but was it discussed anywhere how this guy was able to gain access to your room? It seems there is something fundamentally wrong when the key log shows another key was able to access your room.

Probably already said but.. get yourself a smaller laptop. One that fits inside the room safe.

I can't imagine that one of three things are not the case here:

- Hotel hasn't had sufficient pressure put on them to find out who is doing this, and is used to "doing basically nothing" in cases like this.

- Some of hotel employees are in on this.

- We're not getting the full/updated story.

RE tripadvisor; I cannot imagine it grew to be such a big and trusted review site if it just lets hoards of 1 star reviews from new accounts to happen all at once. You're probably doing a disservice to the cause to throw up a bunch of new account 1 star reviews. For example, it'll be easy for TA to receive a report from the Arts about false reviews, delete all those reviews, then perhaps overdelete or in the future easily get legitimate negative reviews deleted under the guise of "Oh these must just be more of those abusive reviews."

From my own experience, TA asked for some extra details above and beyond the normal review when I wrote a review about a stay. I'm not sure how that factors into the review, but I can imagine if the place you're reviewing disputes the validity of a review, it goes a long way towards keeping that review up.

I'm no lawyer, but how you write a review is very likely the crux of the legal debate. I would never personally worry if I'm writing a truthful review of events that I knew took place. In this case, if I were to write a review about this hotel (I wouldn't at this point), I would write "A friend/fellow professional/associate of mine experienced this situation at the hotel. In his own words: (insert story)"

In KeePass the passwords are not visible by default. It also uses several methods to prevent access to the memory it uses to store the passwords, so it is quite secure from different attacks.

And since it is freeware, the source code is also evaluated by independent individuals, who can confirm the integrity and effectiveness of the code. So, being open source is a positive thing here.

- mongeron

Grunch:

Terrible predicament OP, as an IT expert I recommend you do the following...

-Open Task Manager and quit all programs running
-Clear internet Explorer History (Including Topsites)
-Empty the Recycling Bin twice

Jeans you are dealing with this very well. I wish you the best, man.

I became friends with a Finnish guy from Helsinki who was living in Dublin, Ireland last year. When he heard I play poker he said he knew a guy who plays but that I probably wouldn't of heard of him. He said the name and I assured him everyone in poker knows Jens Kyllonen Seems he grew up with you and your brother.

Anyway....to above suggestion about a smaller laptop that fits in a safe: I had money stolen from my safe in a top hotel in Bangkok a few years ago. It was the equivalent of about 1.5K euro. They told me I was drunk and must be making a mistake. I know it was stolen though.

Also in another country in Asia the safe in my room was broken into and a credit card stolen. Again they told me I must be mistaken. I was not mistaken. Thankfully though I managed to cancel the card on time.

In both cases I let it go as losses were minimal but for sure a sour taste was left in addition to lingering paranoia about hotel security.

This scene in Barcelona is just wow. I know one needs 100% proof but really it seems obvious that at least one of the hotel staff is in on this. It's an absolute no brainer that Pokerstars must never deal with this hotel, ever again. I would also agree with the suggestion of raising awareness of this in other places online so that people in general know that this is not a hotel that can be trusted. No need to let it consume you but maybe a few carefully chosen travel or tourist websites/messageboards could be used to repost OP...

Best of luck.

fwiw the safe at Arts wouldn't fit an ipad. PS arranging safe lock boxes for laptops seems a bit absurd, still doesn't solve the original problem that high end hotel rooms are being hijacked

"Is Auto-Type keylogger-safe?
Is the Auto-Type feature resistant to keyloggers?

KeePass 1.x Only
No. The Auto-Type feature has been designed in a way that it's impossible for target applications to distinguish real keys from auto-typed ones. This on the one hand has the advantage that the feature is really compatible with all applications out there. On the other hand, the auto-typed keys can of course be logged by keyloggers. If you worry about keyloggers, you have to use one of the other methods (drag&drop, copying to clipboard, KeeForm, ...).

KeePass 2.x Only
By default: no. The Auto-Type method in KeePass 2.x works the same as the one in 1.x and consequently is not keylogger-safe.

However, KeePass features an alternative method called Two-Channel Auto-Type Obfuscation (TCATO), which renders keyloggers completely useless. This is an opt-in feature (because it doesn't work with all windows) and must be enabled for entries manually. See the TCATO documentation for details."

http://keepass.info/help/v2/autotype_obfuscation.html

I too claim to be an IT expert, and my recommendation is that you empty the Recycling Bin three times.

No. I had Keepass generate a random password and I made it visible just for the purposes of posting.

I cut-and-paste from Keepass, so I'm assuming that would circumvent a keylogger, but I don't claim enough expertise to know for certain. Edit to add: looks like a post above says only if you're opted in to a certain feature.

True. Keepass lets you choose whether or not your auto-generated password includes special characters, and you can create a very secure password without one.

Fair enough. Really, I shouldn't have said my suggestion was better - it's different, and will work better for some people. The reason why your method would be a complete non-starter for me is that with 29 entries in Keepass, I'd definitely need a cheat sheet, which I'd then have to remember to have with me whenever I traveled. Keeping it in my laptop case *should* mean I have it with me all the time, but taking it out and forgetting it just once would be a major hassle. Plus there's the issue of me then having a sheet of paper that would be a helper to anyone that got their hands on it, and the fact that I have to manually enter the passwords - time-wasting and vulneable to a keylogger.

Certainly possible, but I haven't heard of such a thing happening to Keepass.

Definitely the weakest of all of your arguments.

You don't still pay for AV software, do you?

Yup this is why everyone should use full disk encryption, especially on laptops you travel with. Even if you have a password on your system, if thedisk isn't encrypted they can just take it out, or boot off a USB drive and copy anything they want out within just a few minutes.

For OS X, use FileVault (in your security settings tab). It takes just minutes to click it on. For windows, use TrueCrypt. It's free, commercial quality software, and doesn't take much time to setup at all.

How does the encryption help?

Like, if they can log into the computer, how encryption help you?

Sorry if I sound like an idiot.

My method can be used on its own and something like the Ilari example I gave is easy to remember, I think. And safe enough. Safer than 99% of the people I know handle their computers, I'd say.

I don't use any AV software. I've always been using a Mac and I use File Vault for encryption. I started doing that way before I started playing poker online. And you're right there, I was a bit hasty in my criticism of something I don't know and was too lazy to google! Of course I'm pro open source.

Absolutely - there's definitely more than one good way to approach computer password security. Unfortunately, most people don't really approach it at all.

When your hard drive is encrypted they cannot log in! When you encrypt you can set a password for your hardrive, not windows. Nothing, except bios, will boot until you enter the password.

There is a link to youtube with demonstration in the security thread

Just read the entire thread and what came to mind, even though it seems a little far fetched, is the thread that was created awhile back from the supposedly former PS employee? The thread where he claimed there was god mode on stars and all sorts of other seemingly BS. I seem to remember he said something big was going down in September related to Stars? Should I take my tinfoil hat off?

I can't find that thread but I am sure someone can dig it up and find the piece that I am referring to...

this sounds like something every computer should have by default

This website tells you how long it would take a desktop PC to crack a given password:

https://howsecureismypassword.net/

Something something about entering a password you actually use on a website you know nothing about.

If you insist on using the site, test passwords that have a similar complexity to the passwords you use. Don't enter your real passwords.

Thread is here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...50/index2.html

It's locked now. Post #21 has coon74 translating:

In a comment to his OP (on August 1st at 17:00), RM warned that a default of PS is highly probable in September.

The last post was by a mod, SGT RJ, who posted:

I reopened it to post the link to the bit saying the original claim was bogus.

??