Lotttttta outraged talk ITT.

Hello,

First lets me apologize for my bad english, I’m a French Canadian not totally bilingual despite my effort! :S So, here some informations that may be (maybe) added to this story, but I’m not sure as sometime I’m a lil bit paranoid. A thread similar of this one have been created on a French Canadian poker forum named PokerCollectif.com and I first posted here, but few members told me to that I should come and write it there so I’m doing it now. Hope it could help, nothing else… I don’t want to hurt in anyway PS or hotel Arts.

I guess I’m not a target for hackers as I’m not an high roller (I don’t play cashgame, only tourneys and sng around 100$...), but as I have a couple of pesos in my account and that money is important to me, I did care about this story when its have been bring to my attention at my last night at Arts Hotel. And as I cashed in at the tourney, I felt bad at this point as I reminded something shady.

The day the cash out has been confirmed, in a 20 minutes break, I was supposed to meet my gf at lobby, if she was not there, she were supposed to be at pool or room. So as I didn’t meet her at lobby, I used the phone of lobby to call the room but it was busy. It was impossible to my mind as we never ever use phone in room, so I decided to go up to my room. As I reached the door and finally open the door, an employee of Arts Hotel was exiting. I had a bad feeling – can’t explain rationaly – but I remember asking him what he was doing and he told me he came to replace a light bulb in bathroom. But as I remember the fact, I’m sure he didn’t have a bulb light in his hand and also none were in the trashcan. He looked suspicious to me so I asked him his name, he gave me but I didn’t note and forget about it. Also, remember, I’m short on time and wanna find gf… And why does he needed to use the phone ??? So, thinking back to it after reading OP afraid me a bit…

I decided to report the fact to PS by mail and to an Arts Hotel employee at reception. PS acted professionaly with me, freezing my account till my return for security doing couple others good move for me. Arts Hotels employee was aware of the fact about hacking story and took good note of my story, witch one should have been monitored by security engineering or something like that the day after. As I never asked for a bulb replacement, he told me that the request could have been made by a housekeeper ; they were supposed to look in the system if an employee has been mandated for that in the system and send me an email by the 9 or 10 september to confirm/infirm that fact. It’s the 13 today and no email received yet.

Maybe I’m totally out of the story, I let you judge about that. Some fact doesn’t coordinate with OP, ex: I’m not an high stack playa. Also, never my key needed a reconfiguration…
Btw, my computer has not been hacked, but its irrevelant I think ‘cause it’s a ChromeBook running on Chrome OS and thats very solid versus hacker…

What ever. That’s my story, make your own tought.

At one point in the week, I went to the pool with gf in night and forgot my key in room, and obv didn't bring ID to pool. When I asked for another key, they only asked my name and personal infos (I remember only adress...).

I imagine dealing with security was much like this scene from The Tourist.

http://youtu.be/xHilIFZu13w

Very poor that Arts haven't responded to you. As well as checking the maintenance log, at the very least they should also be able to find the number called from your room at that time as well as checking room access logs over that time range. If it was an employee they should be able to identify him from his room access card.

When you say "an employee of the Arts hotel was leaving", how do you know he was an employee? Was he uniformed?

Fwiw, a 5 star hotel i stayed at always asked to use my phone after doing something like restocking my bar, call was always the same, one digit and like a 2 word sentence everytime. I assume it was their system to note/timestamp whenever goods have been delivered in order to easier spot when bunch of liquor disapear during certain shifts etc so staff have a harder time stealing from their hotel or something.

You COULD have phoned your room phone the seconds he used it to call back and say "job done"(i imagine with the peon voice) , but if this is the case its logged and verifiable.

The French Canadian story shows this hacking could run deeper than HS.

Stars if they want to could advise us all how to check for software able to show our scree/hole cards, it's all a big grey cloud at the moment, and NO ONE SEEMS TO BE DOING ANYTHING OTHER THAN COMPLAINING.

DO SOMETHING STARS. YOU REALLY THINK THIS IS A ONE OFF, OR JUST TARGETING HS PLAYERS....

One thing is for sure after reading this thread I would never consider staying at this hotel if I ever go to EPT Barcelona again.
By the way, Barcelona is the only city in the world in which I actually got robbed (my wallet was stolen by gipsy pickpockets a couple of years ago when I went there on holiday).

Ya, Barcelona is a city where you definitely shouldn't keep your wallet in your pants or any outside pocket. Gypsy kids tried to get me there too.

If I had the proof or had been personally hit by this group I could provide some more details, without any proof I can only hope others personally hit by this group, so more likely to have proof or information that can help lead to proof would get over their feelings of stupidity, and possible embarrassment and do the right thing for the whole of the poker community.

No kidding. I went there in 2007 with the family. While in Subway getting a sandwich, two different women within the span of a half hour had their purses stolen. The next day my dad had 4 guys surround him and rifle through one of his pockets. Luckily, he kept his hand on his wallet the entire time and they only made off with some flight itinerary. No offense to Spaniards as I think the country is very beautiful, but Barcelona is a den of thieves and pickpockets. I can only assume Madrid is similar.

Some cliffs, assuming you have read the OP of course. (If not, read the entire OP first. As everyone else has said, it's very well written)

1) 09/05 at 6 PM est. Jeans posts original thread about the incidents with few details.

2) 09/05 at 6:30 PM est. Lee Jones posts a reply offering general security tips, apologizes, says the Barcelona police are involved, and that he will keep us updated.

3) 09/06 at 10 AM est. Jeans posts full story, general outrage ensues. Most replies think it is an obvious inside job on some level. Lots of technical advice about protecting yourself from hackers is given.

4) Other posters staying at Arts Barcelona (Pistons, Luck3yChance, haagel, parkert, TheLuckFactor, ChanMix) post similar experiences with some of the suspicious activities, including phone calls that just hang up and keycards needing reset quite often.

5) 09/06 at 12 PM est. Jeans posts he received an update that there are more incidents than just him and Ignat. They will have a meeting at 19:00.

6) 09/06 around 2 PM est. The story breaks on pokernews.com, begins to go viral over twitter, foreign forums, etc.

7) 09/06 at 3 PM est. jenbones posts a similar experience with strange hang-up phone calls and keycards not working at a DIFFERENT hotel 7 mins away from the casino.

8) 09/06 at 5 PM est. Jeans posts results of meeting with pokerstars security. Turns out Lee Jones was wrong, the police had not yet been involved, but Jeans and Ignat are assured they WILL be involved after this meeting.

9) 09/06 at 5:30 PM est. rokdafunk posts that he was most likely the finder of Jeans laptop once it had been ditched. He left the pool and headed to the elevators on the 2nd floor and found a large heavy laptop sitting in a chillout place. He returned it to a girl working at the marina. Also had the same phone call/keycard experience during his Arts stay.

10) 09/07 at 9 AM est. Lee Jones posts an update basically just apologizing for screwing up earlier when he stated the police were involved before they actually were. Also offers more general security tips, says Stars is trying their best but is limited in their investigative capacity, etc. He also explicitly states there is no evidence of involvement by hotel staff to this point, and cites some totally unrelated case for some reason.

11) 09/08 at 10 AM est. Jeans posted that he and few other Finnish players that were staying at Arts will be sending their laptops to an IT specialist next week for inspection.

12) 09/08 at 1 PM est. Pocket9s posts: "I received a phone call from 1218 this morning which hung up after I picked up. I called the reception to ask which name that was registered to 1218. At first they said it was against their hotel policy to give out such info which later changed to "there is no one staying in that room, in fact that room doesn't exist".

13) 09/08 at 6 PM est. Pocket9s discovers the 1218 extension belongs to the phone located on each floor by the elevators for guests to use to call front desk etc. Ironically this phone is in place for guests to call the front desk if they have misplaced their key.

14) 09/08 at 10:30 PM est. In post #623, Acing gives a detailed account of he and his roommates' experiences at the Arts this week with their keycards and phone calls etc. They noticed the maids seemed to be excessively interested in cleaning their room one day when they happened to be sleeping in. Also the maids paid little attention to their security responsibility when cleaning the rooms, as the guys were able to walk in and out during cleaning without being stopped or asked for ID.

15) 09/09 at 8 AM est. kelnel posts: "I was in Barcelona, and 2 or 3 times I entered my room while maid was in. Even worse, once, my key wasnt working, I heard some noise inside so I knocked on my door and a maid I never seen before let me in without even asking for ID or anything." One hour later rapsusklei posts: "One day my mate found the door opened with the locket on,and we are sure it wasnt us who did it."

16) Really long discussion about making strong passwords.

17) 09/09 at 8 PM est. ChanMix begins posting about problems with his laptop since returning from Barcelona. https://twitter.com/ChanMix123/statu...688960/photo/1

18) 09/10 at 7:30 AM est. In post #762 Jeans posts his mail correspondence with Ritz Carlton. They basically tell him they value his business, and they are totes taking him seriously. Like, for real and stuff.

19) 09/10 at 4 PM est. Pistons starts posting similar experiences to others at the Arts. One of his friends' laptop had the password requirement removed. He restarted the computer and was asked if he wanted to start windows normally or repair mode. When he tried to start it normally, a quick blue screen would pop up and the computer would restart. He currently cant access windows.

20) 09/11 at 4 PM est. BoboFett reminds us all that the technical help forum might be a better place for security advice than "that of some average Joe Schmoe in NVG." <3

21) 09/11 at 9:30 PM est. ChanMix posts an expert found a program called "splashtop" installed on his computer that is designed to stream his display to a mobile device.

22) 09/11 at 10:30 PM est. SPEKTAH posts: "I was staying with pistons, it's my laptop that is bluescreening now. one detail he forgot to mention is that upon reviewing our hotel bill we noticed we had been charged for 2 outgoing calls which neither of us placed... kinda weird."

23) 09/12 at 8:30 PM est. Posters including AoO and FieryJustice don't think "splashtop" is necessarily anything to be worried about. FJ posts: "Splashtop is a legit program used to control your desktop computer from your iphone or ipad. I use it to 1 table on my ipad from time to time. While it is certainly possible it was installed on your computer, if it was simply the default program, you would know when someone is viewing/controlling your computer because a big box flashes up on your monitor saying you are using splashtop. I imagine a good hacker could probably disable this though."

24) 09/13 at 1:30 AM est. In post #902, yaf posts an interesting story. He is a small stakes online player, not a high roller like the other alleged targets in this scheme. During a break from the tournament, he uses a lobby phone to dial his girlfriend in their hotel room. Strangely their room phone is busy. He goes to the room to investigate, and finds a hotel employee exiting their room. The employee explained he was there to change a light bulb, but he is holding no light bulb and none are found in the trashcan of the room. Supposedly management is looking into whether or not there was a housekeeping request for this bulb to be changed, but they told yaf they would reply with this info by e-mail by the 9th or 10th and he has still received no answer.

I have not really kept up with the other thread on this same topic, and could definitely have missed some relevant posts in this one.

Bulletproof method, take the computer to(expensive) expert. Unless the malware creator was particularly inadept there isn't much of hope of catching it by standard user knowledge. Virus scanners aren't all that reliable and if malware is any new it won't be caught.

In Spain 5 stars only means that the hotel has certain amenities, not that it is good.

Just to warn all, EPTs are not safe. Other EPTs hotel rooms have been broken into and high stakes profile players (at least one I know of) have been hacked. Not just Barca and Berlin. The other party asked me not to disclose the specific details

Finally read through this thread over 5 stints. Thought as it seems to have died down while computers are being checked and stuff I would post my opinion.


I don't feel it was an inside job like most people are suggesting, if it was hotel staff there would not be so much problems wit the key cards. Hotel staff would have cards that could open rooms and the fact there was so many problems seems like the people behind it were using some kind of device on the actual doors to re-program what card can unlock it. You might say they were covering their tracks as staff cards could be traced or something but the whole point of their crime was to be undetected and obviously making it so guests cards don't work for their own room would cause suspicion.

Also the fact that they are having to phone up on the public phones in hallways suggests they are not hotel staff, if it was hotel staff surely it would again cause less suspicion and seem just like a regular thing if they knocked on the rooms and if someone answered give them a generic hotel staff question like "we have had reports the hot water isn't hot on this floor are you have the same problem?" or whatever.

It could well be the staff were aware of it and turned a blind eye because they were paid or threatened but I don't believe they were the main culprits.




As for the way the situation was handled I think that was a bit of a joke, I have worked as head of security for a shopping mall so have a little bit of knowledge on security matters but not for a hotel. What I would have done is when it became clear that more than 1 guest was targeted and that they were phoning rooms to make sure the coast was clear I'd have the staff go around to every guest (it may have been 100+ guests but if you had 5-6 staff involved it wouldn't have been too difficult) and told them to under no circumstances answer their phone in the room and if it rings inform the security immediately. Then they could catch the culprits in the act.


I wonder if some of the people who were called were asked and could possibly say more about the phone calls like what accent the caller had? Was every call the same guy or different guys? Then you could get some kind of clue was it a local criminal targeting the hotel or an international criminal specifically following the poker tour and targeting players. Also a question to the person who has seen the image of the guy on the CCTV and the guy who spoke to a person leaving their room saying they just changed a light bulb, could you describe the person you saw and see if it could be the same man? Things like height, weight, hair colour, facial hair, anything distinguishable about his eyes, nose, ears or mouth etc and what clothes he was wearing. It wouldn't be enough to prove 100% it's the same guy but it would be enough to at least make the second guy who saw and spoke to him a key witness.

I've got a similar situation, it's a close friend so I am respecting his request I don't name names.

Can confirm it's wider than Barca and Berlin, and possibly wider than EPT's.

I'm pushing my friend to provide more details and will continue to do so, I think if anyone has information it should be made public, and soon.

Why is it in every thread you chime in with quite ground breaking news but then hold back specifics and actual facts?

Thx Scotty :~)

ldo

Not particularly helpful to anyone then is it? Its already been said that this stretches to other EPTs and other tours, so why bother regurgitating the same info but say you have some further proof but cant disclose because your friend asked you to withhold. Its pointless.

If Jungleman's talking about different people than I am it's relevant in some way, and I'm pretty sure we are talking about a different person or people.

I must hold back specifics to respect my friends wishes. Before I posted this I asked him what I could post exactly, because I think this is ridiculous.

I'm looking forward to the Documentary coming out.

Paging ElevenGrover