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All,

I have spoken to a few confidential sources today and, for the first time since this started, I was told a story that would make sense. Part of the story is that Scott Tom was not involved, at least not directly. However, the story also indicates VERY significant negligence on the part of AP's management, including Scott Tom. Management was alerted well before they admitted it publicly (but then again, we knew that much). However, it appears that management was not aware of the issue while the cheating itself was going on. In addition, the story I was told indicates that the geek/hacker "trying to prove a point" thing is not accurate.

While I am not 100% convinced of the above story, it actually makes a lot of sense and the pieces of evidence that I've seen have started to come together.

I am still awaiting the AP statement to see what they have to say.

-Nat

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Nat, I am extremely impressed with all the work you have done thus far, but I must say that I feel you are being naive, or are grasping for a compromise to resolve this matter. I feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but we know they will not come clean. The evidence and their behavior thus far indicate one thing: The people in comtrol of AP are directly involved in the cheating. They just want this to go away, and will keep offering incremental consolations until we are no longer 'thirsting for blood'. The only thing that will prevent further cheating is a complete rehaul of AP. I don't know if this can happen without destroying the company, but if we accept anything less, it will be back to business as usual in no time.

They have demonstrated malic and guilt. The goal should not be to goad the truth, but to prosecute. I cannot fathom why we should care about anything they have to say at this point.

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That may be the case.

I do not want to present all of the evidence that I've collected here for a few reasons. First, a lot of it would "out" my sources. Second, I don't want the people within AP to know all of what I've found out. I've told them and released snippets here and there, but they don't know most of what I've been told.

All I can really say is that I've been told a lot of stories. All of them have some holes in them. Most of them I've discarded and/or ignored because they simply don't make sense. For instance, the "white hat" hacker who simultaneously doesn't withdraw money but also attempts to frame an owner/executive doesn't add up in the least. It's a retarded story. However, all of that being said, the latest story has by far the least number of holes and corroborates a number of things told to me by completely separate people. That's all I'm really trying to say.

In addition, the latest story doesn't even come close to painting AP as innocent. In fact, it points to them attempting to cover the whole thing up as best as possible and deal with things internally. The last thing they were going to do was alert players that they'd been cheated and pay those players back. Their statements over the past few weeks are consistent with that. However, the story also explains who was actually doing the cheating, why it would be done and how it would be done.

I don't know what else to say right now, but I'm not naive. I am very skeptical of things being told to me and I will continue to re-evaluate what I believe to be the most likely explanation as information continues to come in.

-Nat