Absolute Soulreading/Rigged thread #3

[RandomUser]

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Think about this logically. None of the superuser accounts ever played multiple tables, either in tournaments or in cash games, even though the guy had access to five separate accounts - and Potripper didn't cheat on the first hand he got moved to the FT. We can be sure that this visual aid, whatever it was, is an outside program that doesn't overlay itself over the AP window.

But if it's a program, why not just run multiple copies of it, even on another PC if you have to, to allow you to multitable? A hacker with 2 computers can just buy a few more and run it on extra machines, can't he?

Answer: because it's not a program. It's a login/password that allows you access to a superuser account on the AP server that can only look at 1 table at a time, and the reason the cheater only played 1 table was because he only had the one login/PW combination. There's no way something like this allows you to log in twice with the same ID, so...either a hacker used social engineering with a critical security guy at AP, or it's an inside job. Either way, it's an internal program that was compromised.

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This does make sense. It could even be a normal part of the software that could allow a 'pit boss' to monitor a table where collusions or other cheats may be suspected.

[adanthar]

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EDIT: the 10-30 seconds required for "re-pointing" also seems to indicate outside hack rather than inside security tool - why would an internal tool need to do this? I would imagine an internal tool need just the name of the table or whatever then insta-view (probably with rewind capability also, which these guys seem not to have IIRC)?

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Yeah. So he'd need to (most likely) turn away from the screen to a second PC or alt-tab and go type in the name of the new table, missing a hand in the process. Whatever this thing is, it obviously isn't going to have or need a sophisticated point and click GUI, just a big text box at most - nobody's gonna waste time programming anything better.

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True. But the one insider account/PW theory relies on the fact that this account was limited access to holecards of only one table. I guess they might do this for security reasons but I also think whoever had access has proved to be a moran - so automatically expecting them to multitable if they could is a bad assumption.

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This guy's biggest 'moran' trait is that he's horribly greedy, enough not to bother to hide his tracks and pretty much play like a hole card cam-using retard. But at the same time, he doesn't come up with the idea to play multiple tables to maximize earn? What, he can't play the Wednesday 1K and the site's one 15/30 NL table at once?

[Chump Change]

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OK SO POKERTRACKER GETS HACKED....SUPER USERS TURN UP...OJ GETS CAUGHT DOING [censored] AGAIN....THEN SHEIKY IS GETTING DEPORTED... STAY WITH ME GUYS

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lolz nh

[_dave_]

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Well, like I said, AP probably doesn't send hole card data out to every client to begin with. That's pretty much rule #1 of every online video game, and those aren't built for nine digit amounts changing hands.


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but it is almost certain that *all* table traffic passes trough at least one managed switch and at least one router, no matter where on the planet the players may be. I'd imagine in reality there are many more network devices along the way before the traffic gets split on it's way around the world.


FWIW, I am quite inclined to agree with the "disgruntled employee" theory - but I am sure this is not a super-user account, and more a network security compromise.

A legit "pit-boss" super-user account would surely have far more power than observation of a single table?

[suzzer99]

Adanthar, as a computer programmer I agree the way everyone describes a lag when moving tables, the way seif said "hold on", it seems likely whatever they're using can only track one table at a time. Also IF Seif was involved, or any of the other suspicious activity pre 8/22 is true, that would point toward super user, rather than sever hack or packet sniffer or somehing.

But it isn't conclusive obviously.

Re: Seif. I'm still pretty sure he doesn't open fold to a flopped FH w/o seeing hole cards. I don't think he was cheating all the time, the way he was losing. Just maybe someone on the inside wanted to get in good with him, and let him play around one time. I also think Absolute or someone somehow convinced stuckingph it was in his best interests to retract.

If stuckingph knows something. I suggest we in the online poker world grant him complete amnesty in exchange for coming forward. Anyone else want to clear their conscience and do some good for the game?

[_dave_]

Lol, forgot about Seif and the (alleged) "just gonna go get my secret weapon" incident .

Of course if that actually happened, this is obviously not a network attack and is indeed a shoddy single table capable super-user account [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[2461Badugi]

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Answer: because it's not a program. It's a login/password that allows you access to a superuser account on the AP server that can only look at 1 table at a time, and the reason the cheater only played 1 table was because he only had the one login/PW combination. There's no way something like this allows you to log in twice with the same ID, so...either a hacker used social engineering with a critical security guy at AP, or it's an inside job. Either way, it's an internal program that was compromised.

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This has rather disturbing implications, and it makes the complete recklessness of the cheaters make a lot more sense: presumably there's an Absolute account, or security login, which has this capability (whether through a "legit" tool or a hack) and has no recorded connection to the tables. Even if all of their playing accounts get caught, there's absolutely no reason to believe that the "superuser" account will ever be. (Especially given the past competency record of everyone who works for Absolute.)

If they can just keep making gnome accounts forever, there's no real reason to be careful.

[adanthar]

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but it is almost certain that *all* table traffic passes trough at least one managed switch and at least one router, no matter where on the planet the players may be. I'd imagine in reality there are many more network devices along the way before the traffic gets split on it's way around the world.

FWIW, I am quite inclined to agree with the "disgruntled employee" theory - but I am sure this is not a super-user account, and more a network security compromise.

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If you're assuming he's catching network traffic off the one central router that sends it to everyone, we go back to the original problem: it would be sending the traffic to *everyone* connected to Absolute. Why can't he see multiple tables? If computing power is the limitation, botnets aren't hard to come by and off the shelf P4's are even easier.

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A legit "pit-boss" super-user account would surely have far more power than observation of a single table?

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Why? What else would it need that we would notice? It might have the power to, say, disconnect somebody, or make notes to expedite cashouts from certain other accounts named romnaldo (now *that's* an interesting feature it makes some sense to think about), but what else 'interesting' would it be possible to do with it?

[aislephive]

Josem, the site looks good, except there is one small segment regarding how river AF is calculated that is incorrect.

"The next important statistic is the "River AF." This is a calculation of how aggressive a player is on the river - essentially, it is the number of times the player bets or raises, divided by the number of times the player checks or calls. The higher the number, the more aggressive they are. By way of comparison, my "River AF" when I play is 1.9."

AF on any steet is calculated by bet % + raise % / call %. How often somebody checks isn't included in the calculation.

[_dave_]

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If you're assuming he's catching network traffic off the one central router that sends it to everyone, we go back to the original problem: it would be sending the traffic to *everyone* connected to Absolute. Why can't he see multiple tables? If computing power is the limitation, botnets aren't hard to come by and off the shelf P4's are even easier.


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True, computing power is not hard to come by - but he was rumbled pretty darn quick. Also, it may be due to the computing power of the device that that has been comprimised, if he must re-program it to send packets matching $name_of_table, it may not be able to do more than one.

Still, I'm probably cluching at straws here...

Just seems with the mammoth greed and the chip-dumping for cashout of small percentage of winnings - does not jive with inside job for me - outside hacker/disgruntled employee are far and away my favourites for this.

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Why? What else would it need that we would notice?


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When a suspect player could be playing up to 6 tables - Why would a "pit-boss" be limited to observing 1/6 of the suspect's play?

And surely a super-user "pit-boss" account would track players by screenname, not by table name - thus the lag while changing / typing in table name would not occur?