Absolute Hogwash

Well, that overstates it but not by much. To mix the ol’ metaphors, the firemen slid down their pole at Absolute Poker and their original stone wall got blown to smithereens. The news/forum/blog crowd keep leaking and peaking.

Pocket Fives got a message from AP and now hint at things that they can’t disclose. That seems analogous to the promise guys make their date when they are looking for that something special. But our friends at P5 did live up to their promise so we are getting that “I know something you don’t know and you’ll just have to trust me.” B.S.

Halley Hintze over at PokerNews probably has the cleanest recap around at this point. Trying to pull info from forums like P5 and 2+2 is getting to the needle vs haystack level as the thread length / variations now prove that and infinite number of monkeys can come up with an infinite number of posts.

AP has done a total reversal. From their earlier response of “Duhh” they have come up with “We have had a security breach.” which gives the rest of us the chance to say, “Duhh.”

They also say that Scott Tom wasn’t the individual that did it and was framed by an anonymous employee who is the culprit. Nice to at least find out that Scott was actually an employee on the day in question. That’s flopped around as much as all the rest.

With all the spin doctors getting full-time work from the politicians these days, PR at Absolute is a nightmare. Their latest solution to the problem is to start throwing $500.00 at the folks that anted up $1060.00 for the opportunity to get had by “POTRIPPER” — how droll to come up with that for a handle.

What does the $500.00 mean? Well, fear has to be at the top of the list. If you sat at another table and got felted, are their reasons to give you $500.00? If you sat at the infamous table with PotRipper, is $500 adequate recompense? It does appear that the $500 may be a ‘magnanimous gesture’ as their press release states that ‘adequate recompense’ will result only after the audit is complete. So we are back to the first question. The answer seems that it is the established price for buying the cash rake cows that are willing to plunk down $1060.

After Kahnawake made their release — which is in my previous blog – AP has announce in their release that they were the ones who solicited an outside audit. Sorry, AP. I’ll have to give credit to the first press release on this issue.

What this is proving is that folks aren’t any smarter than they were at Watergate. Nixon didn’t get busted for breaking into the DNC; he got busted for the cover-up. That seems to be inevitable here – although the whole truth coming out remains very iffy. It’d be more inevitable if Uncle Sam protected us by regulation and license instead of prohibitions. Had that occurred, it be the IRS and FBI looking at the servers and archives. Now we must trust that Kahnawake will disclose all. That’d be a difficult task for the most honest man in the world.

All this happened on a single site. Had a spreadsheet that no player had an idea might exist had not come to light somehow, we’d still be in the dark. Suspicion is only admissible late at night in a bar. It appears we were saved by a whistle blower. That is truly our salvation in many respects. The software developed is so complex that many people at many levels are involved in its maintenance. You just can’t hide this kind of crap forever.

But, there is a flaw that embrasses all sites. You see it frequently. It informs you that there is a new version you need to download. Good software practices have very few releases. The more there are – the more chance of screwups and the greater need for backdoor capability to debug. That was why the activity was possible. Best practices are a known quantity in software development. No programming group can adhere to them 100%. But, they come much closer when stable product is released at infrequent intervals. All sites are using releases that are engendered by marketing requirements instead of best practices.

While the previous paragraph looks dire, it really isn’t that horrid. Yes, it could be better but internal controls should prevent the type of problems we are seeing at AP. Even big banks are occasionally compromised along with The Pentagon’s servers. But, we’d be better off if government came over to our side and provided penalties and safeguards. Without that though, crooks are drawing dead over the long haul. Even poor operations, like we’re now seeing play out, will finally meet the cruel light of day and that is our real protection.

ADDENDUM:

I actually have a couple of articles ready that talk about playing poker. Then this came up. Hopefully, we can all soon return to playing a bit of poker with a reasonable trust that the sites we choose are not stacking the deck. That is really a reasonable idea to carry forward from all this. I don’t have a problem with Full Tilt or PokerStars for my play. You can include others; it is just that these are my main sites these days and aren’t my placing them above others. They all just make too much money to jeopardize their business and I am comfortable that they are all scrambling and doing even more today to make sure they don’t end up with such problems. For the next year or two, the barn door should be locked and watched elsewhere because of all this.

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Here’s a new statement that should really confuse the issue of ownership and all the rest:

October 21, 2007Dear AP Player:

I am the former Grand Chief of the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake and the owner of Tokwiro Enterprises ENRG, which holds a 100% interest in Absolute Poker.

As many of our players are aware, there has been a security breach in our system that allowed unlawful access to player information that resulted in unfair play. I am writing to you today to let you know what we know so far in order to set the record straight, and to assure you of AP’s commitment to player security. I am sure that this letter will not address all of the questions and concerns you may have, nor will it extinguish the heated discussion surrounding this issue. At this point, our intention is to let you know all we can disclose and to assure you of our continued efforts to keep you informed as best we can as the investigations continue.

We deeply regret this situation has occurred. A breach in security in online poker is serious and of great concern to players and the industry worldwide, and this particular situation has been the subject of debate within the poker player community and in the media, giving rise to the creation of several websites and hundreds and hundreds of comments, opinions, and theories of what occurred – some of which are accurate, and some that are not.

Like you, I have not been happy that during the initial stage of our investigation, AP has not been more forthcoming in providing a timely or comprehensive explanation on this matter, giving rise to anger, suspicion, and concern on the part of our valued customers. I hope that our customers can appreciate that this remains an incredibly complex and sensitive issue, and I want to give you my strongest possible assurance that we will be as forthcoming as possible on how this breach occurred and what we are doing to remedy the situation.

What We Know and Actions We Have

AP was notified by a customer that a possible cheating incident occurred during a recent tournament, and in response forwarded players’ hand logs. This disclosure of the hand logs prompted our customers to determine that a more serious security breach had occurred. We immediately launched an internal investigation and also requested a formal audit by Gaming Associates, an acknowledged world-wide expert in audits, interactive gaming tests, and information security.

Based upon our preliminary findings, it appears that the integrity of our poker system was compromised by a high-ranking trusted consultant employed by AP whose position gave him extraordinary access to certain security systems. As has been speculated in several online forums, this consultant devised a sophisticated scheme to manipulate internal systems to access third-party computers and accounts to view hole cards of other customers during play without their knowledge. As this consultant was aware of the details of our fraud detection process, the likelihood that the scheme would be uncovered through our normal procedures was minimized. We consider this security breach to be a horrendous and inexcusable offense.

We will pay for all losses suffered by the affected players as soon as our audit is finished and the amounts are determined. Although we are in the process of attempting to recover all the winnings of this consultant, any unrecovered losses of affected players will be paid by Absolute Poker so that all affected persons will be made whole.

Next Steps

We are still investigating whether the consultant was acting alone or in concert with others, and it appears at this time that all account holders are innocent of collusion and were unaware of any wrong-doing by the consultant, who was immediately terminated. We continue to investigate this matter aggressively, and all of these preliminary findings are subject to the audits currently underway. We have recently uncovered additional accounts used by the consultant that have not been publicly reported. So as to not compromise the investigation, we are not releasing the names of these additional accounts at this time, and will contact these affected customers individually.

The specific allegations of unlawful activity are being investigated both by AP and by the authorized authorities, including the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. We will continue to actively cooperate with these authorities in full compliance with the Regulations Concerning Interactive Gaming. In addition to our own investigation and the audit by Gaming Associates, we have also submitted to an audit by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.

Please be assured that we have corrected the problem that allowed the system to be unfairly manipulated. We are working furiously to increase the safeguards within our systems. While we are satisfied that our systems are secured, we realize that our security systems must be continuously monitored and enhanced.

Without question, this incident has been unfortunate for all concerned, and we will emerge as a stronger company. I realize it will take some time and much more information for AP to re-earn the trust and confidence of our customers who are in doubt of our commitment to the highest levels of security, privacy and integrity. As we move to address and correct this situation, our valued customers have played a vital role in uncovering this scheme through various online forums and have become an active part of the solution.

With my full sincerity, I thank you, and I promise to keep you updated as we bring this situation to a close.

Sincerely,

Joe Norton

I’ll let Halley’s article point out the inconstant flow of info.

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There is a four part replay of PotRipper’s play on YouTube. Here is the first one.

Part 2 of 4

Part 3 of 4

Part 4 of 4

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 6:07 am and is filed under Pols and other Crooks. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.