Absolute Poker Hacked?

[Jeepster80125 0]

I guess Tritz was right.CheatersSo it seems like someone might have managed to hack Absolute Poker (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/how-not-to-cheat/), probably in the same way Planet Poker was compromised back in the online poker industry's dark ages. No big surprise. They've been a giant steaming pile since day one. If you'd told me that someone managed to hack a poker site's shuffling algorithm and made me guess which site, they would have been my first choice.There are also rumors abounding of bots being caught on various poker sites. To a lot of people, this may look like the beginning of the end of online poker. I'm not buying it.For one thing, I would guess that somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of people who play online poker honestly believe it's rigged. And they play anyway. If thinking the game is explicitly designed to steal their money doesn't stop them, why should the threat of a bot? I suppose there's a big difference between believing something is rigged and having "proof" (I use quotations because the evidence in question is a 2+2 thread, albeit a convincing one). But there's also a big difference between Absolute Poker (which appears to have been programmed by juvenile chimpanzees) and the other major sites. I've little fear of Stars being similarly compromised.And for another, online poker has been an endangered species since day one, but the apocalypse is still a good distance away. Anyone who knows anything about computers understands that one day they will be better at poker than we are. It's just a question of when. Most people involved in AI seem to agree that we have quite a bit of time, but then, this is in an industry where 20 years is basically forever. My largely uneducated guess is 5.Once that day comes though, online poker will be unplayable. There's nothing you'll be able to do to separate humans from machines. Poker sites might throw out CAPTCHAs to make you feel safe, but they'll be just like toiletry procedures in airports, an easily circumventable sham of a procedure that does nothing but inconvenience innocent people.Let's suppose bots can make $10 per hour at the tables, a pittance by poker standards and something I could train any reasonably intelligent person to do in a month or two. Suppose someone has a large network of them. Poker sites can only send so many CAPTCHAs to each player without risking alienating all humans. No actual person is going to fill out one every time they want to bet, the game would be slowed to unplayability.That limitation will make it such that our bot network operator could simply pay some Chinese people $1 an hour to fill out the forms. Every time the bot encounters a CAPTCHA, or an audio file, or whatever other lame protection measures the sites may try to invent, the bot simply copies it and sends it instantly to the Chinese call center, where it is filled out right away, sent back, and entered by the bot into the poker site. Assuming one operator could handle the CAPTCHAs for 10 bots (and I suspect it would be a lot more) each of which makes $10 per hour the bot masters could even afford to pay Americans with MBAs to do it if they wanted. The economics are beyond feasible, they're trivial.So online poker is in serious danger. There's no way to stop the bots from overrunning it. As AI gets better, and that dollar per hour rate goes up, more people will jump into the fray. The law of accelerating returns will take effect, and soon the online poker world will be entirely uninhabitable. It will essentially be rigged, though not by the house, and bots will compete against each other for the money.2p2 thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat...=0#Post12097244summary http://petitmorveux.blogspot.com/

[mtdesmoines 3]

I guess Tritz was right.CheatersSo it seems like someone might have managed to hack Absolute Poker (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/how-not-to-cheat/), probably in the same way Planet Poker was compromised back in the online poker industry's dark ages. No big surprise. They've been a giant steaming pile since day one. If you'd told me that someone managed to hack a poker site's shuffling algorithm and made me guess which site, they would have been my first choice.There are also rumors abounding of bots being caught on various poker sites. To a lot of people, this may look like the beginning of the end of online poker. I'm not buying it.For one thing, I would guess that somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of people who play online poker honestly believe it's rigged. And they play anyway. If thinking the game is explicitly designed to steal their money doesn't stop them, why should the threat of a bot? I suppose there's a big difference between believing something is rigged and having "proof" (I use quotations because the evidence in question is a 2+2 thread, albeit a convincing one). But there's also a big difference between Absolute Poker (which appears to have been programmed by juvenile chimpanzees) and the other major sites. I've little fear of Stars being similarly compromised.And for another, online poker has been an endangered species since day one, but the apocalypse is still a good distance away. Anyone who knows anything about computers understands that one day they will be better at poker than we are. It's just a question of when. Most people involved in AI seem to agree that we have quite a bit of time, but then, this is in an industry where 20 years is basically forever. My largely uneducated guess is 5.Once that day comes though, online poker will be unplayable. There's nothing you'll be able to do to separate humans from machines. Poker sites might throw out CAPTCHAs to make you feel safe, but they'll be just like toiletry procedures in airports, an easily circumventable sham of a procedure that does nothing but inconvenience innocent people.Let's suppose bots can make $10 per hour at the tables, a pittance by poker standards and something I could train any reasonably intelligent person to do in a month or two. Suppose someone has a large network of them. Poker sites can only send so many CAPTCHAs to each player without risking alienating all humans. No actual person is going to fill out one every time they want to bet, the game would be slowed to unplayability.That limitation will make it such that our bot network operator could simply pay some Chinese people $1 an hour to fill out the forms. Every time the bot encounters a CAPTCHA, or an audio file, or whatever other lame protection measures the sites may try to invent, the bot simply copies it and sends it instantly to the Chinese call center, where it is filled out right away, sent back, and entered by the bot into the poker site. Assuming one operator could handle the CAPTCHAs for 10 bots (and I suspect it would be a lot more) each of which makes $10 per hour the bot masters could even afford to pay Americans with MBAs to do it if they wanted. The economics are beyond feasible, they're trivial.So online poker is in serious danger. There's no way to stop the bots from overrunning it. As AI gets better, and that dollar per hour rate goes up, more people will jump into the fray. The law of accelerating returns will take effect, and soon the online poker world will be entirely uninhabitable. It will essentially be rigged, though not by the house, and bots will compete against each other for the money.2p2 thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat...=0#Post12097244summary http://petitmorveux.blogspot.com/

Hmmm. Where's that thread that says, essentially, "best programmer wins?"

[Royal_Tour 0]

welcome to 2 weeks ago?

[SilentSnow 1]

welcome to 2 weeks ago?

Until this is resolved it definitely isnt old news.Scenario 1- An online casino gets caught rigging things in the most blatant way possible. They get investigated by an outside entity and/or return all stolen money and demonstrate that they have fixed the problem and prosecuted those responsible.Scenario 2- An online casino gets caught rigging things in the most blatant way possible. They simply deny everything and dont return one penny of the stolen money. No outside agency investigates and all that comes of it is a few really pissed off victims never play there again.I think a few people might be interested in which scenario happens. If #2 happens, then that is a huge blow to online poker, because it would basically give any online casino a license to steal. Hell, a casino might even encourage an employee to steal from the winning high stakes players if they knew they could get away with it. The good players would leave, attracting more fish, and the site would make more money.

[Royal_Tour 0]

Until this is resolved it definitely isnt old news.Scenario 1- An online casino gets caught rigging things in the most blatant way possible. They get investigated by an outside entity and/or return all stolen money and demonstrate that they have fixed the problem and prosecuted those responsible.Scenario 2- An online casino gets caught rigging things in the most blatant way possible. They simply deny everything and dont return one penny of the stolen money. No outside agency investigates and all that comes of it is a few really pissed off victims never play there again.I think a few people might be interested in which scenario happens. If #2 happens, then that is a huge blow to online poker, because it would basically give any online casino a license to steal. Hell, a casino might even encourage an employee to steal from the winning high stakes players if they knew they could get away with it. The good players would leave, attracting more fish, and the site would make more money.

honestly the whole bots thing doesnt scare me. Obviously someone seeing yoru hole cards is a big deal,but for me, the biggest issue with online gaming is the sites and their procedures. I'm scared shiitless when i try and withdraw money, currently i have a pending request because my site says they need photocopies of my visa which i used to deposit.so i can deposit no questions asked, but now that i want my money back its a big ordeal?shamat, who was a runner up for protege had his account frozen because they claimed he was involved in chip dumping.he had to write a letter, and have them review the situation, what if they reviewed it and said, nawww looks like chip dumping? he and others have no defense against things like that

[Fade2241 0]

honestly the whole bots thing doesnt scare me. Obviously someone seeing yoru hole cards is a big deal,but for me, the biggest issue with online gaming is the sites and their procedures. I'm scared shiitless when i try and withdraw money, currently i have a pending request because my site says they need photocopies of my visa which i used to deposit.so i can deposit no questions asked, but now that i want my money back its a big ordeal?shamat, who was a runner up for protege had his account frozen because they claimed he was involved in chip dumping.he had to write a letter, and have them review the situation, what if they reviewed it and said, nawww looks like chip dumping? he and others have no defense against things like that

This is why I don't really like any other sites outside of ps. Everywhere else it seems you have to met a bunch of criteria before you can send YOUR money back to yourself. F that, I want my money when I want it - just send me a check with no hastle and i'll come back and play @ your site.

[Berak 0]

The main thing that will prevent AI from achieving mastery (in our lifetimes) over poker is that your dealing with imperfect information. There are no perfect plays. They just recently got a supercomputer to play perfect checkers which has no variables in play and completely deterministic. They are only as good (at best) as the programmers also (and BTW, I am a programmer).

[eYank 0]

a kid that lived down the hall from my friend @ school programmed a PLO8 HU bot ad would have it play 2 $5 HU matches at once and made a shitload of money off of it bc the PLO8 HU @ the $5 level is so bad

[fleung22 1]

what's with the chinaman diss Jeep?

[Royal_Tour 0]

a kid that lived down the hall from my friend @ school programmed a PLO8 HU bot ad would have it play 2 $5 HU matches at once and made a shitload of money off of it bc the PLO8 HU @ the $5 level is so bad

aaand u didnt find out more becauseee?????

[scottyno 0]

moonlanding

[chgocubs99 0]

Maybe. Doubt all this will happen, though. For obvious reasons, if you think about it. Poker sites are in business to make money. The way for someone to cheat the system is to do the following:1) Program a bot to play perfect poker and make moneyThat's it.Do you REALLY think the sites will allow this to happen? I mean, REALLY, and CONSISTENTLY? I know less about programming than anyone in the world, but I higly doubt this is possible. Well, I bet it is possible to program it, but to implement it? It can't be that easy or so many people would be doing it that online poker would have already become unplayable. I mean, it's not online poker/the internet is new within the last 2 years or something. Maybe I'm being naive, but I don't think this will ever be a serious threat.

[Zach6668 513]

None of you people will EVER know whether this is resolved or not.Not only do you not know it now, but you will never know in the future. AP isn't going to come out saying, yup we were hacked, but don't worry, we fixed it.They're going to fix it, and deny that it ever happened, obviously.

[psujohn 0]

1) Program a bot to play perfect poker and make money

That's about on a scale of - accurately predict the weather 3 months in advance. Or - cure cancer.Perfect poker is pretty much impossible for a human or bot. Near perfect poker is nearly impossible.If you could program a bot to play perfect poker getting it running on a site is next to trivial. If you're relatively discreet about it you'd likely never get caught either.

[Jeepster80125 0]

welcome to 2 weeks ago?

Never saw it the first time.

what's with the chinaman diss Jeep?

I don't follow. It's early.

[antistuff 0]

well ill just have to program a better bot than your bot then.

[BSmitty23 0]

If you could program a bot to play perfect poker getting it running on a site is next to trivial. If you're relatively discreet about it you'd likely never get caught either.

Getting the bot to interface with the site is the easy part. Since I play a fair amount of online poker, and being involved with computer networking, I've looked into what is involved in getting a bot running. Basically you need 2 "PC's", I put the quotes there because you can use VMWare or some sort of virtualization to simulate this. Anyways, I know very little about programming, so I dont have any sort of algorithm to play "perfect poker", but to get the interface working is the easy part. I think its winholdem.com that goes into detail about the entire setup, and you use programs "Bring" and "Push" in order to avoid getting caught. This basically allows for the computer running the poker client to not have any bot software installed, therefore making it virtually undetectable. Its almost like a PC Anywhere connection, or RealVNC. The other "PC" has the winholdem software, which is able to interact with the poker client on the other PC. Sorry if these details have already been brought up...EDIT: I would never think of implementing this, but its always good to know what sort of edge might be out there, and what things to look for if you do see something shady.

[chgocubs99 0]

Maybe. Doubt all this will happen, though. For obvious reasons, if you think about it. Poker sites are in business to make money. The way for someone to cheat the system is to do the following:1) Program a bot to play perfect poker and make moneyThat's it.Do you REALLY think the sites will allow this to happen? I mean, REALLY, and CONSISTENTLY? I know less about programming than anyone in the world, but I higly doubt this is possible. Well, I bet it is possible to program it, but to implement it? It can't be that easy or so many people would be doing it that online poker would have already become unplayable. I mean, it's not online poker/the internet is new within the last 2 years or something. Maybe I'm being naive, but I don't think this will ever be a serious threat.

Wow, I checked my posts to see what I may have done drunk last night and found this one. Amazingly well written considering I was 5 Heinkens, 2 long islands, and 4 captain and cokes in at the time. /brag post

[finztotheleft 0]

My bot's better than your bot