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INTERNETPOKERS: Poker Blog
Been a while since I checked in. I’ve gone through a pretty interesting episode since I last blogged. Actually, I was really sick for a while, came down with something on Dec 28th, spent New Years rolling over in bed with a fever, and didn’t actually get much better until a couple days ago. So, has been a pretty grueling week or two. I haven’t been playing any poker since then, but not specifically for that reason. There is actually an even shittier reason why I haven’t touched any poker in two weeks.
I got hacked. I’m going to keep this story as short and as bare of details as possible, but here’s basically how it goes. A few weeks ago I played against a character from Sweden. He seemed okay at PLO but he played a number of hands very suspiciously – it seemed like he never seemed to make wrong decisions in big pots and there were a few hands where he made ridiculous plays that turned out right, with strange (fast) timing. I lost to him pretty bad over two sessions and gave up, determined not to play him anymore. I lost an amount between 20k and 100k to him (intentionally vague). I never do stuff like this, but I ended up showing the hands to a couple of people and suggested that maybe he was cheating. I was mostly dismissed, but I had a very uneasy feeling about the match.
After another intentionally sparsely-detailed incident involving another player from Sweden, I began to get very suspicious that maybe there was a bug in my computer. I ended up getting an ex-hacker friend of a friend to run a port scan on my computer, and he had me run some kind of packet scanner that looked through all of the incoming and outgoing traffic on my internet connection. Turns out there was a computer from Stockholm, Sweden that had been tapping into my computer. There was no other explanation for the presence of this person, and we even went so far as to access his computer using his IP, revealing a Swedish Windows XP Login password screen. At that point I was pretty much convinced that I was hacked, and (using another computer) changed all of my passwords immediately and dumped my AIM account. I then cut my computers off from the internet and was going to reformat them completely before coming back online.
Well, the day after I did this I actually fell brutally sick, so it took me up until now to finally get my affairs back in order. But, in a nutshell, that’s the story. I won’t go into any more detail about it since I’m well aware that there is no possible recourse to any of this, all I can really do is secure my computer better and spread the word about incidents like this.
Anyway, FML. Can’t run any worse at this goddamn game.
I’ll be back in the swing of things soon enough though. I think. The exercise coaching deal went on a hiatus while this was going on, so if any of my students or prospective students are reading this, just letting you know that things will be going back to normal now, so hit me up if you want to schedule sessions.
Eternal Runbad,
Haseeb
Jan 8, 10 06:02:51
A few years ago I read an article in one Swedish newspaper about an incident like this. It' was an online pro who had been crushed for weeks by this new unknow guy. Eventully he contacted the poker site (I think it was expekt poker) who looked into the hand histories and ruled the unknown player as a cheater and then involved the police.
good luck with it.
Jan 8, 10 08:48:01
that's fucked up. i've had matches where I really felt like the guy was cheating in some way but i just shrugged it off to being frustrated about losing. It was probably the case but It's still pretty mind boggling you actually found a computer from Sweden sniffing around your PC.
Jan 8, 10 10:01:47
Patrick Antonius went through this too.
[url]http://www.rakeback.com/poker-forum/poker-people/hacker-scammed-millions-poker-pros-patrik-antonius-johnny-lodden-5911/[/url]
Jan 8, 10 19:36:14
1. Do you know how you got the virus? Was it through an IM program?
2. Did you have a firewall and anti-virus installed when it happened?
Jan 8, 10 20:59:16
yeah could you please post what to do... to dont get this happening to us
Jan 9, 10 03:00:41
wow man that is really shitty.... hope u run good because of this now... any thought on how u got this in the first place
Jan 9, 10 17:29:08
just a simple question, but did you have any contacts with poker pros from sweden on your AIM list? or did you think he did all this by simply getting your IP using full tilt poker/did some crazy shit?
Jan 9, 10 18:29:28
Hi Haseeb,
You may want to try a program called "PasswordSafe" (for Windows) and "1Password" (for Mac) as a way to secure your passwords in future... they save your passwords for all your various computer accounts (AIM, FTP, gmail, etc.) in one place.
Jan 9, 10 19:20:28
Sucks man, good job spotting it and good luck moving forward, being sick sucks, lets make a NEW new years party to make up for the one you missed!!!
Jan 10, 10 19:32:32
You can't even take a few criticism, you had to erase my comment? I don't have much else to say other than LOSERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Jan 12, 10 14:25:17
That is sick.
I have noticed this every once in while very unusual play and stuff that is obserd.
I really want to be directed to place that teaches you how to secure the computer better and protect against these theives!
Jan 12, 10 14:25:30
That is sick.
I have noticed this every once in while very unusual play and stuff that is obserd.
I really want to be directed to place that teaches you how to secure the computer better and protect against these theives!
Jan 12, 10 21:41:16
your blogs are by far the most compelling and honest on whole site -- thanks - please post as much detail of your solution as you can share
Jan 12, 10 21:41:42
your blogs are by far the most compelling and honest on whole site -- thanks - please post as much detail of your solution as you can share
Jan 15, 10 16:35:40
You can have your RSA token thing for Full Tilt, that will only protect your account from being broken in, not your computer. There is a lot of stuff hackers can use to break into computers that aren't protected well (keyloggers, backdoors, etc). The best thing is to get a good router with a hardware firewall and have it block the ports you're not using. A software virusscanner plus an additional software firewall are also good to have, just to be on the safe side. It can be a bit of a hassle to get them both to work together but I'm sure there are people that can help you out with that.
Still, you can have all the security in the world, it's only going to make it more difficult for hackers to get in, never impossible. But there's something to be said for making it as difficult as possible. GL.
Jan 28, 10 18:25:13
U cant rally know if ur computer is hacked. The one thing a normal user can do, is to check your running processes and if you detect something unknown just close it.
Feb 1, 10 16:38:48
I do believe a couple of fellas made a song predicting this incident a few years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-WKw15j_E
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