7 ms·

Las Vegas used to be a lot more strict about no cellphones (camera phones). As you were not allowed to take photos or video inside a casino. At some point the t

Las Vegas used to be a lot more strict about no cellphones (camera phones). As you were not allowed to take photos or video inside a casino. At some point the tsunami of every phone has a camera, and the Japanese tourists who take pictures and video everything sort of took over. I always figured it was partly to avoid the clocks and keep you in the fantasy.

pizzafeelsright 3y ago
As someone who got thrown out for camera and video it was the thoughts of exploiting to cheat. After the casinos were saturated, the enforcement changed.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There have been machines where the random number generator was predictable. The solution was petter random numbers.
  - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
    It's a weird industry. I only know a little about it from a friend that worked for the gaming commission of our state... But fun fact, the code (at least in my state) gets audited and one of the things they were doing even 15ish years ago was pulling EEPROMs out and running through a machine to make sure the final hash is an approved, audited progam validated to have fair payout logic.
    - pizzafeelsright 3y ago
      State controlled - yes. Indian/Native American land or International waters? Not State controlled.
      - bluGill 3y ago
        Indian/Native American land is still semi controlled by the US government. While they have a lot of leeway they generally are pretty good. They are making a ton of money and they know even a strong rumor of something going on would kill them.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Right which means when you realize there is a problem you can't fix it. Though the situation I'm thinking of (a topic here several years ago) was machines not used in the us.
    - euroderf 3y ago
      This sounds like a valuable practice. I'd like to see limits on the retention of public surveillance video, and AFAICT the only way to enforce it would be something like this.
      - bluGill 3y ago
        Like many things there are unexpected downsides. If a bug is discovered in these machines you cannot fix it without expensive work to get the next version audited. Often that isn't done which means if an otherwise good machine has a problem it is scrapped (or sometimes still used in hopes that nobody discovers how to exploit it - see the story linked elsewhere in this thread) The above could include cases where someone intentionally slipped an exploit into code and it escaped audit. I'm not aware of this happening (and one of the points of audits is to prevent it), but I'm well aware of ways I can create an exploit that I wouldn't catch if I was an auditor.
        euroderf 3y ago
        I would not think that surveillance camera firmware would need revising much. Or that if it does, it's a rush job.
  - woobar 3y ago
    There was a big deal [1] about Russian hackers reverse engineering PRNGs in older slot machines and then scamming casinos for millions. [1] https://www.wired.com/2017/02/russians-engineer-brilliant-slot-machine-cheat-casinos-no-fix/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/russians-engineer-brilliant-sl...
mixmastamyk 3y ago
Concert tickets in the US at least used to feature "NO CAMERAS ALLOWED" prominently. I forget exactly when that fell by the wayside but believe it was around 2010 or so.
- buildsjets 3y ago
  Now it is frequently “No removable lens cameras”, which seems like a reasonable restriction.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  In ye olden days it was supposed to be preserving the ambiance and protecting likeness. In the modern (American) music industry people have realized that * your average concertgoer phone shot video is too crappy to make much of an impact on that * the whales who spend money on merch/etc at concerts will happily pay for a production quality movie of a concert regardless of the existence of these crap videos (e.g. recent Taylor Swift and Beyonce concert movies) * at best these videos also drive the desirability of going to concerts up, boosting the main way artists make money In countries like South Korea and Japan they still very much focus on protecting the likeness and so cameras are banned
  - judge2020 3y ago
    Another factor is that hardly anyone goes to the effort of holding their phone for the entire time and recording the full show, especially for the Taylor concert which is well over 3 hours long. Now there were quite a few full recording of The Weeknd's ~1h20m After Hours til Dawn Tour.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    > cameras are banned This is not true. Big concerts in both countries are essentially 10k+ people standing on their feet for 2-4 hours holding mobile phones in front of their faces to take photos and videos.
    - bobthepanda 3y ago

pizzafeelsright 3y ago

As someone who got thrown out for camera and video it was the thoughts of exploiting to cheat. After the casinos were saturated, the enforcement changed.

bluGill 3y ago
There have been machines where the random number generator was predictable. The solution was petter random numbers.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  It's a weird industry. I only know a little about it from a friend that worked for the gaming commission of our state... But fun fact, the code (at least in my state) gets audited and one of the things they were doing even 15ish years ago was pulling EEPROMs out and running through a machine to make sure the final hash is an approved, audited progam validated to have fair payout logic.
  - pizzafeelsright 3y ago
    State controlled - yes. Indian/Native American land or International waters? Not State controlled.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Indian/Native American land is still semi controlled by the US government. While they have a lot of leeway they generally are pretty good. They are making a ton of money and they know even a strong rumor of something going on would kill them.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Right which means when you realize there is a problem you can't fix it. Though the situation I'm thinking of (a topic here several years ago) was machines not used in the us.
  - euroderf 3y ago
    This sounds like a valuable practice. I'd like to see limits on the retention of public surveillance video, and AFAICT the only way to enforce it would be something like this.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Like many things there are unexpected downsides. If a bug is discovered in these machines you cannot fix it without expensive work to get the next version audited. Often that isn't done which means if an otherwise good machine has a problem it is scrapped (or sometimes still used in hopes that nobody discovers how to exploit it - see the story linked elsewhere in this thread) The above could include cases where someone intentionally slipped an exploit into code and it escaped audit. I'm not aware of this happening (and one of the points of audits is to prevent it), but I'm well aware of ways I can create an exploit that I wouldn't catch if I was an auditor.
      - euroderf 3y ago
        I would not think that surveillance camera firmware would need revising much. Or that if it does, it's a rush job.
- woobar 3y ago
  There was a big deal [1] about Russian hackers reverse engineering PRNGs in older slot machines and then scamming casinos for millions. [1] https://www.wired.com/2017/02/russians-engineer-brilliant-slot-machine-cheat-casinos-no-fix/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/russians-engineer-brilliant-sl...

mixmastamyk 3y ago

Concert tickets in the US at least used to feature "NO CAMERAS ALLOWED" prominently. I forget exactly when that fell by the wayside but believe it was around 2010 or so.

buildsjets 3y ago
Now it is frequently “No removable lens cameras”, which seems like a reasonable restriction.
bobthepanda 3y ago
In ye olden days it was supposed to be preserving the ambiance and protecting likeness. In the modern (American) music industry people have realized that * your average concertgoer phone shot video is too crappy to make much of an impact on that * the whales who spend money on merch/etc at concerts will happily pay for a production quality movie of a concert regardless of the existence of these crap videos (e.g. recent Taylor Swift and Beyonce concert movies) * at best these videos also drive the desirability of going to concerts up, boosting the main way artists make money In countries like South Korea and Japan they still very much focus on protecting the likeness and so cameras are banned
- judge2020 3y ago
  Another factor is that hardly anyone goes to the effort of holding their phone for the entire time and recording the full show, especially for the Taylor concert which is well over 3 hours long. Now there were quite a few full recording of The Weeknd's ~1h20m After Hours til Dawn Tour.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  > cameras are banned This is not true. Big concerts in both countries are essentially 10k+ people standing on their feet for 2-4 hours holding mobile phones in front of their faces to take photos and videos.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago