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Sharking: High-Rollers in the Crosshairs
- dirtyaura 13y agoF-Secure is a prime example how company blogging should be done. They have a lot of interesting posts about and around their core subject, but they manage to avoid the vibe that you get from typical startup blog posts that somebody is trying to sell you something. And it isn't just blogging, it's their public presence in general- Mikko Hyppönen's talks (like his TEDx talk about NSA) are genuinely interesting.
- stevenrace 13y agoAnother great read from the F-Secure folks. From the code snippet, it seems Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit.getScreensize() doesn't account for external monitors - only the primary display. Targeted malware you'd think would use getScreenDevices() or something to account for that - I'd always imaged professional online poker player 'sat' at many tables at once ...presumably using multiple monitors.
- rscale 13y agoThat's an interesting catch. I'm guessing the gap was because the attacker commissioned the software at low cost, and didn't spot the problem. That said, the attack would still work well because Jeans plays nosebleed stakes[1], so he's not likely to be playing a huge number of games at a time, and he travels regularly for live games so he's likely to be on a standalone laptop. Multi-monitor setups are very common in the poker world, but the primary monitor would get you a long way. After all, if you sit with him and realize your table isn't on his main screen, you could sit out. I'm quite glad he thought to drop his computer at F-Secure. [1] example hands from his online games: http://www.highstakesdb.com/poker-hands.aspx?=&sort=potsize&player=Jeans89&page=1 http://www.highstakesdb.com/poker-hands.aspx?=&sort=potsize&...
- Argorak 13y agoFor those not into poker slang (like me, I had to google it): Nosebleed refers to very high stakes games where the minimum stake is usually over 200$/400$ per round and more, with an open end ;).
- sejje 13y agoAnd for those who have a slightly better poker vocabulary, it's games where the blinds (antes) are $200/$400. Your actual stake on the table will be ~$40,000 in that game.
- lgieron 13y agoHigh stakes players (best targets for such attacks) usually don't play more than 3-4 tables at once - there just isn't enough action nowadays, and with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, even they (they are often multitasking gods by an ordinary human standard) ackonwledge that focusing on smaller number of tables might be a good idea...
- mathattack 13y agoI've known online poker players who can play up to 8 at a time, just flipping around on individual windows in 1 screen. I think a lot depends on the stakes of the table, and the style of play. Someone playing aggressive with small stacks on moderate stakes doesn't need to pay attention to the level of someone playing with a large pile in high stakes games. Since poker is a zero sum game, many pros find it more profitable to be spread out amongst multiple games of amateurs at modest stakes, than at a high risk high stakes table. (Collecting pennies rather than fighting over dollars, or predictable farming versus unpredictable hunting)
- confluence 13y agoThe innovation of criminal enterprises continues to impress me. This is why I love reading about security, espionage, and crime. It's industries like these that open me up to the possibility that maybe my laptop is compromised, my line is insecure, my servers are tapped, my phones are tapped, my car is bugged, people who contact me might be social engineers, and so on and so forth. You get a much better handle on reality by looking at what the dark side is doing.
- antihero 13y agoPerhaps this would be the sort of situation where you boot from read-only USB stick, or LiveCD.
- alexkus 13y agoFine, but how would you verify your read-only USB stick or LiveCD before use? Theoretically someone could sneak and replace the LiveCD with one that looks identical but is infected with the required malware[1]. Carrying it on you, or locking it in the safe in the room[2], might mitigate that I suppose. 1. Sneak in once, steal a copy of the USB/LiveCD contents, go away and create a new version infected with malware, sneak in again and swap them over. 2. Not really safe as one previous link on HN showed.
- mikeash 13y agoThis seems like something where Secure Boot, with user-provided keys, would really be handy. Create a key pair and tell your computer to only boot from stuff signed with your own key, then it will refuse to boot from a tampered USB stick or CD.
- patrickk 13y agoAFAIK, that can be somewhat problematic for windows. Why windows you ask? Most poker clients are windows only. It's probably possible to boot windows from a LiveCD, but when I looked at it in the past, it wasn't straightforward.
- nikcub 13y agoStars and Tilt are both native to Windows and OS X and both can run on Linux with Wine.
- kripy 13y agoThey probably should have checked the term "sharking" before calling it - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sharking http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sharking - big in Japan a few years ago.
- stbtrax 13y agoHow does a particular type of sexual assault become so commonplace that it warrants its own slang term?
- sanskritabelt 13y agoWelcome to the Patriarchy.
- st0neage 13y agoMaybe it was done deliberately?
- jessaustin 13y agoI'd say: both activities involve the exposure of bits the owner wants to keep private.
- GFischer 13y agoI had heard of casino "sharks" before, but I'd never heard of what you linked to before. Also, I hope offenders are treated to severe punishment or jail time in Japan (unless it's done with the woman's consent, which I doubt). I can't believe it's serious enough to merit its own term.
- Luc 13y agoYeah, but http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=big+in+japan http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=big+in+japan
- mikeash 13y agoI'd assume it derives from "card shark", a term which long predates any crazy Japanese thing. ("Card shark" is, of course, a corruption of "card sharp", but an old and well-established one.)
- leoedin 13y agoIt would be interesting to know what type of door locks the hotel used. There's been numerous attacks on hotel door locks recently [1], and the current situation appears to be that a sizeable proportion of hotel door locks are incredibly vulnerable. It's a good reminder that if you have a security requirement, use full disk encryption. [1]: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/133448-black-hat-hacker-gains-access-to-4-million-hotel-rooms-with-arduino-microcontroller http://www.extremetech.com/computing/133448-black-hat-hacker...
- jkhanlar 13y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWZFY46qqHE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWZFY46qqHE
- heyitsnick 13y agoHaving following this story since July, it was almost certainly an inside job and the perpetrator had access to the rooms (cleaner or other staff).
- walshemj 13y agoThat was my first thought when I read the story too. I bet non casino hotels pay way less attention to security I suspect that the vegas hotels would have caught the perp on camera - and in these more enlightend times they might even have survived :-)
- gcb0 13y agonot necessarily. since he had to rekey the card... someone just showed up with any for of ID, or not even that, on the front desk and claimed that another random card they acquired by any other means (i collect those when i stay) wasn't opening the door. easy as that.
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoI came into a Las Vegas hotel one morning around 7am... literally drunk as a skunk and looking really rough... I told the concierge I didn't have any ID or a key to my room... She asked me what was in the room, I said a backpack. She then proceeded to give me a new key and open my door for me. I could have been any random drunk who stumbled into that hotel that morning.
- mistercow 13y agoPutting the computer in a safe is a good idea, assuming it doesn't have a backdoor. Full disk encryption alone won't be good enough in a hotel, due to the "Evil Maid Attack": https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/10/evil_maid_attac.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/10/evil_maid_att...
- chiph 13y agoLots of hotel safes (with the electronic locks) have a default password known to the staff, so they can get in after a guest has checked out and forgotten an item in the safe, or the guest has forgotten the password they chose. I would regard hotel safes as only slightly better than leaving your laptop on the nightstand.
- mistercow 13y agoExactly. So if you want to avoid an evil maid attack, you're basically going to have to lug around your own safe, or keep your laptop with you at all times.
- losethos 13y agojoy meek Greek_to_me high_five Percival goods Mars WooHoo I_was_just_thinking This_is_confusing are_you_sure charity I_love_this Ghost Knock_you_upside_the_head how_do_I_put_this bring_it_on fight you_know_a_better_God chill_out small_talk how_come Jesus hypocrite I_donno insane I_quit no_you_cant incredibly so_let_it_be_written