Feds Drop CFAA Charges Against 'Hacker' Who Exploited Poker Machines 144
FuzzNugget writes "According to Wired, the two CFAA charges that were laid against the man who exploited a software bug on a video poker machine have been officially dismissed. Says Wired: '[U.S. District Judge Miranda] Du had asked prosecutors to defend their use of the federal anti-hacking law by Wednesday, in light of a recent 9th Circuit ruling that reigned in the scope of the CFAA. The dismissal leaves John Kane, 54, and Andre Nestor, 41, facing a single remaining charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.' Kane's lawyer agreed, stating, 'The case never should have been filed under the CFAA, it should have been just a straight wire fraud case. And I'm not sure its even a wire fraud. I guess we'll find out when we go to trial.'"
Aaron Swartz must be (Score:3, Funny)
spinning in his grave.
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it's because of his death they are afraid to abuse that law. they hope by following it's intent people demanding this tool prosecutors overreach and use to prosecute people they shouldn't with won't get rid of it until the heat dies down. and then they can abuse it all they want again.
Re:Aaron Swartz must be (Score:4, Funny)
So from now on I can get out of any crime by threatening suicide? The DAs are all quaking in their boots.
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no. the only way that plan would work is if you succeed at suicide.
Nice try (Score:3)
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Like with Swartz, this is the prosecutors Christmas-treeing up the charges, to psych and make it too expensive for the defendants; and make them settle - for money, some jail time, whatever. That way they can chalk one up in the win column, which looks pretty good when they run for office. I'm assuming the defendant here was white, because if he were black, I'd expect to see charges for tax evasion, aiding offshore combatants, and possession of skills with intention to use for mass destruction of capitalis
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A reprehensible act, sure, but not computer hacking like they were trying to charge her with...
That's why I'm adament about looking very closely at new laws as they come out and always look for how the authorities *might* abuse it
Know when to hold em (Score:3, Funny)
You got to know when to hold em.
Know when to fold em.
Know when to walk away, know when to run.
Here's the actual link to the dropped charges (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, it's only illegal if the house loses... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many undiscovered glitches are there that cause the player to lose unfairly?
Re:Of course, it's only illegal if the house loses (Score:5, Funny)
How many undiscovered glitches are there that cause the player to lose unfairly?
These are called features ;)
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Same as with candy bar machines.
They frequently fail to give you your candy bar, but they almost never accidentally give you 2 candy bars.
They're obviously engineered to "fail" in a way that benefits the "house"....
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They're engineered to be fail safe.
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I've always been lucky and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that I've actually gotten two more often than I've been ripped off. (In fact, I only remember being ripped off once, at work, where I was reimbursed. But I remember several occasions where I've gotten two.)
Not sure about that... (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a vending machine once display "WINNER" on the LCD, then it proceeded to give me my item and ALSO refund all the money I put into it!
It was very, very rare as used that machine quite often and it only happened once. But it does show the people that program them might easily have put in things that favor the person using the machine...
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The coffee machine where I used to work would do that. I asked the vending machine guy about it, and he said it was adjustable, and set so every 50th cup was free. It was not a random 1 in 50 chance, simply every 50th cup.
There was a beat up old sticker by the bill validator that said "I will be giving away DRINKS ON THE HOUSE! Watch for the message, Listen for the beeps, IT MAY BE YOU"
Not everyone knew about it, so there was also about a 1 in 100 chance that their change would be left in the coin return:
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Depends on the machine. At one place, two of the 5 had special sensors that ensured something fell down into the chute (I think the machines called it "seeing eye" or something). It's just a little optical sensor whose beam gets broken by the item.
Once, it DID fail on me - the item was still stuc
Re:Of course, it's only illegal if the house loses (Score:4, Interesting)
So what was your limit? If the owner had forgotten to lock it would you have taken all the contents? How about if someone had accidentally left a crow bar nearby? Would you have pried open the machine? What's the line you won't cross?
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Sounds like you did a good thing. It's annoying that you cared more than the company, and some recognitio
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In a casino? I'd imagine the customer would immediately point out the glitch to a staff and get reimbursed, gamblers can get really nasty when they lose unfairly. So I'd say zero undiscovered glitches that go against the gambler. There may be some that are yet not fixed but not undiscovered.
As to whether this particular case, going the opposite way, is a crime... Well every online game I've played says "bug-use is a bannable offense" so it's a grey area at best, but you still can't blame the casino from rai
Re:Of course, it's only illegal if the house loses (Score:5, Insightful)
Analogy time: let's say someone discovers that through some wild combination of reflections he can see your younger sister taking a shower off the shiny back of a brand new stop sign. So he videos the shower scene while legally standing on a public sidewalk, and puts in on YouTube. Illegal or a legit use of a bug?
The looking would be legal. Video of a naked sub-18 posted without permission would likely be a crime, regardless of how it was obtained. If your younger sister is over 18, the only issue would be using someone's likeness without permission.
Re:Of course, it's only illegal if the house loses (Score:4, Funny)
he can see your younger sister taking a shower off the shiny back of a brand new stop sign. So he videos the shower scene while legally standing on a public sidewalk, and puts in on YouTube. Illegal or a legit use of a bug?
Legit use of a bug, but a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service [youtube.com] ("you will not submit to the Service any Content or other material that is contrary to the YouTube Community Guidelines") and Community Guidelines [youtube.com] ("YouTube is not for pornography or sexually explicit content").
In the specific case of my younger sister, it's also horrific taste. She's quite unattractive. (Community guidelines: "YouTube is not a shock site. Don't post gross-out videos")
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Banning a lucky or plucky player is one thing but prosecuting him for a crime is a much different thing. I think banning is reasonable in most cases ('right to refuse service') but prosecutions should only happen when crimes are committed.
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That was my thought when I read the summary, but then I read the article.
The glitch wasn't one that caused the machine to lose; it was one that allowed the player to manipulate the machine into paying out the same jackpot *twice*. Compounding that, it could be made to pay out that jackpot at odds higher than the player actually faced the first time around.
Let's look at this by analogy. Suppose there was a real card game offered by the casino, and this game had a flaw in it; that flaw consists of a no-los
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Re:Of course, it's only illegal if the house loses (Score:5, Informative)
There have been several cases where the machine displayed a much higher jackpot then what was then paid out.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/06/05/1828218/malfunction-costs-couple-11-million-slot-machine-jackpot [slashdot.org]
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/09/11/06/1638213/casino-denies-man-166-million-jackpot [slashdot.org]
And I don't think the 'winners' got anywhere with their lawsuits.
Charges officially dismissed? (Score:2)
Where does it say that in the two links provided?
Wire fraud? (Score:2)
They should have used wireless...
"Lucky shot" "justice" (Score:3)
"I guess we'll find out when we go to trial.'"
It is this "Lucky shot" kind of "justice" that makes the U.S. justice system a boring joke around the world. Off course there is always the possibility that you sue somebody for something that turns out not to be applicable, but just suing (and therefore financially draining) a victim just to see what he may be accused of is just criminal.
Voting and Casinos (Score:1)
The point of pressing any buttons in the poker is to win or increase the winnings. No button pressing combination is thus any different from any other. And they should either all be illegal or not. Blaming these people for playing the game as it is, is just ridiculous. Casinos should be more careful about bugs and pay the bills in this case for their failure to do so.
Voting systems, now, I wish the same scrutiny was awarded to them.
Isn't it hacking? (Score:1)
Also not convinced that it is wire fraud. Seems an odd charge to apply.
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Casino's entire reason for existance is to profit off of a glitch in the human brain.
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And that's the glitch. Casinos are nothing but money sinks, and yet the human brain still perceives them as fun. There's no rational expectation that you will leave better off than you entered. There's essentially no skill involved in most games, so you don't even get to feel good for having played well. All there is is variable schedule reinforcement, and blinking lights.
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There's essentially no skill involved in most games, so you don't even get to feel good for having played well. All there is is variable schedule reinforcement, and blinking lights.
Chutes and Ladders for adults. With booze and pretty women.
but now he has to fight to get ou the Griffin Book (Score:2)
but now he has to fight to get out the Griffin Book
Broken Legs (Score:1)
Wire Fraud? Computer Hacking? Hardly! (Score:2)
Suppose, just suppose, you discover that if you tap three times on the side of an old-fashioned one-armed bandit, at a specific place and a specific speed, it pays off!
So you do this ten thousand times, win ten thousand dollars. And the casino finds out.
What's the charge? Wire fraud?
Nooo .. they'll grit their teeth, buy you a drink, and yank every damned one of those machines offline until they get the bug fixed.
So what's different now with this software glitch? And why blame the clever guy who discovere
I wonder... (Score:1)
This bug reminds me of one in Baldur's Gate -- to activate a scroll or item or something your characrer normally couldn't, pause the game, go into the backpack and click on an item to activate it, then swap its spot with the item you really wanted to activate.
On pressing go, the lockout check had already been performed, but the swapped item activates.
Re:Glitches (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but apparently if you profit off a glitch, it is your fault and yu are a bad person however if you simply write a buggy poker machine slot machine game thingy, you are just A-Okay.
To me, this is exactly like charging a person who uses a buggy phone that gives them free calls every other call with fraud. They bought the phone as is, made no changes to it and they are being charged. These guys didn't change the code in the poker machine, they just knew what buttons to press after putting money in. If anything, they should be celebrated as the folks that beat the gaming industry.
Business always gets legal protection (Score:5, Insightful)
It is illegal if David beats Goliath.
Re:Business always gets legal protection (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding? It's illegal if David even figures out how to beat Goliath.
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In New Jersey, David's weapon is illegal to carry.*
* OK, I know there is a difference between a "sling" and a "slingshot", but I don't think New Jersey's legislators know what either one is, because the latter is actually illegal.
AT&T criminal negligence (Score:4, Informative)
Only a few months ago we had this:
http://gawker.com/5559346/apples-worst-security-breach-114000-ipad-owners-exposed
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/weev/
AT&T had left the accounts of every iPad owner open, a group spotted it, reported it to Gawker, the Feds investigated, let AT&T off, and arrested the group and the lead was sentenced to 3.5 years.
So now you can't report security holes you find to the news because the FBI will arrest you for hacking.
They ran a public CGI (Score:3, Informative)
"Goatse Security obtained its data through a script on AT&T's website, accessible to anyone on the internet. When provided with an ICC-ID as part of an HTTP request, the script would return the associated email address, in what was apparently intended to be an AJAX-style response within a Web application."
The 'hack' was they visited a URL, and the FBI managed to convince a judge that visiting a URL is hacking. The FBI clearly cooperated in AT&T's coverup here, visiting a URL is not hacking. It appea
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So now you can't report security holes you find to the news because the FBI will arrest you for hacking.
If the news outlet is your first disclosure, that's pretty irresponsible. That is too often the case - people looking for fame or fortune or publicity instead of doing the right thing. It is a different matter if the company blows you off.
We need a law that says all software companies must have a hotline for reporting security violations, and must respond within some period of time.
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Re:Glitches (Score:4, Funny)
There is no EULA on a poker machine.
What you see is what you get.. no wait... what you see is what takes your money... No, hang on, let me word this... What you see should take your money... and if it doesn't then you can be hit with all sorts of charges... Hmmm, that doesn't sound as good as my original line...
Re:Glitches (Score:4, Interesting)
Except most casinos have a very specific clause that says all winnings are scrutinized and may be denied if the winnings are as a result of a machine fault.
Yes, a casino is NOT a way to make money - if you treat them as a form of entertainment rather than money making, you're closer to the actual reality of what a casino actually is.
You cannot win. It's why if you do win a jackpot, the machine you used is immediately isolated and wheeled away to confirm the win, verify there's no shenanigans with the machine, and to verify there's no faults with the machine. And yes, if they forget to update the game firmware, that counts as a fault and your winnings will be denied.
In fact, all that really has to happen is the guy gets billed for all his winnings due to faulty machines. No muss, no fuss, no criminal charges. Just a big ass bill having to repay every single dollar won.
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Can't say it seems like it
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I dunno. He says you cannot win.
That sounds like a pretty good summary of playing slots.
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This, of course, is ludicrous.
I can walk into a casino, put in 5$ in a slot machine, and immediately win 1$. I then cash out, and I now have 6$. I won.
Of course, most people don't do this, and they keep putting money in.
But you can win at video poker.
Re:Glitches (Score:4, Interesting)
And yes, if they forget to update the game firmware, that counts as a fault and your winnings will be denied.
I may be wrong, but I believe they do get fined and the fault recorded. Gaming associations are intended to close down establishments who have too many "mistakes" like that.
Now, I have zero experience with the reality. The way the article reads, it seems that the Nevada’s Gaming Control Board swooped in to oversee things closely. The jaded or masturbacynical will see this as "the system is rotten, they are there just to protect the casinos run by the *man*, man!", and the naive will believe government enforcement always works for the innocent person. The reality is somewhere between Goofy and the "we are nihilists" crowd's view, and egregious errors are corrected according to regulations.
Which really hits the thing this article never covered (or I missed it). Sure there's legal prosecution going on now, but were the winnings illegitimate according to the Pennsylvania and Nevada statutes?
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Awesome, you just coined a new term [google.com], and I like it.
What about ATMs (Score:4, Interesting)
If an ATM starts spitting out double money, I don't think I'm entitled to keep it even though "I was just playing by it's rules". Now in this case it's a bit different I suppose since it is a game where I can win or lose. But the part that they are winning here is not really in the game but an artifact of the the way credits are miscounted. SO it's really analogous to the double-money ATM issue.
But when does it ever go the other way? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations make mistakes all the time and the vast majority of them are in their favor. And yet these people who have millions of dollars and trained specialists and lawyers at their disposal... for some reason they are held to a much lower standard of justice. Some kid writes a fairly benign virus, gets charged as an adult and goes to prison. Sony, a multibillion dollar transnational corporation with a legion of lawyers and technical experts at its disposal, designs a rootkit to install itself on the computers of tens of millions of their customers. Result? A few class action lawsuits that offered a refund of the purchase price or a coupon for a DRM'ed digital download version of the album.
I'm not anti-corporation, I just think they should be held to a higher standard than individuals instead of being given a free pass for doing what are otherwise considered to be felonies.
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Cellular companies (Score:2)
One that always comes to mind for me is cellular companies and billing errors. Strange how they can make the same error, every month, for possible a tens or hundreds of thousands, and the solution always seems to be just "oh sorry sir, we'll correct that on your next bill."
I had a co-worker who had a pretty tight budget, and remember that every single month he was on the phone correcting his cellular company's "mistakes." Of course, he was locked into a 3yr contract, so even after half a year or more mistak
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> SO it's really analogous to the double-money ATM issue.
Except it is not. With the atm you signed a contract when you opened the bank account associated with your atm card. With the slot machine, you walked up to it and put your money in.
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You can bet your ass that I'd keep the money.
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> If an ATM starts spitting out double money, I don't think I'm entitled to keep it even though
Except it isn't an ATM that we're talking about. It's not even close.
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I mean, if I go to a teller or cashier, and they miscount and give me too much change back for a transaction and I keep it, it isn't illegal is it?
If I know that said cashier/teller miscounts almost every time you give them a $20...and keep the change, are you saying that I could be arrested for taking advantage over someone elses stupidity?
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ATMs are not the same as a Poker machines.
This guy shouldn't be punished. He should be celebrated and be given multi-million dollars endorsement deals by the largest casinos (in addition to being defended by them against our overzealous government). Poker machines are marketed as puzzle boxes to be solved, or random boxes to be taken advantage of, if you're lucky or skillful enough.
Casinos will only benefit by his actions from the tens of thousands of people who will try to replicate what he did on their m
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Taking something that isn't yours is stealing, even if the owner makes it easy.
Re:Glitches (Score:4, Insightful)
He was presented a game. He played the game. He won. He was prosecuted. He did not cheat to win the game. He did not take anything that wasn't freely given.
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Is it stealing if the owner gives it to you mistakenly?
In order for someone else's property to become yours there has to be a valid contract. Not necessarily a written contract, or even a verbal one; in cases like this the contract is implicit. Nonetheless, in order for any contract to be valid there has to be this thing called "meeting of the minds". In other words, the original owner and prospective owner have to be in agreement regarding the terms of the contract.
For the owner to give you something "mistakenly" implies that there was no meeting of the minds.
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So by extension, if you mix up a $100 chip for a $10 chip and it's obvious you did so (saying "I'm betting ten dollars" to the people around you. And maybe you're colorblind, etc.), do you think that you'd stand a chance in hell getting your $90 back?
They would certainly owe it to you. If the casino's representative accepted a $100 chip when it was clear you only meant to play a $10 chip, they would be in exactly the same position as a player who accepted a $100 payout when it was clear they were only meant to receive a $10 payout. Either way, it's up to the losing side to pursue the case. If you're complaining that the courts tend to be biased in favor of the casino, I agree, but that's a separate problem.
So, do [you] believe the owners/operators of the casino should be charged with criminal fraud, sending them in prison for years, permanently nullifying their civil rights, screwing them over whenever they try to apply for jobs for the rest of their lives?
None of the above. Fraud is a civil matter, and
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"If you're complaining that the
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Yes. It was still a game of chance (Score:2)
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Re:Glitches (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking something that isn't yours is stealing, even if the owner makes it easy.
This is gambling however. It's like playing a game of poker where you aren't supposed to see the cards, but one player is showing them to you. It is HIS/HER fault. Using the knowledge of that players cards in your betting and game is fine-and-dandy with me. Each player should be covering his cards.
This is a slot machine, it is a perfectly legal profit center for casinos and gaming establishments to strip money away from the poor, addicted, weak-minded and the like. This isn't a case where a chap sneaks into a software design company, steals the code for a slot machine and sells it to another developer. This is out and out poor coding that has bitten someone in the ass and they are suing the guy who noticed it. If I was semi-omnipotent (whereby had the power to change who got fined, but not whether they got fined) I would be slugging any fine directly to the company who coded this rubbish in the first place.
And seeing as I am in a somewhat antagonistic mood, please enlighten me on how enticing dim-witted souls into thinking that they have a real chance of winning money, as compared to in reality siphoning off their meager funds isn't stealing. Casinos are nothing short of a way for someone to profit off the addictions, simple-wits and guilability of those beneath them - and this is said from someone who has made a good deal of money from playing poker - the real kind, against other players, not the poker-machine type. If you ask me, they should be totally and utterly, without the slightest hesitation, liable for any mistakes on their part, any badly written gaming machines, or any-and-all dumb-shittery, mental-fuck-up-edness or downright incompetence on their part.
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I fully agree here. I read the article to see how this worked, clearly if he was doing something obviously wro
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its not his fault for finding out that there was a particularly advantageous style of play
In fact casinos rely on people believing that they have a "system" or advantageous style of play when in reality they do not (on the whole). I suppose the question is if the casion had a faulty roulette wheel which increased the frequency of some particular region would the casino be entitled to keep any winnings?
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>In fact casinos rely on people believing that they have a "system" or advantageous style of play when in reality they do not (on the whole).
well that does depend on what you mean by advantageous. There certainly are advantageous strategies in almost every game..... if you are willing to consider them as advantageous in relation to far worst strategies.
Examples abound, of course, but, the general rule seems to be that the best odds are from the base bet and addons, while they have higher payouts, have od
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A little bit yes.
The thing is
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It's gambling and you are talking about morality. You're really funny.
Re:Glitches (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, this is exactly like charging a person who uses a buggy phone that gives them free calls every other call with fraud. They bought the phone as is, made no changes to it and they are being charged. These guys didn't change the code in the poker machine, they just knew what buttons to press after putting money in. If anything, they should be celebrated as the folks that beat the gaming industry.
While I agree that using CFAA to prosecute these guys was prosecutorial overreach of the abusive kind, the cellphone analogy does not quite work (close though :-) ) - if the "normal" operating process for the poker machine is "put money in", "play", "complete game", "cash out/play again/insert more money and repeat", and the guys were doing this, then the analogy would work.
But the actual process was one that was so illogical that the only statistically likely way to discover it would be with inside information or via hacking. Probably the prosecutors originally assumed this was the case and were looking at using CFAA, and decided to be lazy and press on with abusive over-reach instead of re-adjusting to use more appropriate legislation when their initial investigations. Alternatively, the prosecutors could actually have, SHOCK AND HORROR, actually done their job properly, and looked at all of the available evidence and THEN decided what statutes they were going to try and run the prosecution under to aim for a conviction based on the actual discovered evidence rather than their own assumptions or that one of them really wanted to try a CFAA case.
Having said that it is statistically likely to have been uncovered with inside information or hacking, the number of times people have played these machines means that there was still a slim but significant possibility of it being discovered by accident as seems to have happened here, and in those cases (as far as I am aware) there is no legal requirement for him to report the "malfunctioning" equipment to either the casino or the manufacturer so the worst thing that could be done to him legally is for the casino to ban him from their establishments and for the casino to take the matter up with the manufacturer, using a civil law suit to recover the lost money from the manufacturer, who then makes a claim on some liability insurance or other (and if I am wrong about him not having a duty to report the problem, then it is a civil problem between the casino and the patron).
Re:Glitches (Score:5, Informative)
I assume you didn't read into the case. The prosecutors were never trying to argue that Nestor (the accused) used hacking to find the glitch. They were trying to argue that the combination of keys that activates the glitch is so complex that it should by itself be considered 'hacking'.
However, the 'combination of keys' used was not that extraordinary - all were legal game-play moves. Boiled down to the fact that switching a denomination of a game could change the payout the machine would give you on games you already won (but did not cash out yet).
The prosecution was trying to paint is as access rights violation but they failed to show just what exactly did the defendants do that they were 'not entitled' to do.
It still might be a fraud. Especially since Nestor convinced the operator in one case to switch on the feature that enabled the glitch. But hacking is out of the question.
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It still might be a fraud. Especially since Nestor convinced the operator in one case to switch on the feature that enabled the glitch. But hacking is out of the question.
I'm not so sure, I think it's pretty damned close to hacking.
Let's say I go to Amazon, and I discover that by clicking on a series of links, I get refunded 50% of my previous purchase. I don't know WHY that happens, but I figure out that it does, and now after every purchase, I click that series of links and get refunded that 50%.
Does it
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I still see no 'hacking' part in it
Consider a case where you have a senile cashier in your local grocery store and you find out that if you buy a certain combination of items and give him a 10 dollar bill, he'll confuse it with a 100 dollar bill and give you $92 back.
Would you call that hacking?
However, if you notice that the elderly clerk is not at the register and ask the manager to call him because you really like to do business with him personally, you might be conducting a fraud.
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But the actual process was one that was so illogical that the only statistically likely way to discover it would be with inside information or via hacking.
Really?
How about the guy is playing for pennies... Wins. But its only pennies. Decides to play another game, also wins. Figures may as well raise the stakes, since he keeps winning. Raises his bet, then remembers he didn't cash out his first win.
It isn't as convoluted as it sounds.
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In poker you are play against the person not his cards.
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They are accused of intentionally exploiting a glitch in the machine to fraudulently win hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In gambling, I don't see the problem here. In gambling, it is everyone's intention to take everyone else's money. Why are you at fault just because the house was a bad gambler for once? It's hard to compare this to anything because gambling is specifically a game everyone is trying to take someone else's money while giving nothing in return. As a player I don't have an equal exchange contract when I gamble. I want your money and will take it how ever I can within the rules of the game you have set out
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This is just the way the industry operates. The house is supposed to win. If you violate this, then somehow you are a cheat or something else that justifies you being ejected from the premises and put on a blacklist.
It's a total double standard and yet another reason to avoid these establishments.
Re:Hey editors... (Score:4, Funny)
Those newlines are there for a reason.
They would have been there, but someone couldn't be bothered to figure out what the new command for unix2dos was.
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Ooh, I love fantasy! Here's a good one for you!
We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
as wind in the morning. War was kindled.
There Théoden fell, Thengling mighty,
to his golden halls and green pastures
int he Northern fields never returning,
high lord of the host. Harding and Guthláf,
Dúnhere and Déorwine, doughty Grimbold,
Herefara and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,
fought and fell there in a far country:
in the