Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 51

Thread: Laptops being hacked from Hotel Arts at EPT Barcelona

  1. #1
    Serial Blogger BeerAndPoker's Avatar
    Reputation
    1402
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    10,114
    Blog Entries
    20
    Load Metric
    65656402

    Laptops being hacked from Hotel Arts at EPT Barcelona

    http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...ptops-1368996/

    Original Poster "Jeans" Message:

    For now both for me and ignat liviu(0human) the same thing happened roomkey doesnt work, go down to reception for a new key, come to the room to notice the laptop missing, go back down, in less than 10min go back up, and the laptop has reappeared. We are for sure not the only ones. Tell everyone you know at barcelona arts to not play on their laptops. Ill post a complete story about these sickening last days in a day or two. Just posting this quickly from my ipad to warn everyone.

    Lee Jones reply:

    Hi folks -
    Unfortunately, the OP is accurate. We're only aware of two cases, but obviously there could be more. Our security manager is working with the Hotel Arts security people to find out who did this. In the meantime:

    If you're staying at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, please store your laptop in the room safe. If it won't fit in the room safe, buy a laptop cable lock (available at any computer store) and lock your laptop to something in the room. If you can't do that, take your laptop with you when you leave the room.
    Change the password on your laptop right now.
    We strongly encourage you to run virus/trojan detector software on your computer before using it for any online play.
    I know it's a hassle, but wiping the computer clean and reinstalling everything before you play online poker with it would not be a terrible idea.


    We're very sorry about this; everybody on our staff and at the Hotel Arts is taking the situation seriously. We have the Barcelona police involved too.

    We'll keep you updated as soon as we know more. For now, please be hyper-vigilant and hyper-careful about your laptop.

    Best regards,
    Lee Jones

    PokerStars Head of Poker Communications
    As to what the hacker(s) involved are doing it for could be several things from seeing hole cards in poker or stealing any other form of information that they can use for financial gain.

  2. #2
    Gold Shizzmoney's Avatar
    Reputation
    457
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    2,451
    Blog Entries
    1
    Load Metric
    65656402
    This story on hotel room locks is fucked up as well:

    Security Flaw In Common Keycard Locks Exploited In String Of Hotel Room Break-Ins

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygree...oom-break-ins/

  3. #3
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
    Reputation
    10110
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    54,626
    Blog Entries
    2
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Here are some more articles regarding the ease of getting into electronic key hotel rooms:

    http://www.extremetech.com/computing...icrocontroller

    (These two are about actual break-ins occurring in the US...)

    http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ho...efts-1C9962178

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/20173...ked-locks.html

    If this happens to you, don't bother with the virus/malware scans. They often miss things, and will give you a false sense of security.

    Better to reformat and start fresh (or have someone else do it for you). Obviously back up your documents and other data before you do so. (Don't worry, those won't be "infected", so they can return safely to your newly formatted drive.)

    Don't panic and get a new hard drive or laptop. That's unnecessary.

    It would be nice if hotels had big laptop safes, but those would be expensive to provide.

    While I think there is a good chance that this was aimed at viewing holecards of high stakes players, there is also some chance that this was garden variety identity theft, and that the poker element was unknown to the perpetrators.

    I believe the laptops were removed and replaced because the perps did not want to spent ANY significant time in the room -- not even one minute. They probably had some lookouts (who were pretending to get ice or whatever) in contact with the person accessing the laptop, letting them know that the guest had not returned and that it's safe to go back into the room to return the laptop.

    Would be nice if one or more of the victims can have their computers examined before reformatting them. This is important because it might establish whether this was aimed at poker players (keyloggers or screen viewers) or just identity theft (which possibly would have no such programs installed).

  4. #4
    Serial Blogger BeerAndPoker's Avatar
    Reputation
    1402
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    10,114
    Blog Entries
    20
    Load Metric
    65656402
    A lot of times someone might just bring their little thumb drives in to go after documents and other files that store passwords,etc...

    Hackers will also will go after pictures as we all know about people getting blackmailed over that stuff like Mr Sebok for example.

    Anything that can ever be considered incriminating or be used against someone they should never keep stored on a computer especially a laptop when they travel and if your on the road NEVER keep your poker clients open or have the auto login options set.

  5. #5
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
    Reputation
    10110
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    54,626
    Blog Entries
    2
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Wait, now I just reread the OP and it makes even less sense.

    So the guy notices his key doesn't work, goes down to get new ones, comes back up, and his laptop is gone.

    Then he goes down again (to complain about the laptop), comes back, and suddenly the laptop reappears.

    This means that it's not likely another guest tricking the front desk to get keys to the room, as their "new" keys would no longer work (to put the laptop back) once the guest noticed his keys didn't work and got new ones again remade.

    It's also not a hacker, as the original keys would still work.

    So this has to be:

    1) Inside job
    -or-
    2) OP isn't telling the story properly

    Nothing else makes sense.

  6. #6
    Bronze
    Reputation
    35
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    352
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Just read the updated version posted this morning. Pretty Insane

  7. #7
    Serial Blogger BeerAndPoker's Avatar
    Reputation
    1402
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    10,114
    Blog Entries
    20
    Load Metric
    65656402
    OP "Jeans" first post was a bit hard to make out everything but he likely was in extreme panic trying to get this information out there quickly which I understand that point from him but it confused a lot of us as well. We also have to keep in mind English is not his first language either but the updated post is much more clear.

    As to whether the hacker also works at the hotel or is just someone else sophisticated enough to know the key system is bad. Hotels hate looking over cameras it can be difficult work but with entry logs they should be able to cut out a lot of that work.

    The hotel needs to take all breaches in security seriously to protect it's customers because someone able to enter a room can steal anything from any guest and not just hack laptops.

    I remember when that one guy from Vegas had cash stolen at the WSOP they gave him the run around for a few days before admitting it was theft from a worker which hotels hate to mention because it looks bad on them until they take measures against the person so this could be another case like that too.

  8. #8
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
    Reputation
    10110
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    54,626
    Blog Entries
    2
    Load Metric
    65656402
    He updated the story and started a new thread with much, MUCH more detail.

    Cliffs: Hotel employees were likely in on it, security attempted to cover it up, and worst yet, Pokerstars completely shit the bed with their lackadaisical handling of the matter (along with allowing themselves to be lied to/manipulated by the hotel).

    Complete fail all around.

    Stars should be ashamed of their dreadful handling of this situation.


    Quote Originally Posted by Jeans View Post
    Mod edit: This is a continuation of this thread:
    http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...ptops-1368996/
    /edit

    I'm going to write down the whole EPT Barcelona hotel arts story. This has been one of the most disturbing things I've gone through in my life. Please read the entire story before replying, I will answer questions I feel deserve to be answered. I have not had time to read the replies to my earlier thread.

    It all started with me busting out of the main event day 2 fairly early, around 15:30. I walk straight to my room to go online and surf the internet for a while. When I get to the room my key is not working. I go down to the reception and they sync my key. I get back to the room to find out my laptop is not on the table where I left it. I have a very big and heavy fuijitsu celsius laptop, so it's usually very easy to see. They have cleaned the room so I assume the cleaning lady has moved it somewhere. I do look everywhere multiple times but just can't find it.

    I'm staying with my friend Henri in the same room, and I can only think of two options, he has borrowed the laptop (I don't know why he would) or it has been stolen. However how could it get stolen so it must be him borrowing it. My phone hasn't been working for a few days but he told me he was going to play the cash games at the casino (very close to the hotel, basically one big complex) so I walk over there to ask him about the laptop. He says he doesn't know anything about it, but tells me his key wasn't working either which sounded like a pretty weird coincidence(he also played day 2 of the main event but busted 2 hours before me) so I walk back to my room to have a better look just incase.

    I get into the room and boom, the laptop has reappeared on the table, exactly how I left it this morning before going to the tournament. My heart jumps, my mind is racing, for a second or two I'm doubting my sanity. Then I remember a clear photograph from my memory how the laptop charger was laying loosely alone on that table just less than 10min ago. There is 0.001% the laptop was laying on that table at that time. This is when I get scared. Someone has been in my room during this short period of time, for what I know he could be hiding under the bed or in the bathroom right NOW. I quickly run out of the room and take the elevator to the reception. I tell them what happened and they bring me this Guest Relations Supervisor, Laia.

    At this point we recode both mine and my friends keys, and Laia says that even if someone had the copy of our keys or some other way access to our room, now it would be impossible(and as will be mentioned in a moment, not too long after, the room was broken into again). She tells me they will check the cameras but it will take a while. I go back up to my room to check my computer (it was working perfectly normal the day before, and it did require a password to enter). I turn it on to see it going to black screen:



    and after that to this:



    So now I was a 100% sure of what is going on.
    I go to have dinner with a friend of mine, probably like 1 and a half hours later I come back to the reception. Laia informs me that the cameras in my corridor were not working and have not been for a week. I'm stunned but somehow I had a feeling something like this was this was the case, it couldn't be that easy. They tell me they will investigate the matter, and we agree to have a meeting with laia and some security manager tomorrow at 12, I get a feeling they are not taking me seriously. I go back to my room still shocked, only to find out my key is not working again. Then back to the reception where laia still is, I tell her the key didn't work and ask for it to be synced. She does that and tells me she will come up with me to check the key. We get into the room, and the laptop has gone missing AGAIN.

    I'm in complete shock, do not have words to describe the feeling. We look through the entire room but nothing to be found. Laia calls the security about this, and has me and my friend transferred two floors up to a suite. We again agree to meet at 12 tomorrow morning. I walk back to the casino cash game area to talk to my friend about what has happened, and that I need to borrow his laptop to close down all my online poker accounts. He tells me we should just completely change the hotel just to be sure, this all is too scary.

    We go to the reception and ask for laia to tell her this. She tells us she has informed the security guys to look extra carefully at our corridor, even during the nighttime. We agree that's good enough when suddenly laia gets a call. She talks spanish for a while and asks me what model my laptop is, fuijitsu? I tell her yes. She tells me someone found it at the hotel lobby and the security has it now. She asks us to wait and goes to get it. She does return with my laptop.

    This is just really weird, why leave it in the hotel? Why not just throw it in the sea when they realized their operation had failed. This later became pretty clear, the fact that nothing had gone missing made this investigation so much harder to do, people did not realize how serious this thing was. Oh and now the computer starts and goes to windows perfectly, the only thing is it does not ask for any password anymore. At this point I also tell my friend Ville Wahlbeck, a pokerstars pro about this thing who then forwards it to pokerstars.

    I go to the pokerstars staff room close to the tournament area, everyone is very friendly and helpful, the it-guy offers to check my laptop which I let him but tells me this is not his speciality. He doesn't find anything but tells me if someone cracked the password it's very likely they know enough to delete the system logs and all the traces aswell. I explain the situation to one of the staffmembers who sends the story as an email to pokerstars security. Now however we talk about this whole thing with my friend alot before going to bed and are very confident that this will get solved, the lobby is full of cameras so we will see how the laptop ended up where it did. The elevators are full of cameras and have a very small time interval so we should see a guy carrying a huge laptop. All in all we just have big expectations from tomorrows meeting at 12.

    During this night something very weird happens that hasn't ever happened to me before in any luxury hotel. Me and my friend wake up to a room phonecall at 5:30 saying "Your taxi is ready" I ask what taxi - "the taxi to the airport" - i ask "with whos name?" - no name, just the room number, I tell the guy on the phone haven't ordered any taxi and the call ends. It could be we are just imagining, we were extremely paranoid at this point, but my friend said he thought the guy on the phone did not sound like a hotel employee because of the way he talked, it was not in that usual polite way but actually fairly rude one.

    We wake up again to the phone ringing at 9:30. I answer and there is a voice saying "do you want to make business" I answer "What" - again "do you want to make business" - "Huh about what?" - "About the women" I just answer "no" and hang up. Now we are both too upset to get anymore sleep. For us it already seems clear someone from the hotel staff is in on this, so they can easily find out to which room we have moved. Now these calls could obviously be a coincidence aswell but lay them behind your ear for a while as my story continues.

    The time is passing by so slowly but finally it is 11:45 and we decide to go down already to ask for laia. I've also asked Ville Wahlbeck to join us, as I know he is good to deal with these kind of situations. He also told me pokerstars will have a separate meeting with the hotel later this day. She is ready and she is with an old guy she presents as the security guy. This man does not speak any english and laia will translate both ways.

    Within the first few minutes it is very clear he is not here to help us. He is here to make this thing go away, anything we try to bring him he comes up with some weird explanations. At one point he basically says "Nothing has gone missing, you already got a room upgrade and free roomservice, what more do you want?" Firstly I go straight to the point, I tell him so the laptop was found in the lobby, which is ful of cameras, did you find the guy who was with it? He answers that the laptop was not actually found in the lobby, but someone had brought it to some hotel employee in the second floor, and in that place the cameras did not work.

    We three just look at eachother stunned, this is so laughable. I ask him if it's just these cameras not working or how many are not working right now to which he responds that 8 cameras. If this is true, it is pretty shocking for a 5 star luxury hotel to have this kind of a hole in their security system, or it could just be a lie because they were very unwilling to help us and it was just an easy way to not have to check the footage, or the final option, that someone from the staff is hiding something. I then tell him ok but you have cameras in the elevators, he tells me there are so many people in this hotel it's impossible look through all the footage, I try to tell him it is a very short interval when the guy was in my room but he is not listening. The only thing they provide us with is a door entrylog to our room, which is fairly confusing, he talks about how the codes change when you go to the reception to resync the key, there is three different codes on that paper and he explains this third one is my friends new code for his key.

    Everything of this is so confusing and we are already so tilted we didn't look at this too closely until later with my friend, and realized they had explained the codes wrong to us. So there was two options, a guy from the security personnel could not read his own hotels security code, or they were intentionally trying to trick us. However I will get back to this in more detail later in this story. We know this meeting is not leading anywhere and pokerstars probably will be able to pressure them better or somehow explain the seriosity of the situation so we decide the meeting is over.

    I'm mentally crushed. I don't believe what just happened in the last 30 minutes. Everything was so clear before we entered that meeting, we thought there was close to no chance this would not get resolved. I however have hopes that pokerstars will deal with this properly. I wait and after sometime after 17:00 I get a text from a pokerstars rep saying the meeting was finished. That the "hotel changed their view about the cameras" (still not sure what this means, certainly not our rooms corridor cameras, probably about the ones when the laptop was found the second time, but wtf how do you change your view, you mean lied at first), and that the hotel is reviewing the footage now and will update us later tonight. The casino is also going to review the footage as they have to ensure my friend was plaing the cash games, and that the head of arts security has agreed this is a major breach in security.

    I'm ecstatic, I thank them and send the exact cash game table where my friend was sitting so we can get him out of the picture.
    I wait and around 21:00 I get a text from another pokerstars rep saying that the hotel has to make a full investigation and will give the report tomorrow morning. I go back to the room with very high hopes for tomorrow. We also tell the reception to not let any calls through to our room during the night.

    We wake up at 11:00 to the alarm clock and no updates yet. I go to the pool to wait and ask the pokerstars rep a few times but no updates. At some point I hear the hotel and stars have a new meeting to see the report. I wait and wait and after 21 in the evening they finally have news for me and tell me I have to come alone no exceptions. I try to explain this concerns my friend just as much as myself, his laptop could also be in danger but she insists. We walk to the pokerstars staff room where I meet the pokerstars security manager. We sit down and he tells me "your friend might not be as good of a friend as you think he is". I know this friend of mine very well, we travelled two months in south america last winter, he hangs around my house, he has had so many better spots do this to me that I don't really take this seriously. I assume the stars security manager has some heavy proof, however he shows me some notes about the same door entrylogs we saw in that meeting earlier.

    The hotel seems to have convinced him of what they tried to show us, even after they had been caught lying before. This is basically all he has, and then also that the cameras were working in the second floor where the hotel claimed the laptop was found, but when he checked the footage nothing happened there, so he was going to look into that aswell. I did explain that there is a very very veeery low % that my friend is behind this, and that I thought you already checked the cameras that he was playing in the cash games, but he had not. He also did not know at which cash game table my friend had been sitting at even though as I wrote earlier I texted this to a pokerstars representative who answered the text with "thanks, that helps alot". I also said my friend Ilari Sahamies was sitting at the same cash game table and had told me that my friend had been there the entire time. He wrote down Ilari as a witness some paper. I then asked if we could focus on what we will do after you check the cameras in case my friend is not the one who did it, like check the 10 minute interval from the elevators when my laptop for the first time had reappeared. He seemed very busy and in a hurry the entire meeting and said that he will first check the cash game cameras for my friend and then tomorrow go from there if he is not the suspect.

    In my childish mind I had imagined like a team of multiple pokerstars security guys investigating this putting huge pressure on the hotel... But I do sincerely think he was trying to do his best, he just had his hands full with the tournament security. I feel like pokerstars should've either put someone else on this case or someone on the job he normally has so he could put more time on this case. In less than 30 minutes of the meeting starting he had to go.

    I was CRUSHED. I can't remember the last time I've felt like this. My legs were shaking and I was ready to vomit at any second. I didn't believe this, it all seemed like some kind of sick twisted joke. I ran into Juha Helppi at the casino entrance where he asked how it went (I had told most of the finnish guys at some point in this situation about what was going on) I told him about this last meeting and he couldn't believe it either. We just could not understand when something so clearly had happened and we had very exact times on everything in a hotel full of cameras that this could just be sweeped under carpet by bureaucracy. He saw how crushed I was and I told him I had no more energy to deal with this, that I was going to take a flight back home to Finland the next morning and just be in touch through the phone with the pokerstars security manager. My hopes for anything to happen were very low. There was no talk of getting the police involved anymore.

    This is basically where the story was supposed to end, I had it pictured in my mind already, perhaps in an even more negative tone, was going to write it the second I got home to Finland.
    At this point I think it's good to go through the door entrylog, as my friend was smart enough to take a picture of it. I'm jumping a bit in the timeline, as me and my friend started looking at this log just before going to bed this same evening, and it actually made total sense. This leaves two options. The security guy we had the meeting with was either incompetent and could not read his own hotels security logs, or he was lying to us:



    It starts with my friend busting out of the tournament, he tried to enter the room at 13:32 with his key 45D787. The last attempt is at 13:32:21, he takes the elevator down to the reception and 2 minutes 30 seconds later at 13:35:57 he is back at the door and it unlocks for his key 45D787. As you can see the code did not change when he went to the reception to get it resynced. 20 minutes later the room is unlocked for maid service (which we do not suspect had anything to do with it). But here is the interesting part: The key number 3EDC24 is neither of ours that attempts to enter the room for the first time at 14:51:04. At this time my friend is playing cash games and I'm still in the main event, so this can easily be proved with cameras that pokerstars also has access to (they had access to the entire casino cameras). At 14:54:26 some sort of service personnel enters the room is fairly lucky as it seems to buy me 20 minutes of time. 15:19:06 you can see he finally gets access to my room, 3 minutes before this he has unsuccessfully tried to enter again a few times. I arrive at my room door at 15:40:01 with my key 45D009, my last attempt being at 15:40:44 before going down to the reception to resync my key and arrive back to the room at 15:44:29. As you can see the key number once again does not change. It seems the minibar service had been there 2min30sec earlier but noone was there when I entered. This is the time I notice the laptop is missing. I search for it for 9 minutes and when I'm leaving the room at 15:53:12 I remember testing to see if my key works which shows in the log as another unlock. I walk to the casino to ask my friend if he has seen my laptop. During this 3EDC24 enters my room at 16:02:18. Only 2min 41 seconds before I am back in my room and notice the laptop is there (16:04:59). Which is pretty ****ing scary. He could have even been hiding in the bathroom as I was in the room.

    It took me and my friend 5 minutes to figure out this when noone was there trying to tell us what everything meant. Obviously we can't be 100% sure this analysis is correct but seems pretty damn clear to me. This can also be proved for sure with the lobby and elevator cameras. And it is this exact log that made the hotel blame my friend and pokerstars to suspect my friend which is pretty ****ing absurd, when even if you don't understand the log you could have synced the times with the cameras to get the whole picture. They somehow in a very unclear way told that according to the logs the only other person who entered the room after me was my friend, and that his keys code somehow had changed after the resync. (Even if it was true that the resync changes the code, there should be 2 keycodes that tried to enter the room unsuccessfully, and then 2 new keycodes, that then successfully unlocked the room, which there clearly was not.

    So back to the story. I was walking from the casino to my hotel room just crushed. Tired of picking up the soap from the prison shower floor. As a pokerplayer I do not believe in anything supernatural but this had to be faith. In the hotel elevator a guy looks at me and says hey jeans. I don't recognize him at first and say hey, whats up, who are you. He answers "I'm Ignat, 0human0, how are you?" Even this is so sick, as I almost always just make the standard (I'm fine, what about you?) answer but this time I was just too sick of everything so I answered "Not good, my laptop was stolen". He looks at me with a surprised face and says his was also.

    And then we find out the exact same thing had happened, but for him it was today, two days later than my incident. He returns to his room from the beach, his key doesn't work, he gets a new key to notice his laptop is not in his room. He goes down to the reception to complain and comes back up only to notice that the laptop has been returned. He also says there was 2 phonecalls made to his room. One asking when he wanted the room to be cleaned, to which he had answered in 2 hours. Another one after that 2 hours, where when he answered nothing was said, and the call just ended. So very likely someone checking if he still is in his room or not. I asked him if he had been told about my case. He said no, he said "they did tell me there was some small similar case but it was just the guys friend messing around" .

    He also told me that they had caught the guy on tape entering his room. This gave me a huge wave of new energy. I immediately took the elevator down with him, told him that we had to go see the pokerstars security manager, he was still there and for the first time I felt he took this thing as seriously as it should be taken. He came with us to the reception to talk with whoever ignat had been talking to and after nothing more could be done he said he would be back there 8 in the morning to continue solving it. He would call us right after he has news. We went back to our room with my friend and just talked for a few hours about this whole sick thing. It feels like this could only happen in a movie. Then we started talking about the entrylogs that I analyzed a bit earlier in this post and took a look at the picture he had of them. It really took us less than 5 minutes to make sense of them, and I don't think we would have ever looked at them again had I not ran into Ignat.

    And here we are, the next day now. I just spoke with the manager who told me he has a meeting with pokerstars at 14:00 and 15:00 with the hotel. I told him we had solved the entrylog and it would help alot with the meeting with the hotel but he did not have time to go through that.

    So this is the entire story 100% as I remember it writing this in my hotel room. I believe that this has happened to multiple players, me and ignat only happened to be lucky enough to come back to our room at the right time. We both also had it in common that both need a password to enter the laptop, otherwise it would probably have taken them less time to fix the laptops. I also am still completely stunned at how this whole thing almost got sweeped under the carpet with all the evidence, in an European Union country at a 5 star luxury hotel. I will write more when I hear news, or if I come up with something I forgot. Feel free to post questions and I'll try to answer them when I have time. If your question from my other thread was not answered in this post feel free to post it again.


    If this investigation does not lead to any results, we think it is unacceptable for pokerstars to organize the event at the same place next year.

    Jens & Henri
    http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...ojans-1369171/

  9. #9
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
    Reputation
    10110
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    54,626
    Blog Entries
    2
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Everyone should write lots of Tripadvisor reviews (and Yelp, btw) and trash them hard.

    This will absolutely destroy their business, as many travelers use these sites and will panic when they read about the thefts and break-ins.

    Also, Pokerstars bungled this BIG TIME.

    Why was such an incompetent Pokerstars security person in charge of a matter like this?

    Pokerstars should have someone on hand at all time (at their major events) who is intelligent, aggressive, and empowered to deal with big problems.

    It sounds like you guys had a monkey in charge of security there, and this person got manipulated big time by the scumbags working for the hotel.

    Awful.

    Remember PLOL's situation at the PCA where there were super-inconsistent rules regarding a gimmick 1k tournament where people played against playchip games on the site? Many people got screwed out of 1k there, and again there was nobody to step up and set things right as it happened. Obviously a vastly different situation from this, but again contributes to the theme that Pokerstars staffs morons in important positions at major events, and then bad things happen.

  10. #10
    Silver Sandwich's Avatar
    Reputation
    66
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    974
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Wow, this is a very disturbing story, and I am shocked by it. I've stayed in this hotel -- it is actually attached to the casino -- and it is an amazingly nice luxury Ritz Carlton-affiliated hotel.... Am I reading correctly that the hotel staff is in on this or at the very least covering it up?? Just wow.

  11. #11
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
    Reputation
    10110
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    54,626
    Blog Entries
    2
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Quote Originally Posted by Sandwich View Post
    Wow, this is a very disturbing story, and I am shocked by it. I've stayed in this hotel -- it is actually attached to the casino -- and it is an amazingly nice luxury Ritz Carlton-affiliated hotel.... Am I reading correctly that the hotel staff is in on this or at the very least covering it up?? Just wow.
    I don't know much about Barcelona, but people in the 2+2 thread said that there's a lot of crime there, and plenty of corruption.

    These luxury hotels are only as good as the staff hired to work there. They might have an affiliation with the Ritz, and it might be beautiful, but it would not be surprising at all to hear that some shadeballs are working there cheating people.

    It might be worth following this up the chain of command at the parent company, though.

    I think the most effective way to deal with this involves pressuring Pokerstars to truly get to the bottom of the situation.

    Pokerstars does not like bad PR, so as long as this issue is continuously pressed, and answers are demanded, Stars will hopefully be forced into giving some satisfactory answers.

    Right now, they've been eerily silent, and they're looking quite guilty of brutal incompetence here.

    They actually had a lot of power in this situation. They could have held their large contract with Arts over their head, and threatened to completely pull out in future years if this was not immediately solved.

    Stars' security could have demanded answers that made sense and required evidence to back it up. If Pokerstars really communicated to Jeans that "the hotel changed their view about the cameras", it is absolutely sickening. Pokerstars should have been all over the hotel regarding their ever-changing stories regarding the cameras, rather than trumpeting their success in getting the hotel to "change their view" about their previous lie.

    Stars should have put their foot down and demanded an immediate resolution with full transparency, with the threat of completely abandoning Arts in future years if this did not happen. And they should have followed through with this threat if it did not occur.

    Also, this is a situation where time is of the essence. Once you give the criminals a chance to hide evidence, plant new false evidence, and rehearse cover stories among the guilty parties, you lose the ability to prove wrongdoing.

    The time for Stars to get this right has already passed, and now it might even be too late to ever find out what really happened. Still, they probably have the most influence at this point, so that should be the route taken -- at least for now.

  12. #12
    Silver
    Reputation
    251
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    964
    Load Metric
    65656402
    I LOL at Americans (I know this dude was a Fin), that travel to Spain right now. Almost 60% unemployment amongst the 18-24 set, yeah, I'm sure their are tons of opportunist scumbags

    My friend's sister's BF is a B/C list celeb, and they hit Spain for two weeks. Her $2000K laptop didn't even make it out of the airport. She was stressing out hardcore about it, so I'm sure I'll be seeing what was on there on TMZ in the near future.

    Def an inside job. They were probably creaming their pants for weeks when they heard a bunch of rich 20 something online poker players were going to be staying there.

  13. #13
    Platinum Lord of the Fraud's Avatar
    Reputation
    1272
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Get A BRAIN! MORANS - GO USA
    Posts
    4,973
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Quote Originally Posted by Avon Barksdale View Post
    I LOL at Americans (I know this dude was a Fin), that travel to Spain right now. Almost 60% unemployment amongst the 18-24 set, yeah, I'm sure their are tons of opportunist scumbags

    My friend's sister's BF is a B/C list celeb, and they hit Spain for two weeks. Her $2000K laptop didn't even make it out of the airport. She was stressing out hardcore about it, so I'm sure I'll be seeing what was on there on TMZ in the near future.

    Def an inside job. They were probably creaming their pants for weeks when they heard a bunch of rich 20 something online poker players were going to be staying there.
    Fucking hell!!

    Have you been to Spain? Have you been to Europe? Have you ever left America? Do you even own a passport? (I know its 50/50 on the PP if you look at the stats)


    Spain is totally fine to travel to. I've been to Barcelona on several occasions and other parts of the country a couple dozen times.

    They have one of the lowest crime rates in the whole of Europe/world. They have hardly any violent crime, while murder cases are extremely rare.

    The country is clean, they're all very well educated, the health service is top notch, it has great transport and infrastructure. Add to the fact that the country is absolutely beautiful, which is why 11 million British tourists travel there EVERY year. And there's only 60 million of us in total!!

    Please don't compare them to the scrawny little American Spanish speaking beaners that pollute your own country by the millions.


    The thing is with Barcelona, it's one of the most popular tourist destinations in the whole of Europe/world, and there is a higher percentage of "petty crime" there. So the very worst that is ever likely gonna happen, is that you might become a target for a professional pick pocket or something. But as long as you keep shit secure, then you'll never have a problem. (I never have)


    And yes, they have high unemployment right now. But like most of the planet, there country suffered badly from the recession and are still struggling to get out of it right now.


    And I'm glad your friend's sister's boyfriend's half cousin (or whoever the fuck it was) got robbed, because only a complete idiot doesn't put there 2k laptop in hand luggage.


    Don't feel like I've said enough to cover the hideousness of your comments.
    http://pnimg.net/w/articles-attachments/1/4c2/74d75c36d2.jpg

  14. #14
    Plutonium Brittney Griner's Clit's Avatar
    Reputation
    1501
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    10,830
    Load Metric
    65656402
    I love how when you are dealing with low level idiots, at an idiot hotel, with very little power, and weak evidence, how quick everyone is to jump to the conclusion of a massive hotel conspiracy, but when dealing with high level geniuses, in a elite genius group, with more power than most can imagine, and evidence so overwhelming you could spoon feed a third grade autistic boy that can't talk yet with it,everyone is like nnnoooooooooooooo they wouldn't do thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.


    megawatt rep+

  15. #15
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
    Reputation
    10110
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    54,626
    Blog Entries
    2
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Confirmed trojan to see hole cards on the computer: http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002647.html

    Pokerstars has never come out with a public statement about their conclusions regarding the whole mess.

    I wouldn't even be surprised if they return to the same hotel for the EPT Barcelona next year.

  16. #16
    Silver Sandwich's Avatar
    Reputation
    66
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    974
    Load Metric
    65656402
    I've been back to Barcelona many times since this was originally posted, and for this reason I've steered clear of the Barcelona Arts Hotel. I did check out the (attached) casino's poker room, however, and was shocked by how high stakes the live games were. (5-10 euros and higher, unless you wanted to play on a dealerless electronic poker machines against real opponents at .50-1 euro and 1-2 euro NL games).

  17. #17
    Bronze
    Reputation
    22
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Van City
    Posts
    462
    Load Metric
    65656402

    Jeans (sad?)Conclusion to my Barcelona incident

    and well does stars ever look soooo bad after reading this..
    druff is gunna enjoy this


    A conclusion to http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...ojans-1369171/

    I've been thinking a lot about whether to write about what happened with the case after I got home from Barcelona. It seems like a pretty bad career move as a professional poker player to talk negatively of Pokerstars considering the current state of online poker. I've also kind of just wanted to forget about the case. People however (don't blame them) ask me of updates on the case wherever I go, and I think I owe it to the community to answer. After F-Secure blogged about the incident, even more people are interested once again, and I have to give an update since it seems there won't be one coming from anywhere else (for a long time atleast).

    Around three days after I got home from Barcelona I spoke with the Pokerstars security manager on the phone who was the same guy I had been in contact with during entire Barcelona event who just told me all is good and they are doing everything to catch these criminals. Cool.

    It was only about a week after I had gotten home I received a phone call, it was Lee Jones. He informed me there had once again been a mix-up, the police had not been called this time either. There was STILL no police involved. My mind raced back to the night before I flew back home. How they kept wanting me to confirm that I wanted the police involved when I had already had insisted on it multiple times. How when I asked if I should stay a bit longer to sort it out with the police they very quickly responded there was absolutely no need, that I should take my morning flight back home, they got it covered. My blood was boiling. I tried to remain calm while spitting out a "WHAT did you say". He told me something about the how there had been a misunderstanding and if I still wanted the police involved there was an online form I could fill on some online site to make a police report. My strength as a poker player has always been my ability to control my emotions and basically never tilt, but I have to admit at this point I would have punched the first thing that came close to me in the face, even if it had been my grandma.

    I directly called the Pokerstars security employee I had been in contact more so he could explain me what the hell was going on. He told me he only found out two days ago in a meeting about this. He told me Pokerstars can't call the police directly, it had to be me or the hotel and , the hotel was supposed to call the police and there had been a misunderstanding. What a F-KKING surprise. This is not real life I thought. I still think this was no accident, there was something in this they didn't want me to know. I mean really, it took a WEEK to find out the police was not involved?

    However what I got to hear next calmed me down. They have huge amounts of evidence and online intelligence against the suspects, and they have actually been under the radar for some time before this case. They wanna do it their way, go report it to the Isle of Man police and through them make it to the right authorities. I understood something was being kept from me but I didn't really care, as long as they would bring the criminals to justice. He told me an employee of theirs would be in contact to make a full report on my case. I said thanks and closed the phone. Yesterday I had thought this case and the mood swings were over, but no.

    Around this time I had also taken my laptop to the F-Secure Helsinki headquarters. They eventually did find a trojan on my laptop, they were even able to pinpoint the exact time the USB-stick used to install it was inserted, it was during the time my laptop had been missing in Barcelona.

    After a few days of waiting the Pokerstars employee who was gonna make the report contacted me. I gave her all the info. A little bit later when the trojan was found we gave her that info. The F-Secure specialist told me he could be of great assistance in the case, with the trojan possibly track it to the suspects. On the 2. October I recieved an email saying the report had been sent to the police. I replied asking if the police could be in contact to the F-Secure specialist as he had ideas how to track them (a great way to also finally know if the police had in fact been contacted as even now I still had my doubts). I recieved no reply when before this she had replied within a day. I sent another email on the 8. October asking the same thing, still no reply. On the 14. October I sent a third email with the same thing, this time receiving this reply:



    Hi Jens

    I have been informed that the investigation has been forwarded to the [the suspects country] authorities - we will just have to wait to see if they take up the case and contact us back again.

    As soon as I hear anything I will let you know

    Regards

    [employee name]
    Senior Internal Security Analyst
    PokerStars



    I did not believe my eyes, they kept reading one bit over and over "if they take up the case". Thank god my grandma wasn't nearby this time either. I just couldn't believe it after everything they said they had on these guys, and now even the proof on my laptop! Was there any authority in the world who could not think there had been a crime committed and wouldn't take up the case?

    I waited a week hearing nothing and sent an email to tell the contacted authorities to be in contact with me once they take up the case. No reply. One week later I once again sent a confused email asking questions, I got this reply:



    Hi Jens

    I am unsure how long it will take. All I can say is I put together a very detailed report and all I can hope is that it strikes an interest and the matter is taken up by the [suspects country] Police.


    Kind Regards

    [employee name]
    Senior Internal Security Analyst
    PokerStars



    Two and a half weeks later there had been no news to me which is when I decided to send this email:



    Hello,

    I assume there isn't any news from the [suspects country] authorities yet as you haven't contacted me. If they decide not to take up the case, I'd like to speak to the person making that decision, if possible. I'd also be very surprised and disappointed, especially at the decision not to involve the Spanish police, when there was so much direct evidence left at hotel Arts Barcelona, especially the direct video footage of the suspects entering Ignats hotel room. Assuming this happens I will write a second report about this incident on the 2+2 forums about everything that has been going on with this case since I got back to Finland and will express my disappointment. I also sent a copy of this email to Lee Jones who I was in contact with before getting in contact with you, just so everyone knows my take on the situation.

    Jens



    I never heard from the Internal security analyst again. However Lee Jones replied. Now please do not go too hard on Lee in this thread, he is not making the decisions, simply relaying the information:



    Hi Jens –

    [internal security analyst's name] spent two weeks researching your case and the surrounding issues. She sent the information to the Isle of Man financial crimes unit. They forwarded it to the Egmont group that is responsible for international coordination of financial crimes investigation. At that point, (in fact, from the point that the information went to the Isle of Man government) the issue is out of our hands.



    Jens, I realize that this is a very big deal for you, but PokerStars has done everything that we can. We are not an investigative body and we’re not a criminal enforcement organization. [name] put a huge amount of work into researching and organizing the information around your case and some other cases that may have been related. Other than that, I can’t give you any details.



    The unfortunate fact is that there may very well not be any further information to come out – we can only hope that the authorities in [country] will use the information well and perhaps it will help them actually make some arrests.



    I realize this is not the resolution you were hoping for, but this is how things go sometimes and I hope you can understand that.



    I appreciate your patience and cooperation throughout this and let’s hope that ultimately something good will come out of it all.



    Warmest regards,

    Lee



    I replied:



    Thanks for the email. As you know it was at least twice I was told the police was now informed when they in fact were not. I was also encouraged not stay in Barcelona to sort things out and it took a week since I got back home to tell me about the misunderstanding that the police still hadn't been contacted. You have to understand how weird and suspicious that feels. To be honest I didn't really care that I was quite sure Pokerstars was holding something from me as long as they would still do it their own way to get the criminals to justice. The reason I was ok with all this is that I was told the suspects have actually already been on the radar by Pokerstars and you have a lot on them. If I was told back then "Pokerstars will make an investigation but it is very possible the [country] authorities will not even pick up the case" there is no chance I wouldn't have corrected the "misunderstanding" and included the Spanish police. Especially now that F-Secure computer experts found malware on our laptops, and are able to pinpoint the exact time when they were installed, with all the cameras in Arts to check this exact time, there is ZERO chance to say no crime has been committed and a police agency won't pick up this case.

    Basically the thing I'm saying is after these few coincidences about the police not being called I do not have complete trust in Pokerstars (this is purely about this matter, otherwise the trust is obviously 100%) as for you as a company it's not really your problem, and probably just best if this matter is swept under the carpet.
    I still have not been in contact with any authority other than personnel from Pokerstars. What guarantee do I have that everything I've been told now is the truth? I'd just like some sort of proof that this case actually has reached the right authorities, and has been told in the proper way to interest them.

    Jens



    And finally:



    Hi Jens –

    Obviously, we are sorry about your being misinformed about the police being contacted (or not) at the outset of the investigation. That was certainly never intentional – it was a mistake caused by the confusion of the early days after the incident. Since then, many people at PokerStars have put a lot of hours into discussing what happened and (among other things) doing what we can to aid a criminal investigation.



    As I told you, [internal specialist], on our security staff, put two weeks into researching your case and similar ones. And I can assure you that she has sent the information to the appropriate authorities on the Isle of Man. There’s really no more information I can give you (in fact, that I’m permitted to give you).



    Sadly, it is unlikely that we will ever get any kind of official response or resolution to your case. It’s a potentially criminal matter that has been referred to the proper authorities and they will investigate as they see fit. Obviously, we all learned some lessons from the incident, and that’s the silver lining to the cloud. Fortunately, nobody was physically hurt and you discovered the malware and removed it before it could be used against you. I realize that’s small comfort, but in the grander scheme of things, it turned out relatively well.



    To be quite clear, Jens – we did not sweep this incident under the carpet. We acknowledged it on 2+2 within an hour of your original post, we made a follow-up post to 2+2, and we have been in touch with you (both myself and [internal analyst]) since. Just because we didn’t get the outcome we all wanted (the perpetrators arrested) doesn’t mean that we swept anything under the carpet. That’s just how the world works sometimes.



    I hope you can understand this – I’m sure it’s not terribly satisfying to you but it is our honest and best reply.



    Warmest regards,

    Lee Jones



    And here we are. With the "Sadly, it is unlikely that we will ever get any kind of official response or resolution to your case." and still so many interested in the case I feel I have no choice but to tell you my side of the story. I welcome Pokerstars in this thread to tell their side of the story and correct any flaws I might have written. I would also like to thank people for retweeting my tweet about this incident. When googling "Hotel arts barcelona" my 2+2 thread comes up as the seventh site, after two of the hotels own websites, two tripadvisor-sites and two online hotel-booking sites. I think we really managed to make a difference and hurt the hotels business a bit which I think is very well deserved.

    To this day I still have zero proof any sort of authorities have seen this case, so if you end up in a similar situation, do not count on Pokerstars, contact the police directly. I however have absolutely no energy to do anything about the case anymore, I really just want to forget it. Let's hope the Egmont group has actually received a report, and that report contains everything it should.


    a once again tilted, Jens Kyllönen (Also apparently my 1000th post!)

  18. #18
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
    Reputation
    10110
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    54,626
    Blog Entries
    2
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Awful.

    I don't understand why the Isle of Man "authorities" are getting involved.

    Why?

    The crime did not occur there, and Jens/Jeans does not live there.

    Pokerstars is based there, but that doesn't give Isle of Man any jurisdiction in this matter. The police in Barcelona are the only real authoritative body that could do anything about this. Even the police from Jens' country could not help much, other than perhaps pressure the Barcelona police to investigate more.

    This is definitely a case of "sweeping it under the rug", because Pokerstars screwed up pretty badly when they bungled the initial investigation along with the dirty hotel security.

    Pokerstars also might want to continue their business association with Barcelona Arts for future events (notice Lee did NOT say they would cancel that in the future), so they don't want further bad press about what happened there.

    Just really, really dirty.

     
    Comments
      
      rum dick: frying pan time?

  19. #19
    Gold Steve-O's Avatar
    Reputation
    36
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    1,812
    Load Metric
    65656402
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    I don't understand why the Isle of Man "authorities" are getting involved.
    Maybe the perpetrators are from the Isle of Man and are no longer in Spain. Obviously that would "suggest" that they were PokerStars employees.

    Stars could have contacted the police in the Isle of Man who would have made a couple of cursory calls to Barcelona, hit dead-ends and ambivalence, and a few days later told Stars that there really isn't much they can do. So Stars tells Jens just enough to not implicate any employees (if this is the case). That would all fit in with the timeline Jens laid out.

    We have to remember that there was no money stolen, so it is probably low priority to police since fraud and other major felonies weren't committed. To the police, someone broke into his hotel room and fucked with his laptop, hardly a reason for extradition and cross-country investigations
    I write things about poker at my Poker Blog and elsewhere on the Internets

  20. #20
    Platinum garrett's Avatar
    Reputation
    29
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Location
    east coast
    Posts
    4,259
    Load Metric
    65656402
    He was targeted, as was 0human0. Two of the biggest online nosebleed players in the world just coincidentally have a USB trojan inserted at a Pokerstars major event is telling. Both mr jens and 0human have someone closer than they realize, trying to clean them out, in a very sophisticated way. The reason Isle of Man authorities got called could be because the crime has been perpetrated before on Pokerstars servers in the Isle of Man.

    First question that comes to mind is, where is "Henri" from (possible American, therefore the jurisdictional issue), who else did Henri now/hang with also there that week, and how tech savvy are they/he?

    Also seeing as Pokerstars acknowledged something wrong, makes me think this incident enlightened them to a much bigger, more sophisticated plan than originally thought.

    Mr Kyllonen is somewhat naive from the sounds of it, and may have made himself a much easier target than he may realize within the poker world, definitely an inside job imo, and all the more reason U.S regulated sites are a must. I doubt Borgata security would of handled this as laughably as Pokerstars did here!

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 2
    Last Post: 09-03-2019, 09:26 AM
  2. WCGRider (from 2+2) gets hacked - Pokerstars steps up
    By varys in forum Flying Stupidity
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 08-06-2013, 10:30 AM
  3. Tine Is This True? - Youtube Hacked?
    By WillieMcFML in forum Flying Stupidity
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 11-03-2012, 06:11 AM
  4. LinkedIn Hacked?
    By Vwls in forum Flying Stupidity
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 06-06-2012, 12:34 PM
  5. lol...2+2 hacked it seems
    By RichardBrodiesCombover. in forum Flying Stupidity
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 04-26-2012, 12:33 PM