More Paradise Poker Paranoia

I have started playing at Paradise. Like most people I am concerned about possible cheating. A friend says I absolutely need a firewall. He says that he has installed a series of programs on his computer that tell him if someone is trying to hack into his computer while he is playing to get screen shots. He says he has had 5 or 6 attempts from people to hack his computer. I don't know much about firewalls, or the software necessary to hack into other people's computers. Is this really a problem at paradise or is my friend just paranoid? Do any of you more computer literate players use protective software, and have you detected hacking attempts?


As far as my online experience has gone so far, I am up (but not enough hours played yet to really tell anything). I have witnessed the "irregularities" at paradise firsthand. I have seen the ridiculous suckouts and the peculiar flops. It seems to me like players are flopping good hands too often. I seems like the number of good hands being made/dealt are non-random. I have seen more sets turned and rivered than I have ever seen in the casino. The game seems skewed against the raisers. The guy raising with AK flops an ace and has his heads-up preflop opponent with 22 flops a set. Obviously PP would benefit from "massaging" the shuffle to generate more action. This type of phenomenon seems randomly distributed, that is to say, everyone gains/loses equally, only the pots are bigger. I don't think it would really affect a good player's expectation much. JMHO.

A firewall will not help you not be cheated at PP. If you are running Windows, anyone attempting to see your cards would need to have already infected your computer with a virus. There isn't anything they can do in Windows because there isn't any ability to run things remotely. Hence, if your computer is not infected with the virus, you do not need a firewall, and if your computer is infected with the virus, as firewall will provide minimal protection at best. But, like I said below, if you have this virus, poker at paradise is not the biggest of your worries.

i'm not the best with computers. actually i know close to nothing. how can i detect and get rid of this virus? thanks.


PG

Will Norton Antivirus detect this virus? I haven't updated my Norton files for sometime, is this virus a recent one that will need updating to detect?


Thanks.

I don't know any of the specifics about the virus, but getting an updated virus scanner is about the best you can. If you get the latest version of MacAfee it will be able to detect all the viruses which the makers know about. Again, I don't know enough about the screen viewing virus to be sure that it can be detected and destroyed, but if it can, then McAfee can probably do it.

You probably will have to update Norton, though as I said in my reply to PG, I don't know. If you get the latest version of Norton Antivirus, and it doesn't find anything, you can be reasonably sure that the virus is not on your computer.

would reformatting my hard drive erase any and all viruses?


PG

Because of the Code Red Worm, all computers on the Internet are regularly getting probed. My home firewall shows around 100 probes in the last 24 hours. Most of these probes are the Code Red Worm looking for a Win2k or NT machines running the Microsoft IIS web server. Since I am running Win98 and do not run a web server, these probes are completely harmless, even without a firewall. A few of the probes are looking for some remote control Trojan virus like Sub7 or BackOrifice. I don't have these Trojans on my machine, so these probes are completely harmless.


These probes of your computer could be described as "attempts to hack into your computer". Unless you have gotten your computer infected with one of the Trojan viruses or are running the Microsoft IIS web server on NT or Win2k and have not installed the security patch, you don't have much to worry about.


As Lenny indicated above good updated anti-virus software is your best security precaution.

Do yourself a favor. #1= Install a firewall, you can get ZoneAlarm for free and it works great. I get about 50 to 100 attempts to get into my system in a 2hr. session of poker. #2= Subscribe to a virus protection like McAfee which updates automatically. Cost you $19.95 when they run a special.They have been great for me. #3= Enjoy yourself and stop worrying.

If you use a cable modem it is IMPARITIVE that you have some form of firewall protection. (I use black ice) With a cable modem your IP address begins w/ a 24. That means you are connected 24 hrs a day. (We pay a flat fee for unlimited internet use, so when puter is on, we are connected to internet). Many people for whom you need protection from often search for any active IP adress that begins with that 24. Not being an experienced computer person, I'm not sure what all the different Port probes mean. It was explained to me that someone can access your computer, so they can use your computer to do things they shouldnt be. Another reason is to gain access to your computer so they can access some files of importance. (your money manager, pay online programs, etc) If caught, the problem falls on your lap. Most are trojan probes (looking for programs that you may have accidently loaded that allow others to access your computer), different port probes are often tried. Once again, I'm not qualified to give technical details, just wanted to inform everyone that use a cable modem to get some firewall protection. We average about 15-20 "attacks/probes" per day.

Norton Anti-Virus (and I'm sure the other major ones too) have a LiveUpdate feature that will every few days retrive the newest virus definitions so you will have up to date protection against viruses. You should run a virus scanner even if you don't play poker!


About firewalls, there's some good ones like ZoneAlarm, and Norton Internet Security. ZoneAlarm has a free version.


- Tony

uhh, yes, but it would also erase everything else...

Right, but like Mike said, unless you are infected with the appropriate virus, your windows machine is safe from these probes.

Make sure you disable the "file and print sharing" option. This seems to be the most popular attack.

Small fry, re your comments below, I agree 100% with every word. I am continuing to compile data, and will post something more than just "anecdotal" info., but so far it appears blatantly obvious that this is occurring at PP.


As to a good player expectation, I agree that it affects everyone somewhat equally, when it comes to who gets the giant flops. I would say the very tight agreesive players may see a disadvantage though, when they come in with hands like A,K flop a K, and then get cracked at higher than random rates by the runner runner flushes, runner runner Q,Q, to help the Q,10, etc. The flops are so obviuously juiced sometimes, that it is laughable.


Yesterday I saw a flop come KKK, 3 times in 5 hands. Very bizarre. In all three cases, more coordinated cards came with that flop on turn/river. My wife happened to be watching at the time, and though not normally a serious poker player, she remarked ahead of me that something was seriously amiss with Paradise.


It must be working in my favor more than against, as I went from $68 in my account a few weeks ago, to $2K plus now. Nonetheless, I would much prefer a "straight" game, to this "giant hand" version of poker that PP deals.


>>>As far as my online experience has gone so far, I am up (but not enough hours played yet to really tell anything). I have witnessed the "irregularities" at paradise firsthand. I have seen the ridiculous suckouts and the peculiar flops. It seems to me like players are flopping good hands too often. I seems like the number of good hands being made/dealt are non-random. I have seen more sets turned and rivered than I have ever seen in the casino. The game seems skewed against the raisers. The guy raising with AK flops an ace and has his heads-up preflop opponent with 22 flops a set. Obviously PP would benefit from "massaging" the shuffle to generate more action. This type of phenomenon seems randomly distributed, that is to say, everyone gains/loses equally, only the pots are bigger. I don't think it would really affect a good player's expectation much. JMHO. <<<<

If you use a firewall such as zonealarm and are aware of ALL programs that access the internet, there is not much to worry about.


A trojan virus would attempt to disguise itself as a useful program..Particulary a program that you are afraid to delete or block access to.


I currently have 2 programs on my computer that keep attempting to access the internet: Distributed Com Services and Run A DLL as an APP. I have no idea, what in the hell their purpose is or where they are located on my hard drive so I simply block their access to the internet thru zonealarm.

Last night while waiting for a 5/10 seat, I watched some 20/40 at paradise. This is the FIRST hand played while I was watching:


Everyone folded to button who raised. SB three bet, BB called, button capped. All called.


Flop 9 high. SB bet, BB raise, button reraise, SB call, BB cap (!?). All call.


Turn is low again. Bet raise, reraise...you know the story.


When the river was done and the hands were turned over, button had KK, SB had JJ, and BB had QQ. Board stayed 9 high all the way. Button drags a 1K pot.


The players at the table flooded the chat box with "this happens every time", "rigged", "fixed" etc. etc.


Now I know this hand means nothing by itself, but when you see this happen enough times, it just seems too strange to be a coincidence. The winner of the hand was interestingly the notorious ZXLMXZS (or whatever), the 18K guy who had this forum buzzing in a previous thread.


Now I undertand any deck fixing by PP would be pointless in 20/40 because the rake is maxed out all the time anyway. But at games like 1/2 to 5/10 (where PP makes the bulk of their profit), deck fixing would be very profitable for them.


Last night in a two hour session I saw a pretty unusual flop 3 times. Three players were dealt big aces (A9-AK) and the case A flopped with rags. Of course the action went through the roof on the flop and turn.


I will be interested to see what you find out with your data analysis. I imagine it would be pretty straightforward to do it. The odds for flopping pairs/sets/flushes etc. are well established, so any significant deviations should be obvious with a decent hand sampling. Good luck.

<Paradise Poker> hmm, we need some way to increase rake, I know, how about KKK appearing three boards out of five? That kind of flop really puts the action through the roof, and it won't appear suspicious at all!


Not only do you never provide any hand histories, but your story is not even consistent.


Go away.


Chris

I have seen three high pairs in live poker more times than I can possibly remember. I have seen 3 pairs all hit trips on the flop too - I was the victim with top set on that one. So what??


If we all posted all the unusual hands we saw on Paradise each day among the tens of thousands witnessed I'm sure it would start to look very convincing to some. But why don't we post all the thousands of mundane hands while we're at it?

As I said in my post, this hand (or a day's or week's worth of hands) doesn't mean much. I have played lots of live poker and it just seems to me that people are flopping/hitting more than they should be at Paradise. I may be just witnessing a random streak, but other people have noticed it too.


Now I'll concede that I didn't really trust online poker when I started, so I may be going out of my way to look for abnormalities. Whatever, JMHO.

Just being devils advocate here. Many say the the boards are too uniform to be random and accuse PP of intentionally attempting to create greater action thus higher rake. Others then argue that it is not in the best interest of the site to artificially generate action. Is it possible that the "random generator" is simply not as random as it is supposed to be, but that it is not a deliberate attempt by the site to do anything vile? The software may not be perfect, but that does not necessarily mean that it is deliberately "juiced up"


Just a thought


Larry