MTH (Multi Table Handler) or other such programs?

[12AX7]

Hi Everyone,
Anyone here use MTH these days? Know of any other similar programs. Would like to be able to shrink 2 or more tables a little to fit on my laptop screen.

Also of interest. How can a be sure any such program is not broadcasting my cards to other players?

[OrcaDK]

[ QUOTE ]
Also of interest. How can a be sure any such program is not broadcasting my cards to other players?

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't. You can take your precautions though. Run a firewall, make sure it's set to block any unknown applications in case they try to talk to the internet. Other than that, you'll have to make do with the developers word for it... In this case mine.

[12AX7]

Hi OrcaDA,
Don't take it as an insult. I was a mainframe programmer and worked with several TCP/IP based products, so for me it a natural question, and of course worry with online poker and all the talk about the cheating program out there. (Can't recall the name at the moment, but the one that shares hole cards.)

And of course I wonder about bots too.

Seems to me that Wilson's Turbo HE could be used as the model for a bot program. And/or the old Workware "Poker Compiler" could be another way of expressing strategies in computer form that are poker specific.

Often wondered of Darse Billings and his gang ever took a look at Poker Compiler. Having been a programmer, that approach looked the most elegant and powerful to me.

Of course, non programmers would probably prefer the table driven appoach.

[OrcaDK]

Don't worry, no unsults here /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I truly understand your concern, and it's without doubt good to have those concerns. But as i said the only real solution is to set up a firewall and/or network sniffer and check the data, depending on the level of suspiciousness. Releasing the source code wouldn't even help, since anyone can release a "clean" source code, and distribute a "dirty" compiled copy.

So it really all boils down to the users trusting the developer.

[12AX7]

Don't know if it exists in the PC world. But in the MVS mainframe world, every call to the OS can be trapped, as well as certain calls to the I/O subsystem using what they call Generalized Trace Facility (GTF).

Seems to me there'd be a market for a tool that would track every access to any resource and alert you to any subset you choose. Ideally it would prevent access until you click "yes" or whatever.

That way, let's suppose you were worried about your file with account numbers in it, you could specify that nothing touches it without letting you know.

I use the term "resource" here in the generic sense to mean anything from specific OS and Hardware calls to TCP/IP connections to files, etc.

[OrcaDK]

There are a lot of trace tools out there, Spy+ is the MS one, Winspector is a 3rd party tool that works a lot better. These'll trace any API calls any app might make.

The Party client itself traces these calls, it checks for suspicious interaction with the client to monitor for bot activity.

[12AX7]

Hi OrkaDK,
Found myself wondering last night, "How is the incoming data from an online card room intercepted and worked with?"

Is this done at the TCP level, some other level?

I was thinking it might be fun, as a way to get acquainted with non mainframe tools, to create a tool to tell me what straights are possible with the current board. LOL!

Is the incoming data in nice text format? I'd have expected it to be encrypted?

Anyway, I have no idea how these things are built, so the interception of the data is just a technical curiousity that I have.

In the mainframe world I have told you to put a service on the port to copy the data somewhere to work with and then pass it through to the "real" application. (Assuming the lack of a formal interface.)

[OrcaDK]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi OrkaDK,
Found myself wondering last night, "How is the incoming data from an online card room intercepted and worked with?"

Is this done at the TCP level, some other level?

I was thinking it might be fun, as a way to get acquainted with non mainframe tools, to create a tool to tell me what straights are possible with the current board. LOL!

Is the incoming data in nice text format? I'd have expected it to be encrypted?

Anyway, I have no idea how these things are built, so the interception of the data is just a technical curiousity that I have.

In the mainframe world I have told you to put a service on the port to copy the data somewhere to work with and then pass it through to the "real" application. (Assuming the lack of a formal interface.)

[/ QUOTE ]

You could set up a sniffer, but that won't do you much good since the data is encryptet. What's a lot easier is simply to read the hand history files from the poker client directory. Those HH files are written to in real time, including your own hole cards. So simply by parsing those, you get all the info that you could otherwise get by sniffing the tcp stream.