PokerEdge Hacked! :-)

[TheHammer24]

Have you really accomplished anything? You send your HH txt files to the PE database. The HH is 100% accurate, except that your data has been scewed. Thus, you have only accomplished making yourself look like a fish, while cognizant players will see your stats are a very different from your actual play. They will ignore these scewed stats, and benefit from the other HH files you sent the database.

This is ignoring the assertion that other PE users cannot see PE stats. I do not know the accuracy of that though.

My question was truly not rhetorical, I'm honestly inquiring.

[evans075]

Thanks!

[LowDown22]

You're right he's only skewing his stats, so when he stops paying for PE, his stats there are useless anyway. So he pays for one month, skews his stats, and leaves assured that no one has an accurate read on him using the PE data.

Also, as I mentioned earlier you could also corrupt the PokerEdge DB in a much more devious way. Take an existing HH file and change all the HH numbers to some future hand numbers that haven't been played yet. Once PE imports them, repeat the process on the same HHs. I don't suggest anyone does this obviously, but you could start to skew a lot of stats this way and the DB would also probably start rejecting the 'real' HHs that have those hand numbers.

[Exsubmariner]

I am also a PT user. I have found it invaluable in improving my own game. I also use GT+ in concert with it. GT+ relieves to hassel of having to constantly take notes on on opponents. It doesn't tell me anything I wouldn't already know in 50 or so hands.
The difference lies in the fact that they are selling the data their users acquire. Add to that the fact that you, as a subscriber, have to option to block your data from being viewed by other users. a+b=extortion racket.
If an opponent of mine wants to use PT and GT+ to play me, I'm OK with that. If he is good enough to analyze my play and avoid me or trap me at the right times in order to improve his take, fine, more power too him because I am doing the same thing he is. If he wants to datamine 24 hours a day and set up a server farm on his own or trade his data with all his buddies, I'm ok with that as well. I could do that, but I don't think it's worth the time. When he gets into selling that data to enable his subscribers to get a predetermined read (spoken edge) on my play that I have to pay him to nullify then that crosses a line.
X

[PokerEdgeHacked]

[ QUOTE ]
Have you really accomplished anything? You send your HH txt files to the PE database. The HH is 100% accurate, except that your data has been scewed. Thus, you have only accomplished making yourself look like a fish, while cognizant players will see your stats are a very different from your actual play. They will ignore these scewed stats, and benefit from the other HH files you sent the database.

This is ignoring the assertion that other PE users cannot see PE stats. I do not know the accuracy of that though.

My question was truly not rhetorical, I'm honestly inquiring.

[/ QUOTE ]

You make very valueable points. I am just distorting my own numbers for my own sake, and a good player would realize this and adjust his play accordingly. (How many PE players are good players?) Also to this point I've only manipulated the VPIP, alas other stats would be easy.

I could rewrite the program to change everyones data, but uploading enough false data to make pokeredge worthless can't be done by one person, it's going to take a community effort.

I see the threads regarding releasing my program. I might do this, but I wrote the program quick and dirty (IE everything is hardcoded like my user name etc), so it would take a little time to clean up for a public release.

[PokerEdgeHacked]

[ QUOTE ]
You're right he's only skewing his stats, so when he stops paying for PE, his stats there are useless anyway. So he pays for one month, skews his stats, and leaves assured that no one has an accurate read on him using the PE data.


[/ QUOTE ]
Yep.. 100%
[ QUOTE ]

Also, as I mentioned earlier you could also corrupt the PokerEdge DB in a much more devious way. Take an existing HH file and change all the HH numbers to some future hand numbers that haven't been played yet. Once PE imports them, repeat the process on the same HHs. I don't suggest anyone does this obviously, but you could start to skew a lot of stats this way and the DB would also probably start rejecting the 'real' HHs that have those hand numbers.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do believe from my testing that the first upload takes precident and all future uploads with the same game number are disgarded, but I can't say with 100% accuracy.

I can't see a real way for PE to write around what I've done, unless they find duplicate hands that don't match. Then they could deny uploads from my hands, or oh no, ban me.

It was well worth the $40 to do it...

Why did I release this info now? I got one of the famous PP letters so I removed everything except PT from my system.

[Alpha13]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't see a real way for PE to write around what I've done, unless they find duplicate hands that don't match. Then they could deny uploads from my hands, or oh no, ban me.


[/ QUOTE ]

chances are this will happen, remember they don't get most of their HHs from their users, they get them from those computers they set up to datamine obseerved hands. Also if you notice the stats that are collected and shown in the HUD, they typically go back no further than a month (probably to keep their system running fast) Thus your fake hands will only be good for a month or so before they are replaced with your real observed hands.

[Derek in NYC]

Wow, Im always amazed by the creativity of the computer types on this board (both the PE developer, and the anti-PE contingent). Its an interesting idea, but my understanding is that the VAST majority of the data collected by PokerEdge is independently farmed by them. Still, an interesting idea, but I think any bad data you could feed in would be like spit in the ocean.

[Derek in NYC]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't see a real way for PE to write around what I've done, unless they find duplicate hands that don't match. Then they could deny uploads from my hands, or oh no, ban me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Another problem with your hack, as you point out, is that PE can simply put in an audit function where your reported hand histories are compared for accuracy against either (1) PE's independent observation of the hand through its data farm, or (2) an emailed request for the hand history. If the hands dont match, PE can just go back to the dB and purge out all contributed hands from you, and stop accepting new hand history uploads from that user account. I doubt that they'd ban you.... they'd probably just purge your data and stop accepting your new data, and keep your money.

PS--I've alerted one of the developers to this thread, and he didnt seem that concerned. He seemed to suggest that they had anticipated this problem and could deal with it w/out any trouble.

[memphis57]

[ QUOTE ]

PS--I've alerted one of the developers to this thread, and he didnt seem that concerned. He seemed to suggest that they had anticipated this problem and could deal with it w/out any trouble.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm, wonder what? It would be logical for there to be a field distinguishing self-reported from observed history, and for observed to take precedence. A little more sophisticated, which I wouldn't have expected them to do up front but wouldn't be too hard once they had reason, would be to compare stats for self-reported hands to observed and throw out the former when large deviations were encountered. No need to tell the contributor or stop taking his money; in fact, maybe they'd let you distort your stats as long as you were a paying memeber but then revert to observed only once you left.

I'd like to hear more about how PE works, and to hear results of various experiments. For example, could the poster send somebody he trusts his playername and have them confirm what numbers they are seeing? And whether it goes away after a month or two? I also loved the idea above of putting in future hand history numbers - I expect PE-observed hands will override user-supplied hands, but it might be a bug at present. Is there anyway to test this?

Does anybody know PE's regular observation routine? What limits? And when compiling stats, do they treat all limits equally? If so, and if you're a 30/60 player usually, you could go play 0.5/1 wildly for a few hunded hands during prime observation periods (or pay me to do it for you).

BTW, this thread is MUCH healthier than whining over banning or not banning. In an arms race like online poker at present, you cannot put any genies back in the bottle, you just have to stay on top of what's out there and learn ways to deal with it. Like I said in another thread, it's all a big game of spy-counter-spy and, if you have the right attitude, it's about as much fun as poker itself.

So let's have a lot more threads about the details of how this stuff works and ideas on how to best use/thwart/abuse them.