Glad we still DONT promote UB or Absolute

[scrawnybob]

hi all

as I think most of you know I stopped promoting Ultimatebet / UB & Absolute a couple of years ago after the cheating scandals ...

and I've not promoted them since ... as many started promoting them again I was starting to thing maybe I should again - but glad I havent

as some may know its been found that they have another security hole which could be exploited - they may have it fixed by now but still the cereus network still isnt a network I feel happy promoting

there is a thread on 2+2 here which might help

The Pathetic State of Online Poker News - Poker News - News, Views and Gossip

also here ...

Another hole in UB and AP security - Poker News - News, Views and Gossip

Ironically I think the site PTR uncovering the issue have been promoting UB of late so I'm not 100% sure that ultimately there isnt an angle there somewhere - but still at least they did bring it to everyones attention - even if alot of the other sites who definately promote UB / Absolute are not making a big thing of it

thankfully I & 4kingpoker doesnt have to run around trying to patch up a good side to the story - we dont promote them and recent news has done nothing to make me think differently to how we have done for the last couple of years

how they still get players I honestly dont know - I'd have thought the scandal 2 years ago would have killed them off

its just a shame that this reflects badly on the whole industry when its just one company dragging everyone down

cheers scrawnybob

[Poker Orifice]

From what I read about players who play on UB, most of the threads I read are either players who are playing UB's big weekend buyin MTT (or any big buyin MTT events they hold) and the others are microstakes players (playing micro buyin SNGs or microstakes cash tables). The microstakes players all say that the players on UB are alot weaker than some of the other sites.
I guess if one's playing micros they're not overly concerned (especially if they're actually able to beat them). Also guessing the MTT regs. playing the big buyin MTTs are doing so from a secure connection (or at least they will be now, lol).

I feel kinda fortunate in a way. When I first heard about this I posted on a forum that I had UB bucks for trade & immediately had someone interested. I've heard that UB's cashout policy kinda sucks too... something like a minimum $100 withdrawl and also an $8 fee charged for cashing out (which seems ridiculous). I told the guy I'd shoot him an extra 10% but we settled on 8% (good deal me!!). He's a microstakes recreational grinder & wins money on UB so am pretty sure he was happy with the deal as well.

I also noticed just today that a priv. league I play in on UB will be discontinuing their games on there at the end of this month (no longer wishing to support that site). It was the only reason I kept any funds at all on there... wishing I'd traded off more of it now... lol.

Bob... you mean to say we won't be playing any tourneys on UB anytime soon? lol

[scrawnybob]

hi

I would be concerned to be honest - IMHO the previous scandal should have been enough to put them out of business

and this security issue shouldnt be looked at as minor

but this recent securty hole is from what ive been told such a big hole that is relatively easy for anyone with even limited hacking skills to exploit

in effect it has meant that for some time people could view other players hole cards by accessing the infomation packets

the fact that cereus boasted their security was second to none (after the cheating scandal) and infact they didnt have even the most basic of encription ...

everyone has SSL (Secure socket layering) encryption yet only now are they sorting that out

the thing about this is there is very little way of figuring out how much this hole has been expoited ... for all we are ever going to know there could have been alot of abuse of this or none

To quote someone in the know ... The real danger from this comes not from someone hijacking your wireless network, which is what the article focused on and what statements from UB are focusing on, it's that someone who has access to an ISP backbone connection can now sniff for all traffic packets from UB routed through that location and can spy on pretty much anyone they want to.

the original cheating scandal was from in house ... done in house

but its perfectly possible to be intercepting lots of packets of info for multiple players with the same main ISP

gives me less than zero faith in anything that company (UB / Absolute) says

I dont care how soft the games are - there are plenty of other sites with equally soft or softer games than on cereus ... eg. bodog, pacific & merge

the business side of cereus is afiaks in debt up to its ears, traffic is down nearly massively ... but they still scrape by and still bullshit people that they are solid and safe

will we be playing games there ? lol hell no

we used to back in I think 2005/2006 before any hint of shady cheating or iffy security

I removed the affiliate / signup links for UB and Absolute when the cheating issues came up ... alot of sites started putting them back in their top10's in the last 6mths ...

but afaiks those rooms really have NOT their house in order and to brag about the best security and then be found to be massively lacking is really really bad

cerious are serious - my a**

cheers scrawnybob

[tking888]

i liked their horse/razz games. this was one of the places i could always find people playing. my "vegas 24/7" account folded into absolute. i knew about the inside cheating but not this other stuff. thanks.

[Dan Abnormal]

A big reason a lot of players play there, is because they are one of the few (IM TALKING THE ONLY ONE) that would take my card. I tried FT and PS neither would take my card. When playing at UB I ask a lot of times what people think of the site, with all the scandals (since Im new to hold em and online poker, a lot of people arent familiar with the past) and most say what I did, First site they could find (USA Im talking) that they could make a deposit. Im not sure about the laws and all that, but in the US most people only think of paypal (Im not talking about the poker sauvy folks who use net wallets and all that), I never even knew all these other paypal type sites existed and dont know if I want to give my info to them. I dont want to send a Western Union for 14.99 fee to Phillipens to some dude with a very hard name to spell to play on FT. How does UB get around this and the others cant

I do as well at UB as I do on Cake and Carbon which is not good at all but now I think about it, maybe its not my play its UB STEALING MY MONEY. Nah its probably my play but Ill take the high roll and blame that DAMN UB!

[Peteyweestro]

I will be honest and say that when i started playing onine poker i did know about the Absolute cheating scandal and i was completely blown away that they were able to sleaze their way out of it some how but in my ignorance i didn't know that UB was a sister site and i joined them because alot of the GFN games are on those sites then i learned that they were practicaly the same room but my money was allready at UB and not enough to cash out yet, so i will sadly be there for awhile i think or till i go broke there

[scrawnybob]

hi

yep IMHO your 100% right - deposit options are just about all that keeps them going

in terms of e wallets - the well known ones are 100% fine - I've been using several for the last 5yrs without any problems

Neteller is great and would be the one I would use for first choice if you can

cheers scrawnybob

[Dan Abnormal]

I very much like this site much more than that place you listed above. I did click the link to read about the latest scandal and over 5 hours later of reading a being sent off into other threads I have learned so much of about this game that will never probably effect me

1) XOR security is not good to use now
2) If I could find a weak hot spot and also have a lot of people playing on UB at this place while Im there, as long as I set my data sniffer between the poker client and server, I can read everyone hole cards and account info by simply inputting the data I sniffed out in the air and putting in the windows calculator in scientific mode and put in in XOR mode and then I have cracked the code (now what I would do with this code I dont know)
3) People are not pleased with the (k???w??K????) gaming commisson over UB
4) the same person hit the BBJ for big money is a short period of time and players can sometimes see folded cards are problems #4 and #5 at UB (I have never seen the folded cards and I have never hit the BBJ but I have never played the stakes to win a BBJ)
5) The usually gammit of why UB is a cheater site and then suddenly parallels are being made to players at PS and FT (click on a thread mind thread (so I not even done with the scandal, I have been sent to a new forum link and learned

6) SOme dude who must be good and advertising lessons (and also is big level poster) is accused of ratholing, mulitple accounts, multiple names, multiple everythings
7) The main guy accused responds with an a terible response even though most of it was over my head
8) Everyone in an uproar because everyone is for sure this guy has played under many different names and that he had others helping make extra action at tables to get the unsuspecting.
9) NOTHING IN ONLINE POKER GOES unsuspected (I guess), post after post with how it proves these people were the same and switched names and everyone point to PS and FT for letting it continue with many compalints
10) Most are accused of ratholing (HAVE YALL SEEN THE HAND HISTORY $$$ VALUES) and being allowed to leave and rejoin a table with less money before he left before the alloted time

11) DIRECT QUOTE - The real question in all of this is, why weren't multi-accounting and/or collusion strategies discussed in Winning in Tough Hold'em Games? It seems like a powerful technique and it got zero ink

(I CANT STOP READING THIS STUFF AND THESE THREADS NEVER END and how do people know all this stuff)

and on and on and on

THINK I WILL THINK TWICE BEFORE CLICKING ON A LINK HERE.

But what amazes the most of all this

Its all happening on $25/$50 with hand histories of pots being over 1K, of all the things listed above, the hand history amounts blow my mind the most. If I was playing for this kind of cash, I think my hand would be shaking on the mouse.

[PLAYFUL1]

HMMMMMMMMMMM HARD 2 PROMOTE A SITE THAT HAS CHEATED YOU PERSONELLY LIKE UB/AP HAS SAYS PLAYFUL