Protection from Poker software

Discussion in 'ProcessGuard' started by Thrain, Dec 12, 2005.

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  1. Thrain

    Thrain Registered Member

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    I play Partypoker, pokerstars and other poker sites often. However, I have read on numerous msg boards that certain poker clients (PartyPoker in particular!) take screenshots of your desktop that are saved to a local folder (ex: c:\temp) and then they are sent to partypoker!

    I read a letter from a former employee of partypoker who quit because of how unethical the behavior was. Apperently $5/hr costa rican employees would pass around funny screenshots of peoples desktops which may include things like private bank acct info!!

    I wish to continue playing online poker, as I make alot of $$$ doing this, however I DON'T want any unregulated off-shore company snooping around my computer!

    Can Processguard help me with this problem? If so, I am more than prepared to buy a copy and recommend it to my friends. Also, what settings do I need to use in order to protect myself? THANKS!
     
  2. Thrain

    Thrain Registered Member

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    bump, anyone?
     
  3. Gavin - DiamondCS

    Gavin - DiamondCS Former DCS Moderator

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    Send support a log from ASViewer, but you might prefer HijackThis. Also run Port Explorer while the program is installed and running - and then click FILE > SAVE TABLE in PE. This shows all connections at the time - which programs are using which sockets. You could then also try packet sniffing the connection yourself in PE if there is just one process.

    Does the client run in the browser or as a process ? if browser, you need to sniff the packets of the browser process it runs under.

    PG will let us see exactly what executables are there, since you can control all executables. It won't however uncover a rootkit if one was in use, so send along a log from Rootkit Revealer too. This may well give enough information to say "suspect program" or "clean" :)

    PG would block a rootkit installing, but we need to be sure your PC is clean FIRST
     
  4. Paranoid2000

    Paranoid2000 Registered Member

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    Thrain,

    I don't believe Process Guard will stop applications from taking screenshots (please correct me on this Gavin, but I have yet to notice any such feature). What it does do is restrict certain types of application activity such as monitoring keyboard/mouse activity, installing as a Windows service or trying to alter other programs.

    Unfortunately, your poker client is quite likely to need many permissions since it will probably scan your system for other running programs (ostensibly to detect any cheat software or poker bots). As such, even if you could apply restrictions using PG, it is likely that it would not run until they were lifted. It is also possible for applications to "blacklist" PG and refuse to run if they detect its presence (see the threads here about PunkBuster for an example).

    Ultimately, if you don't trust a program - or its company - the proper solution is not to run it.
     
  5. Reve_Etrange

    Reve_Etrange Registered Member

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    I've forwarded this thread to partypoker. Don't hold your breath for aces, thrain ;)

    -RE
     
  6. tonyjl

    tonyjl Registered Member

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    I don't know if it will in your situation,but there's a prog called 'SnoopFree' http://www.snoopfree.com/default.htm it protects you against "Screen Access,Keyboard Hooking and Reading of Unowned Windows". I use it myself and am pretty impressed with it. It's free,uses very low resources (avg.0%),basically install and forget... untill you get a warning.
     
  7. Gavin - DiamondCS

    Gavin - DiamondCS Former DCS Moderator

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    Paranoid : no.. not at the moment PG doesn't protect against that :)
     
  8. Gavin - DiamondCS

    Gavin - DiamondCS Former DCS Moderator

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    BTW, try FOLDERMON from the free DCS tools listed here in the freeware section. You can set it to monitor the entire C:\ drive ? :) if you have other drives you could run a few instances..
     
  9. Tatersalad

    Tatersalad Registered Member

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    PG blocks a Driver/Service and a global hook everytime I start PartyPoker. Seems to work fine without it so I keep blocking it.
     
  10. Gavin - DiamondCS

    Gavin - DiamondCS Former DCS Moderator

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    You should at least ask them what it does or send it to AV company or an analyst.. :) it may be important. You don't want to block if they are then going to implement a cheat protection and kick you one day.

    If PG causes a problem ONLY IF you block a driver, such as you get kicked for cheating.. this is the users responsibility. We have now had an email where the user says they were kicked from some Poker game, do we track this down and try to test it out or is it just misconfiguration? PG suggests running some programs under Learning Mode for compatibility and that should resolve issues like this.
     
  11. Thrain

    Thrain Registered Member

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    Hey, I jsut wanted to ket you know that the snoopfree program is great! However, it only works on windows XP ;(.. I have a windows 2000 professional machine that I use for poker at work..

    BTW, I would love to see process guard add two features that are found in snoopfree:

    Prevent "read screen" and prevent "read unownded window" Both of these abilities would be excellent additions to PG. thx!
     
  12. Gavin - DiamondCS

    Gavin - DiamondCS Former DCS Moderator

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    You'd have to wait for a much newer version of PG for that :)
     
  13. bgfalconboy

    bgfalconboy Registered Member

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    Dang, this isn't good. I have paradisepoker.net on my pc, does anyone know of any thing like this with them? I just got the free sofware to to learn poker and play non-gambling games online. If this is rampant among poker sofware then I might be getting rid of it soon.
     
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