[cepth]

A 30-minute (minimum) time delay on a live stream is usually a legal requirement in most jurisdictions, enforced by the state gaming commission.

Most poker rooms also allow you to use your phone, as long are you're not a participant in the current hand. The alleged cheater (Mike Postle) is said to have hid his phone under the table, in his crotch area. Obviously, it's going to be pretty hard for other players and the dealer to check for that at that angle.

In the end, the no-phone rule in most poker rooms is going to be largely an honor-system based thing.

Edit:

Jason Somerville, who founded one of the most popular poker streaming companies (Run It Up), has described how stringently the Nevada Gaming Control Board inspects casinos that are hosting streams. E.g. multiple inspections of the streaming equipment, a requirement for a guard at the streaming booth, etc. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS47DB94-vk). He mentioned that California does not seem to have the same level of on-site scrutiny.

Edit2:

On TwoPlusTwo (the popular poker forum), long time players at Stones Gambling Hall (where the alleged cheating took place) mentioned that their poker room did not institute a no-phone policy until sometime into the alleged cheater's crazy run of success.

[Analemma_]

The Nevada Gaming Control Board doesn't mess around. I remember there was an HN thread about reproducible builds, and someone who worked on slot machine software mentioned that the NGCB would walk up to a slot machine on the floor of a casino, dump the filesystem onto a memory card, hash it, and the hash had better match what they had on file or someone was getting dragged into court.

[SilasX]

I usually hear that in the context of comparing to our (much worse) voting machine security...

[jumpingmice]

That strikes me as pure security theater. There’s no relationship between what the machine is doing and what is contained on an apparent copy of the machine’s purported storage device. Just like TSA booting my laptop ... when they do it my laptop boots into a Microsoft Windows environment that I’ve literally never used. When I boot the same machine I get netbsd. Weird, right ?

[archgoon]

Just because a test doesn't catch all attacks doesn't mean that performing the test is security theatre.

It's a bit like saying that ASLR and stack canaries are security theatre because they can be defeated by information leaks.

[marcinzm]

The number of people who can change the code on the machine is much larger than the number of people who can change the hardware on the machine to hide code changes. Checking the code prevents that group from having the opportunity to cheat.

[debatem1]

It's basically an ad hoc attestation mechanism. In your case, it would be as if the TSA hashed your hard drive and you had already been compelled to give them a copy of it which they could analyze at their leisure. They could only tell if you had changed it, but in this case that's a smoking gun.

[anarchodev]

wait, TSA boots your laptop now? I don't even understand what they'd expect to find?

[gnu8]

Obviously, a laptop shell filled with semtex won't boot up. I think it's also possible that explosives or drugs packed into the shape of battery cells might not be distinguishable from real batteries on an x-ray. So even though they don't want to snoop through your data (customs does that), they want to verify that it is a real working laptop.

[jml7c5]

It's a pretty crude test, since you could always gut the laptop (e.g., replace the battery with a tiny one that could only run the laptop for 20 minutes) and fill the remaining space with explosives. But as with any security, it does mean more technical skill and planning required to pull off such an attack.

[jumpingmice]

Yeah I mean it’s pure theater. For one thing, plenty of actual, authentic laptop batteries have exploded on airplanes. So the whole dichotomy between battery and explosive is false.

[huffmsa]

Ah, classic bureaucratic thinking at work.

Let's boot the semtex filled laptops right in the middle of the most crowded, heaviest choke point at the airport. Right next to the 30 gallon trash cans filled with liquid explosives and other combustibles we force people to discard.

250:1 kdr. Gg no re. See you later alligator, after 'while crocodile, don't forget to write.

[Zenbit_UX]

Found the counterstrike player.

But seriously though, 250:1 kdr at the tsa checkpoint wouldn't have the same effect as a plane being taken down and a much lower kdr. If a clever terrorist was going to create such a device they'd better have a better choice of detonation button than the power switch.

There also better off with one of those monstrously bulky windows gaming laptops than a MacBook air.

[bonestamp2]

I had customs boot my laptop once and they just searched for jpg and gif images. While the search ran she turned to me and said, "What kind of images am I going to find on here?". I had just got a new DSLR a few months earlier so it took about 30 minutes for the search to complete (2006 windows computer). She didn't say, but I guess they're looking for egregious images?

[brewdad]

They are looking for child porn.

Or the classified images from Jason Bourne's personnel file.

[smcl]

Where was this!? They not only boot the device but they search it too?

[bonestamp2]

Yes, customs has legal authority to search all of your belongings which includes the files, emails, photos, text messages, etc on your devices.

My only other option was to forfeit my computer. Since I like my computer and don't do anything illegal I allowed them to violate my privacy so I could keep my computer. After they had a good look I was on my way.

From what I understand, the process has changed. These days they just image your hard drive and you're on your way after that. Then they upload your drive to a cloud system that looks through it for illegal activity. No joke. Again, you can forfeit your computer or phone but they will still try to image the drive.

[NullPrefix]

> Just like TSA booting my laptop ... when they do it my laptop boots into a Microsoft Windows environment that I’ve literally never used. When I boot the same machine I get netbsd. Weird, right ?

What environment do devices with explosives instead of batteries boot into? Windows or *BSD?

[cududa]

...you’re insinuating the TSA can install Windows on your machine in a matter of seconds somehow?

[hobofan]

No, just that they can show the TSA a Windows installation, and they will take it at face value. Just like the Gambling Comission is taking it at face vale that whatever they are "dumping" from the slot machine is what is actually running on it.