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Response to the Download Casino scandal

*MALWARE SCANDAL HITS GAMBLING FEDERATION* 18 February 2005

/*Anti-competition trojan endemic to GF casinos*/

With the week coming to a close, a major scandal started hitting the headlines after players discovered a trojan virus in proprietary gambling software downloaded from a number of Gambling Federation online casinos. The trojan was discovered after players found that they were unable to access certain other gambling sites once they had played on GF casinos....and there are many GF-powered casinos. IT specialists then found that the installation process from G-FED casinos modifies 7 files,one called "hosts" located at C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. The file had been altered by the addition of malware that short circuited any subsequent attempt to visit specific online casinos such as Royal Dutch Casino, The Blackjack Table and Casinoxo. Other operations may also be suffering loss of business as a result. Once the malware has been identified and removed, access to the affected sites is returned. Indignant players pointed out that the covert insertion of this sort of material on their computers was a gross invasion of privacy, and the potential damage to business at the targeted sites can only be imagined. There is potential for major embarrassment, too. The Canada-based GF CEO Flaviano Fogli is a board member of the Interactive Gaming Council, a trade association for online gaming operators and he has recently taken his group into the iGGBA, too. Both organisations will look askance at any suggestion of software irregularities. Late yesterday, a luckless Gambling Federation PR person appeared on the message boards with an astonishing, and highly unlikely explanation - GF had knowingly included the trojan in their software download as an "anti-spam measure." IT specialists in the gaming community immediately debunked and ridiculed the excuse, which was accompanied by an apology and an assurance that the trojan would be removed from the GF download immediately. In one of the most bizarre incidents yet involving an industry company, this incident would appear to still have a way to run, and the consequences of Gambling Federation's covert trojan blunder are likely to be serious. As evident from this letter, a download company started putting a trojan in their SW to not allow people who download their casinos to download other casinos. Stick to No Download, keep your computer safe from downloading things that can have all sorts of potentially harmful content. And be sure never to play at Gambling Federation Casinos! *Statement from Flaviano - CEO of Gambling Federation* Dear Members of the Forum Gambling Federation would like to offer our response to issues raised in the Casinomeister forum entitled, “Gambling Federation Malware.” While our actions were not justified, readers of this message thread should know that Gambling Federation is a victim of an orchestrated attack to mislead our players. Over the past few months, we received numerous complaints from our players enquiring about unsolicited promotional e-mail delivered to a player’s e-mail address that was used only to communicate with Gambling Federation casinos. After reviewing the complaints from our players, it become apparent that one of our ex-employees was inappropriately and unethically stealing part of our player list, contacting our players and promoting non-Gambling Federation casinos. We recognize that are actions were based on emotive judgment; we reacted to an unethical attack by applying the same philosophy with which our company was unfairly attacked. Regardless of our reasoning, we would like to extend our apologies to the investors and employees of Gambling Federation and in particular all our players and affiliates that have contributed to the success of our company over the years. Gambling Federation continues to be committed to the free market and responsible business practices. We are also convinced that time will clearly demonstrate that we were in fact a victim in this matter. We will never use and have never used any tactics toward a legitimate and reputable competitor, like the vast majority of our competitors. We want also like to thank our colleagues and associates that have communicated, publicly and privately, their support for Gambling Federation over the past few days. Best Regards, Talia Paschini
Gambling Federation PR Manager

The consensus of this letter is that it is BS. Here is what people responded.

Another post by a concerned user: Originally Posted by *greedygirl*
This entire mess with Gambling Federation is reprehensible and there can never be any justification, whatsoever. At the most fundamental level, Gambling Federation was responsible for the utmost care, security and trust of players and player information. The security, care and trust was violated INITIALLY when an employee was able to walk away with "secure" information (if indeed we are to believe this horrendous story).

/*It should be pointed out that in this message from Flaviano, the level of theft is not elaborated upon. Was it only players email addresses or did it go deeper into personal information? This is an issue that cannot be ignored./

With the theft of this "secure" information, supposedly a "spam campaign" was launched by the former GFed employee, in an effort to lure GFed players away. When GFed realizes this occurrance, their actions were self-indulgent, retaliatory, and FURTHER detrimental to those players already suffering damage. It is beyond comprehension why Gambling Federation did not IMMEDIATELY contact its player base, warning of this breach in security. Rather than show concern for those who may have been harmed, GFed set forth to seek its childish and greed-motivated revenge by further damaging their player base in what can be described as a sinister, invasive, illegal and unethical manner. If this does not scream rogue, I don't really know what does, then. What is even more disturbing about this is that upper management at best knew about the move to malware--at worst, this was done by upper management's edict. I honestly was hoping that this was not the case, as the implications of these actions are so incredibly devestating to this industry.

As Flaviano Foglia is a newly-appointed member to the Board of the Interactive Gaming Council (IGC), this action is particularly unsettling. The IGC is best known for it's lobbying efforts to advance the issues of online gambling, worldwide. With this in mind, the Gambling Federation debaucle is just the sort of thing that the US Government can have a field day with in its efforts to stop online gambling.

The IGC has a strict Code of Conduct (http://www.igcouncil.org/aboutus.php?do=conduct), in which article #3 states:

I feel with this, it is incumbant upon the IGC to demand Flaviano and Gambling Federation step down from any involvement with this organization. Similarly, the IGGB should renounce GFed's involvement, there, as well. Further, I feel equally strongly that the industry must make a very loud stance against this sort of behaviour. More material can be found at this link: http://www.casinomeister.com/rogue/gamblingfederation.html

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