Technocrat

Whistleblower Finds Hole in Casino Video Game Machine, Faces Lawsuit

zogger
Sat Oct 28 19:45:05 -0700 2006
Security.
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A man in Canada found a hidden backdoor in a video slot machine. Revealing it to the gaming commission, he instead faced a three day house search, a gag order, and is now facing a ten million dollar lawsuit.


..."Zues Yaghi, an Edmonton resident, said he has been the subject of a search warrant, a gag order and a lawsuit from WMS Gaming Inc. for reporting the flaws in its poker machines, which the company has since fixed. WMS Gaming has its headquarters in Waukegan, Ill."..more there

ed: gee, wonder how long that "accidental glitch" was in those machines?

Whistleblower Finds Hole in Casino Video Game Machine, Faces Lawsuit
Beryllium Sphere(r)
Sat Oct 28 20:22:19 -0700 2006
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according to court documents, the company said it offered Yaghi $50,000 as a reward and an incentive for him to keep quiet. The company alleges in the documents that Yaghi asked for more money and refused to be silent.
If there's any truth to that, there's more to this case than the usual "no good deed goes unpunished" story.
Whistleblower Finds Hole in Casino Video Game Machine, Faces Lawsuit
Bhima
Sun Oct 29 01:41:35 -0700 2006
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That's what I thought... this is little more than extortion unless the "keep quiet" bit extended to the gaming commission
Whistleblower Finds Hole in Casino Video Game Machine, Faces Lawsuit
zogger
Sun Oct 29 08:37:52 -0800 2006
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When did they fix it and how long was the hole there are the larger questions. And another one that will be near impossible to find out much about-if the hole was an on purpose sneaky backdoor, has it been milked for a long time?
Whistleblower Finds Hole in Casino Video Game Machine, Faces Lawsuit
pyro9
Tue Oct 31 06:34:36 -0800 2006
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At the same time, it could easily be something they threw in to make Yaghi look bad. We may never know.
Later in the article it says that WMS was fined an unspecified amount by U.S. authorities for failure to disclose the flaw to them. They also had to pay out millions in compensation to provincial authorities.

The latter makes me think that if Yaghi really was trying to extort them, they would certainly have been more than willing to pay him considerably more than $50,000 to keep quiet, though they might have started negotiations at $50,000. The high end of the negotiation (if there was one) would have been closer to $1,000,000, an amount that I'm guessing would have been enough if Yaghi was actually looking for a payoff.

Further, if he was looking for a payoff, I would think WMS would file criminal charges for extortion.

Given that, my guess is that the conversation went more like "We'll give you $50,000 to keep quiet about this and then we'll fix it" followed by "You don't have enough money to make me keep quiet about this, I have a legal obligation to disclose what I know."
Whistleblower Finds Hole in Casino Video Game Machine, Faces Lawsuit
slayer
Sun Oct 29 19:59:51 -0800 2006
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it is amazing how stupid and blind some people can be. What possible damage could come from a whistle blower. oh wait I get it  he could be telling the truth and in that case we should stop him before everybody finds out "who is really getting screwed and who is doing the real screwing"  HANG IN THERE YAGHI  I HOPE YOU KICK THEIR ASS
Whistleblower Finds Hole in Casino Video Game Machine, Faces Lawsuit
Simon
Mon Oct 30 12:03:56 -0800 2006
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I bet the backdoor would have been fixed quicker if he'd simply used the backdoor to empty the machines of cash on a regular basis.
 

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