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Feds Drop CFAA Charges Against 'Hacker' Who Exploited Poker Machines

Posted by Soulskill on from the judge-who-know-what's-up dept.

FuzzNugget writes "According to Wired, the two CFAA charges that were laid against the man who exploited a software bug on a video poker machine have been officially dismissed. Says Wired: '[U.S. District Judge Miranda] Du had asked prosecutors to defend their use of the federal anti-hacking law by Wednesday, in light of a recent 9th Circuit ruling that reigned in the scope of the CFAA. The dismissal leaves John Kane, 54, and Andre Nestor, 41, facing a single remaining charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.' Kane's lawyer agreed, stating, 'The case never should have been filed under the CFAA, it should have been just a straight wire fraud case. And I'm not sure its even a wire fraud. I guess we'll find out when we go to trial.'"

2 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Of course, it's only illegal if the house loses by TFAFalcon · · Score: 5, Informative

    There have been several cases where the machine displayed a much higher jackpot then what was then paid out.

    http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/06/05/1828218/malfunction-costs-couple-11-million-slot-machine-jackpot
    http://idle.slashdot.org/story/09/11/06/1638213/casino-denies-man-166-million-jackpot

    And I don't think the 'winners' got anywhere with their lawsuits.

  2. Re:Glitches by wienerschnizzel · · Score: 5, Informative

    I assume you didn't read into the case. The prosecutors were never trying to argue that Nestor (the accused) used hacking to find the glitch. They were trying to argue that the combination of keys that activates the glitch is so complex that it should by itself be considered 'hacking'.

    However, the 'combination of keys' used was not that extraordinary - all were legal game-play moves. Boiled down to the fact that switching a denomination of a game could change the payout the machine would give you on games you already won (but did not cash out yet).

    The prosecution was trying to paint is as access rights violation but they failed to show just what exactly did the defendants do that they were 'not entitled' to do.

    It still might be a fraud. Especially since Nestor convinced the operator in one case to switch on the feature that enabled the glitch. But hacking is out of the question.