Online gambling giant Bodog has responded to reports that its new poker software had been hacked to allow data miners to track user activity.
Bodog in an online response went after poker information site HHSmithy and closed user accounts of those associated with the site such as Kyle Boddy. Bodog noted that Boddy is HHSmithy's Head of Marketing.
Bodog's response went on to accuse Boddy of exploiting poker operator data. The feisty response reads:
"It’s hard to say whether Boddy had altruistic reasons for looking for security weaknesses, like the people from the hacktivist group Anonymous who spend their time exposing government secrets to the public for the greater good of society. Or did Boddy have a more personal or opportunistic reason for trying to exploit the poker software?"
"Kyle Boddy, KyleB in the 2+2 forums is the Chief Marketing Officer behind the hand-reselling site HHSmithy. If you are unfamiliar with Boddy’s site, they exploit poker operators’ data without permission. They package the data and resell it to poker players for a handsome profit."
"These guys are precisely the kinds of people that Bodog does not want scalping their recreational poker players so this move by Boddy and his “friends” is helping Bodog out in a number of ways. Not only is this an example of a highly effective and entirely free volunteer QA system, but in putting the efforts into packaging this message in the way they are and releasing it to the online poker grinder community, they are likely helping Bodog drive away more of the undesirable predatory players from their ecosystem."
Bodog also commented on the new software's faults, saying: "Obviously, any release has its teething problems and equally obviously we take any fault very seriously and we have released an update we are confident has addressed the most pressing issues. The input of poker players and software professionals since our launch has helped us make our system more robust and highlight how strong the poker community is."