The Problem
Online poker casinos do not want you to run WinHoldem.
Some poker clients actively attempt to detect WinHoldem on your computer.
There is nothing you can do to control how far they will go to do this.
If they detect WinHoldem you are essentially at their mercy.
Their reactions can range from just simply closing the poker software
to closing your account and possibly conscripting your entire bankroll.
The Solution
Stealth is the solution to the problem.
A Stealth program is a remote window control application.
Essentially, a stealth program is a very simple PCAnyWhere.
Stealth gives you the ability to see a copy of a window that is running on another computer.
You avoid detection by running your poker software on a machine where WinHoldem is not installed.
And you use Stealth to let your WinHoldem machine see the poker window.
You need two computers
You must have physical access to two computers connected
to a fast network such as a LAN.
The idea is to run WinHoldem on one computer
and run the online casino software on another computer.
You then use a Stealth app to display a copy of the poker window
on the desktop of the WinHoldem computer where
WinHoldem will scrape the copy and run as normal.
We offer 2 stealth apps: Bring and WinPP
(bring is much better)
|
|
Restricted User Account
Using Bring or WinPP or any other piece of stealth software for that matter
is not necessarily everything you need to do to protect yourself.
If you downloaded/installed the software from the poker sites
while you were logged into a priviledged windows account (like Administrator),
then when you run one of those poker clients (paradise,party,stars,etc.),
it has admin privileges which means there is nothing it cannot do,
nothing it cannot see, nothing it cannot read, nothing it cannot write;
and this means that it will be able to see winpush.exe on the disk
and in memory (as a process) even if you renamed it before running it.
So the moral of this story is that you simply cannot hide anything from
a privileged piece of software;
If you know that you did indeed download/install the poker site client software
while logged into privileged account then all is not lost; there is a solution.
You must completely uninstall all casino software that you downloaded/installed
while logged into a privileged account. You must return your system to
the state it was in before you downloaded any casino software. If you really
want to be 100% sure then wipe your harddrive and reinstall the operating system
from scratch; this measure is not usually needed but if you're able to do so
then you should; Keep in mind that each of the sites write various cookies
all over the place so there's really no way to know if you got it all by
merely uninstalling; is it inconvenient to reinstall the operating system?
yes it is; your decision depends on how safe you want to be?
Once you're at a clean state, you can then create a restricted windows user
account that you will use for all of your online casino purposes. To learn
how to create a new windows account just click start and help and then search
for "new users". When you create the new account, you want to create it
with maximum restrictions (which is usually the default but not necessarily).
Once you've created the restricted user account you can then simply login
and begin the install process for each of the poker sites. We recommend
creating a folder on the desktop called "casinos" or "poker sites" etc.
and then installing any/all casino software to that folder; this will give
you greater control over which areas of the disk are visible to the
poker clients; at a minimum they need to be able to see their own install
folder but not much more than that; you can use the NTFS file system that
comes with windows to control permissions on folders and disks; just right
click on any folder or disk in windows explorer to set the permissions;
Once you've installed the casino software to a restricted account,
you can then run it as normal knowing that the operating system
will prevent it from doing certain things - like reading the folder
where winpush lives or reading the process space where winpush is running,
etc. etc. But the only way that can occur is if you protect the winpush
install folder using NTFS and you use the RUNAS command to gain elevated
privilege before launching winpush
Running a program as another user
Here is the link to the Microsoft help documentation on the RUNAS command
what is the RUNAS command
You can also get help by clicking start/help and searching from runas.
You must launch a renamed winpush.exe using the RUNAS command so that
you can run it as a different user than your restricted account; and
the reason you must do this is so that the operating system will
prevent the restricted user account and any software it is running
from reading information about the winpush process. If you run
winpush.exe as the restricted user then any poker client software running
under the restricted user account will be able to read the winpush.exe
process and know that you are running winpush. The only way to prevent
the poker client software from seeing winpush is to use the RUNAS command
and execute the program as a different more privileged user. If you fail
to prevent the poker software from seeing winpush then you will get an
email from your site informing you that they have detected winpush/winhholdem
and are taking such and such measures. Don't let that happen.
GOTCHA
There are 2 very separate and distinct events that must occur in order
for you to run a program. First you must have access to the file given
your current privilege level. Second you must then have privilege to
run the program. Windows forces you to have access to the target .exe
before it will apply your alternate runas user. This means that if you
lock your stealth folder up tight (like you should) then you cannot
runas winpush.exe directly from your restricted account because your
restricted account does not have permission to read the stealth folder
This may seem inconvenient but it is actually a good thing security wise
so be grateful. The correct procedure is to runas on cmd.exe or windows
iexplorer to first gain your elevated privilege and then after doing so
move on to run winpush as normal - this means you can just exectute
winpush normally without the runas command because you already have
privilege to read it and run it.
If you don't like this 2 step process then your only other secure choice would be to always initially login to your privileged account so that you have access to your entire system by default and then you would priv down to the restricted user account when running the casino client. You can easily get windows to always runas for you if you set the property in the shortcut for the casino client. Just right click on the shortcut and find the "Runas" checkbox. Windows will then ask you for user name/pass whenever you click on the shortcut.
Always remember that the entire goal of this procedure is to guarantee that your casino client software runs in a restricted context so that it cannot see your stealth files either on the disk or in memory.
IEXPLORER SHORTCUT
Probably the most universal and convenient method for anybody is to simply
have a shortcut to internet explorer with the runas option active so that
at anytime you can explore/navigate as any user you choose. Here's how to do that:
1) Right click on your desktop to get the popup menu.
2) Left click on NEW to get the submenu
3) Left click on SHORTCUT to get the create shortcut dialog
4) Enter the full pathname to internet explorer
- i.e. "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE"
(if you don't know the full path then you can press the browse
button and navigate to iexplorer.exe)
5) Left click on the NEXT button
6) Enter shortcut name that will appear on your desktop
- i.e. "IEXPLORE AS"
7) Left click on the FINISH button to create the shortcut on your desktop
8) Right click on the newly created shortcut to get the popup menu
9) Left click on PROPERTIES
10) Left click on the RUNAS checkbox
11) Left click on OK
You can now click on the "IEXPLORE AS" shortcut and windows will prompt
you for user name/pass and when the browser window appears it will be
running with the privilege level of the user account you selected.
12) Left click on the browser View menu and select Explorer Bar / Folders
so that you can see your file folders.
Installing Bring
Visit the Bring home page for instructions on how to download and install Bring.
Installing WinPP
Visit the WinPP home page for instructions on how to download and install WinPP.
Step by Step
These steps assume that you have already installed all software -
casino, winholdem, winpp.
| step | computer? | what to do? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | winholdem | run winpull |
| 2 | casino | run poker lobby |
| 3 | casino | open a poker table window |
| 4 | casino |
run winpush (use the RUNAS command to priv-up) select the poker table window DO NOT SELECT THE PROGRAM MANGER YOU MUST PUSH A SINGLE POKER TABLE WINDOW (be sure to rename winpush.exe beforehand) |