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Microsoft was, and maybe still is, considering injecting targeted adverts into the Windows 10 Mail app.…

El Reg drills into banned technology with Freedom-of-Info request

The US Department of Defense's "do not buy" list of foreign software and equipment turns out to be about as long as the list of bug-free Windows releases or privacy-focused Facebook apps.…

AWS comes up with blanket policies to smother public-facing cloud storage silos

Amazon Web Services is taking steps to halt the epidemic of data leaks caused by the S3 cloud buckets it hosts from being accidentally left wide open to the internet by customers.…

Ex-Oracle man gets top job as another experienced woman exec quits web ads titan

Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene has quit the online ads giant, and will be replaced by ex-Oracle executive Thomas Kurian.…

You've broken the GDPR, baby, Dutch govt's eggheads claim

Microsoft broke Euro privacy rules by carrying out a "large scale and covert" gathering of private data through its Office apps.…

Final update of beloved development adding ARM64

Microsoft devs rejoice! A new version of Visual Studio 2017 has arrived replete with fixes, tweaks and ARM64 support.…

Also: Huawei cloud lands in Africa, Nokia OpenStack, Cisco Nexus BIOS bugs

Riverbed made two announcements covering its SteelHead SD-WAN solution this week – a bunch of enhancements, and subscription pricing options.…

Sells 'intelligent' chassis, removable drive magazine, StorNext base station

Quantum has stepped sideways into the autonomous vehicle testing market with a data logging system integrated with its StorNext multi-tiered workflow file management product.…

Hold on Redmond, don't light those fireworks yet, the dominance will be shortlived

Microsoft's Surface line leapfrogged Apple's iPad Pro as the detachable tablet of choice for tech distributors in Western Europe but that top spot definitely won't be sustained, or so IDC says.…

As shareholders sign off on Big Red's big pay packet for first time in seven years

Oracle is to slurp up software-defined WAN provider Talari Networks for an undisclosed sum.…

Even Softbank balked at these tethered terrors

Google's parent company Alphabet has closed down its biped robot maker Schaft after failing to find a buyer.…

In the history of poker, there have been a plethora of instances where ethics haven’t been a part of the game. Look back at the early days, when sharps traveled up and down the Mississippi and worked the “rubes” with marked decks that allowed them to stack the deck. Fast forward to the days of poker in Texas and Las Vegas where teams would work together to fleece the unaware from their money. It may seem a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but are today’s poker players – and, in particular, today’s online poker players – bereft of ethics?

Interesting but Unofficial Polling Says Yes

If you were to look at a very interesting but completely unofficial (and unscientific) poll from a top poker professional, you’d be inclined to say yes. Team partypoker player Patrick Leonard asked a couple of questions of his nearly 10,000 followers regarding what course of action they would take on the virtual felt. The responses were surprising, but who they came from also was quite interesting.

In one question, Leonard asked this:

You're playing heads up in a tournament, your opponent disconnects, what do you do and comment why if you feel strongly either way.

— Patrick Leonard (@plenopads) November 3, 2018

As you can see, the results of the poll were stunning. More than 8 out of 10 players said they would aggressively and actively steal the blinds – in essence not giving the offline opponent a chance in the tournament. Furthermore, Leonard also found that a player up against an offline opponent in a heads up sit and go would seek out that player at other tables and attack there also.

Responses from Pros? Maybe Surprising…

Leonard’s unofficial polls had several top pros talking about the situation. World Series of Poker bracelet winner Bryan Piccioli responded to Leonard, saying that “it is a part of the game” to aggressively attack an offline player’s blinds (he did note that if he knew it was a “reg,” he might not be as aggressive). Longtime poker veteran Matt Stout, who has nearly as much earnings online ($3.8 million) as he does live ($4.1 million), stated that he “used to sit out and wait” but that nowadays you couldn’t guarantee that you would get that same consideration from your opponent. This, in Stout’s mind, made it justifiable.

For those that weren’t top professionals, there was a bit of a disappointing result. Those players chided the pros, stating that “they would steal because they want the money” or that “their opponent would do it if it were reversed.” Basically, there was a severe lack of ethical conduct on the part of poker players as a whole with the case presented.

Indicative of Today’s Society?

Ethics is allegedly important in society, but you wouldn’t know it from a look at some polls. In a survey from the Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics, 43,000 high school students in public and private schools were surveyed as to their actions in education. The results showed some stunning results that demonstrate ethical behavior isn’t being learned or taught in the school systems.

Of those 43,000 students, 59% admitted that they cheated on tests during the last year and 34% admitted that they did it more than twice. One out of every three students stated that they plagiarized an assignment by using material from the internet. It is also prevalent in college; a Rutgers University study showed that 7% stated that they, nearly word for word, copied work from another source without citation.

There is also plenty of examples of unethical behavior in the business world. Former business “bad boy” Martin Shkreli was lambasted for hiking the price of a key drug to fight infection by 5000%, and he isn’t the only one. Marathon Pharmaceuticals did the same with a drug called Emflaza, taking the price for a year’s supply from between $1000-$2000 a year to over $89,000. And it is well known that companies have a “cost effective” analysis method that weighs the risks of violating the law – or even killing someone – versus what profits can actually be made before being held responsible.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by Leonard’s poll results. As can be demonstrated, there’s plenty of unethical behavior in many areas of life. Instead of taking the “high road,” perhaps poker is just reflecting the current standards and norms that we as humans are exercising.

The post Are Today’s Online Poker Players Bereft of Ethics? appeared first on Poker News Daily.

Routine file about accused crim suddenly mentions WikiLeaker's name

An apparent cut-and-paste error has revealed that American prosecutors may have already filed criminal charges against cupboard-dwelling WikiLeaks fugitive Julian Assange.…

$1.4bn match made in heaven

BlackBerry has made its biggest acquisition ever, spending over half of its cash pile to bolster its threat detection unit.…

Gangs Matrix led to 'multiple and serious' breaches of data protection rules, says watchdog

London cops have broken data protection rules by using a controversial database that ranks people's likelihood of gang-related violence but fails to distinguish between victims and perps, and low and high-risk people.…

Guess what happens? Stockholders thaw to idea of cashing in

Dell Technologies has upped the buy price for Class V stock to win support from shareholders that threatened to block the proposed transaction and hinder the company’s return to the US stock market.…

First UK conviction for reckless UAV flying

A Russian-speaking man from Cambridgeshire has become the first person in the UK to be convicted of illegally flying a drone beneath a police helicopter during a search operation.…

EE: We're sorry, Ofcom. Virgin: Why, that's... unjustified and disproportionate!

The UK's comms watchdog claims to have slapped a £13.3m penalty on EE and Virgin Media for fleecing customers who wanted to exit their broadband or mobile phone contracts before they were due to expire.…

Not the best at anything, but a solid, great value performer

Review What if Huawei used OnePlus's Oxygen UI, I found myself musing recently. Wouldn't it be the perfect package? Huawei's amazing RF performance, and bleeding-edge tech, with a UI that didn't actually suck?…

Swipe – open toilet door – and swipe again

Something for the Weekend, Sir? "Work out loud," my prospective new employer tells me, adding that "we are a team, not a family". Sister Sledge need not apply.…