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The attacker was probably someone with too much time on his hands —-a prediction market vendor who can’-t sell…- or another idle prediction market person.
The BetFair SEO artists (and other “-social media consultants”-) would say just say *anything* and do *anything* to get a blogger to link to betting.betfair.com. Including a falsification. Here is what they e-mailed me:
[…] betting.betfair.com. You may or may not have seen the site before, but basically it’s a big sports blog with about 45 writers […!!!…] doing useful previews, tips and analysis from lots of different sports. It’s an excellent site and one which has received recognition from the Soccerlens awards.
Soccerlens.com (big football blog) described betting.betfair.com as “-head and shoulders above the rest in terms of providing useful betting advice to their readers”-. […]
It is not exactly true.
Here is what Soccer Lens really says (look up the last line in bold):
Best Football Betting Site of 2008
Readers’ Choice: OLBG.
Online Betting Guide (OLBG) is a comprehensive resource for football betting and one of the most popular betting sites around.
Runner Up: Betfair.
Editors’ Choice: OLBG.
We’ve discussed this before – not all the top sites on football betting were included in the nominations. Of those that were, OLBG (and Betfair) stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of providing useful betting advice to their readers.
Runner Up: Betfair.
The winner for this category (for best soccer betting blog) was OBLG —-it was both the readers’- choice and the editors’- choice.
The BetFair blog came second —-in both the readers’- choice and the editors’- choice.
So it is just a lie to say that:
Soccerlens.com (big football blog) described betting.betfair.com as “-head and shoulders above the rest in terms of providing useful betting advice to their readers”-.
The truth is rather:
Soccerlens.com (big football blog) described OBLG as “-head and shoulders above the rest in terms of providing useful betting advice to their readers”-.
Dear readers,
Now is time to give you some background information about last week’-s incident. As you all know, somebody was irked by what I said about the EPM software vendors and set up, not one, but two websites denigrating moi.
#1. I don’-t care if someone makes a fool of moi. I am fair game. Plus, it gives a laughing opportunity to the Chief Economist of Midas Oracle, because it is revenge for my making fool of him when he is so wrong about the article in The Economist or else (follow the HubDub link given by Mike Linksvayer).
#2. My big concern with that attack is that it might well come from somebody I know —-and who has always had the kindest words for me (including last week). So, that person might well be a hypocrite, and my trust in him (and his prediction market company, if any) will be wiped out, if my suspicion is confirmed.
#3. My secondary concern is that that attacker (who might well be a prediction market software vendor or a disgruntled employee) tried to put the blame on NewsFutures (both a prediction market software vendor and a public prediction exchange) for the 2 websites (”-Chris F. Masse is a Fraud”-, and “-Overcoming Midas”-). Just after that the 2 websites were discovered (by one innocent reader, who simply followed the web link posted by a commenter, “-The Colonel”-), many people e-mailed me to tell that I should do a “-reverse IP lookup“- to find out who is behind…- I did…- The result was “-dev24.newsfutures.com”-. I was very surprised to see NewsFutures involved in this attack, and I sent the link to Emile Servan-Schreiber, who, first, expressed astonishment, and then forwarded the link to his CTO (Maurice Balick, some of you know him very well), who is a computer whiz and a master of “-The Internets”- —-as would say former president George W. Bush. 
It turned out that:
– NewsFutures sent a “-cease and desist”- letter to the webhost of these 2 websites. Here is a very short excerpt of the NewsFutures letter:
That IP address provides a Reverse-ARP record containing dev24.newsfutures.com. However, we own the domain newsfutures.com and we have never authorized anyone to setup this fake RARP record.
– In the meantime, following the brouhaha made on Midas Oracle when the IP address of The Colonel was revealed, the attacker cleared the RARP record during the night so that it no longer pointed to NewsFutures (the non-existent dev24.newsfutures.com address).
– There are other technical and legal developments to this case, but I am not at liberty to talk further.
– However, I would like to explain to you how it was possible to put the blame on NewsFutures…- even though Emile and his team had nothing to do with this attack.
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The Reverse IP Lookup is so easy to fudge that it’-s totally meaningless. It’-s something that prediction market people should know about, so that, in the future, they would not be fooled into drawing conclusions from this kind of “-evidence”-.
To understand how one could fraudulently make a reverse IP lookup point to a newsfutures.com domain, Emile and Maurice bought a $20 slice on the webhost where the chrismasse.com and overcomingmidas.com websites were hosted. The hosting service then lets you set the “-reverse DNS”- to any URL that you like, and within a few seconds the Reverse IP Lookup tool on iWebTools will point to the URL that you chose. As an example (and as a blink-blink sign to Mike Giberson and Mike Linksvayer), Emile and Maurice made the IP point to “-dev24.midasoracle.org”-.
Try it: http://www.iwebtool.com/reverse_ip?domain=67.23.8.251
CONCLUSION: Someone tried to incriminate NewsFutures (and fuck with our readers’- mind) by setting up these agressive websites and having the Reverse IP Lookup point to a fake NewsFutures URL.
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UPDATE:
Did the attacker try to pin it on, not just one, but *two* prediction market software vendors?
http://www.midasoracle.org/2009/03/13/did-the-attacker-try-to-pin-it-on-not-just-one-but-two-prediction-market-software-vendors/
This material is available on: http://www.cro.ie/ .
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2007
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2008
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There might be a slight discrepancy between the accounts and the balance sheet. If you, too, spot it, then publish a comment just below, and we will share our thoughts. (Please, do not publish any negative comment that can be legally reprehensible.)
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I have obscured the personal addresses of these 2 persons:
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– “-MEPs yesterday (10 March) overwhelmingly rejected the idea of creating an EU single market for online gambling, backing member states’- right to decide on market liberalisation.”-
I described in a previous post why I delisted his company from my list of prediction market consultants.
I want to share a remark with you, today. Here is a man from Holland who recruited by e-mail some US-based “-advisors”- —-one ocean away. One curious online recruit he made is professor Christopher Wlezien, the co-author of an academic paper…- that claims that prediction markets are *NO* better than damped polls:
For now, our results suggest the need for much more caution and less naive cheerleading about election markets on the part of prediction market advocates.
I bet that Florian Riahi didn’-t read that paper, and I bet that professor Christopher Wlezien accepted the advisory slot in order to make the simple point that the “-prediction market advocates”- are just a bunch of baloneys who don’-t read academic papers.
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Previously:
– How that prediction market consultant in Holland attracts economic advisers on the cheap
– I bet that those academic scholars…
– Should we create a Prediction Market Institute?
– Should we ask doctor David Pennock to super-head it?
– Should we have a Prediction Markets Consortium that will anchor itself somewhere in an educational institution or non-profit foundation?
– Should we follow the ideas of Chris Masse, or should we follow someone else with better ideas?
– Should we let the non-PM companies (Google/Yahoo!/MicroSoft) dictate to us the founding terms of this Prediction Market Institute?
– Shouldn’-t the public prediction exchanges (InTrade, BetFair, HedgeStreet, Hollywood Stock Exchange, HubDub, NewsFutures, etc.) be more involved into the founding of this Prediction Market Institute?
– Should we let David Pennock rename “-The Open Institute Of Prediction Markets”- into a “-Prediction Market Institute”- without my prior agreement?
Jed Christiansen:
[…] When it comes to the first point, forecasting something that the company already forecasts, prediction markets may or may not be an excellent solution. I’ve seen one set of markets that absolutely blew away the accuracy of current forecasts, and I’ve seen other markets that were consistent with current forecasts with little or no accuracy edge. […]
Care to say more about what is the determinant of an EPM success?
Dear readers,
I am informing you of the removal of Texodus Predictions from my listing of prediction market consultants. The listing is intended to display serious and professionally minded consultants, only.
Thanks for your attention.
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Previously:
– How that prediction market consultant in Holland attracts economic advisers on the cheap
– I bet that those academic scholars…
I made a typo in the title of each of my 2 previous blog posts about polls versus prediction markets. (The content of those blog posts featured the correct spelling, fortunately.)
My apology.
And thanks to the “-research scientist”- who spotted the typo.