Just-Dice.com : now with added CLAMs : Play or Invest

[Stars]

I have a question Dooglus. Lets say you didn't know how to code therefor you had to pay a developer which you didn't 100% trust, what's the worst they can do? Is there anything that can be put in place so the developer doesn't know the seeds and of course can NOT cheat out investors or if it was private funded by my self presumably cheat out me?

The developer writes the code that tells the server what to do. If you can't understand the code he writes, you've no idea what he has told your server to do. It could be doing anything, up to and including sending him all the server seeds and hot wallet contents.

You pretty much have to trust him - or have someone you trust review all of his code (and, of course, don't grant him access to the server, or he can just change it after it has been reviewed).

Even if I have someone I trust 100% to review the code, Is it possible to write an undetectable back-door into the server?

Also, even if I were to lock him out the server after it being checked and what not, what if there was problems on the site such as bugs, he would need to have access to the server to fix them right?

[high110]

I have a question Dooglus. Lets say you didn't know how to code therefor you had to pay a developer which you didn't 100% trust, what's the worst they can do? Is there anything that can be put in place so the developer doesn't know the seeds and of course can NOT cheat out investors or if it was private funded by my self presumably cheat out me?

What I'd do in that situation is make them work on openly on github.

SHAMELESS PLUG TIME WITH CASE STUDY:

I open sourced moneypot.com as way of adding a bit extra transparency. So far I've had three different odds-effecting bugs. One I found myself, and patched (playing at 1.01x was -EV for the house). A second which was reported independently by two different people auditing the code (the game instant crashed 1 in 101 games, not 1 in 100 like it should) and the third more subtle (which I won't say more, as it hasn't been patched -- but easy for me to see if anyone is abusing it) which would allow a player to play at +EV.

The more people who read and review the code, the harder it's going to be to slip something past

I am surprized that you would publicize the third bug which is not batched.

Did you write the code and did you have a team of engineers?

[BayAreaCoins]

there will only be 300-400BTC left; maybe to be distributed in 6months in a big game with 300 prizes of 1BTC, spread the fun!

wat

Surely not, I'm sure there is at least one person who did something dumb and will be sure happy to have their JD coins back in 10-20yrs or something!  Some dude probably sitting in the can remembering them like they are there like a fucking ticket to freedom hahahahha!

"Excuse my Guard can I use Bitcoin to buy stamps yet and could I barrow your cell phone really quick if yes?" haha

[dooglus]

Even if I have someone I trust 100% to review the code, Is it possible to write an undetectable back-door into the server?

Also, even if I were to lock him out the server after it being checked and what not, what if there was problems on the site such as bugs, he would need to have access to the server to fix them right?

I don't see how it could be undetectable if you don't give him access to the server. The problem is that if you don't know how to administer the server, you're going to have to get someone to do it for you, and you're going to have to trust them. It's possible to install a back door and hide it well enough that you'll never find it.

Personally I would never want to put myself in that situation.

[Stars]

Even if I have someone I trust 100% to review the code, Is it possible to write an undetectable back-door into the server?

Also, even if I were to lock him out the server after it being checked and what not, what if there was problems on the site such as bugs, he would need to have access to the server to fix them right?

I don't see how it could be undetectable if you don't give him access to the server. The problem is that if you don't know how to administer the server, you're going to have to get someone to do it for you, and you're going to have to trust them. It's possible to install a back door and hide it well enough that you'll never find it.

Personally I would never want to put myself in that situation.

The website developer would need access to the server to build the website though, right? So that's my problem.

It's really annoying because even if I were to deal with a top company that has some of the best developers, they would charge me A LOT which I don't care too much about but the problem is there's no guarantee they wouldn't play with the seeds I just have their word.

So the only options I have is to either learn how to code myself which will most likely take years or somehow find a developer that I can trust 100%. Am I right in saying these are my only options to move forward or is there possibly a way around the "not trusting your developer with the seeds"?

[espringe]

The website developer would need access to the server to build the website though, right? So that's my problem.

No. You could easily do that yourself, it can be made rather painless. Something like a dice site is perfectly suitable to run on heroku (or another platform as a service), and combined with a managed database -- it would be very possible to have the devs never touch the production environment.

Some things are definitely going to be harder without prod access (e.g. load testing) and maybe some weird prod bugs will come in, but in general it's very doable.

The issue you need to worry more about, is the code being backdoored not the production environment.

It's really annoying because even if I were to deal with a top company that has some of the best developers, they would charge me A LOT which I don't care too much about but the problem is there's no guarantee they wouldn't play with the seeds I just have their word.

If they don't have access to prod, they don't have access to the seeds -- and you'd rely on code review to prevent they're not leaked.

So the only options I have is to either learn how to code myself which will most likely take years or somehow find a developer that I can trust 100%. Am I right in saying these are my only options to move forward or is there possibly a way around the "not trusting your developer with the seeds"?

If you have lots of money, and want a gambling site built and want to put no trust in someone -- I can build it for you, seriously. I could use the cash, I just quit my job last Friday to focus full time on moneypot.com and had a few people wanted to leave also and work with me -- but I'm not making close to enough to pay anyone else's salary.  To make it work, I'd need ~12k/USD/month with a promise of a minimum of 6 months -- which would buy you two full time devs (with bitcoin experience) and me managing it.

The way I'd do is is make the core gambling part publicly available (where public could be anywhere from open source, to downloadable to something you send to a 3rd party auditor) -- and I'd teach you how to manage the production environment, where you and you alone would have access and set the appropriate variables.

[Dabs]

dooglus, may I ask some hardware / software questions regarding how JD was set up?

1. What kind of server did you start it with? Did you upgrade? (You mentioned Amazon Cloud something before, micro instance or maybe even bigger)
2. Ram? Hard Drive space? Operating System? Processors? GPUs? (in theory, GPUs could have hardware accelerated the HMAC-SHA functions, maybe.)
3. What software packages? I remember something like Node.js
4. Was bitcoind (the hot wallet) on a different server, or on the same server as the JD site?
5. Did it need an external entropy source? From what I understand, you only need to generate the server seeds once per player, and only when they click Randomize. The rest are all deterministic.
6. How many real players were there? How high was the peak number of active players at one time?

See, 5 and 6 are related because you would be serving each player over SSL, and might deplete the entropy pool, or /dev/random related or something.

7. What would you recommend for me to start my own little dice site (or other game site), in terms of hosting, servers.

Thanks.

[Dabs]

If you have lots of money, and want a gambling site built and want to put no trust in someone -- I can build it for you, seriously.

Hi espringe,

I don't have lots of money. Would you consider some sort of partnership or commission or percentage of net profits for a certain amount of time (which can be 6 months, or 6 years) ?

Past performance of other similar sites (including JD) obviously don't reflect on future possibilities of a new site, by a different operator; but if this becomes successful to any degree approaching what JD has accomplished in a year, I will be content with 10% of the 10% of the site profits. (Lemme see, that was 19,000 profit, 10% is the commission or 1,900. And 10% of that is 19 BTC, per year... hmm, I may want to rethink how we split net profits, but yeah.)

You're asking "salary" is worth about 30 BTC per month.

I've been dreaming of a multi-player card game site (poker), but dice is simpler.

*edit* my math sucks. 10% of 1,900 is 190, per year. I can live with that.

[dhenson]

(Lemme see, that was 19,000 profit, 10% is the commission or 1,900. And 10% of that is 19 BTC, per year... hmm, I may want to rethink how we split net profits, but yeah.)

You may want to also rethink your math.

[Dabs]

You may want to also rethink your math.

I fixed it before you replied (or maybe at the same time). I was actually thinking of 1% at the time, but decided that's too low, and typed the wrong number.

[elm]

If you have lots of money, and want a gambling site built and want to put no trust in someone -- I can build it for you, seriously. I could use the cash, I just quit my job last Friday to focus full time on moneypot.com and had a few people wanted to leave also and work with me -- but I'm not making close to enough to pay anyone else's salary.  To make it work, I'd need ~12k/USD/month with a promise of a minimum of 6 months -- which would buy you two full time devs (with bitcoin experience) and me managing it.

The way I'd do is is make the core gambling part publicly available (where public could be anywhere from open source, to downloadable to something you send to a 3rd party auditor) -- and I'd teach you how to manage the production environment, where you and you alone would have access and set the appropriate variables.

did I understand You right? You need 6 month for coding and 12K USD a month? to be frank that sounds a lot. I have also some different game ideas in mind.

cheers

[boumalo]

If you have lots of money, and want a gambling site built and want to put no trust in someone -- I can build it for you, seriously. I could use the cash, I just quit my job last Friday to focus full time on moneypot.com and had a few people wanted to leave also and work with me -- but I'm not making close to enough to pay anyone else's salary.  To make it work, I'd need ~12k/USD/month with a promise of a minimum of 6 months -- which would buy you two full time devs (with bitcoin experience) and me managing it.

The way I'd do is is make the core gambling part publicly available (where public could be anywhere from open source, to downloadable to something you send to a 3rd party auditor) -- and I'd teach you how to manage the production environment, where you and you alone would have access and set the appropriate variables.

did I understand You right? You need 6 month for coding and 12K USD a month? to be frank that sounds a lot. I have also some different game ideas in mind.

cheers

12k$/month is for 2devs + him

60k$ total for a great job is not that pricey but you can get a good job for less!

[elm]

If you have lots of money, and want a gambling site built and want to put no trust in someone -- I can build it for you, seriously. I could use the cash, I just quit my job last Friday to focus full time on moneypot.com and had a few people wanted to leave also and work with me -- but I'm not making close to enough to pay anyone else's salary.  To make it work, I'd need ~12k/USD/month with a promise of a minimum of 6 months -- which would buy you two full time devs (with bitcoin experience) and me managing it.

The way I'd do is is make the core gambling part publicly available (where public could be anywhere from open source, to downloadable to something you send to a 3rd party auditor) -- and I'd teach you how to manage the production environment, where you and you alone would have access and set the appropriate variables.

did I understand You right? You need 6 month for coding and 12K USD a month? to be frank that sounds a lot. I have also some different game ideas in mind.

cheers

12k$/month is for 2devs + him

60k$ total for a great job is not that pricey but you can get a good job for less!

a good job for less? thats what I thought but when talking to some devs I got a real bad feeling and I got the feeling that they only were interested in some new ideas.
I cant code and I have only good ideas but I really would like to get those ideas online.IMO most script devs have no clue about online casino games. therefore most devs are offering JD clones.

any help is very much appreciated to  find a dev for new game ideas (not JD clones)

[boumalo]

If you have lots of money, and want a gambling site built and want to put no trust in someone -- I can build it for you, seriously. I could use the cash, I just quit my job last Friday to focus full time on moneypot.com and had a few people wanted to leave also and work with me -- but I'm not making close to enough to pay anyone else's salary.  To make it work, I'd need ~12k/USD/month with a promise of a minimum of 6 months -- which would buy you two full time devs (with bitcoin experience) and me managing it.

The way I'd do is is make the core gambling part publicly available (where public could be anywhere from open source, to downloadable to something you send to a 3rd party auditor) -- and I'd teach you how to manage the production environment, where you and you alone would have access and set the appropriate variables.

did I understand You right? You need 6 month for coding and 12K USD a month? to be frank that sounds a lot. I have also some different game ideas in mind.

cheers

12k$/month is for 2devs + him

60k$ total for a great job is not that pricey but you can get a good job for less!

a good job for less? thats what I thought but when talking to some devs I got a real bad feeling and I got the feeling that they only were interested in some new ideas.
I cant code and I have only good ideas but I really would like to get those ideas online.IMO most script devs have no clue about online casino games. therefore most devs are offering JD clones.

any help is very much appreciated to  find a dev for new game ideas (not JD clones)

Talk with them a lot, meet them, get as much infos as possible and understand what they are doing to avoid bad surprises

[elm]

If you have lots of money, and want a gambling site built and want to put no trust in someone -- I can build it for you, seriously. I could use the cash, I just quit my job last Friday to focus full time on moneypot.com and had a few people wanted to leave also and work with me -- but I'm not making close to enough to pay anyone else's salary.  To make it work, I'd need ~12k/USD/month with a promise of a minimum of 6 months -- which would buy you two full time devs (with bitcoin experience) and me managing it.

The way I'd do is is make the core gambling part publicly available (where public could be anywhere from open source, to downloadable to something you send to a 3rd party auditor) -- and I'd teach you how to manage the production environment, where you and you alone would have access and set the appropriate variables.

did I understand You right? You need 6 month for coding and 12K USD a month? to be frank that sounds a lot. I have also some different game ideas in mind.

cheers

12k$/month is for 2devs + him

60k$ total for a great job is not that pricey but you can get a good job for less!

a good job for less? thats what I thought but when talking to some devs I got a real bad feeling and I got the feeling that they only were interested in some new ideas.
I cant code and I have only good ideas but I really would like to get those ideas online.IMO most script devs have no clue about online casino games. therefore most devs are offering JD clones.

any help is very much appreciated to  find a dev for new game ideas (not JD clones)

Talk with them a lot, meet them, get as much infos as possible and understand what they are doing to avoid bad surprises

thanks for the advice. that is exactly what I tried but without success yet.

[infested999]

If you have lots of money, and want a gambling site built and want to put no trust in someone -- I can build it for you, seriously. I could use the cash, I just quit my job last Friday to focus full time on moneypot.com and had a few people wanted to leave also and work with me -- but I'm not making close to enough to pay anyone else's salary.  To make it work, I'd need ~12k/USD/month with a promise of a minimum of 6 months -- which would buy you two full time devs (with bitcoin experience) and me managing it.

The way I'd do is is make the core gambling part publicly available (where public could be anywhere from open source, to downloadable to something you send to a 3rd party auditor) -- and I'd teach you how to manage the production environment, where you and you alone would have access and set the appropriate variables.

did I understand You right? You need 6 month for coding and 12K USD a month? to be frank that sounds a lot. I have also some different game ideas in mind.

cheers

I believe he just needs employment for 6 months minimum. The site can be done after the first month, but he still gets paid for other work for the next 5 months for example.

[Dabs]

dooglus, may I ask some hardware / software questions regarding how JD was set up?

1. What kind of server did you start it with? Did you upgrade? (You mentioned Amazon Cloud something before, micro instance or maybe even bigger)
2. Ram? Hard Drive space? Operating System? Processors? GPUs? (in theory, GPUs could have hardware accelerated the HMAC-SHA functions, maybe.)
3. What software packages? I remember something like Node.js
4. Was bitcoind (the hot wallet) on a different server, or on the same server as the JD site?
5. Did it need an external entropy source? From what I understand, you only need to generate the server seeds once per player, and only when they click Randomize. The rest are all deterministic.
6. How many real players were there? How high was the peak number of active players at one time?

See, 5 and 6 are related because you would be serving each player over SSL, and might deplete the entropy pool, or /dev/random related or something.

7. What would you recommend for me to start my own little dice site (or other game site), in terms of hosting, servers.

Thanks.

I'd like to add one more question, where did you host it (or what is a good place to host it?) I think someone mentioned Amazon AWS in Ireland, but I'm not sure. (Does the country matter? I could probably host mine in Manila, there is AWS here, and I might have the chance to visit the physical site, if they allow it.)

[espringe]

Hi Dabs, I didn't see your message earlier

I don't have lots of money. Would you consider some sort of partnership or commission or percentage of net profits for a certain amount of time (which can be 6 months, or 6 years) ?

It would not really be possible. I made the offer as it would be something that would give me much needed financial stability. I want more of that, not less. Also developers also (especially here) want guaranteed cash every month, which is largely why they work for someone offering it and not run on their own.

I believe he just needs employment for 6 months minimum. The site can be done after the first month, but he still gets paid for other work for the next 5 months for example.

Yeah, that's correct. The plan would involve poaching employees from where I used to work (who have actually asked me if I can). They're all rather dependent on their salary, so unless there's 6 months of runway it's something I can't do in good faith

[ChekaZ]

Just coming in here to say that you should have pm'ed your signature campaign users. Scamming 1 Month of Sig isnt fun.

[alabamafan1]

Just coming in here to say that you should have pm'ed your signature campaign users. Scamming 1 Month of Sig isnt fun.

If you're talking about DB, it was never his signature campaign so don't accuse Douglas of anything.