From Computerworld:
Casino insider tells (almost) all about security
Engineer built systems used by up to half the world's casinos
Jeff Jonas knows the Las Vegas gambling industry inside and out. As the founder and chief scientist of Systems Research & Development (SRD), Jonas helped build numerous casino systems before 2005 when his company was purchased by IBM. Big Blue was intrigued by SRD's NORA system (Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness), a technology that uncovers relationships that can be exploited fraudulently for profit, such as connections between dealers and gamblers. Now a distinguished engineer and chief scientist for IBM's Entity Analytic Solutions, Jonas is still based in Las Vegas but is focused more on applying his technology to national security and the banking industry.
Speaking at the O'Reilly ETech conference on emerging technology in the US on Thursday, Jonas promised to reveal some, if not all, of the secrets he learned about the casino industry. Before the talk, he called some of his former clients to make sure certain details could be revealed.
That would have been a fun talk to attend. The ETech listing for his talk (with PowerPoint slides) is here: Las Vegas: Behind the Scenes. What Sensors? What Privacy? What Anonymity? The Whole Story We have a local Indian Casino that has done very well for the tribe. (Talking with a Tribal Elder last year, he mentioned that we took their land, now they take our money.) Jen and I go there for dinner occasionally (great food!) and walking through to the dining room, the place has a lot of cameras and security features and this is just what I am able to see...
