What Ed Thorpe did was just plain genius!!! And what 'rainman' (movie ref) did was beyond genius!

But IMO what these folks did was cheat. You can count cards as long as you do not use an external device to aid you in the counting. These folks collaborated with others to share each one's counts so as to take advantage of the system. Not that I am a big fan of the casino (or their making tons of money).