What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

So, who else got "the" email from Pokerstars that matched screen names with real names? I got 3 emails from Stars, 1 thanking me for my Tsunami donation and another matching screen names with real names inadvertantly, and another telling me the second was sent by mistake and please erase it. Some pros screen names in that email.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

WTH, I got that e-mail too. I am sure many players value and protect their online identities far more than their bankrolls and I am very, very curious what mailing list Lee Jones was talking about.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

[ QUOTE ]
So, who else got "the" email from Pokerstars that matched screen names with real names? I got 3 emails from Stars, 1 thanking me for my Tsunami donation and another matching screen names with real names inadvertantly, and another telling me the second was sent by mistake and please erase it. Some pros screen names in that email.

[/ QUOTE ]

Stars will be paying alot of pros some good money for that mistake to keep playing there. Sure all those names will now be changed to (to those who value the secrecy).

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

i don't think its that big of a deal. the blog of the bahamas tournament matched the names of finishers with their PS names

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

How big was the email? There's gotta be 100k+ registered names there.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

So while trying to talk about players who won or did something they put in their real names instead of their screen names? Anyway you can post that here?

Instyle007

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

I hope that no one posts the e-mail, for reasons of common decency to the players named in it, who must be incredibly pissed off about it being released so negligently, together with the amounts they gave to the Tsunami Disaster Fund.

A quick glance at it shows the playing names of Lee Jones, Julian Thew, Phil Collins, Bartholomew Simpson, Juha Helppi, and Noah Boeken, to mention but a very few.

Rather than merely trying to sweep such a massive confidentiality error under the carpet by simply asking everyone to delete the offending e-mail, PokerStars should inform every affected player of what has happened and offer to change their accounts, immediately, imo.

"Dear PokerStars player,

Because of an administrative mistake, you received a second, confusing, email regarding a donation you made to the tsunami relief effort at PokerStars.

Please erase it.

We apologize for the error.

Best regards,

Lee Jones
PokerStars Poker Room Manager"

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

I don't play at pokerstars but am somewhat curious as to the 'pros' names/screen names.

Can I have the list?


outs

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

It would be only proper to post the email with the list in this very thread. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

Hi guys,

Let me just clarify what happened.

A block of text containing 500 usernames, userid's and donation amounts was inadvertantly sent out to *a different* block of 500 people that donated. No email addresses or other account information...

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Rather than merely trying to sweep such a massive confidentiality error under the carpet by simply asking everyone to delete the offending e-mail, PokerStars should inform every affected player of what has happened and offer to change their accounts, immediately, imo.


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Mike, we wouldn't try and sweep something like this under the carpet; the 500 affected players were immediately contacted, compensated for the mistake, and were offered the opportunity to change their userid.

Obviously Lee feels terrible about this mistake and will take steps to ensure that it never happens again.

Regards,

Ellis

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

Our client software uses the industry standard SSLv3 protocol. It is configured to use RSA for authentication and key generation and triple-DES (EDE3, in outer-CBC mode) for encryption. Currently we are using 512-bit RSA key, which according to [1] is sufficient for short and medium-term (up to several years) secrets. As we update server private keys every three months, we are secure with a good safety margin. The use of Triple-DES EDE3 for session encryption is considered even safer

No private data, such as pocket cards, is ever transferred to other players


I think for the non-computer people out there, this is rather amusing.

Lori

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

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A quick glance at it shows the playing names of Lee Jones

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I thought Stars staff weren't allowed to play there.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

Silly Q, but I don't know where to find the answer: is the Lee Jones at Pokerstars the same Lee Jones who wrote WLLHE??
Seems like it would be to me, but PokerStars is based somewhere in Europe, no?? I would think Lee would work in the US though....how did he first get involved with Stars? Has he been with them since their inception?? Was he a founder of the site??

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

Yeah, same Lee Jones.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A quick glance at it shows the playing names of Lee Jones

[/ QUOTE ]


I thought Stars staff weren't allowed to play there.

[/ QUOTE ]

My thought exactly. Mike, you mentioned that the email contained Lee Jones "nick".I would think and have heard him say that he is not allowed to play unless it is a special situation such as employee only tourny's etc.

What's the scoop?!?

Husker

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

I wish my name was on the list, I could use some compensation.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A quick glance at it shows the playing names of Lee Jones

[/ QUOTE ]


I thought Stars staff weren't allowed to play there.

[/ QUOTE ]

My thought exactly. Mike, you mentioned that the email contained Lee Jones "nick".I would think and have heard him say that he is not allowed to play unless it is a special situation such as employee only tourny's etc.

What's the scoop?!?

Husker

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"Lee Jones, Julian Thew, Phil Collins, Bartholomew Simpson, Juha Helppi, and Noah Boeken"

Might be a joke...

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

Phil Collins... might be a joke.. remember "Groovy Kind of Love"?

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

"Lee Jones, Julian Thew, Phil Collins, Bartholomew Simpson, Juha Helppi, and Noah Boeken"

I picked the names Phil Collins and Bartholomew Simpson because of their connotations and to lighten my post a little, but they were on the list.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

I got FFP points for compo, anyone else?

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

I got FFP points for compo, anyone else?

I didn't get anything.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

[ QUOTE ]


A quick glance at it shows the playing names of , Bartholomew Simpson,


[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't know the poker craze has filtered down to middle school aged cartoons.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

[ QUOTE ]
A quick glance at it shows the playing names of Lee Jones,

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this is interesting because supposedly stars employees aren't allowed to play on stars. very interesting.

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

this is interesting because supposedly stars employees aren't allowed to play on stars. very interesting.

I don't think for a second that Lee plays undercover at his site. If they aren't allowed to, I don't see any reason for him to play. It's just too stupid a move, that I can't suspect him of that.

Also, there may be many valid reasons for him having multiple accounts there: he had one before he was hired at Stars; he needs to login under a less public name, not to play, but for whatever valid reasons.

Adde

Re: What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!
 

[ QUOTE ]
this is interesting because supposedly stars employees aren't allowed to play on stars. very interesting.

I don't think for a second that Lee plays undercover at his site. If they aren't allowed to, I don't see any reason for him to play. It's just too stupid a move, that I can't suspect him of that.

Also, there may be many valid reasons for him having multiple accounts there: he had one before he was hired at Stars; he needs to login under a less public name, not to play, but for whatever valid reasons.

Adde

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As someone said earlier, they can play in certain events like PS employee things. I would imagine one would need a username to do that. Further, he would need a name to login to the system to post announcements too or for many other reasons I'm sure.

Re: What a screwup by PokerStars (well, actually Lee Jones)
 

Hi folks -

I will explain exactly what took place. I know because I, single-handedly, without assistance from anybody else at PokerStars, messed this up.

I had broken up the list of tsunami donors into 20 different sublists (just to facilitate sending the acknowledgments). In using our tool to send the bulk email, I accidentally cut and pasted one of those lists into the text portion (rather than the distribution portion). So a random list of 500 donors got sent to a random list of a different 500 donors.

The exact information released was the players' real name, their userid (screen name) at PokerStars, and the amount of their donation. No other information (including email address, home address, password) was released. So the "only" concern is that the people who received that list can now associate those real names with those PokerStars userids.

By way of compensating the people whose names were released, we:

1. Gave each of them a bunch of FPPs.

2. Offered to let any of them that wished change their userids.

About 35 have taken us up on the "change your userid" offer so far.

As regards my playing at PokerStars, I don't. Yes, I have a "Lee Jones" userid. And in fact, you can see it observing at PokerStars on a regular basis. If you want to see it playing, then you'll have to come watch one of our monthly no-money staff tournaments [1]. I had put my userid on every donor distribution list so I could verify that that list went out correctly.

In short, it was a stupid, unconscionable error. With that said, I think we took exactly the right steps following it - we instantly told people what had happened, compensated them, and gave them the option of changing their userids.

I have apologized to the people who were hurt by this, and I have apologized to my co-workers at PokerStars for bruising our well-deserved reputation for care with our customers' privacy. Believe me, this isn't going to happen again.

Best regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Poker Room Manager

[1] Alert readers will recall that I r00led over that event last month, which was Terrence Chan's final appearance as a PokerStars staff member.

Re: What a screwup by PokerStars (well, actually Lee Jones)
 

To err is human, to forgive divine. I hope everyone will forgive you for this honest mistake. In no way should this detract from the humanitarianism that you and Pokerstars exhibited. Bravo for your efforts.

Re: What a screwup by PokerStars (well, actually Lee Jones)
 

Here, in Lee Jones post, is my basic problem with a multi-tasking information system sending me my hole cards, And then Lee Jones mentions FPPs and I think how does that have anything to do with odds. But Lee Jones's honesty saved the day for pokerstars as far as this thread is concerned.

Re: What a screwup by PokerStars (well, actually Lee Jones)
 

I am suffering from severe mental anguish over this ordeal.

A generous donation of $1,000 in my PokerStars account would definitely help me get over this breach in security.

No you say...Allright, allright then we would all be willing to settle for a RELOAD BONUS.