As most of you know stars today prohibited the use of sharkscope. This is part of a stars email response:

Hello Michael,

Thank you for contacting us.

Our Game Security Dept. is able to recognize players, who are using
SharkScope, similar like Bot-Users. Players are not permitted to use
SharkScope while the PokerStars client is running.

So I am assuming that stars has/uses their ability to see what youre browsing. I personally think that is **cked up. Dont mind so much the sharkscope thing, but I am really concerned that they are able to know what sites I visit on my computer. Thoughts?

lmao u cant use sharkscope? just wow

Though I subscribe to ss, i dont care that its gone.

I AM much more concerned that stars has access to what I do on my computer away from playing poker. Can it check to see what porn Ive viewd, my bank info, my email password???

I think this is outrageous.

ever heard of the porno doomswitch?

I believe they can, while the client is running, take what amounts to screen shots so they can check what else you are doing. I dont think they actually take the log files from IE/Firefox. Collecting logs files from potentially multiple browsers wouldnt be full proof because those can be empties and are stored in different locations.

They just take screen shots and try to see bot programs and such, so if they happened to see sharkscope on the screen they'd have a problem with it i guess.

That seems like a big invasion of privacy. Like what if we have our bank accounts open online and they get a screenshot of our account balances. If this is the case then I will just have gay porn open any time that I am playing at stars so that their security people will have to look at *****.

but then you'd be looking at them as well?

Pretty sure they don't take screenshots, they do however monitor what processes are running and probably check your browser history. While it is a little concerning, I do trust Pokerstars' security and would rather have them checking for bots. You agree to their terms, if you don't like it don't play there.

yea, to all of you who are surprised, i'm pretty sure all the major poker sites do this, so either get used to it or don't play. and i was also under the impression they're just checking processes not taking screenshots but i don't really know.

While I understand the concern I admit I'm surprised people are surprised.
I would have thought this is fairly common knowledge or intuitive by now.

I'm fine with them taking screenshots or whatever... imo you shouldn't expect any more privacy than walking into a casino.

Walking into a casino somehow allows them to know my gay porn browsing history?

These.

I'm pretty sure someone on 2+2 had problems a couple of years ago with a poker room after they had browsed a bot site. IIRC it was resolved amicably in the end, and I really don't recall what site it was, but the point is that this is nothing new.

I don't think anyone has to worry about screenshots, though.

It's no mystery that you browse gay porn when you walk in ANY establishment.

Big deal. We all agreed to tis and more when we signed up.

What troubles me, however, is the possibility that I may inadvertently click on some link the site doesn't like and end up losing my account and funds. I'm sure they don't intend this, but it's certianly possible and it's not like I have the option of mediation as their decision is final.

That said, if they're smart they'll be cool about this because they don't wantto run off players.

But people here expecting privacy on the interwebs? LOL.

How is it ok for them to be taking screenshots in the days of online banking, among other very personal things? I don't want somebody in another country coming across a screenshot of my online banking information.

Its pretty common knowledge that stars and party can do a scan to see what else youre doing. Im quite sure FT doesnt do this. Not too sure about the other smaller sites though.

Every site does, and has for a very long time. A poker site isn't going to steal your bank account pw, when they kind of already control your online bank account (on the site).

They're not taking literal screenshots either I believe.

Its not the site as a whole im concerned with, it would be more a rogue employee who is getting paid $10/hr. Somebody offering him $5k to compile info, though not probable is not out of the realm of possibilities. Though I am not happy about this, i will still play there, as I am in love with pokerstars,

If you're worried about it, just use a separate computer for everything other than poker.

I'd guess that the client has some version of the netstat code built into it. I'm pretty sure you can run netstat from the Windows console if you want to see itlist all active network connections. It's pretty simple to just match connections to a list of ips for sites that Stars doesn't want you connected to and then report you. They don't have to record any other sites that you might be browsing so your porn is probably safe.

from Full Tilt, PokerStars, and Party Poker sites:

The key phrase being "but not limited to". Any questions?

Hello,

I obviously can't speak for the other sites discussed here, so let me confine the answers to PokerStars.
No, we can't. Not only do we not have any inclination to know this information, we don't have the ability to obtain it.
Well, it's not happening, so you shouldn't be outraged.
We don't take screenshots. Apart from anything else, the volume of that data would be prohibitively expensive to receive and store.

We can't see the porn that you're looking at.
Firstly, we don't seize funds for viewing such websites.

Secondly, we're bound by the law of the Isle of Man - we can't just seize funds willy nilly. As was reported recently on here, players are able to take legal action if they're unhappy with our decisions in this regard.
We're not taking screenshots.
The people who have access to our bot tools are all paid significantly more than $10 an hour. They're some highly trained, highly skilled folks who do a genuinely good job at this.

I hope that this puts your mind at ease, but as always if you have any further questions, please feel free to email us at support@pokerstars.com anytime.

Sincerely,

Michael J
PokerStars Game Security Team

Now that it's clear you're not taking screenshots and everyone can watch their porn free of worries: what is it that you actually do in order to find out whether someone is using Sharscope or not, for instance?

not checking your browser. more likely code on your PC that checks what is running on your computer.