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PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends)

12-14-2012 , 01:59 PM
At least the storm is done in time for Christmas.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 02:03 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by spewpitz
Yeah true. Even more idiotic as 95% of people won't even open it. Anyway, I thought we were all supposed to die 2 days ago? Not another one a week later ffs!
Is it not the 21st we are supposed to die?
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 02:19 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMD
Is it not the 21st we are supposed to die?
I heard early January since "the Mayan calendar is out by a few days a year" or some such bull crap
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 02:20 PM
These ****s need to make up their minds
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 02:24 PM
Got it twice as well. Insta-deleted without even looking. Guy has to be getting fired.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 02:34 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pitbullo
You should know GMail email addresses ignore dots and everything after a plus symbol. Also, googlemail = gmail.

All the following address are same:

[1] john.doe@gmail.com

[2] jo.hn.do.e@gmail.com

[3] john.doe@googlemail.com

[4] jo.hn.do.e@googlemail.com

[5] john.doe+spammysite@gmail.com

[6] jo.hn.doe+spammysite@googlemail.com

This is great because you can use this to help identify spam. For eg; Use [7] john.doe+xvideos@gmail.com to register on xvideos. Now if you receive spam addressed to this address, you instantly know it was xvideos.

So you have infinite email addresses from just one gmail address. You can use this to create multiple accounts on same site using different aliases.

taken from reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKno...nore_dots_and/
This is actually really cool, I didn't know about this.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 02:37 PM
Received and deleted without opening.

Kind of disappointed stars didn't respond faster/I feel they owe some sort of statement/apology to those effected.


Also, pretty sure this is illegal on his/her part beyond just getting fired?
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 02:38 PM
I'm curious as to what Stars determines to be a "small" number of customers, given how many of us received the email.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 04:26 PM
I got one as well, my spam filter caught it. It's a bit disconcerting though. +1 on what does stars mean by "small number"? I'm in Canada, looks like some are from UK, wonder what data we can gather to determine scope of the issue?

I certainly hope stars takes this very seriously
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 04:43 PM
I think we need something from stars because of this, double vpp hours or something.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 04:56 PM
I think a less than 24 hour turnaround from the first spam email to the employee being identified, his access revoked and the hole being patched isn't too bad and seems to me like they're taking it seriously enough. Wondering how small "small" is too, but a friend who is on stars hasn't received it. Lol sample size obviously.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 05:03 PM
I got one as well, but my spam filter also caught it. I'm in Australia.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 05:19 PM
I got one of these emails this morning. So did my girlfriend who also plays on Stars. Annoying spam. Had no idea it was from Stars. That's pretty bad on their part. Hope they deal with the employee appropriately.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 05:24 PM
I got the email mentioned in the OP twice. I'm from the UK.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 05:26 PM
Tbh you can thank the guys from that other random forum, they were the ones that added things together and realised that the link between them all was stars. I'm not sure what should/shouldn't happen to the guy that sent the email... we were pretty fortunate that this was just some spammy bs nonsense but it could so easily have been far worse. All the recent problems of account hacking/scamming going on in the community makes me pretty angry that stars did not already have sufficient safety procedures in place to stop abuse by a member of it's staff.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 06:01 PM
This kind of thing happens more often than you might think. I use a poker site dedicated email address( and am extremely vigilant that its only used with poker sites and moneybookers/neteller) and started receiving spam from random sketchy online casinos and also even an individual who had bought an email DB and was trying to sign people up on rakeback. I since made an individual email address for each site to try to figure out where its happening..... still no bites.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 06:15 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by pontylad
All the recent problems of account hacking/scamming going on in the community makes me pretty angry that stars did not already have sufficient safety procedures in place to stop abuse by a member of it's staff.
What can they do?

There are people at PS who have to have access to the mass email tool - some people in support, everyone in CRM, various management, some people in security, some people in payments, etc etc.

You can't have a filter that says "if email contains pisces, do not send".

All you can do is fire people who abuse it, and take any further action if appropriate.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 06:36 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sciolist
What can they do?

There are people at PS who have to have access to the mass email tool - some people in support, everyone in CRM, various management, some people in security, some people in payments, etc etc.

You can't have a filter that says "if email contains pisces, do not send".

All you can do is fire people who abuse it, and take any further action if appropriate.
Do you seriously believe what you are writing? I mean, and this is going to sound patronising but, do you have any idea how multi million dollar businesses are run? or have ever considered the fact that they have departments dedicated to proactive prevention?

It's very simple. It would be very easy to put in safeguards that mean 1 individual alone can not gain access to the email servers like this. It's a pretty fundamental part of any internal audit team that they safeguard assets and provide control procedures to stop precisely stuff like this from happening. You only have to go to the internet forum to see instances at other sites where control procedures are non existent and employees at these sites have stolen money from players accounts. such as here

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...d-etc-1224459/

However, the crux of the problem I have is this, If stars' internal controls didn't prevent this obvious abuse of position, then what other internal controls either aren't functioning properly or aren't even in place to protect it's players? That is the main issue here! Despite the email being pretty harmless in itself, It's actually pretty damaging to consumer confidence and I can promise, as someone who used to work in audit themselves, that stars will be very angry and also acutely embarrassed by this.

Last edited by pontylad; 12-14-2012 at 06:41 PM.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 06:44 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by pontylad
this is going to sound patronising but, do you have any idea how multi million dollar businesses are run? or have ever considered the fact that they have departments dedicated to proactive prevention?
This is going to sound embarrassing for you but, I worked at PokerStars for seven years and have a very good idea how this happened.

Ultimately some people have the sole authority to send emails to a list of players. If one of those people choose to abuse that authority then something like this can happen. Due to the number of different sets of mailers that will go out each day in 20 odd languages it isn't practical to have them all signed off by some auditing guy.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 06:45 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamie Platinum
Me too
Same
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 06:49 PM
I didn't get a copy by the way, so it likely wasn't just a big list of everyone in English speaking countries. That doesn't really help narrow anything down though.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 06:53 PM
Yes I got it too and wondered how it got into my inbox in the picosecond before I deleted it. Still waiting for my apology from Stars.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 07:17 PM
But this is the thing, when you're in the business of being a poker site, you absolutely do not have the luxury to allow mistakes to happen. Not even the smallest of mistakes. It's the area of business they're in and details becoming vulnerable is unforgivable. Whether a customer has $1 or $100,000 in their account or nothing at all, they should have their funds, personal details and account details protected unreservedly. There's no room for hairline mistakes to happen.

I understand you sentiment that this is a disgruntled employee so "what can you do?" but they're a poker site. They need to figure out what to do about it pronto. If they need to spend millions on extra security, filters, software, secondary and tertiary mailing checks whatever.. then so be it. Human error? Deliberate fiddling by your human employees? You figure it out. When you're a poker site, you have NO luxury of being nonchelant or blasé with your customers funds and details. Luckily in this case it was harmless but I agree with the others - if details like this slip through the net and can be fiddled with, what other areas of ones account are vulnerable.

With everyone on edge as it is about online poker, this does nothing for the confidence of people who play on the site.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 07:17 PM
Dude is clearly off his rocker that he jeopardized his job, etc for no apparent gain.
PSA/Warning: Scam/Spam email originating from PokerStars (the age of the pisces ends) Quote
12-14-2012 , 09:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sciolist
This is going to sound embarrassing for you but, I worked at PokerStars for seven years and have a very good idea how this happened.

Ultimately some people have the sole authority to send emails to a list of players. If one of those people choose to abuse that authority then something like this can happen. Due to the number of different sets of mailers that will go out each day in 20 odd languages it isn't practical to have them all signed off by some auditing guy.
Sorry for the tone of my previous post but i am not embarrassed that you work for pokerstars on the contrary I'm pretty gobsmacked that someone who used to work for them is telling us that their policy is to be reactive to security breaches rather than proactive in cases like this (your words). Can't you understand that from a player perspective this is awful? Especially when you consider (if you believe what is said by stars regarding this matter) that after they were informed about this they went and changed controls so that it can't happen again in this way? If it was so easy to change/implement then it should have been done before is my point.

Sole Authority for a security issues like this is pretty lax and like i said, the issue isn't so much what happened with this email, but the question of whether a a lackadaisical approach is applied to other security measures. Don't get me wrong, i think stars is the best on the market and the only place i feel truly safe with my money... but these are obviously important questions to ask.
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