Hello Mike,

Thank you for your email.

I regret to inform you that at this moment we will not be able to send you
the stuffed monkey that you are requesting from our VIP Store as in order to
acquire any PokerStars merchandise it needs to be done with FPPs.

I apologize for the inconvenience and we highly appreciate that you assist
us testing our software.

If you have any other question, feel free to email us back at any time.

Regards,

Alberto G.
PokerStars Support Team

Sweet, I suggested to them the RSA Token when they half assed it with the Secure ID last year. Good work Stars.

After the 60 Minutes story Sunday i emailed PS with the following question: "I am wondering if Poker Stars has any official response to the Sixty
Minutesstory last night regarding Ultimate and Absolute Poker. Any
reassurance that cheating is not happening on your site?"

I was happy with the response, they replied in some length. Here is their reply

"Thank you for your email about the 60 Minutes story on Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.

At the outset, let us clarify that we have *no* connection to Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet, aside from being competitors in the marketplace.
We are based in different countries, we have different owners, and we are regulated by different jurisdictions. We don't share software, we don't share information, we don't share computers. We don't share anything with them. Furthermore we have no connections to the Kahnawake jurisdiction mentioned in the broadcast.

In fact, what happened at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet could not happen at PokerStars, as no one has the ability to view the hole cards of other players during a live hand at PokerStars. Nobody in senior management, none of the software developers, no support representatives.
Nobody at all. Our software simply doesn't have this functionality, as the result of a security decision that was made when the PokerStars software was first written many years ago (and long before this scandal).

It is crucial to recognize that this story is confined to those two sites, which are owned by the same company -- one company out of hundreds of poker sites operating today. To draw an analogy with another industry, the problems uncovered at Enron did not mean that other companies within the energy sector were engaged in willful corporate fraud and corruption. The problems at Enron were rightly limited to that company. Similarly here, other operators within the online poker industry should not be tainted by this scandal.

As some people have commented, the 60 Minutes story implied that playing online poker in the US is illegal. This allegation is clearly incorrect. There is no US federal law that prohibits an individual from playing poker online. Moreover, we are unaware of a single instance where US federal or state authorities have even attempted to prosecute a US citizen for playing online poker, let alone achieved a conviction.

We operate under license in the Isle Of Man, which is a Crown Dependency of the United Kingdom. We chose the Isle of Man as our home jurisdiction for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it has close connections with the UK and the government here has been approved by the UK regulatory authorities. The Isle Of Man also has one of the most highly regarded regulatory systems in the world, with the threat of heavy penalties for anyone that breaks the regulations.

Make no mistake, if something similar was uncovered by our regulators we would expect our license to be revoked at a minimum. In addition, it is certain that those involved would be sentenced to a term in prison.
This combination of factors protects the interests of our players and should give them confidence that they are playing on a safe site.

One important point to take away from the 60 Minutes story is that you don't have to just take our word when we say that our games are fair.
Because online poker is all electronic, all of the hand histories are recorded after each hand has finished playing. This evidence led to the uncovering of the incidents at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. From the time we opened our doors in 2001, and continuing to this day, we have freely provided individual real money hand histories to any player who requested them, and we will provide a copy of all your hand histories to you if you want to check them.

On top of this, PokerStars is working with an independent third party, 'Cigital' (www.cigital.com), on a number of security measures, including the verification of controls that are in place to prevent problems like the ones reported in this story. Cigital is a leading software security company which has worked with clients such as MasterCard, the US Air Force, and many others. Cigital is the same company that audited our shuffling methods; see

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/rng/

for more information.

Finally, we strongly support the licensing and regulation of online poker in the US, and we are working with industry bodies to help make this happen. This would benefit both players and responsible operators.

I hope that this information puts your mind at ease, and you now understand that there was no connection between PokerStars and the situation at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Same as you, we are outraged by what has happened at those sites, and we will continue to do our best to provide the most highly respected and trusted games of online poker in the world.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to email us again anytime.

Regards,

Michael Josem
PokerStars Game Security Team."

On top of security
Quick responses
Humor
Doom Switch

3 outa 4 ain't bad.

Gotta PokerStars!

----------------------Kitty

isnt it kind of classless to post a private PM about a private beta test?

could you have made a more useless reply?

"1) Firstly, in regards to confidentiality, we respect you as an active
participant in the poker community, and you're welcome to tell anyone and
everyone about your participation in this project."

touche sir

That is a great response from PokerStars regarding the 60 minutes show.

I thought so too, pretty pleased that they went into some detail.

lol.

Bad beat IMO.

I'm all for this security key hardware, hopefully it will be a standalone device that you type in a code into, and then it gives a response code you enter into the pstars client for example.

Hoping it won't require an available usb port and a windows driver and remain plugged in in order to play

oh and if its standalone hope it as an easily replaceable battery like a AA cell and not a watch battery

great

updates?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...ay-pic-367093/