Party Poker Blog

Funeral and other gatherings were yesterday. Sad, sad, sad.
My folks even came in from St. Louis.

Thanks for all the supportive emails. Means alot.
Been an ugly week.

And I'll prolly try to blog an uberpost here very soon but for now I just saw this notice that PokerStars got hacked.

Check out the post by Lee Jones:

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Subject: Stars' Server Update
Author: Lee Jones (leejones@pokerstars.com)

Our servers have been *attacked* by a group of hackers that are located
in Eastern Russian. On Sunday, June 19th, we were emailed a *ransom*
demand of $10,000,000, and were instructed if we didn't comply they
would attack our servers. Stars' has a policy of not negotiating with
hackers, so we didn't pay them.

We are working hard with the government of Russia to track this group
down. We promise to get this situation settled one way or another.

This attack has left *several* accounts with a balance of zero. This
group has successfully *embezzled* approximately $3,400,000 over the
past 24 hours from over 2,000 accounts. Check your accounts IMMEDIATELY
folks and email us if you are experiencing problems with your account
balance.

All tournaments will be cancelled and rolled forward. I'm sorry for
this major inconvenience and will credit those accounts experiencing
difficulties an extra $100.

We hope to have this situation resolved by Tuesday, June 22nd at 5 PM.

Kindest Regards,

Lee Jones
Pokerstars Poker Room Manager

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BTW, this is a troll post and not true. :)

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Just amplifying what Matt said: the original post was a complete and total
fabrication. Some of the sharp readers in the crowd spotted clues as to why it
was a hoax.

Yes, the site was down for awhile last night. No, we didn't pay any extortion
demands (and wouldn't).

As a previous poster said, "Nothing to see here folks; move along."

Best regards,
Lee Jones
PokerStars Poker Room Manager

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In lame, nerdy bloggy news, I'm getting ready to update that bigass honking blogroll on the right.