PSN Up, And Then Down Again 282
RdeCourtney writes "The PlayStation Network is down again. Sony had originally enabled passwords to be reset onscreen simply by entering an email address and date of birth. Whoever has the data from Sony, could, in theory, then reset any of the captured users accounts simply by entering the details they stole."
That's some fine police work, boys (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never been a particularly big fan of Sony, mind you. But even I am shocked by the level of security incompetence they've shown over this whole thing. This is a major corporation, for fuck's sake! Do they even *have* a full-time security staff in there online division? Their press releases make it sound like they only stumbled on the whole PSN hack by accident and had to run out and contract for a bunch of security people. Surely to god they had SOMEONE monitoring security, right?
As one of the effected users, I'm just glad I never gave them my credit card number (fortunately, I never bought anything on PSN). Now, I wouldn't give them a credit card number on a *dare*. Hell, I won't even give them my real *name* ever again. No online system is secure, but theirs looks like a complete joke.
Meanwhile, you have the CEO of the company dismissing this whole thing as a "hiccup," [bloomberg.com] which pretty aptly demonstrates just how seriously Sony apparently takes its security. No way I want my CC number or private info involved in their next "hiccup."
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Be careful.
Last time I pointed out how bad this was, a bunch of Sony Fanbois downmodded me.
They seem to spend far more money on faked astroturf ad campaigns than they do on security, anyways. Remember the PSP incidents [dvorak.org]?
The Sony Fanbois today are pretty much a standing example of FanDumb [tvtropes.org]... not surprising since anyone with any sense jumped ship from Sony a long while ago.
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It would take a pretty damned die-hard fanboy to be defending them at this point. About the best anyone can say is "Well, at least we got some free games out of it." Hell, everyone should get a free copy of L.A. Noire at this point, instead of just some old games. I think we're beyond the "Sorry about that, here's a free coupon" stage of fuckup.
Re:That's some fine police work, boys (Score:5, Funny)
You're supposed to say "I'm going to get modded to oblivion for this". You'll end up getting +5.
I think I'll get modded to oblivion for this reply now.
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Purely out of spite, the mods gave you a +4 instead of a +5.
Re:That's some fine police work, boys (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking of dumb, PSN isn't down. This story's headline is completely inaccurate. What's been taken down is several website login pages that use PSN accounts, such as Qrocity.com.
All that ranting about "fanbois," and you didn't even have all the facts. You said that last time you pointed out how bad things were, you were modded down, but your last post was actually a false claim that PS3 users weren't been able to play their games during the PSN outage [slashdot.org], and others corrected you.
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Oh do shut up.
PS3 users weren't able to play any game requiring an online component. When the vast majority of them are PO'ed because they haven't been able to get on the various Call of Duty servers, that's no small problem.
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Re:That's some fine police work, boys (Score:4, Insightful)
I boycotted Sony (or more correctly: PS3) when I find-out they removed the ability to play my old PS1/2 games on the new unit. All incentive to upgrade disappeared.
Then there was the whole "We installed software from your CD to your computer w/o telling you" bullshit. As far as I am concerned, that act should have been a jailable offense. The United States DOJ and European Commission should find the upper-level managers responsible for making that decision, prosecute them under US and EU Law for hacking, and then throw away the key.
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Be careful. Last time I pointed out how bad this was, a bunch of Sony Fanbois downmodded me.
Fanboys will find you no matter what. If all other fanboys fail to get you, there's going to be a PC fanboy who mods you down for discussing console gaming.
do you expect to get away with trolling? (Score:2, Troll)
You're trolling really hard right now, how can you expect to not be modded down?
There's even a classification for it.
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What is the other option, as the Wii is not a current generation system?
The choices are PS3, PC Gaming or an Xbox2? Let me rephrase that. The choices are Sony, Microsoft or Microsoft.
I pick Sony. You pick Microsoft. Both companies do some evil shit. We are both sleeping with the devil.
Possibility: Neither of us is gaming with a moral company with top notch security practices.
Do you agree with that possibility?
Re:That's some fine police work, boys (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure one day Sony will be brought down by /. posters.
Well, there are a lot of Anonymous here but unfortunately they're all cowards.
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"I'm sure one day Sony will be brought down by /. posters."
Well, I took EA down a peg. I'm looking into doing the same to Sony.
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Re:That's some fine police work, boys (Score:4, Insightful)
But even I am shocked by the level of security incompetence they've shown over this whole thing. This is a major corporation, for fuck's sake!
The reason they are like this is because they are a major corporation. Anything smaller could not survive such a fiasco. Security costs money, it is the first thing out the window in a major corporation.
Re:That's some fine police work, boys (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason they are like this is because they are a major corporation. Anything smaller could not survive such a fiasco. Security costs money, it is the first thing out the window in a major corporation.
This logic fails to pass the smell test. Amazon is a major corporation, and they have proven to be quite secure. And if security costs money, why do only small companies (who don't have the capital to spare) have security? Surely they would try to save some money here and there and possibly consider cutting security measures.
Big corporations can be guilty of many things, but this seems more like anti-corporate ranting than an 'Insightful' analysis of the situation.
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Stop applying logic to the actions of business school product.
Amazon is online only, they have to do this. Good security is not capital intensive, it is within the reach of many small companies. Good design is step one, staying current with updates is step 2. Sony failed at step 1. Credit card data should never have been available to the PSN in anyway. It should come in via some other method and be only usable by the payment processing service that the games network has only one way communication with. Then
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Amazon came of age in the internet era. Sony is a has been from the past era of 'we own you and do what we want'.
So less because they are a 'Big' corporation and more because they are an 'Old' corporation? I tend to think it's just more because they are, apparently, an 'Inept' corporation.
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Funny thing is, I think Sony really did manage to get away without a real security division. And Nintendo's probably next.
Microsoft, being Microsoft, would probably be attacked so often there's an alarm that goes off when the number of detected attacks falls. After all, every script kiddie and hacker wants to go after Microsoft and its insecure software. So they're probably spending tons of time and money on security - things like defense in depth (firewalls, machines that can only access data it needs, etc
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That would be an interesting move, to try to crack Nintendo's network, seeing as Nintendo ... doesn't have a network. Or store CC info. Or really any personal info in general.
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Nintendo is probably ok because by all indications they don't store CC numbers. You have to enter it every time you want to buy WiiPoints.
The other thing Nintendo has going for them is they don't ask for your name, except when you use the a CC which makes me think that again they are not keeping the data. It seems like most of the time as far as Nintendo is concerned you are WiiNumber and nothing more. I could be wrong they could be keeping CC information attached to all that transaction data; but the bi
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Re:That's some fine police work, boys (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile, you have the CEO of the company dismissing this whole thing as a "hiccup," [bloomberg.com] which pretty aptly demonstrates just how seriously Sony apparently takes its security. No way I want my CC number or private info involved in their next "hiccup."
And also saying he can't promise you security after this attack [smh.com.au]. "It's the beginning, unfortunately, or the shape of things to come. It's not a brave new world — it's a bad new world" is what he said exactly. So is he preparing us for an endless number of "hiccups"?
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To be fair, though, if he promised no more security breaches everyone would laugh since every system is vulnerable at some point. He really can't win no matter what he says.
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He could have promised that if it happens again they might offer games that are not either cheap crap or so old anyone who wanted them already has them.
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This is pathetic, playing it off like they're not at fault. Sure you got hacked, but this is like having a bank that stores the money out back in a dumpster and then blaming the thieves for your inability to secure deposits. At least try you assholes.
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In any case, any sufficiently motivated person will eventually find the weak link in the system and exploit it. The trick is to minimize the depth of any part
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Here is the video I think that everyone is thinking right now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjLgekyOZA0#t=0m58s
Speaking of police work (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking of police work, Slashdot editors should try actually verifying their stories. PSN isn't down. It's up right now I type this. Apparently, what's down is the email reset page.
As for your credit card number, there is no evidence credit card data was obtained in the PSN breach. Credit card companies would have noticed an increase in fraud and alerted their customers. The alarmism on forums is ridiculous, and most of it is driven from Sony hatred rather than facts. This is the website on which a commenter to a story on the Japan earthquake delaying the Sony NGP [slashdot.org] justified the lethal disaster by saying, "Anything that hurts Sony is good for the consumer." [slashdot.org] It got +3 Funny.
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Not everybody on Slashdot thinks of other people as... you know... people.
Re:That's some fine police work, boys (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of those email accounts probably used the same passwords as the stolen sony accounts.
At this point sony should require users to create new accounts and import trophies from the old accounts if you give the old password. This would mean at worst someone could get a bunch of unearned trophies, instead of access to an account with which they could buy something.
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Refund the credit cards that were billed.
Avoiding having to do that again would surely motivate Sony to avoid having this happen again.
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That email is pretty clear. If you get the email, but didn't do the password reset, then there is a problem and you should be worried.
Sony's security team is an abysmal failure (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like the corporate culture over at Sony is horrible. First the DRM scandal, then the PSN hack and now this.
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Apparently not. Surely it makes more sense to send out e-mails to each user with account specific tokens in order to reactivate the accounts? Its not perfect, but provides a bit more security. There are probably other suitable way, so if you know of any let me know.
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Thereby bringing a whole new meaning to "root kit."
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Its just sony (Score:5, Interesting)
that is TOTALLY leaving aside how they screwed their customers en large in star wars galaxies, at the cost of screwing up the game. they had the habit of routinely changing skill properties in order to force people to drop entire skill trees and level others so that they would keep paying - spent 2 months of your play time building up a character ? well - come next patch, you had to ditch on average 30% of your character and level another tree to remain viable. as long as you kept paying, it was all ok by soe.
sony deserves whatever is shoved up their ass.
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Someone really needs to consolidate all the bad stuff Sony has done onto one web page. That way next time someone questions my adversity to all things Sony, I can just point at it.
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Verification data (Score:2)
Hardware ID (Score:2)
In addition to the email suggestions above, shouldn't they be able to use some sort of hardware ID? I don't think PSN accounts are tied to your machine, but they should have records of which machines you have used with PSN recently. Just require that you reactive your account from a machine which you regularly used prior to the intrusion. If they can't even verify that, then what good is their DRM at all?
THIS ARTICLE IS BS (Score:2)
I'm about 99% certain that Sony required you to reactivate your account from the PS3 it was activated on.
This is an absolute non-issue /multiple PS3 owner
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To reset your PlayStation(R)Network password, please click on the link below. This link will expire in 24 hours from the time that it was sent. The link will direct you to a PlayStation(R)Network web page and allow you to enter and confirm your new password.
https://store.playstation.com/accounts/security/resetPassword.action?token=-- [playstation.com]
Obviously I removed my token.
Re:Verification data (Score:4, Funny)
Obviously I removed my token.
You should apply for sony's online security team.
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24 hours? My email said it expires in 3. And it was sent at 1am. No joke.
(they sent another later about 40 mins ago) Also, I just tried clicking on my password reset link, and it sent me to a "server is down" page. =/ Oh well. Someone else (apparently japanese) signed up for an account with my email address and I was hoping to take it over and delete it with the password reset.
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Duh (Score:2)
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Couldn't they have used the email address on the account to send a security token, something like that?
"An email has been sent to ********@yahoo.com with your confirmation code. Please check your email and enter this code to continue."
Overall, wow - using the stolen information to re-register your account? Why bother making people change their password then? Heaping spoonful of FAIL.
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No, because for 90% of those users the PSN password and the email password are going to be the same.
The only solution is new accounts and import trophies from the old one, but not anything sensitive.
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"An email has been sent to ********@yahoo.com with your confirmation code. Please check your email and enter this code to continue."
"Important: if you use the same password for the Playstation Network and your email address, change your email password immediately."
Problem solved? Making a new PSN account doesn't stop the crackers accessing email accounts -- they have those details.
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Eh... if you try to log in, they can send the email at that time. Anyone trying to hack all the accounts would be hard pressed to log in to that many accounts to activate and reset the passwords for any moment in the day. Now, if they sent out the activation codes in batches and let the users log in at any time, sure... I can see where that may be a bad idea, but having the activation code sent at the time of initial attempt would not be as exploitable.
Now, a smart user would not use the same password for
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Sending an email ensures that the unique info necessary to re-register gets to the correct person (unless their email account has _already_ been hacked, which they should already know about and have taken care of). And of course, anyone who was on the PSN and hasn't already changed their other passwords (assuming they reused their PSN one) is a fool.
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Most customers cannot be trusted to do that. Nor should they be. The level of complacency you are advocating is what got Sony into this mess to begin with.
Duh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh come on... Think about it before you complain. (Score:2)
That is the whole point isn't it? The bad guys stole all the info Sony knew about you so there is no reasonable way of Sony differentiating the correct user 'X' from the bad guys. What are you people really expecting? magic security fairy dust?
Its the same as people complaining about the lack of encryption on Apple's iPhone location cache, come on now, the phone needs to read and write that data, guess what that means? Even if it were encrypted the keys would need to be on the device too and the 'attack
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The bad guys stole all the info Sony knew about you so there is no reasonable way of Sony differentiating the correct user 'X' from the bad guys.
Send me a letter (yes, snail-mail) that contains a one-time-use code that I can use to reset my password online. If you have my credit card info, you have my billing address...
Problem solved. But oh wait, that costs MONEY to do!
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But if you put in your postal address into the PSN then the person will know where to steal your activation code!
Any system can be explained away. Snail mail theft is a bit extreme, but so is sending everyone a snail mail code to re-activate. An email validation code should be good enough and if you're dumb enough to use the same password for PSN as your email and you haven't changed it yet, you deserve the long boring hold time while trying to get your password reset over the phone.
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They could start by sending the token that lets me change my password to my email account instead of simply throwing it up to whoever happens to hit the website with the data that was already stolen. They don't even need my old password to do this FFS.
Bothering to have people change their passwords at all with security that week is just theatre.
Can somebody help these guys? (Score:2)
Julie
Better security from 13-yr olds (Score:4, Informative)
It seems to me that the 13-yr olds that run FARK have a far better security system in place than Sony does. Their people have no plan, no concept, no big picture at all, of what to do.
They are grasping at straws, throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, or whatever tired car analogy you wish to entertain. Point is: I think it's time they gave up and went home.
If they are lucky, they will shut down for 8 months and rebuild from scratch. If they are stupid (most likely scenario), they will continue to prop up a house of cards with a few pieces of sticky tape, and it will come down again and again, until no one is left and they've wasted a great deal of money only to arrive at the conclusion that they should have done the rebuild from scratch in the first place.
Of course by then, management will look at the numbers and get out of the game business entirely, leaving MS and Nintendo.
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If they are lucky, they will shut down for 8 months and rebuild from scratch.
This is what they need to do, but no way will the horde of angry gamers wait that long (and really you can't blame them).
As you said, nothing they can do in a few weeks is going to amount to anything more than duct tape and positive thought. There system is obviously broken at a fundemental infrastructure level. The foundation of the house is crumbling and they are working fevorishly to tilt the windows so as no one notices.
The only thing I can think of is for them to strip out credit processing. Require pe
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* their ... good grief, sorry about that folks :(
Summary Wrong, PSN is Up (Score:3, Informative)
The e-mail included a key to keep this from happening, but someone must have broken that key generation scheme.
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Pretty much this. The key generation scheme was cracked so people were getting confirmation emails to change their passwords and then getting mails notifying them that the password was changed successfully. These were on non-compromised emails.
Slightly misleading headline/summary (Score:4, Informative)
At the time I type this, the PSN is actually up and running. Or at least, it's online gaming components are. The Store and other features that require payments are still offline, as they have been since the initial shutdown several weeks ago. But you can, should you feel so inclined, log in and play games online at present. Whether this may change over the next few hours is open to question - while it wouldn't completely surprise me, I suspect that Sony will try to keep the network itself up this time..
What's just been taken offline is web-interface for changing passwords. Now, that's still pretty bad - in fact, given how stupid the mistake in this case is, it's verging on the awful - but I dare say that a lot of PSN users may not actually notice until Sony tells them. Furthermore, just to add a little perspective, stupid though Sony's mistake here is (and it is very stupid indeed and then some), no additional personal information or credit card details beyond what has already been leaked will have been compromised as a result of this - not least because you can't, so far as I know, actually input new credit card details into the PSN yet.
So it's a further embarrassment for Sony and will further undermine confidence in them (do you really, really want to trust them with your credit card details ever again). But unless I'm reading things wrong - and if I am then happy to be corrected- there's not been any actual additional harm done to users this time.
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Harm to users (Score:2)
there's not been any actual additional harm done to users this time
You say that all that's lost is the ability to change one's password.
Didn't Sony's user database just get stolen? Wouldn't people thus want to change their password, so attackers can't vandalize their game info/account?
I honestly don't know how PSN works, so maybe I'm missing a piece of the puzzle, but that's the first thing that occurs to me.
Actually, this one was my fault (Score:5, Funny)
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rotfl
Brings back memories to the time I was hunting down a bug in the password change CGI for our old mail system at a previous job.... and found several instances of things like `grep $username /path/to/file` in the code (originally writen for PERL4)
I went from debugging 1 bad error code, to re-writing the whole thing (and making snide remarks about the original author) as soon as I saw that.
-Steve
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The value of paying for something (Score:4, Interesting)
The revenue has allowed them to build a better network and keep it up. I'm not claiming they too couldn't be hacked, just highly doubt it would be to this level.
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Microsoft is a software company.
Sony is a hardware company.
One gets catastrophic failure rates on hardware, the other gets dismal software security. Anybody suprised?
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Please mod up, because that is exactly a concise summary.
Interestingly enough, Apple is both a hardware and software company.
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A-ha! Sony and MS should get together on a merger and then they could solve each other's problems. And you know the FCC would approve it too!
When you are stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
... it's not just for a day.
-- B. D.
PSN up, up again, then down, down. (Score:2)
PSN up, up again, then down, down. Then Left, right, left, right, B, A, start.
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Email address as authenticator (Score:2)
If they have an email address, they can mail a password reset to it, but simply allowing users to enter it as if it were a password is a bit much.
Of course, the problem is that if they have an email address and a password for their own system, for a large number of accounts, that password will be the password for the email system as well.
Egg on their face (Score:2)
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none. Sony has learned this trick.
I've heard that shame is a powerful motivator in the East.
Apparently Sony has no shame.
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are you quoting the bottom of the page, or did some /. admin read your post, and put your quote on the bottom?
'cuz that'd be awesome.
all that effort spent on bluray security (Score:2)
Only physical check could be safe... (Score:2)
In the context where hackers/criminals have access to all the information Sony knows about its clients, there is no information that Sony can use to validate the identity of its clients. I wonder how this comes as a surprise now.
The only safe way to check is through physical verification. For example, through PS or other registered device serial numbers. If you log in with the PS3 that has the same serial number has the one that was used to create the account (assuming they have that info), you can relative
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Are they really that dumb?
Yes. I'd stake $599US on it.
Re:Gross stupidity (Score:5, Informative)
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The market value for PS3s will plummet and we can pick them up cheap and install OtherOS.
Oh, sorry about that.
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When I was a senior in HS, the price of the TI-99/4a dropped to 50 bucks. This happened just before the coupon for 50 bucks off was issued.
Free computers for everyone!
--
BMO
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I was working at KMart back then, and I believe it was a mail-in rebate which dropped the price effectively to -$5. When the store doors opened that Sunday morning, there was a stampeded to the back of the store. I think we only had 5 or 6 in stock at that point. I wasn't too impressed with the machines, so didn't bother getting one for myself - I was an Atari 800 snob in those days.
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The next day a cure for cancer will be found.
From a guy that sorely misses his online Vegas Texas hold-em.