Topic: PSN = Privacy? Security? Never!

[Chozo Ghost]

I wonder what they mean by "external intrusion".

[broodwars]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/22/update-on-playstation-network-qriocity-services/

So now it finally comes out. This was not an Anonymous DDoS as so many crappy "reporters" had insinuated. This was an actual alleged hack, but the hack itself didn't bring down the system, Sony did. If this is true, I wonder what they found/what the heck is going on that they still feel the need to keep the systems offline. Terrible communication too.

I don't recall ever saying Anonymous was behind this.  In fact, I specifically stated that Anonymous themselves thought this might be a splinter group that didn't agree with Anonymous' decision to leave PSN alone.  My guess is that whatever this hack was, it was significant for Sony themselves to bring the service down for a total cleaning so it probably had something to do with account hacking or messing with store prices on the PSN.  That's the only thing I can think of serious enough for Sony to risk losing a great deal of money keeping the PSN down for multiple days when they've never brought it down for so long in previous attacks.

[MegaByte]

Are you a reporter? Even the BBC made it out like it was at least related to Anonymous.

[broodwars]

Are you a reporter? Even the BBC made it out like it was at least related to Anonymous.

You used the word "reporter" sarcastically, so it was difficult to tell if that was a jab at me since I was the first person to post here about PSN going down.

[Chozo Ghost]

It would be funny if someone did screw with the prices on PSN and have the price of something lowered to $0.01 and then the price of something else raised to $9999.99 or something. I'm not saying I would approve of it; I'm just saying it would be funny...

Just imagine if just for a short period of time everything on PSN dropped down in price to 1 cent. Imagine the chaos that would ensue as 70 million people tripped over themselves in a bid to download everything.

[broodwars]

It would be funny if someone did screw with the prices on PSN and have the price of something lowered to $0.01 and then the price of something else raised to $9999.99 or something. I'm not saying I would approve of it; I'm just saying it would be funny...

Just imagine if just for a short period of time everything on PSN dropped down in price to 1 cent. Imagine the chaos that would ensue as 70 million people tripped over themselves in a bid to download everything.

Yes, countless innocent 3rd parties being at worst out of countless profits (and at best having to go through mountains of legal paperwork and digital rights transfers/removals) because of self-righteous douchebag hackers would truly be hilarious.  You said you wouldn't approve of it, but there really would be nothing funny about that scenario considering the massive collateral damage and subsequent mess to untangle getting all the licenses sorted out.  And the vast majority of the damage would be to companies who merely support Sony platforms with content and have no control over Sony's business decisions.  Hopefully, something like that never happens.

[UncleBob]

Depending how the third party contracts are set up, it's possible that Sony would have to pay them the normal amount per download, regardless of what the price is.  After all, it's unreasonable to expect the third party to be in charge of Sony's network security.

If there's a glitch in the Walmart computer that sells all the Wii games for a penny, do you think Walmart gets to then pay less to their distributors for the games?

In the end, it could be a huge boom to the third parties, if their games get a ton of downloads, there's a ton of happy customers and Sony still has to pay them full price.

[Chozo Ghost]

It would be funny if someone did screw with the prices on PSN and have the price of something lowered to $0.01 and then the price of something else raised to $9999.99 or something. I'm not saying I would approve of it; I'm just saying it would be funny...

Just imagine if just for a short period of time everything on PSN dropped down in price to 1 cent. Imagine the chaos that would ensue as 70 million people tripped over themselves in a bid to download everything.

Yes, countless innocent 3rd parties being at worst out of countless profits (and at best having to go through mountains of legal paperwork and digital rights transfers/removals) because of self-righteous douchebag hackers would truly be hilarious.  You said you wouldn't approve of it, but there really would be nothing funny about that scenario considering the massive collateral damage and subsequent mess to untangle getting all the licenses sorted out.  And the vast majority of the damage would be to companies who merely support Sony platforms with content and have no control over Sony's business decisions.  Hopefully, something like that never happens.

I guess you wouldn't find stuff like this funny either.

http://coedmagazine.com/2010/11/18/10-college-pranks-of-all-time/

As funny as it is to pull pranks on individuals, its even more funny when pranks get pulled on multi-billion dollar corporations like Sony. That said, I also think it would be funny if someone pulls down Kaz Hirai's pants during the middle of his E3 presentation this year. Or throw a pie in his face, or something. Of course, you wouldn't think that would be funny and would probably hope whoever did it gets shipped to Gitmo, but I bet most people who witnessed it would agree with me that that would be pretty damn hilarious.

[NWR_insanolord]

There are probably lots of things that I don't condone or want to see happen that I'd consider funny in the event they did happen. PSN getting hacked to drop the price of all games to $.01 is on that list.

[broodwars]

As funny as it is to pull pranks on individuals, its even more funny when pranks get pulled on multi-billion dollar corporations like Sony. That said, I also think it would be funny if someone pulls down Kaz Hirai's pants during the middle of his E3 presentation this year. Or throw a pie in his face, or something. Of course, you wouldn't think that would be funny and would probably hope whoever did it gets shipped to Gitmo, but I bet most people who witnessed it would agree with me that that would be pretty damn hilarious.

Yes, a prank like that pulled on an individual with no real harm to anything except ego is totally comparable to the sabotage and digital theft of an online service that costs multiple companies considerable amounts of money.       And no, I don't like pranks in general.  It's the coward's way of dealing with a situation, rather than engaging your target in the markeplace of ideas or fighting for change legitimately.  It's also considerably less "funny" when the prank is pulled on you.  If you would find the idea of all PSN titles brought down to $.01 hilarious, would you find it similarly so if a hacker were to hack your bank accounts so they all had a $.01 balance?  Yeah, I didn't think so.

Besides, why would you want to pull a prank like that on Kaz Hirai?  I think he's shown plenty of times in the past that he creates his own internet memes without even having to be pranked.   :

[Morari]

It's the coward's way of dealing with a situation, rather than engaging your target in the markeplace of ideas or fighting for change legitimately.

Just like Sony does, right?

[Stogi]

You don't like pranks? How can someone not like pranks? Is that even possible? **** some of the funniest moments in "The Office" are pranks Jim does to Dwight.

And I can understand your distaste of a Penny Market, but I think you'd be lying to yourself if you said that you wouldn't take advantage of it, at least for one game.

[broodwars]

You don't like pranks? How can someone not like pranks? Is that even possible? **** some of the funniest moments in "The Office" are pranks Jim does to Dwight.

Ah, but in a case like that there would be a distinct difference: on a TV show/movie/game/whatever, pranks do no one any harm, as they're done to fictional characters.  I don't mind those.  It's when this stuff is pulled on real-life people that I have issues with them.

[Stogi]

But I think it would be EVEN funnier if pulled on a real person...cuz you know...it actually happened.

[Chozo Ghost]

If you would find the idea of all PSN titles brought down to $.01 hilarious, would you find it similarly so if a hacker were to hack your bank accounts so they all had a $.01 balance?

I would be upset, sure. But sometime later after everything was made right and I calmed down I honestly might find it funny that whoever did it left a penny instead of just taking everything. Its like someone robbing a bank but making sure they put change in the parking meter outside. I don't know why, but little things like that are funny. If you're the victim of course you don't think its funny, but years later looking back in retrospect you might see the humor in it. I don't know what else to say about it, but like I said it doesn't mean I condone these acts... I just see how there's something funny in it once you strip away all the bad stuff about it.

[broodwars]

It seems my guess my have been on the right track, as Destructoid anyway seems to think what happened was that the hackers had modded their PS3s to act as Dev Kits.  Developers Dev Kits can download items off the PSN for free for testing purposes.  So yeah, people may have been mass-stealing items off the PSN using these consoles, so Sony had to shut the PSN down.  If that were the case, though, I don't see how Sony can prevent people from doing that.  Sure, they can ban their PSN accounts, but since the hacking is on the console side I don't see how they block these people without blocking developers as well.  There were rumors that Sony can brick PS3s remotely, so maybe taht?

[MegaByte]

According to NeoGAF posters, the dev version of PSN went back up and the exploit is still there, but regular PSN remains down, so it doesn't seem to be that. It doesn't really make sense to bring the whole network down for days for relatively few unauthorized downloads.

[Chozo Ghost]

According to NeoGAF posters, the dev version of PSN went back up and the exploit is still there, but regular PSN remains down, so it doesn't seem to be that. It doesn't really make sense to bring the whole network down for days for relatively few unauthorized downloads.

Agreed. Every moment Sony keeps it down they are losing millions in revenue from the 70 million users who would have been buying stuff on it during that time. To lose all that just because of a handful of pirates isn't very logical.

[Chozo Ghost]

Sony deserves every bit of what they are getting and then some for what they did a few years back installing Rootkits on people's PCs without their consent or knowledge. Installing Rootkits is a form of hacking, so if hacking is a crime then Sony is just as guilty of it as Anon or Geohotz. Sony getting hacked is Karma for when they did it to others.

You can read about Sony's rootkit hacking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

Sony also violated the GPL in creating the rootkits by using GPL'ed code in creating it. So they are also guilty of copyright infringement.

So let's not hear any more whining about how Sony are "innocent" victims in all this. They are hypocrites because they've done the same things that they're now whining about others doing.

[Morari]

I think there's a big different to be found there though. Sony knowingly spread malicious code with the express purpose of damaging the property of consumers. Geohotz just wanted an advertised feature reinstated on his personally owned hardware... something the Finnish Consumer Complaints Board recently thought about.

[UncleBob]

http://kotaku.com/#!5795349/sony-doesnt-know-yet-if-your-credit-card-number-was-stolen

The title says it all: "Sony Doesn’t Know Yet If Your Credit Card Number Was Stolen"

Geesh - if Sony had invested half the money they've put into their anti-piracy measures into network security, I wonder how much of this would have happened.

[broodwars]

Yeah, this is getting pretty ridiculous now.  I'm on vacation at the moment (28th B-day on Thursday), so I don't really need online gaming right now, but I would like to synch all the trophies I've earned over the past week (yes, I brought my PS3 with me. Family outings like this are full of periods where nothing happens).  I don't think my credit card info at least has been hijacked, though, or I probably wouldn't have anything left in my bank account by now.

[UncleBob]

Depends.  If they're just wanting to make a statement or if they plan to resell the information, then it's likely you wouldn't notice anything yet.  Even if they plan to use it themselves, keep in mind, they likely have MILLIONS of user credit card information.  Even if they wanted to, they wouldn't use it all at once - it'd attract too much attention.

[Stogi]

Reminds me of the government office that was hacked a month backed, with hackers stealing everything from SS# to credit card info. Experts in that case said not to expect anything for several months to a year as the thieves wait for the hoopla to die down.

[Chozo Ghost]

Geesh - if Sony had invested half the money they've put into their anti-piracy measures into network security, I wonder how much of this would have happened.

That's because when they fight piracy they're defending *their* property. They don't give a **** about protecting the information of their customers. Its not Sony's problem, so why should they give a crap? So that's why the Anti-piracy mission comes first, and user security is somewhere far down on the list of company priorities, right under the daily shampooing of Kevin Butler's pet poodle.