Topic: PSN = Privacy? Security? Never!

[broodwars]

Back on subject, there's a new rumor floating around that all server-side user data has been deleted.  Trophies, download records, etc., etc.  Supposedly, the reason PSN has been down so long is because SONY is working like hell to attempt to recover this stuff.

Eesh, I hope not.  My best friend loaned me his copy of Fallout 3 GoTY Edition the other day so I could wrap up the DLC trophies (I'd already Platinum-ed the game).  Because I've changed PS3s since I got that Platinum, though, my local trophies for Fallout 3 showed as 0%.  I have to synch with the servers to restore them (along with any other trophies earned before I switched PS3s last November), and it would especially suck in the case of Fallout 3 to lose them since that's a massive RPG and I don't want to do all that again.

[MegaByte]

Why not?  It's one of the two pieces of information you need to log into your PSN account.

No. You should never store passwords for the very reason that you might get hacked (or have a rouge admin). You store some sort of hash value that can be compared to the true password, but by itself, is relatively useless.

[Chozo Ghost]

Eesh, I hope not.  My best friend loaned me his copy of Fallout 3 GoTY Edition

Remember when I said I only had one Platinum trophy? Well, this is that game. I also got 100% in it as well. I don't know where you are at in it, but let me tell you that one where you have to hunt down 100 steel ingots is a bitch.

[Ian Sane]

Why the hell were passwords available? They should not be storing passwords.

Why not?  It's one of the two pieces of information you need to log into your PSN account.

No one with a brain would store the actual password.  You store a hash code of the password which cannot be reversed to retrieve the password.  Then when the user enters the password you hash what they entered and the two codes should match.  So you never have the real password.  This is routine stuff that any programmer worth a **** would know.  It's nice to know that programs I have personally coded beat the **** out of the security of Sony's.

[broodwars]

Eesh, I hope not.  My best friend loaned me his copy of Fallout 3 GoTY Edition

Remember when I said I only had one Platinum trophy? Well, this is that game. I also got 100% in it as well. I don't know where you are at in it, but let me tell you that one where you have to hunt down 100 steel ingots is a bitch.

I got all the trophies in the main game and Broken Steel.  I still have to play through Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta.

[broodwars]

Why the hell were passwords available? They should not be storing passwords.

Why not?  It's one of the two pieces of information you need to log into your PSN account.

No one with a brain would store the actual password.  You store a hash code of the password which cannot be reversed to retrieve the password.  Then when the user enters the password you hash what they entered and the two codes should match.  So you never have the real password.  This is routine stuff that any programmer worth a **** would know.  It's nice to know that programs I have personally coded beat the **** out of the security of Sony's.

Ah, OK that's what you meant.  Sorry, I didn't understand what you guys meant by that.

[Chozo Ghost]

Well, if there's any one good thing that's come out of this whole mess, its that we finally got to see Ian bash someone other than Nintendo for a change. :

[Chozo Ghost]

I got all the trophies in the main game and Broken Steel.  I still have to play through Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta.

The steel ingot trophy I'm referring to is in The Pitt. What sucks about it is the ingots are scattered and hidden over a huge multi-leveled map and its easy to miss some, and if you do miss them it involves alot of time and backtracking to hunt them down. There are a few videos on youtube that show where they all are and these videos helped me a lot. One piece of advice I can give you that I wish I had done myself is make sure you have all the ingots in each area before you move on to the next. If you don't, then when you finish and end up a few ingots short you won't know which area you missed them in and then you have to search EVERYWHERE. Ugh...

I guarantee I'm not doing that one again. If my trophies are lost, that really sucks, but I don't have it in me to go through all of that again.

[broodwars]

I guarantee I'm not doing that one again. If my trophies are lost, that really sucks, but I don't have it in me to go through all of that again.

Unless you've changed PS3s since getting those trophies, yours are probably fine.  I could just be screwed because my old PS3 died and I had to switch to a new Slim model.  For some reason, on certain games if you go back and play them after changing HDDs, the game wipes out your local trophy list for that game (and usually starts randomly unlocking them again, as I saw in Prince of Persia).  That's usually not a big deal because you can just sync with the Sony servers and restore your original list, but if the original list is gone than I'm SOL on Fallout 3 because there's no master list to compare my local one to (the other games would be fine, as my local list would just sync-up with Sony's servers and become the new master list).

[Chozo Ghost]

I understand how you feel. I started playing Fallout 3 on March 6th and it took me from then until April 15th having played several hours each day until I was able to get 100%. That has to be well over 100 hours, if not 200 hours I put into that. Its definitely not like most games which you can beat in 1-2 days.

[broodwars]

It looks like we might have the government getting on Sony's case for their handling of this security breach, at least if one Connecticut senator has anything to say about it.  It's hard to say whether this is a political stunt or if the guy's actually genuine.

[BranDonk Kong]

Oh, great! Thanks Sony, you stupid mother fuckers!

[oohhboy]

I am impressed. I can't help but quote Goldfinger.

Auric Goldfinger: Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He's fired rockets at the Moon, split the atom, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor... except crime!

Only this time Goldfinger found Fort Knox was guarded by cardboard cutouts and the gold was already loaded on to trucks and he had a full 3 days to move it all saving him the trouble of nuking it all, leaving Bond to die of thirst chained to a box.

Makes me wonder how secure Nintendo is considering earlier this year they had that Spanish Fiasco where it was shown they had next to no security.

[Shaymin]

Seeing as you have to enter the CC information every time you use it to put Reggies on, does that mean they don't store CC info at all? If that's the case, and they don't have any other personal information, they'd be fine (but it'd be security through obscurity).

[broodwars]

Oh, great! Thanks Sony, you stupid mother fuckers!

Damn, PSN was hacked for 3 full days before Sony did anything about it?  Great, just great.  I hate to say it, but as much as I love gaming on my PS3, I might have to go with a different company next-generation.  I guess that would be Microsoft since I'm currently on the fence about whether it will be worth it to spin the wheel on being a Nintendo customer again.

[UncleBob]

one would hope that they are rebuilding the network to be as hacker-proof as is possible in this day and age.

One would hope they would have done that in the first place...

[broodwars]

one would hope that they are rebuilding the network to be as hacker-proof as is possible in this day and age.

One would hope they would have done that in the first place...

And one would hope that Nintendo would have bothered creating a game console developers actually want to make games on, and that didn't work out very well either (3 times in a row, actually).  "Coulda", "Woulda", "Shoulda"..."Didn't."  Huge mistakes were made, corners cut, and the damage is done.  I'm more interested in how Sony intends to make up for all this and build a stronger network (if they do at all) and console to show me that they are worth supporting after all this mess, after everything that they have now made my problem.  Everything else is out of my hands as well as theirs for the time being.

[UncleBob]

Nintendo making a system that third parties don't want to develop on hardly equates to Sony creating a piss-poor security system for their network that stores personal data of MILLIONS of customers.  You really can't even pretend those two things are in the same category.

[GoldenPhoenix]

one would hope that they are rebuilding the network to be as hacker-proof as is possible in this day and age.

One would hope they would have done that in the first place...

And one would hope that Nintendo would have bothered creating a game console developers actually want to make games on, and that didn't work out very well either (3 times in a row, actually).  "Coulda", "Woulda", "Shoulda"..."Didn't."  Huge mistakes were made, corners cut, and the damage is done.  I'm more interested in how Sony intends to make up for all this and build a stronger network (if they do at all) and console to show me that they are worth supporting after all this mess, after everything that they have now made my problem.  Everything else is out of my hands as well as theirs for the time being.

At least Nintendo wasn't hacked and millions of customers had their personal information stolen, and possibly even credit card numbers. I think I feel better about the "coulda" system that developers whined about then the "Someone stole all your personal information" system.

[bustin98]

I wonder if Sony will re-emburse me for replacing my bank card.

[broodwars]

Nintendo making a system that third parties don't want to develop on hardly equates to Sony creating a piss-poor security system for their network that stores personal data of MILLIONS of customers.  You really can't even pretend those two things are in the same category.

I can in the sense that I expected basic developer-relations competence from Nintendo with the N64, GameCube, and Wii, and that's never come.  It reminds me of an old phrase my grandma used to say: "If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a feast" (or something like that).  It's nice to want things, and usually your wishes never come true.  And as doubly interesting and troublesome this whole situation has been, I just want it to be over so I can go back to enjoying the PS3 gaming experience like I had before last week.

I have exactly 0 faith after 3 consoles now that Nintendo will create a console that will satisfy my tastes, I despise Microsoft's 1st party franchises, so that just leaves Sony.  I want to see Sony want my business after this and bend over backwards to keep me as a customer.  I'm tired on dwelling on "what happened", because yeah they screwed-up big time.  My financial future is now in jeopardy due to this, but in the end we forget that this was instigated by one of those damned hackers I hate so very much now.  Sony certainly has their share of blame and they could potentially lose my business after this, but I want to see how they learn from this, if they do at all because for me they are the only company left worth investing my gaming dollars in.

[UncleBob]

I can [...]

You can.  Just like I can compare apples to oranges.  Or apples to watermelons.  Or apples to rocks.  Or apples to hydroplanes.  That doesn't make it a fair or adequate comparison.

Nintendo made a system that developers chose not to make games for.
SONY created a network that required personal information right down to your blood type, then spent approximately $5 on network security, opening the doors for hackers to have access to your personal information (not to mention the other 70+ million customers...

Straight from SONY's mouth, in question #14...
http://us.playstation.com/support/answer/index.htm?a_id=2356
"it is possible that the credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may also have been obtained."

[broodwars]

Nintendo made a system that developers chose not to make games for.
SONY created a network that required personal information right down to your blood type, then spent approximately $5 on network security, opening the doors for hackers to have access to your personal information (not to mention the other 70+ million customers...

The only reason crap like this hasn't happened to Nintendo is that Nintendo created the frickin' Battlestar Galactica in the Wii's only structure: a service that's so antiquated that modern hacking attempts are not as successful.   :

[UncleBob]

And yet, Microsoft's network wasn't hacked, releasing the personal data of millions...

[broodwars]

And yet, Microsoft's network wasn't hacked, releasing the personal data of millions...

Actually, if I remember correctly that's not entirely accurate.  We've had several reported instances of account hacking on XBox Live, as recent as I believe Major Nelson's account being hacked and his identity jeopardized.  There are any number of reasons why we possibly haven't seen worse on 360.  Maybe Microsoft just has their **** together more than Sony (likely).  Maybe all that XBL subscription money has been used to maintain a much stronger security.  Maybe the hackers just haven't been all that interested in Microsoft since they haven't been as adamant about protecting their intellectual property as Sony.  Maybe the hackers are your stereotypical Halo frat boys and don't want to destroy the thing that satiates them every night.  A lot of things are possible, and we'll probably never really know.