Topic: PSN = Privacy? Security? Never!

[lolmonade]

It doesn't matter anyway, I'll just wait for the lawsuit like everyone else and hopefully get something out of it. As long as it hurts SONY financially, the customers win.

The hack and theft of our info has definitely hurt Sony financially, but I would hardly call it a win for us customers who have this CC info lost.  You can claim that it finally forces Sony to take security more seriously, and our info will be safer, but the damage is always done.

This reminds me of when a McDonald's in my hometown was reported to have gotten people sick with Hepatitis C.  The whole McDonald's was shut down and basically quarantined, scrubbed from head to toe, and the employees were re-trained on the importance of cleanliness in the workplace (the ones that weren't fired).  That McDonalds might be the cleanest one in the planet now, but I doubt the people who got Hep C would say it was a net win for the consumer.

[oohhboy]

It's not as bad as another number I heard. Should the Credit card companies go after Sony, a figure I heard was $200 per lost record. If you were to assume that every single one of those accounts had a credit card attached(Not true) it works out to 15.4 Billion dollars. This is a sort of worse case senario assuming the CC companies don't ever want Sony to trade anything ever again either via destruction or inability to use CCs in the future.

However no doubt the CC companies will be taking their pound of flesh from Sony which will cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars for card replacements, monitoring, auditing and punitive fines.

None of this takes into account the number of investigations worldwide from governments Sony is going to have to endure and the costs of resulting fines/investigations. Homeland Security(WAT?!LOL) and the FBI have been tasked in the US.

[UncleBob]

What he said.

If it turns out that SONY screwed up here (for example, storing personal data in plain text, storing security codes, etc., etc) this could get really bad for SONY.  Between compensating the credit card companies (per SONY's agreements with them), compensating users and any government fines/damages put on them... This could be pretty nasty.

Then again, BP is still around... so anything could happen.

[oohhboy]

Sony doesn't enjoy the protection of being a strategic asset, a smaller contractor to deflect blame on, endless bribe money from oil, dead people to blame, *relatively* geographically isolated incident that only directly pissed off one country and executives they can throw under the bus.

They could blame the foreigner running their company I guess. Howard Stringer hasn't exactly revitalised the company with the company stagnating or in slow death financially.

[Stogi]

If they did PSN, it would cost Sony at least 50% of that, if not more. That all depends on what's downloaded. I'm sure game contracts are different than movie or show contracts. I do not know how much profit the companies (which Sony would have to pay) makes from each download.

It's still in the BILLIONS. That's for sure.

[Chozo Ghost]

Well, they could give everyone a PSN credit which would only apply to the items on PSN which Sony owns the rights to. I admit that is far from everything available on PSN, but that does represent a substantial chunk of it anyway. But if they are going to limit the credit to only Sony products then they should make it a $100 credit.

Or something.... I dunno. They need to give consumers something to make up for all this bullshit, stress, hassle, and financial losses this is causing. They can't cheap out with something like a free month trial or something cheap like that, but on the other hand they aren't going to bankrupt themselves either. But it has to be something in between. If they do nothing its going to hurt them more in the long run because they will lose much of their fanbase.

[Stogi]

Listen, they are going to give nothing unless forced to. And if they are forced to, it's going to be checks in the mail. The court wouldn't order them to send money or credit for the same system that was hacked.

[broodwars]

Listen, they are going to give nothing unless forced to. And if they are forced to, it's going to be checks in the mail. The court wouldn't order them to send money or credit for the same system that was hacked.

And if they are "forced to", it'll be $15 checks that would at best arrive somewhere around 2015.  The only way consumers will see anything actually real out of this is if Sony believes they need to make amends that way voluntarily.

[MegaByte]

It's probably telling that thus far, they haven't offered even an apology.

[Chozo Ghost]

Maybe Kevin Butler will apologize for the credit card info being hacked in a future "Dear Playstation" commercial?

[NWR_insanolord]

They'll send everyone a coupon for $5 off the purchase of a brand new NGP.

[broodwars]

It's probably telling that thus far, they haven't offered even an apology.

Joystiq's reporting that Kaz Hirai will be giving a press conference tomorrow at 2 PM EDT, so maybe we'll see just that then.

[NWR_insanolord]

Well, I just bought a new PS3 game, so I hope PSN is up by when it gets here on Tuesday so I can download the updates.

[broodwars]

Well, I just bought a new PS3 game, so I hope PSN is up by when it gets here on Tuesday so I can download the updates.

If your game has updates, it will still find and download them when you boot up the game.  I tested that over the last week while I was on vacation.  Despite PSN being down, I could still download patches for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

[Shaymin]

It's probably telling that thus far, they haven't offered even an apology.

Joystiq's reporting that Kaz Hirai will be giving a press conference tomorrow at 2 PM EDT, so maybe we'll see just that then.

It's 1am EDT, actually - 2pm JAPAN TIME.

On the start of Golden Week.

Clearly publicity isn't in their best interests.

[NWR_insanolord]

Well, I just bought a new PS3 game, so I hope PSN is up by when it gets here on Tuesday so I can download the updates.

If your game has updates, it will still find and download them when you boot up the game.  I tested that over the last week while I was on vacation.  Despite PSN being down, I could still download patches for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

I think the updates I care about require PSN. I bought MLB The Show, and the Indians had to have been terrible in the rosters on the disc, so I want the updated ones. I'm pretty sure previous versions of the game that I've owned required a connection to PSN to get roster updates.

I'd have bought a baseball game on 360, but 2K baseball games have never been good, and they have the exclusive. Luckily that ends next year, and it doesn't sound like Take Two wants to extend it, so I'm already super excited for MVP Baseball 2013.

[Halbred]

I'm surei t's been said already, but crap like this is just another reason why DMR games are terrible idea. What if I want to play Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 or that Streets of Rage HD remake? I can't because the PSN is down.

[UncleBob]

[BranDonk Kong]

Another thing Sony absolutely needs to do (well, it's already way too late), is bite the bullet like Microsoft did, and offer a 3 year warranty against the Yellow Light of Death. Our shop probably gets 15 YLOD PS3 consoles a week (definitely more PS3s than 360s now), and Sony wants $175 to fix it. We probably get at least 4 or 5 consoles that need a new Blu Ray laser each week too. I don't mind fixing those as much (it's typically pretty simple, except there's about 7 different drives versions, and 3 different laser models), but they are pretty costly to replace. They couldn't give any less of a **** about the enemy (consumers) if they tried. They are a despicable corporation.

[broodwars]

Another thing Sony absolutely needs to do (well, it's already way too late), is bite the bullet like Microsoft did, and offer a 3 year warranty against the Yellow Light of Death. Our shop probably gets 15 YLOD PS3 consoles a week (definitely more PS3s than 360s now), and Sony wants $175 to fix it. We probably get at least 4 or 5 consoles that need a new Blu Ray laser each week too. I don't mind fixing those as much (it's typically pretty simple, except there's about 7 different drives versions, and 3 different laser models), but they are pretty costly to replace. They couldn't give any less of a **** about the enemy (consumers) if they tried. They are a despicable corporation.

What's especially nasty about the YLoD (and I speak from experience on this, as I took my old PS3 in many times to be "fixed" for it) is that there is no such thing as "fixing" the issue.  Once a unit Yellow-Lights from overheating (unless something is just plain blocking the sensor), the best you can do is stick bandaids on it at regular intervals to keep it working.  The only true fix is to replace the entire motherboard, and I don't know if Sony actually does that (none of the repair shops I went to did that.  They just soldered everything back together and gave it back to me).

[broodwars]

News out of Hirai's Press Conference: Sony estimates that 10 million actual PSN users had credit cards tied to their accounts.  All users will receive a free PSN download(s) (they do not say what the download(s) will be), 30 free days of Playstation Plus membership for new and existing PS+ members, and 30 days of Qriocity service.  They're also considering paying to replace affected credit cards.

As for the security changes, read more here.

Overall, it was pretty much what was largely expected and rumored.  I couldn't care less about Qriocity, I'm already a PS+ member, and they don't say what the download(s) will be.  Still, at least it's something out of Sony to make up for all this.

[Chozo Ghost]

GeoHot weighs in on the PSN situation: http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/219136/ps3-hacker-geohot-calls-sony-executives-crazy-arrogant/

Claiming no responsibility for the current incident, Hotz instead established his formal position on the PSN attack, insinuating that the hackers responsible make the modding community at large look bad. Hotz also took Sony's executives to task, stating that the engineers within the company were not at fault. Instead, Hotz implied that Sony's higher-ups provoked the hacking/modding community with arrogant attitudes and poor technical practices.

"Now until more information is revealed on the technicals, I can only speculate, but I bet Sony's arrogance and misunderstanding of ownership put them in this position. Sony execs probably haughtily chuckled at the idea of threat modeling.

 Sony needs to accept that they no longer own and control the PS3 when they sell it to you. Notice it's only PSN that gave away all your personal data, not Xbox Live when the 360 was hacked, not iTunes when the iPhone was jailbroken, and not GMail when Android was rooted. Because other companies aren't crazy."

[lolmonade]

News out of Hirai's Press Conference: Sony estimates that 10 million actual PSN users had credit cards tied to their accounts.  All users will receive a free PSN download(s) (they do not say what the download(s) will be), 30 free days of Playstation Plus membership for new and existing PS+ members, and 30 days of Qriocity service.  They're also considering paying to replace affected credit cards.

More than what I expected (I assumed just a free trial of Playstation +), although it remains to be seen what these "free downloads" are (I would expect games released by Sony, themes, and cosmetic gifts).

GeoHot weighs in on the PSN situation: http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/219136/ps3-hacker-geohot-calls-sony-executives-crazy-arrogant/

Claiming no responsibility for the current incident, Hotz instead established his formal position on the PSN attack, insinuating that the hackers responsible make the modding community at large look bad. Hotz also took Sony's executives to task, stating that the engineers within the company were not at fault. Instead, Hotz implied that Sony's higher-ups provoked the hacking/modding community with arrogant attitudes and poor technical practices.

"Now until more information is revealed on the technicals, I can only speculate, but I bet Sony's arrogance and misunderstanding of ownership put them in this position. Sony execs probably haughtily chuckled at the idea of threat modeling.

 Sony needs to accept that they no longer own and control the PS3 when they sell it to you. Notice it's only PSN that gave away all your personal data, not Xbox Live when the 360 was hacked, not iTunes when the iPhone was jailbroken, and not GMail when Android was rooted. Because other companies aren't crazy."

I have no problems with Geohot, but he makes some broad assumptions about what is at fault.  I would wager it was executive incompetence before arrogance, although that is as much speculation as his post at this point.  Only Sony knows truly who is at fault at this stage.

[BranDonk Kong]

PlayStation Plus is garbage. It's the same thing as regular PSN, but you might get to download a demo a few days earlier, or get some bullshit DLC or something. It's useless, and their "gift" is a slap in the face to all customers. Ignorance and arrogance go hand in hand, btw.

[lolmonade]

PlayStation Plus is garbage. It's the same thing as regular PSN, but you might get to download a demo a few days earlier, or get some bullshit DLC or something. It's useless, and their "gift" is a slap in the face to all customers. Ignorance and arrogance go hand in hand, btw.

I didn't say I was happy with the compensation, but I guess at least I get to do the inFamous 2 beta.

Like I said, my comment was pure speculation, but was just making a comment that so was Geohot's.  Ignorance and arrogance are mutually exclusive.  They can occur at the same time, but that doesn't mean there's correlation.