Anonymous Launches Attack On Sony

RedEaredSlider writes "The hacker collective Anonymous has made good on its threat to attack Sony, having launched a distributed denial-of-service attack on Wednesday afternoon. The attack is revenge for the legal action taken against another hacker who modified a PlayStation 3. Sony Computer Entertainment America filed suit against George Hotz, also known as Geohot. Hotz had released a firmware modification that allowed a Sony PlayStation 3 to run other operating systems. Sony had removed that functionality some months before. The suit is still pending."

Comments

I approve of these actions.

[EkriirkE]

Am I now part Sony's subpoena to get user IPs from ./ who comment on Sony stories?

Re:I approve of these actions.

[PopeRatzo]

But my IP address is not really my IP address.

I had no interest in hacking a PS3 until Sony started this attack on Geohot.

Now I've got a nice used PS3 just for that purpose. I struggled with whether or not buying a used console actually put money into Sony's hands, but I got it from a girl on Craig's list who had thrown her unemployed boyfriend out and was selling all his stuff. Fifty bucks.

Why DDOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't there a better way to get back at Sony then DDOSing there web page? Granted it works, the general public/politicians are made aware but why not do something more sinister? Spread investor rumors that cause their stock price to crash or disable their corporate email system. Something to truly cripple them would be the most effective way at getting back.

Re:Why DDOS?

[msauve]

Why not just avoid buying Sony products? Let the free market operate. Granted, this doesn't compensate for Sony's removal of the "other OS" feature, but there's an ongoing lawsuit over that, too. It's interesting how disingenuous Sony is being, claiming different things in the two lawsuits - that should (hopefully) get them in big trouble with the courts, which don't like weasels.

Re:Why DDOS?

[click2005]

Not everyone wants a $10 off voucher for some Sony product as compensation for losing an important feature (to some).

The legal system doesn't work when going up against large corporations.

Re:Why DDOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a free market while copyright and patent monopoly laws are distorting it. Face it, the free market won't sort it out, because sony has been rendered largely immune to free market effects by government-granted imaginary property monopolies.

Re:Why DDOS?

[Wild_dog!]

Do you know they are teenage vigilantes?
How exactly is this Nazi?
Glad you like sony products and they work for you.
I won't be buying another one after 30 years as a customer of sony.

Re:Why DDOS?

[countertrolling]

Why not just avoid buying Sony products?

Sheesh! You gonna avoid the iPhone 5 also?

Just stop it.. Okay? Don't be an idiot.. If you want to boycott Sony, you're gonna have to boycott everything... Maybe even toilet paper. Then you can learn what the left hand is really for..

Re:Why DDOS?

[Bacon Bits]

They're not Nazis. They're anarchist bullies. Nazis are authoritarian, totalitarian, nationalistic, socially corpratist fanatics interested in eugenics. In other words, exactly not anarchists. SCEA has a lot more in common with Nazism than Anonymous does.

Re:Why DDOS?

[WrongSizeGlass]

How exactly is this Nazi?

They dont like the way a company behaves due to their own set of morals so they punish that company. This is a small group of people forcing others to their will. Bunch of freakin Nazis.

Anonymous is acting like a vigilante group, not Nazis. Enacting their revenge on Sony because they believe - and rightly so - that Sony will not be brought to task for their actions by any authority. Not enough people know about Sony's shenanigans to make a difference to their bottom line so Anonymous wants to let Sony know they are not willing to just "take it" or stand idly by as Sony persecutes GeoHot for what he did to his own hardware.

Your definition of 'Nazi' can easily be applied to local police in small communities, political groups on a national scale and even Sony's board of directors (they are punishing GeoHot because they don't like the way he behaved due to their own set of greedy, rat bastard morals). I have extended family that were killed by the Nazis - in their homes, in the war and even some in concentration camps. I must say that I am offended by your casual and ignorant use of the term 'Nazi'.

Re:Why DDOS?

[Culture20]

I'm afraid this plan will only make them successful and allow them to make good products. If you want to ruin the company, scare the execs, but find a way to force them to stay. Paranoid megalomaniac sociopaths will do more damage than their absence would do.

Re:Why DDOS?

[ogdenk]

Sony can do anything they choose but once they sell me a piece of hardware, we're done doing business. I can and will do whatever the fuck I want with it. I didn't rent it. I don't care if they tried to put artificial barriers to me taking full advantage of the hardware in software. If I want to uncripple my shit to make the device more useful to me, I'll do it.

Now, should they be able to void my warranty or block me from PSN? Absolutely. THAT is covered by their right on how they can decide how they want to do business.

They never had me agree to anything prior to the sale. I am not "borrowing" the console from them. If they don't want me looking at their firmware, don't ship the device with it.

They can give me no more shit about jailbreaking a console than jailbreaking a phone. Personally I don't care where the law falls on this, I'll continue to do whatever the hell I want regardless and Sony can go f**k themselves and if jailbreaking consoles becomes illegal due to some horrible precedent here I'll make plenty of money off of local high school and college students because the demand for the work will skyrocket.

Re:Why DDOS?

[xero314]

they're organized which is the exact opposite of anarchy.

Spoken like someone that doesn't know what anarchy is. Anarchy at it's most basic means "Without Ruler". This does not mean that Anarchy is disorganized.

Re:Why DDOS?

[Bacon Bits]

Spoken like someone that doesn't know what anarchy is.

Well, he doesn't know what Nazism is, either, so I'm not surprised. He probably doesn't understand why the Bolshevik Communists and Nazis hated each other so much, too.

Re:Why DDOS?

[mrchaotica]

You don't get it, do you? Sony isn't trying to do business in a free market economy; Sony is trying to change the rules so that actual people's physical property rights are destroyed in order to protect a virtual person's (i.e. a corporation's) virtual property rights (i.e., copyright). Sony is trying to bring about some sort of Bizarro world where individuals aren't allowed to own anything but instead are subjugated by whatever fucked-up rules the Corporate Overlord deigns to attach to the "privilege" of using their product. It is a new kind of serfdom, and cannot be permitted at any cost!

Re:Why DDOS?

[mrchaotica]

I'm pretty sure Sony's argument with the PS3 relies on copyright (and more specifically, the DMCA), not patents.

Re:Why DDOS?

[mrchaotica]

We need to stop pretending that anything can be owned without force. If there was no government to enforce private ownership then there would be no private ownership (only temporary restriction of use as long as you can fend off those that would attempt to use those things you want to keep to yourself).

The difference is that Imaginary Property can't be owned even with force.

Bit useless ddosing corporate servers

[Robadob]

Wouldn't it be far more effective to ddos their psn servers.

That's preposterous!

[marcello_dl]

They dare to put offline servers owned by sony???
Don't they understand the concept of private property???
Would they like it if Sony did the same and one day decided to put a rootkit on its cds to make them difficult to copy, or issued a firmware upgrade that disables capabilities which were sold and advertised on its consoles? huh? HUH?

seriously, a boycott is safer and makes more sense. It would need to be extended to the banks that probably own sony, so it boils down to getting new hardware only when sorely needed.

Re:That's preposterous!

[Anonymous Coward]

They dare to put offline servers owned by sony???
Don't they understand the concept of private property???

Sony is preventing people from using a feature on something they own.
The people are preventing Sony from using a feature on something they own.

Re:That's preposterous!

[r_jensen11]

*Whoosh*

Ironic if

[www.sorehands.com]

It would be sweetly ironic if hacked Play Station 3s were used as part of the attack.

Re:hacker collective?

[kelemvor4]

Cracker collective? Isn't that like the KKK?

This was not revenge for GeoHotz at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

This move by Anonymous was not an act of revenge directly related to the GeoHotz debacle at all. Everybody assumes the two are directly related, when in fact they are not.

Anonymous has taken measures against Sony because of the clear abuse of the judicial system undertaken by the company which has been bordering on the violation of the rights of US citizens. It is apparent to Anonymous that Sony has overextended their reach, and are getting away with it based on their size, power and financial status. It is a clear exploitation of the legal system by a greedy corporate entity.

While I do not agree with Anonymous' methods, their point still stands, and what they have done is an unfortunate but neccessary eye opener for large companies that think they are above the law when faced with similar circumstances.

Re:This was not revenge for GeoHotz at all.

[shermo]

The only difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is which side they're on.

Re:This was not revenge for GeoHotz at all.

[RobbieThe1st]

I thought this at first, but now I'm not so sure. Why? The PSN is apparently down. This means that all these PS3 owners now can't play a lot of games, watch Netflix, or a lot of other things. And they will either blame Sony for it(and go buy some other device to replace it), or learn about this whole conflict -- And, hopefully, join in the boycott.
It might actually do some good: Hit them in the wallet through lost games sales, and make people aware of the situation.

Re:al3x

[Wild_dog!]

HB Gary might disagree after getting themselves pants'd then wedgied.

I don't approve of the DDoS

[ZorinLynx]

DDoS accomplishes nothing and makes those who support hacking consoles look like criminals. This is just more ammunition for Sony to use in court.

We need to get a ruling that hacking your own hardware is legal. It's not ever going to happen with these guerilla practices.

Re:I don't approve of the DDoS

[Travelsonic]

...and makes those who support hacking consoles look like criminals.

I disagree - to some extent - yes, they do tarnish the image, but I feel the largest amount of tarnishing comes from media ignorance, and ignorance on the part of the non-technical.

Re:I don't approve of the DDoS

[halowolf]

I was wondering why it has been taking so long to log into PSN the last little while. The amusing thing was getting a message saying something of the like "It's taking a long time to log in, check your internet connection".

Hmm no Sony, you check yours.

Re:I don't approve of the DDoS

[e70838]

Anonymous would not exist if the society was civilized and if the justice was working correctly.

Behaviour of Sony is not acceptable. People should boycott Sony. DDoS is also an unacceptable practice whose consequences are impossible to predict.

I condamn DDoS, but I am happy that Sony receives a punishment for its acts.

Re:I don't approve of the DDoS

[Moryath]

DDoS is also an unacceptable practice whose consequences are impossible to predict.

Sigh.

The consequences are quite simple: people can't get to the website for a while, either because the traffic isn't getting there or the server just crashes. Eventually it comes back up.

"DDoS" via LOIC - where all the participants are willing (a DDoS via botnet of hijacked computers being something else because the resources to launch it are stolen resources) - is no different than:

- The Retardican/Rea Tardier "virtual march on washington" a couple years ago that tied up the congressional phone banks for days.
- Holding a protest that shuts down a main street outside a building.
- Holding a sit-in protest at a business that "denies service" to customers who can't get through the area.

I don't condemn DDoS. As far as I'm concerned, it's a protest action. The moment we start criminalizing protest actions, we cease to be a free society and fall right in to the trap of the MafiAA/Repukelican corporate fascism model.

This hurts GeoHot

[schnikies79]

I don't own a single Sony branded product and likely never will, but this sad temper-tantrum that so-called Anonymous is throwing is doing nothing to help GeoHot and everything to hurt him. Lets not do anything, like stop buying their products or telling your friends why they shouldn't be buying them. Let's just egg their house instead!

This isn't the kind of people I want on my side during a court case of the this magnitude. DOSS attacks are for the lazy.

If that's all he did...

[Duradin]

"Hotz had released a firmware modification that allowed a Sony PlayStation 3 to run other operating systems."

If that's all he did I wonder why Sony is so mad at him. It's not like he leaked their secret or anything. If he did that then I could see Sony breaking out the big legal hammer.

Or perhaps the summary is trying to paint St. George in a better light to inspire some sympathy from those who don't know better.

Re:If that's all he did...

[Travelsonic]

If he thought that the "cellphone jailbreaking is OK" decision would protect him, that was a little naive.

You say that like it's a fact [that said ruling won't protect him] - how about we wait for the actual trial?

While I'm not sure I agree with DDoSes...

[bhtooefr]

...they're as close to a sit-in as you can get, as far as non-violent but effective protest goes.

Often, illegal things have to be done to right wrongs, especially when the laws are written by those doing the wrongs.

(If the wrongs are severe enough, extremely illegal things may be morally OK, on the other hand. As in, using the second amendment to defend oneself against violations of rights.)

How much damage?

[Zandamesh]

I'm curious, how much damage does something like turning off PSN for 24 hours do in actual money? They had to hire a security firm so it can't just be a little bit. What variables play a role?

Re:semantics

[haderytn]

Hotz=hacker
Anonymous=cracker

Summary shouldn't lump both together as hackers.

You have presented assumptive generalization of both Hotz and Anonymous....something about lumping together...