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Sony Sued For PlayStation Network Data Breach

suraj.sun writes "Like clockwork, the first lawsuit resulting from the security breach of the personal data of more than 75 million Sony PlayStation Network customers has been filed. The suit was filed today on behalf of Kristopher Johns, 36, of Birmingham, Ala., in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Johns accuses Sony of not taking 'reasonable care to protect, encrypt, and secure the private and sensitive data of its users.' He also believes Sony took too long to notify him and other customers that their personal information had been exposed. Because of that, the complaint alleges, Sony did not allow its customers 'to make an informed decision as to whether to change credit card numbers, close the exposed accounts, check their credit reports, or take other mitigating actions.'"

404 comments

  1. First of all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That'll teach them.

    1. Re:First of all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With Sony conveniently "out of the way" and tied up in litigation for the next decade, get ready for those Wu Djongg Electronics goods to come flooding in and dominating the market. Bye bye quality, we are into the Wall-E age of junk.

    2. Re:First of all... by an+unsound+mind · · Score: 2

      Sony as an example of quality?

      Are you trolling us?

      Sony hardware is just as good quality-wise as the rest; only their prices are quite a bit above.

    3. Re:First of all... by Leebert · · Score: 2

      Sony hardware is just as good quality-wise as the rest; only their prices are quite a bit above.

      These days. Back in the days of the green power button, you could count on Sony to produce a pretty darn good product that was at least as good as any other competitor.

    4. Re:First of all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fire with fire.

    5. Re:First of all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      darn tootin'!

    6. Re:First of all... by shadowfaxcrx · · Score: 1

      And their professional stuff still is damned good. Unfortunately, few of us want to spend 50 grand on a camcorder. Their consumer stuff is, when you take the price into account, junk.

      --
      "I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
  2. So it begins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    the great battle of our time...

    1. Re:So it begins... by Chookah · · Score: 1

      Class action anybody?

    2. Re:So it begins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends if it's allowed in the EULA

      Hah! Captcha is "disperse".

    3. Re:So it begins... by Kagato · · Score: 1

      A handful of lawyers will get rich. The only thing you might get is some credit monitoring out of it.

    4. Re:So it begins... by cheater512 · · Score: 1

      Which would probably be extremely beneficial considering what information got stolen.

    5. Re:So it begins... by calderra · · Score: 1

      Yeah, SCOTUS just ruled (after Congress voted) that companies can decide you don't get to file a class action suit, forcing you into single arbitration instead. And with AT&T as a model, they don't really have to notify you, they just have to pose an updated EULA that says "continued use of this service...". So individual citizens are now a lower social caste than corporations, basically.

    6. Re:So it begins... by nschubach · · Score: 1

      Names, addresses and maybe passwords with the unknown/slight chance of credit card data? They haven't said that CC data was stolen, but that the hacker MIGHT have had access to some of it.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    7. Re:So it begins... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      More accurately:

      " While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility."

      That reads to me as 'they had an opportunity, we don't know if they took anything. And if the person(s) that did that did it correctly, they will never know until after unauthorized CC use starts appearing, or a reasonable time goes by, like a year.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    8. Re:So it begins... by kelemvor4 · · Score: 1

      And they certainly used the evasive language so folks like you would assume that the hacker wanted names, addresses etc from users but out of the goodness of their heart decided to leave the money alone.

      I cancelled my card the moment I saw the press release, and I'd gladly participate in a class action. When you give a company your details (especially credit card information) they generally try to assure you that your information is safe with them. That was the case with Sony. So what they said and what they did; two different things. Sony needs to be held accountable for the gross negligence that allowed this hack to be so wildly successful.

    9. Re:So it begins... by cinderellamanson · · Score: 0

      Full disclosure and due diligence. I can't fault sony at the moment. Maybe if I had a PSN+ account, but really names, addresses, and passwords are not much worse than what goes in the phone book unless you use the same password for PSN as you do your bank account. If credit card information was stolen then Sony's got some trouble on their hands, but keeping mum, while investigating the situation is often necessary in order to complete the investigation. Furthermore they have publicly accepted the possibility of liability without having verified the data breach. That's fair enough for me. I'm checking my bank statements, but typically CC information is difficult to grab from a standards compliant organization. So, it's quite possible the standards need revised.

      --
      Hey buddy, can i bum a karma? ~}CinderellaManson{~
  3. not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure I buy that first part, given that no online service is ever going to be 100% secure. I understand that one should take prudent steps toward making a "best effort" in that regard, but at the end of the day, if some well-funded crime kingpin wants in, there probably isn't much you'd be able to do about it. It's the second one that has my blood boiling in sympathy, partly because this is practically Sony's trademark: if something goes wrong with their products, don't go public with it, don't acknowledge it, don't even think about it, and maybe it will go away!

    1. Re:not taking reasonable care by Labcoat+Samurai · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe this lawsuit will require them to come forward with the steps they *did* take. Up until now, it's largely been speculation. If they locked the door but left open a window, I want to know. And I want to know how open that window was left.

    2. Re:not taking reasonable care by Darkness404 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The problem is that it is never a "well funded crime kingpin" and most often a 15-30 year old or an (ex) employee that noticed some gaping, obvious security flaw. Data breaches like this are rarely the work of huge "cyber gangs" and mostly the work of individuals who noticed some huge flaw that Sony had. The crime kingpins wouldn't bother with something like this because it is a whole lot easier to sell botnets with 3nl@rg3 y0ur p3n15 spam.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    3. Re:not taking reasonable care by mysidia · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm not sure I buy that first part, given that no online service is ever going to be 100% secure.

      Reasonable care would imply robustly isolating transaction processing systems and user accessible systems from systems that store primary account numbers such as credit card/bank account numbers from online/public access systems such as the internet, or the playstation network.

      Reasonable care would include complying with PCI requirements, relating to auditing, security practices, separation of computer systems by role, and enforcing strong unique access credentials for users and systems.

      So that a compromise of the publicly accessible network cannot lead to compromise of the account numbers.

      This is highly doable. The only commands/services the PSN/publicly accessible servers need from account servers is a command to "add a new account number" to the database linked to a certain customer, a command to "erase an account number", a command to list privacy-filtered summary to display a 'delete' user interface, and a command "authorize/charge a transaction to account number" (without revealing what the number actually is to the transaction processing server).

    4. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Thank you Mr. Armchair Expert!

    5. Re:not taking reasonable care by mysidia · · Score: 1

      If they locked the door but left open a window, I want to know. And I want to know how open that window was left.

      Sometimes leaving the window ajar is a good idea, if you don't want the thief to smash the window on the way in.

    6. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sometimes leaving the window ajar is a good idea, if you don't want the thief to smash the window on the way in.

      Nominated for this week's dumbest comment. A closed window is a deterrent. An open window is an invitation.

    7. Re:not taking reasonable care by cosm · · Score: 1

      WHOOSH

      --
      'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
    8. Re:not taking reasonable care by oztiks · · Score: 1

      Yes and no. Being an Xbox Live player (hate to say this cause its MS we are talking about) but you can enjoy gaming without the posibility for account Hijacking. The only real problems Live has is people boosting the game.

      PS on the otherhad, first off its a free service, 2nd it's continually having Script kiddes hack the game steal accounts. In fact I don't think I have ever met a single PS player that hasnt had their game hacked, messed with, or account stolen.

      It seem's lose in the article (because there isn't anything definative suggesting it was done on purpose) but there is definatly plenty of malious activity taking place on PS network. This was bound to eventually happen.

    9. Re:not taking reasonable care by JDAustin · · Score: 1

      When I had a convertable, I used to leave it unlocked. This way if they were going to break in, at least I wouldnt need to buy a new top.

    10. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Smart man. I leave my car unlocked too so the crack-heads can just take the $1.27 from my ashtray and save me the trouble of buying a new car window every time I park out on the street.

    11. Re:not taking reasonable care by TheEyes · · Score: 2

      The problem is that it is never a "well funded crime kingpin" and most often a 15-30 year old or an (ex) employee that noticed some gaping, obvious security flaw. Data breaches like this are rarely the work of huge "cyber gangs" and mostly the work of individuals who noticed some huge flaw that Sony had. The crime kingpins wouldn't bother with something like this because it is a whole lot easier to sell botnets with 3nl@rg3 y0ur p3n15 spam.

      Twenty years ago you may have been right, but these days botnets are a multi-million dollar operation, underground black markets sell botnet time just like Amazon sells computer cycles, and cyber-gangs sell credit card numbers for a few dollars a pop. Cracking isn't the sole province of bored kids typing away from their parents' basement anymore; it's an industry, staffed by professionals.

    12. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Whenever I open Windows I get hacked too. :/

    13. Re:not taking reasonable care by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      What's the problem with boosters? They usually stick to themselves and avoid randoms as much as possible...

      Anyway, I hope one of these lawsuits hits Sony hard.

    14. Re:not taking reasonable care by DeadboltX · · Score: 5, Funny

      When I ran a server that contained sensitive customer data, I left the database open and without a password. That way if someone was going to hack me, I didn't have to buy a new password. Analogy fail.

    15. Re:not taking reasonable care by oztiks · · Score: 1

      Aside from the ethics behind boosting, nothing really. I agree with you on that Sony needs to be pulled into line regarding this. I know so many clueless 15 year olds that habitually steal PS accounts.

      PCI isn't even going to come into play here which is quite astonishing. The upset consumer going for the cash grab wont be the issue. It will be Mastercard and Visa.

    16. Re:not taking reasonable care by errandum · · Score: 1

      100%, no, but RSA with a long key is virtually uncrackable by today's standards.

      I had a school project that deal with credit cards and the first thing we did was investigate encryption. AES, triple DES, RSA, even DES, anything is better than PLAIN TEXT.

    17. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait what?

      I haven't, not including this monumental fail of a hack thanks to Sony, had my PSN account hacked. Secondly, what do you mean XBox can't get hijacked - are you saying it's IMPOSSIBLE? Sounds like a challenge to me.

      Just because something hasn't been hacked yet, doesn't mean it's unhackable. Just ask Sony and their unhackable PS3... or Microsoft and the original XBox.

    18. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nominated for this week's dumbest comment. A closed window is a deterrent. An open window is an invitation.

      Congratulations. I second that nomination for your comment.

      An open window is an invitation? No it fucking isn't. I open mine for fresh air - granted while I'm IN the building - so I'm "inviting people in" by your logic?

      I sense I have may have descended to the depths of feeding a troll but sadly, there really do seem to be people on this earth who think like you, just as there are people who will say "Oh, the idiot left a window open? Well, he deserves it!". Meanwhile, most reasonable people would accept the fact that if they leave a window open and get robbed, it's their own fault because most reasonable people also understand that there are morons like you in the world. On the other hand and thankfully, most reasonable people also understand that an open window ISN'T an invitation.

      I suppose my point is, when did society deteriorate to the point where NOT watching your privacy and posessions like a hawk was "unreasonable", and those taking liberties were the ones acting reasonably?! It can't be that long ago when common fucking sense of knowing and being taught right from wrong went out the window...

    19. Re:not taking reasonable care by mug+funky · · Score: 1

      dammit, i need modpoints. the long weekend made mine expire.

    20. Re:not taking reasonable care by c0mpliant · · Score: 1

      Passwords should not be stored either in an encrypted state or not, a one way hash value should be generated based on the password entered, this should be then salted and then that stored on the server. Then whenever the user logs in, the hash value of what they entered should be compared with the hash value thats stored and see if that matches. If it does then bobs your uncle, you are successfully logged in. I'm furious with Sony that they stored my password in manner which could be retrieved.

      --
      There is no -1 disagree
    21. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DO EET then, faggot.

    22. Re:not taking reasonable care by johnsnails · · Score: 1

      I think what he means is, what if someone was to torture Howard Stringer until he handed over passwords.

    23. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Smart man. I leave my car unlocked too so the crack-heads can just take the $1.27 from my ashtray and save me the trouble of buying a new car window every time I park out on the street.

      Problem here is, it wasn't Sony's $1.27 that was lost. It was my stuff lost, and 77 million other people..... The biggest problem of all is that Sony did not alert their customers in a timely manner. Fuck Sony.

    24. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is slashdot, there's no such thing as an out of place car analogy.

    25. Re:not taking reasonable care by shermo · · Score: 1

      That was the point wasn't it? Crime kingpins aren't bothering with this stuff because they're too busy expanding their botnets.

      --
      Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
    26. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I guess you missed the part where we were talking about servers.

    27. Re:not taking reasonable care by xero314 · · Score: 1

      Nominated for this week's dumbest comment. A closed window is a deterrent. An open window is an invitation.

      This is incorrect. This is the same argument used to lull people into a false sense of security that is used to sell "The Club" for auto security. Back in the 90's I had a number of car stereos stolen, very high end equipment, highly prized by crooks. Both were stolen from fully secured vehicles. After the second one, I talked to the installer of the third, who also sold car alarms and other security devices. His advice was to leave the doors unlocked and have insurance. Breaking into a car, or a home, is very easy for even your average burglar . If you want to minimize your loss in the event of a burglary, then do yourself a favor and leave your doors and windows unlocked. People rarely walk from door to door looking for the easy target. What they do is scope out places that have easily fenceable goods and determine when the place will be empty. Then then enter the premises anyway they can, and smashing a windows is very, very simple.

    28. Re:not taking reasonable care by ghjm · · Score: 2

      Well, storing the passwords in plaintext rather than hashed seems to me like a fundamental breach of any rational standard of care.

    29. Re:not taking reasonable care by errandum · · Score: 1

      Obviously :P

      I meant, if they are storing credit cards and personal data, some kind of encryption scheme is expected. Having it plain as day in a database is a big no-no.

      Storing passwords in plain text is so amateurish that it hurts, although salting is a bit overrated... If they have access to your machine they know what salt you've done, leaving you vulnerable to brute force attacks.

    30. Re:not taking reasonable care by NemoinSpace · · Score: 1

      maybe he's wardriving?

    31. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Potato calling a Potato a Potato

    32. Re:not taking reasonable care by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Ummm. Pay-per-view sensation?

    33. Re:not taking reasonable care by Nursie · · Score: 1

      Good luck getting insurance companies to pay out if you left the car unlocked, though.

      It may not be the way that a lot of thieves operate, but you can bet your arse that your insurer won't have a problem denying you a payout if you left your car unlocked.

    34. Re:not taking reasonable care by Nursie · · Score: 1

      "salting is a bit overrated... If they have access to your machine they know what salt you've done, leaving you vulnerable to brute force attacks."

      Sure, but it throws off rainbow tables nicely. Adding a little something into the mix that means any pre-computed list of hashes on the top billion or so obvious alphanumeric passwords is now useless, as we've stuffed in some binary crap. Brute force is now the only option, where before we could potentially break all the passwords using a single pre-executed brute-force dataset.

      Salt is not an absolute protection. Like a lot of other things it just makes life more difficult and slower for the attacker.

    35. Re:not taking reasonable care by Dragon_Punch · · Score: 0

      Gotta love the advantages of Linux.

      --
      Pylons?
    36. Re:not taking reasonable care by The+Moof · · Score: 2

      Being an Xbox Live player (hate to say this cause its MS we are talking about) but you can enjoy gaming without the posibility for account Hijacking.

      That's actually not true. XBL support has a notoriously bad track record when it comes to social engineering and giving away your account details to attackers. There were quite a few articles about it a few years back (here's one from a quick search). I think it's actually more of a threat since a valid credit card is required for XBL Gold accounts.

    37. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "What do you mean "I shouldn't leave all my money on the lawn in big bags with dollar signs on them"? Why not? Stealing is mean, so people shouldn't do it. Therefore, expecting me to take reasonable precautions to protect my property is completely unreasonable!"

    38. Re:not taking reasonable care by uofitorn · · Score: 1

      Thanks Capt. Obvious. That's what he just said....

      --
      "What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
      "Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
    39. Re:not taking reasonable care by MillerHighLife21 · · Score: 1

      It will answer questions, get a lot of press, make lawyers a lot of money and help those firms further advertise themselves for more lawsuits that the people affected will barely profit from, if at all.

      --
      "Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
    40. Re:not taking reasonable care by smash · · Score: 1

      Good old Vlad the Impaler used to do this - deliberately leave gold items in the middle of town. Stealing was still punishable by impalement though. His crime rate was remarkably low.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    41. Re:not taking reasonable care by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      He has a point, though: leave the door ajar. It'll save you the cost of replacing a window *and* it saves on shark food for the tank under the trapdoor in the hallway.

      What do you mean, you don't have a trapdoored shark tank as part of your alarm system ?

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    42. Re:not taking reasonable care by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      > underground black markets sell botnet time just like Amazon sells computer cycles

      One might even go so far as to think Amazon got the idea there.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    43. Re:not taking reasonable care by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      Very true. That and if they continue to lose these lawsuits and consumer protection board inquiries (Finland) it'll be death by 1000 cuts, or at least that's my hope.

      on a side note: As a booster myself, I can honestly say the only reason I do it is because of the inability to find enough people to play most of my games (http://www.trueachievements.com/JMJimmy.htm). I've never needed to boost a Battlefield or Call of Duty but something like Dark Sector or Frontlines - absolutely. That or where the requirements are so ridiculous for an achievement that it becomes a time saving issue (Seriously in Gears, the fastest boosting method still takes 127 hours minimum, 1500 games in Fracture which no one plays - 30 hours minimum).

    44. Re:not taking reasonable care by DrXym · · Score: 1

      if something goes wrong with their products, don't go public with it, don't acknowledge it, don't even think about it, and maybe it will go away!

      By way of mitigation you might expect them to first assess what the damage was before coming out with a statement. It may have been annoying that they didn't come out and say straight off what was at risk but it's likely they didn't know themselves. The way I understand it was they detected an intrusion and spent the better part of a week figuring out how far the intruder got and what may have been exposed.

      I think it would be in Sony's interests to set the record straight. It's not hard to find people screeching they didn't hash their passwords or encrypt the credit card info and a bunch of BS extrapolations which are all made in the absence of evidence. A technical summary might shut these voices down or at least focus on what Sony did or did not do right and serve as a good post mortem for other companies.

      I also think as someone who has worked in an financial investments company that securing systems is not as easy as anyone here thinks. I doubt there are many systems in the world which are not vulnerable to intrusion. Indeed most companies anticipates it could happen. All code is security reviewed and run through tools like Fortify for the usual vectors like SQL injection attacks. Devs don't administer the production servers or have access to live data. Production servers have different keys to qa & dev. Independent teams manage single sign on. Independent teams do penetration testing. User facing web servers exist in a DMZ and have no direct access to databases. Firewalls separate web servers from web services from datbases. All comms are encrypted with 2 way ssl where appropriate. And so on. Defence in depth in other words. Even so it is no guarantee that a determined attacker, perhaps with inside knowledge couldn't break through and do some damage or steal sensitive info.

    45. Re:not taking reasonable care by DrXym · · Score: 0

      Problem here is, it wasn't Sony's $1.27 that was lost. It was my stuff lost, and 77 million other people..... The biggest problem of all is that Sony did not alert their customers in a timely manner. Fuck Sony.

      Stop with the histrionics. The only thing you lost was a week or two's worth of PSN service and the potential hassle of cancelling a credit card. Annoying yes but hardly the end of the world.

    46. Re:not taking reasonable care by DrXym · · Score: 1
      I expect the first question an insurance company would ask in the event of a theft was "were your windows and doors locked?". It may even go further and they may require the locks to be certified to some national standard. And if you answer no then don't be surprised if you get nothing.

      Perhaps the real solution is don't expose your very expensive stereo system where thieves can see it in your car. Invest in a hatch or cover where the system can reside without being visible. If thieves can't see the item they're trying to steal, the chances are they won't even bother breaking in in the first place.

    47. Re:not taking reasonable care by StripedCow · · Score: 1

      Perhaps they designed it that way, but a programmer left a few debugging lines in the code...

      --
      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    48. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The one problem with salting, is that although it's capable of throwing off precomputed rainbow tables, we have to face the possibility that whomever broke into PSN will have had access to whatever salt values were being used as well as the library by which the passwords were hashed. Therefore we can assume that there's a botnet consuming a heck of a lot of juice in order to create a set of rainbow tables for the exact salt+hash algorithm that Sony were using.

      There's a lot of comments to suggest that Sony were storing credentials in plaintext, but thus far I've not seen any evidence of this. While I'm quite happy for them to be crucified, I'm not certain they've been this irresponsible.

      Disclaimer: PC user, the only console I have is an NDS, and I've boycotted Sony for years over their shitty business practices.

    49. Re:not taking reasonable care by ciderbrew · · Score: 2

      No. that is not all that was lost. That data get put towards another pile of data. Just because you can't think of how to use it, doesn't mean that someone else can't leverage it.

    50. Re:not taking reasonable care by mjwx · · Score: 1

      The problem is that it is never a "well funded crime kingpin" and most often a 15-30 year old or an (ex) employee that noticed some gaping, obvious security flaw. Data breaches like this are rarely the work of huge "cyber gangs" and mostly the work of individuals who noticed some huge flaw that Sony had. The crime kingpins wouldn't bother with something like this because it is a whole lot easier to sell botnets with 3nl@rg3 y0ur p3n15 spam.

      Twenty years ago you may have been right, but these days botnets are a multi-million dollar operation, underground black markets sell botnet time just like Amazon sells computer cycles, and cyber-gangs sell credit card numbers for a few dollars a pop. Cracking isn't the sole province of bored kids typing away from their parents' basement any more; it's an industry, staffed by professionals.

      You are quite correct but the GP is still likely to be right about the cause. There is a big industry around cybercrime, sending spam, buying exploits and botnet time but the GP is right where they just dont target things like PSN because of the cost of the operation. It's cheaper to hire a botnet and send millions of C@n@d1@n P@rm@cy ads at everyone as the return on investment is much higher then going after a target with lots of money (ergo lots of security).

      Exploits into big networks mostly come from disgruntled (ex)employees who are just as likely to use it for petty revenge as they are to sell it on the black market. Also employees are very vulnerable to social engineering, someone could have unwittingly given a third party access to the info they needed to find this exploit.

      Second to that, individual or small groups of black hats also tend to be the ones that find the exploits and sell them, except they dont live in basements any more, they've got their own 2 by 4 McMansion.

      Sony's corporate security will be going over every employee's file right now with a fine tooth comb.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    51. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Smart man. I leave my car unlocked too so the crack-heads can just take the $1.27 from my ashtray and save me the trouble of buying a new car window every time I park out on the street.

      Problem here is, it wasn't Sony's $1.27 that was lost. It was my stuff lost, and 77 million other people..... The biggest problem of all is that Sony did not alert their customers in a timely manner. Fuck Sony.

      I wonder if this site would improve by getting rid of Anonymous Cowards.

      Probably not. It's a shallow ghost of what it used to be, no more community of bright people, just a dumb cohort of webjerks.

      We need a replacement for slashdot.

    52. Re:not taking reasonable care by daid303 · · Score: 1

      Maybe this lawsuit will require them to come forward with the steps they *did* take. Up until now, it's largely been speculation. If they locked the door but left open a window, I want to know. And I want to know how open that window was left.

      For starters, they transmitted CC numbers in plain text over the Internet.

      I think, just pure speculation, that they stored all the details in a single database, and had an SQL Injection possibility somewhere.

    53. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obscurity?

    54. Re:not taking reasonable care by delinear · · Score: 1

      There are still good and bad car analogies, though. If you wanted to make an analogy with one person's actions costing another person, how about: this is like the valet service that leaves my car unsecured because it saves them a few seconds when they go to fetch it, never mind that it's an open invitation to thieves (by the way, I'm not saying Sony did leave anything insecure, just trying to put the analogy back on track... oh, wait, that's trains).

    55. Re:not taking reasonable care by oobayly · · Score: 1

      I tend to create a 4 byte salt for every record, that way a rainbow table has to be computed for every* record.

      * Well, maybe not every one, but for 77 million records, you've a 1.8% chance of having duplicates (I think)

    56. Re:not taking reasonable care by delinear · · Score: 1

      Agree with your main point - any system that relies on users with passwords is breakable by fooling the users - but just to point out the second point, regarding credit cards, is incorrect. You can buy a pre-paid Live Gold account subscription card (it's a scratch off the panel for a code deal, same as their "MS points" cards) and never have to register a credit card. I've had a Live sub since 2006, only used my credit card with it for the first time last year.

    57. Re:not taking reasonable care by CubicleView · · Score: 1

      But if you get robbed you could just smash the window yourself, oh wait...

    58. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop with the histrionics. The only thing you lost was a wife and the potential hassle of dating and remarrying. Annoying yes but hardly the end of the world.

      Moral: no matter what happens to you, it probably could be worse.

    59. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop with the histrionics. The only thing you lost was a wife and child and the potential hassle of dating and remarrying. Annoying yes but hardly the end of the world.

      Moral: no matter what happens to you, it probalby could have been worse.

    60. Re:not taking reasonable care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry for the dup :( Please spank me!

    61. Re:not taking reasonable care by errandum · · Score: 1

      instead of using a complicated salting method, why not go with bcrypt? If you make it slow enough, it'll resist brute force and be virtually impossible to calculate a full rainbow table.

    62. Re:not taking reasonable care by Legion303 · · Score: 2

      "For starters, they transmitted CC numbers in plain text over the Internet."

      No they didn't.

      They transmitted CC numbers over SSL over the internet, and some dipshit reinvented the wheel and "discovered" that he could spoof a cert on his own system and decrypt his own data, then he started claiming the info was sent unencrypted, and people like you read the headlines and started making the same claim everywhere else.

      Sony is an absolute shitfuck of a company (to coin a phrase), but you can't claim this one with a straight face.

    63. Re:not taking reasonable care by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

      Q: Was my personal data encrypted? A: All of the data was protected, and access was restricted both physically and through the perimeter and security of the network. The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack.

      http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/27/qa-1-for-playstation-network-and-qriocity-services/

    64. Re:not taking reasonable care by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      Do what a friend of mine did back in high school. Sadly, this would be illegal today.

      1) Get 20 large, insanely sharp fish hooks
      2) Attach their eyelets together tightly with steel leader so that the hooks form a ball.
      3) Place the ball-o-fishhooks under the dashboard where the thief will have to reach to disconnect wires.
      4) Bolt the other end of steel leader to something very strong under the dash.
      5) Place a towel on the carpet under the ball-o-fishhooks to catch the blood.
      6) Call the cops if the thief doesn't get free, giggle a little if he does.
      7) Replace towel.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    65. Re:not taking reasonable care by RobDude · · Score: 1

      There wasn't any information that Sony had that wasn't publicly available at the local assessor's office....except my password and my credit card number.

      Passwords should be unique, that's a non-issue.
      Credit Card numbers are considered confidential; but they aren't *that* confidential. It's printed right on the card.

      So yeah, it is largely a non-issue. And once the PSN is back up 99.9% of people will go back to using it exactly how they used to.

    66. Re:not taking reasonable care by erroneus · · Score: 1

      If they were running windows, it's really a hard thing to close, lock or secure. I'd like to see someone get sued for running a Windows server. :) I'm sure a lot of people here would.

    67. Re:not taking reasonable care by erroneus · · Score: 1

      Hahaha! I have a neighbor who still uses "the club" and it is clearly unlocked! She probably lost the key to it but she keeps putting the thing on her steering wheel thinking "oh no one will notice." She also has like three different security company stickers on her windows of her residence and what looks like an electronic door ringer sensor on the OUTSIDE of her door to show that she has security measures in place.

      Yeah, it's all a deterrent ... for "some people...maybe." To me it just a big flashing sign that says "look at me! I'm paranoid, stupid and I think you're stupid too!"

    68. Re:not taking reasonable care by erroneus · · Score: 1

      I still don't get why that is illegal or why a thief breaking into your home can win a lawsuit against you for leaving knives out in your kitchen!

    69. Re:not taking reasonable care by erroneus · · Score: 1

      My sharks are currently being fitted with laser beams.

    70. Re:not taking reasonable care by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      Even without obvious booby-traps, criminals have won lawsuits for falling down stairs and stepping on skateboards _in their victim's house_. How idiotic is that? In Virginia, I can shoot an armed intruder graveyard dead if my life's in danger, but if his life is in danger from his own clumsiness somehow I'm responsible???

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    71. Re:not taking reasonable care by scot4875 · · Score: 1

      why a thief breaking into your home can win a lawsuit against you for leaving knives out in your kitchen!

      Cite a source where this happened or I call bullshit.

      And booby traps have been illegal for a *long* time.

      --Jeremy

      --
      Jesus was a liberal
    72. Re:not taking reasonable care by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "The only thing you lost was a week or two's worth of PSN service and the potential hassle of cancelling a credit card."

      This is supposed to be a technically-minded board and you can't think of ONE SINGLE THING that could be done with SECURITY QUESTIONS THAT BANKS OFTEN USE and PERSONALLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION?

      Time for you to retire from the community.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    73. Re:not taking reasonable care by DrXym · · Score: 1
      I'd love to know which bank you're even talking about. If your bank relies on stupid questions like "what is your maiden's name?" then I suggest you have larger issues to worry about than what happened in some online game service. Such details are easily discoverable which is why every bank I've dealt with will challenge me with a combination of account number, a password and usually a pin for good measure with potentially a hard token challenge too.

      As for personally identifying information, you're talking about name, age, address, all of which is readily available from more or less anywhere. If that's all it took to steal someone's identity I could just trawl through Facebook, or the birthday classified, or listen to radio shout outs, or the numerous online credit report / background check services that yield that info and more for a small fee.

      I think the data leak has been massively damaging for Sony but a little perspective would go a long way. It's a pain in the ass to be sure but hardly the end of the world.

    74. Re:not taking reasonable care by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "I'd love to know which bank you're even talking about."

      Wells Fargo, Union Bank, Bank of America, every single one, for the most part. I've held accounts with almost every major national bank.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    75. Re:not taking reasonable care by xero314 · · Score: 1

      And if you answer no then don't be surprised if you get nothing.

      Insurance companies don't ask such questions, and they would need to have it in your agreement that it was a requirement if they wanted to deny your claim. They give you discounts for having alarm systems, they do not require that you secure the premises, at least not in any contract I have read.

      Perhaps the real solution is don't expose your very expensive stereo system where thieves can see it in your car.

      Thieves don't have to be able to see it. The purpose of high end stereo equipment is to be heard, and actually in many cases to be seen at shows and such. Yes it would be put in place so as to be obscure, but that really does defeat some of the point.

      I was pretty happy with just taking the insurance approach. Theft claims do not typically raise your insurance rates, and when ever the equipment gets stolen I was able to use the insurance money to upgrade to the latest equipment. Never mind the fact that I believe that those who steal from me probably need it more than I do.

    76. Re:not taking reasonable care by praxis · · Score: 1

      One should neither transmit from client to server a planitext password nor a salted and hashed password. It's better to send a nonce to the client and have it hashed with the salted hashed password client-side and send the hashed nonce back for comparison.

    77. Re:not taking reasonable care by powerlord · · Score: 1

      Perhaps they designed it that way, but a programmer left a few debugging lines in the code...

      or the system was exposed via a different vector since Sony's mentioned rebuilding the servers, which seems to imply that they were compromised.

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
    78. Re:not taking reasonable care by Firehed · · Score: 1

      First, bcrypt requires a salt. Second, not everyone knows enough about security to do that (and not all of the cheap fly-by-night hosting solutions have the necessary extensions compiled - everything has md5/sha1), so I'd rather have a salted password and a crappy hash than nothing at all.

      Either way, Sony should know better - as should any company with at least one salaried developer.

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
  4. They sat on it for a week... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So, they sat on it for a week...

    And in the process, they are claiming that they do not have any reason to believe that Credit Card Information was actually accessed.

    It seems as though the core concept of this case hinges on whether or not Credit Card numbers were actually accessed, which is something that Sony will definitely be going out of their way to hide, as it is grounds to show that all claims are ultimately invalid within this case.

    In any case, there would need to be disclosed proof stating that not only Credit Card numbers *were* accessed, but that Sony *intentionally* went out of their way to hide this fact from their customers.

    Seems flimsy at best.

    1. Re:They sat on it for a week... by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And sitting on something like this for a week -is- a problem. When you have possibly exposed the equivalent of 25% of the US population to credit card fraud, the world needs to know. This isn't some "oh whoops, one of our laptops is missing" instead this is a data breach affecting 77 million people. And to say -nothing- is completely irresponsible. A week is a pretty long time to not say -anything- and to just hope that it will go away.

      Even someone who has your personal information for a few hours can cause havoc in your life, let alone for an entire week.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:They sat on it for a week... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The week was most likely for forensics. Once you've worked out somebody's in, there's not exactly the equivalent of a trail of breadcrumbs to tell where they've been. I don't envy their management, they get to work out which is worst:
      a) the hackers don't know they got somewhere sensitive, and you tell the world 'possibly' these details went missing, then when it's all back up the hackers try harder because they know where to look
      b) leave everybody hanging and worrying, but know for sure, be able to make a full announcement and deploy countermeasures.

      I think they did the right thing in shutting off all access, but not giving a 'we are investigating the extent of....' was not so great. Ah well, just hope there isn't a next time.
       

    3. Re:They sat on it for a week... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, we've no idea how long the network itself was compromised; if the Rebug rumors are true, then the network was compromised for at least one week prior to being shutdown.

    4. Re:They sat on it for a week... by countertrolling · · Score: 1

      ...this is a data breach affecting 77 million people...

      Yeah, isn't it exciting? And after it's all over they might win a Spiderman box set, or a ten dollar gift certificate, redeemable at the nearest Sony store. Winners are responsible for taxes and fees. Must be present to win. Void where prohibited by law.

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    5. Re:They sat on it for a week... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      However, according to PCI standards and requirements, if there is ANY breach of data, that could even slightly potentially contain payment card information, they have to notify immediately once they have knowledge of the breach. I would say its complete bullshit that they didn't know for a week there was a breach. I hope that Sony loses their ability to process payment cards for this, and that they do get their ass sued into a hole they can't recover from. I love my PS3, but this is just arrogance upon arrogance, and they deserve every ounce of what is forthcoming.

    6. Re:They sat on it for a week... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is gross hyperbole. 77million accounts were compromised but that many people didn't have credit card information on there. A generous estimate would be 10% of accounts had CC information saved. Delusions of Grandeur

    7. Re:They sat on it for a week... by c0lo · · Score: 1

      This is gross hyperbole. 77million accounts were compromised but that many people didn't have credit card information on there. A generous estimate would be 10% of accounts had CC information saved. Delusions of Grandeur

      Attempts to estimate the impact:

      Assuming a USD1000 in CC fraud for each CC: 10% x 77 mils x USD1000 = USD7700 - to be supported by either the owners of CC or CC companies;

      Assuming a 10 mins per "support call" to change the card: 10% x 77 mils x 10 mins > 160.000 men*days.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    8. Re:They sat on it for a week... by Gandalf1957 · · Score: 1

      Actually compared to many others Sony's conduct in the matter is not at all bad. Plenty of financial institutions, including major banks have been compromised over the years and many have never admitted it even when 'outed'.

      The network was almost certainly shut down the moment someone suspected something was amiss but it could easily have taken some time to identify what happened, what the extent of the damage was, notify the authorities and of course make attempts to trace the culprit.

      It is also possible that once this became a criminal investigation Sony's subsequent actions were dictated to some degree by the investigating authority. It is standard practice in criminal investigation to restrict as much information as possible, even to those aggrieved and even a victim of a crime can be guilty of interfering with a criminal investigation if they don't comply with instructions.

    9. Re:They sat on it for a week... by qubezz · · Score: 1

      The network was almost certainly shut down the moment someone suspected something was amiss.

      Are you sure about this? How long between the Sony network operations discovering they were compromised to some executive with authority actually deciding the situation was dire enough to lose face and actually shut down the service for every PS3 user worldwide? Remember this is honor=deny Japan.

      If you remember the early Sony disclosure (i.e. lies, now removed from the Sony blog): While we are investigating the cause of the Network outage, we wanted to alert you that it may be a full day or two before we're able to get the service completely back up and running. "Network outage", when they knew they had been rooted so bad they had to pull the plug??

    10. Re:They sat on it for a week... by thyrial · · Score: 1

      The week was most likely for forensics. Once you've worked out somebody's in, there's not exactly the equivalent of a trail of breadcrumbs to tell where they've been. I don't envy their management, they get to work out which is worst: a) the hackers don't know they got somewhere sensitive, and you tell the world 'possibly' these details went missing, then when it's all back up the hackers try harder because they know where to look b) leave everybody hanging and worrying, but know for sure, be able to make a full announcement and deploy countermeasures.

      I think they did the right thing in shutting off all access, but not giving a 'we are investigating the extent of....' was not so great. Ah well, just hope there isn't a next time.

      My gut feeling is that the week was for legal dissection of "how the hell are we not going to get the pants sued off us over this" and working out the best PR spin, more than any technical or security work. But maybe I'm just a cynic...

    11. Re:They sat on it for a week... by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's time for some credit card reform, too, so people would have more control over how personal information is used and partitioned in the first place.

      Meanwhile, on planet Earth...

    12. Re:They sat on it for a week... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The network was almost certainly shut down the moment someone suspected something was amiss

      We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:
      1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;

      You consider up to 72 hours "the moment" that someone suspected something was amiss?

  5. Class Action by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So, this will probably turn into a class action lawsuit in the coming weeks. Lawyers will get incredibly rich, and those affected with get a free PS3 wallpaper or something.

    1. Re:Class Action by tysonedwards · · Score: 1, Informative

      Unfortunately, yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that one can not seek Class Action status for cases involving Products or Services.

      See AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION, Slip Opinion No. 09–893 (PDF)

      --
      Thirty four characters live here.
    2. Re:Class Action by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately, yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that one can not seek Class Action status for cases involving Products or Services. See AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION, Slip Opinion No. 09–893 (PDF)

      You think this is a bad thing?!

    3. Re:Class Action by fermat1313 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Wow, I don't think you actually read that document. That opinion had absolutely nothing to do with Products or Services, and it doesn't disable class status for lawsuits. It states that an arbitration agreement that disallows class arbitration is allowable. Basically, if you sign away your right to arbitration by class action, that is valid, and you can't later invoke class-wide arbitration.

      Lots of misinformation around here sometimes.

    4. Re:Class Action by TheEyes · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Unfortunately, yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that one can not seek Class Action status for cases involving Products or Services.
      See AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION, Slip Opinion No. 09–893 (PDF)

      You think this is a bad thing?!

      Hell yes it's a bad thing! When a large corporation can use a shrink-wrap EULA to force you into binding arbitration (read: a "court" they have literally bought and paid for), you will never again see that corporation bother with proper customer service. Remember, according to Sony you don't actually own your PS3; by signing up for the PSN, you are effectively renting that machine from Sony. From here on out, the customer is always wrong: our kangaroo court says so!

    5. Re:Class Action by olsmeister · · Score: 1

      if you look at the document in TFA you will see that this is filed as a class action suit.

    6. Re:Class Action by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From TFA: "and is seeking class action status."

    7. Re:Class Action by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      Which means every contract consumers will deal with just had that clause added.

    8. Re:Class Action by shentino · · Score: 1

      Not quite.

      I just gave the decision a once over and it only states that binding arbitration clauses in agreements can bar class action claims.

      You can still sue for tort or other claims that are not the subject of such agreement.

    9. Re:Class Action by zill · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that one can not seek Class Action status for cases involving Products or Services. See AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION, Slip Opinion No. 09–893 (PDF)

      So that's why Sony waited a week...

    10. Re:Class Action by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 0

      Don't bother bringing facts in front of the Slashdot IANAL association. They spend all of their time trying to convince the world their paranoiac fantasies have some basis in reality because the disease doesn't let them integrate facts. That's one of the symptoms.

    11. Re:Class Action by seanvaandering · · Score: 1

      ....which also means if that added clause is found to be illegal in your state, the above may not apply to you.

    12. Re:Class Action by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually... what I believe the ruling was, was even if the state says that it's illegal, federal law trumps it.

    13. Re:Class Action by whisper_jeff · · Score: 1

      Lots of misinformation around here sometimes.

      Unfortunately, your use of the word "sometimes" was very generous and kind. And inaccurate...

    14. Re:Class Action by Khyber · · Score: 1

      The right to a fair trial says you're completely fucking wrong regardless of what any bought-out Supreme Court fuckwit says.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  6. He will have a hard time.... by mysidia · · Score: 1

    Because of that, the complaint alleges, Sony did not allow its customers 'to make an informed decision as to whether to change credit card numbers, close the exposed accounts, check their credit reports, or take other mitigating actions.'"

    Normally to sue a corporation over claimed negligence; you actually have to show that you were harmed.

    Meaning, the plaintiff will probably have to show his inability to take mitigating actions due to Sony's negligence actually resulted in a loss or damages.

    I suspect that will be difficult to pull off, unless his CC account was hacked / fraud was committed against him already as a result of the intrusion into Sony's network.

    As for damages related to 'closing the account'.... if he were taking mitigating action, he would have to incur that loss regardless of whether Sony informed him earlier or not.

    Now his bank and the payment card industry should be the ones taking the strongest stance against Sony; since it's the banks that most immediately bear the cost of fraud (due to policy of $0 liability for unauthorized account use; once the account owner identifies the transactions as fraudulent).

    1. Re:He will have a hard time.... by ShiftyOne · · Score: 1

      He will most likely try and get a settlement out of it before he has to show much damages. He should have went with the privacy route, it would be much easier to get a settlement, and you automatically get around $10 million without having to show harm.

    2. Re:He will have a hard time.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As for damages related to 'closing the account'.... if he were taking mitigating action, he would have to incur that loss regardless of whether Sony informed him earlier or not.

      But he wouldn't have incurred it if Sony had taken proper precautions to secure his data.

    3. Re:He will have a hard time.... by Fnord666 · · Score: 1

      Now his bank and the payment card industry should be the ones taking the strongest stance against Sony; since it's the banks that most immediately bear the cost of fraud (due to policy of $0 liability for unauthorized account use; once the account owner identifies the transactions as fraudulent).

      The banks won't lose a cent. They will turn around and charge all of that fraud back to the merchants who accepted the charges.

      --
      'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
    4. Re:He will have a hard time.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you know they didn't?

    5. Re:He will have a hard time.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because if there is a chance that they got CC#s and passwords, then its obvious they didnt.

      Those should have both been in a salted hash state.
      If the crooks potentially have them, then they were not in a salted hash.
      Ergo sony = massive fail at security.

      Did you not think this through, or are you a sony shrill?

    6. Re:He will have a hard time.... by catmistake · · Score: 1

      Private financial information was breached. That in itself is the harm, regardless of any credit theft subsequent to the breach. Even if Sony's network hadn't been breached, insecurely keeping financial records alone is in itself a harm to those individuals. Consider a bank that has never been robbed that keeps all its customers' money in piles in plain view in front of the bank. A customer could sue the bank for negligence even if there was no theft.

    7. Re:He will have a hard time.... by Cederic · · Score: 1

      How do you add a new charge to a credit card when you can't retrieve its number?

      I fully expect that Amazon and Steam hold my credit card details in a retrievable form. I also fully expect that they encrypt those details, as they would not be PCI-DSS compliant if they don't.

      It's still not a one-way hash.

      Passwords being retrievable I completely agree is an utter fuck-up. Sensitive card details however are only as secure as the server they sit on, combined with the server their decryption key sits on.

    8. Re:He will have a hard time.... by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

      Q: Was my personal data encrypted? A: All of the data was protected, and access was restricted both physically and through the perimeter and security of the network. The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack.

      http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/04/27/qa-1-for-playstation-network-and-qriocity-services/ It may be too early to file a lawsuit. He should of waited till actual damages occurred. I wouldn't be surprised if the passwords were also encrypted. Because such a scheme is week against a rainbow table attack. A good percentage of the 70 million accounts is going to have week passwords.

    9. Re:He will have a hard time.... by nschubach · · Score: 1

      Private financial information was breached.

      Possibly, but not absolutely.

      They've stated:

      While all credit card information stored in our systems is encrypted and there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility.

      The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    10. Re:He will have a hard time.... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      A) Please, don't use the term very sophisticate to describe your security system that was breached form an exploit.
      I mean, that's just funny. Also, we are defeating the Americans and driving them from our city.

      B) They won't have evidence until they start to be used, or enough time goes buy.

      C) Encryption isn't magic. I wan't to know what kind of encryption? These persons had complete access to the system, did they get the encryption key? Is the CC numbers sent to the CC company encrypted and then the CC company decrypt it?

      D) They lost person information, and that in itself is harm.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    11. Re:He will have a hard time.... by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      Unless the merchant has 3DS enabled. 3DS includes a liability shift back onto the issuing banks in cases of "Unauthorised Purchase" chargebacks.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    12. Re:He will have a hard time.... by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

      It now appears the credit card data was encrypted and the passwords stored using using a cryptographic hash function. They did some of the proper precautions to secure the data.

  7. He got notified? by FSWKU · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I still have yet to hear a single word out of Sony. Had I not seen the Playstation Blog post, I would have known NOTHING about the severity of this issue until it hit all the major news outlets.

    Sadly, I know how this is going to turn out. There will be a class-action suit in which Sony is fined heavily. But the vast majority of the money will go to some shark lawyer, and the only thing the people affected by this will receive is a free 1-month subscription to PSN+. Actually, I'll be surprised if they even give us that much.

    If this DOES go class-action, I will definitely be on the lookout for my notice to opt out. If I see any erroneous charges on my card stemming from this massive amount of incompetence, I want to retain my full legal right to bring my own suit against Sony where they will be required to provide me with credit monitoring and credit fraud protection. I'm sorry, but a boilerplate "we're sorry" and some token gesture are NOT going to cut it here.

    --
    "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
    1. Re:He got notified? by Labcoat+Samurai · · Score: 4, Funny

      I still have yet to hear a single word out of Sony. Had I not seen the Playstation Blog post, I would have known NOTHING about the severity of this issue until it hit all the major news outlets.

      Indeed. On the blog, I noticed some apologist in the comment section trying to defend Sony by saying that it takes a long time to send 77 million emails. Tell that to a spammer, I thought.

    2. Re:He got notified? by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Definitely. I'd love to see Sony deal with 77M suits in small-claims court.

      At $500 per suit, that would be something like $38B.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    3. Re:He got notified? by FSWKU · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the legal fees incurred (both from Sony's lawyers AND having to pay the legal fees for every claim they lose).

      --
      "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
    4. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good luck getting by the mandatory arbitration clause.

    5. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "If I see any erroneous charges on my card stemming from this massive amount of incompetence" ..good luck PROVING that any future breach on your CC was directly the result of Sony's fuck up.

      my friend works for a bank (perimeter security) they deal with this all the time (stolen cards and such).. one day they got hit with a ton of fraud cases.. after the dust settled, and with a little help from the FBI, they found out that the majority of the cards impacted were stolen years before in the TJ Maxx hack (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17871485/ns/technology_and_science-security/). the bad buys are smart enough to wait until people let their guard down after a couple of YEARS. you might monitor your card and your identity for a while.. but the bad guys sit on your info for longer. identity theft and credit monitoring are pretty much useless because the bad guys wait for shit to cool down before using any of your info.

      the reason I know this is because he told me to get rid of my card if I'd ever shopped @ TJ Maxx

      do yourself a favor. cancel your card now.
      do yourself a bigger favor.. get a card with a tiny limit.. say $500 bucks, and use that one online.

    6. Re:He got notified? by FSWKU · · Score: 1

      But are arbitration clauses even valid in cases of gross negligence and witholding vital information needed to prevent financial damages?

      --
      "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
    7. Re:He got notified? by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 3, Informative

      It *needs* to happen. And happen big. Maybe after Sony files for bankruptcy, investors in other companies will start asking the CIO to ensure security at any cost.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    8. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd hate to see that, as the investors would lose, the employees would lose, and the global economy would lose. Sony's huge. Most of their employees and investors did nothing to deserve this. Isn't gaming only a small part of sony? I dislike that sony has been allowed to grow that big and powerful, but killing it in the courts would be terrible for everyone but the lawyers.

      WTF? Spare me the "too big to fail" crap. I'm tired of hearing this line of thinking. Sony cut corners -- some executive decided NOT to invest in proper security measures. Shit happens. Life moves on. You realize that Sony's _ENTIRE_ gaming division operates at a NET LOSS, right? Sony makes its money in the FINANCIAL SECTOR and subsidizes its gaming business. This lawsuit (even if it's in the billions) will NOT bring Sony down. So some research about the background of the company, before posting BS like this again... Thanks.

    9. Re:He got notified? by Destoo · · Score: 2

      I've just received my notice. What took time was the translation/localization to french, probably.

      It's still unacceptable, but at least I received it.

      --
      Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
    10. Re:He got notified? by Nerdfest · · Score: 1

      Isn't that effectively what they did to Lik Sang?

    11. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. We can't keep allowing these huge corporations to do whatever they want at our expense. Then using the excuse of "investors and employees" as a reason to turn a blind eye to this kind of things.

      Don't want to lose money as an investor? Sell you shares for this shitty corporation.
      Don't want to lose your job? Don't work for corporate douche-bags with shitty ethics.

      Shit's simple, huh? ;)

    12. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know my bank offers one time credit card numbers, you go to your favorite online store, check out, get total, go to your banks website, create a new credit card number and a limit for the exact amount, use new number. credit card number is now useless for future transactions.

    13. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I still have yet to hear a single word out of Sony. Had I not seen the Playstation Blog post, I would have known NOTHING about the severity of this issue until it hit all the major news outlets.

      I literally just 20 minutes ago got the e-mail from Sony. I learned about this issue from Kotaku and freaking CNN before Sony said a word. That's not really acceptable.

    14. Re:He got notified? by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thats the risk the investors took. Don't like? Invest in more reputable companies.

    15. Re:He got notified? by bobstreo · · Score: 0

      Yeah got some email "allegedly" from Sony today. It takes a while to tell 77 million people to go to freecreditreport.com

    16. Re:He got notified? by Missing.Matter · · Score: 1

      Check your inbox. My friend literally just got an e-mail from Sony about this.

    17. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      3 minutes after parent posted, I received an email from sony. Just thought I'd like to state that for the record.

    18. Re:He got notified? by FSWKU · · Score: 1

      I just now got the notification in my email (literally about 30 seconds ago). This was on the Playstation Blog WELL over 24 hours ago, and I'm only just now getting a notification (which states the exact same thing). There is no excuse for taking this long.

      --
      "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
    19. Re:He got notified? by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      Don't want to lose money as an investor? Sell you shares for this shitty corporation. Don't want to lose your job? Don't work for corporate douche-bags with shitty ethics. Shit's simple, huh? ;)

      I'd say simplistic, not simple. What does the guy putting together headphones know whether or not the PSN security guys are hashing the passwords? I don't really understand it, and I'm here. With a corporation even a tenth of the size of sony, it's unlikely that every employee and investor to know what liabilities every other employee is or is not opening the company up to and thereby risking their jobs.

      It's not like these guys were working for "Child molesting inc," the ethic violations here, if any, were not so obvious that "they should have known better."

      We can't keep allowing these huge corporations to do whatever they want at our expense. Then using the excuse of "investors and employees" as a reason to turn a blind eye to this kind of things.

      I'm not suggesting anything like that. Holding the executives liable is the one and only way to effectively regulate this. They're the individuals who made the relevant decisions, they're the ones who need to be held accountable for those bad decisions. The executives who let this happen are the ones who should be sued.

    20. Re:He got notified? by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      Sony cut corners -- some executive decided NOT to invest in proper security measures

      Then sue the executives.

      You realize that Sony's _ENTIRE_ gaming division operates at a NET LOSS, right?

      Gee, how did I miss that in school?

      Sony makes its money in the FINANCIAL SECTOR and subsidizes its gaming business. This lawsuit (even if it's in the billions) will NOT bring Sony down. So some research about the background of the company, before posting BS like this again... Thanks.

      I'm not sure how "Sony's gaming division loses money all the time" translates into "Sony's gaming division losing billions more than usual cannot possibly harm the rest of sony."

      By the way, relax a little. Why are you that upset about someone being ignorant of the intricacies of Sony's corporate structure?

    21. Re:He got notified? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Dear Mr. Anonymous Coward,

      We at Sony are deeply sorry for the worry and risk to your financial security we have caused. We are committed to fix our errors and making financial settlements. Please click on the link below and provide your bank account number so that we may deposit the amount of $11,000.

      http://stupidpsnusers.russianmafia.ru/stealyourbankinginfo.php

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    22. Re:He got notified? by c_jonescc · · Score: 2

      Maybe it's possible to work in one division of a major corporation and have no idea what the other divisions are doing. If so, my money's on the fact that the corporate legal team has made it such that separate divisions are indeed separate entities, and gross failure on the games division won't destroy the foundations of the other divisions.

      If you're company is not that big, take a clue from the corporate culture which is usually used to sell a potential employee - "we're sure you'll love it here, as our culture is such that mostly like minded people work here, and you're sure to get along with your co-workers". Does your division do things that are wrong? Then it's likely they all do. So, there's that for the 'poor employees' excuse.

      Investors are crap. Look at mutual funds. Do you have qualms about investing in something that has ties to modern pseudo-slavery or insane environmental malfeasance in the third world? Try to find a fund that excludes those potentials. Then you'll find the ethical funds that return a FRACTION of the others. Investors are trying to turn a buck, which is fair, but it's also fair if they lose money because no investment is guaranteed. Want investors to stop turning a blind eye as long as the returns are high? Then make sure they pay their share when the returns were earned through shitty practices.

      That said, I agree with what you say about the executives. They need to be punished for their decisions and not paid off with disregard to their ethics.

      --
      Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
    23. Re:He got notified? by c_jonescc · · Score: 1

      Never heard of that, but am compelled. Perhaps AC will return and tell us who he banks with, please?

      --
      Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
    24. Re:He got notified? by jschottm · · Score: 2

      investors in other companies will start asking the CIO to ensure security at any cost

      Really? Any cost? There is no such thing as a completely secure network or computer (that provides a usable amount of capability) and getting to a high level can be very, very expensive. Are you willing to give up e-commerce? The ability to get government services online? Your gmail accounts? (Google, after all, quite publicly got hacked, yet you continue to use them.)

      Are you prepared to pay three, four, five, ten times as much for your phone and network connections?

      This is a major leak of personal information but it's nothing that should bankrupt a major corporation based on what's known now. The big reform that needs to happen is that identity fraud needs to get harder to do based on simple information like names, address, and DOB, significant amounts of which can already be found in public records.

    25. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I received my email from Sony at 6:10 PM today. That's 9 days and 18 hours after Sony admits the breach occured.

      After the root kit fiasco I hope Sony feels some pain over this one.

    26. Re:He got notified? by countertrolling · · Score: 1

      Name one... If there ever was a business where nice guys finish last, this would be it.

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    27. Re:He got notified? by x1r8a3k · · Score: 1

      I got an email earlier today. It was mostly a verbatim copy of the recent announcement, but actually had details about the applicable laws in my state regarding identity theft and protections, credit freezes, etc. They might not have finished one for your area yet.

    28. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it takes a long time to send 77 million emails

      Sony should have hired Epsilon. A match made in heaven ...

    29. Re:He got notified? by pdabbadabba · · Score: 1

      Apparently that doesn't take as long as the U.S. localization and translation into English required for mine, which has still not materialized.

    30. Re:He got notified? by schnell · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's possible to work in one division of a major corporation and have no idea what the other divisions are doing.

      MAYBE it's possible? My friend, you have clearly never worked at even a mid-sized company, let alone a big one.

      My previous employer had about 200 employees scattered across three cities. People in my department had never met and had absolutely no idea who various other employees were or what they were doing, let alone having any authority over the choices they made. Now I work for a company that has more employees than there are residents in the city of Madison, Wisconsin. I have no more knowledge of what all my fellow employees do than one resident of Madison knows what every single other person in the city is doing.

      Think about it - even at a comparatively tiny 200 person company, if the accountants decide to cheat on the company's taxes, what is the likelihood that the engineers, IT staff, sales guys, receptionists or customer care reps know? And why should they? It would be crazy for any company to ask the IT help desk to review the work and policies of the accountants, or vice versa.

      Let's say that company X is cheating on its taxes... it may be only 10 people (or even just a couple like the controller and CFO) who did anything wrong. But by your logic the other 190+ people are responsible when they had neither knowledge or influence. It's like saying the residents of New York City are responsible for some dumb "intelligent design" law in the state of Texas because "they're all Americans."

      So it may be very comforting when you want to blame someone to say "employees of X are scum" or are all responsible for some element of malfeasance, but unfortunately it's an overly simplistic and very naive view. Let's hold the comparatively small group of executives responsible for these decisions personally and professionally accountable and keep the blame where it belongs.

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    31. Re:He got notified? by mywhitewolf · · Score: 2

      Regardless of who you attempt to hold accountable, when the payouts are coming from the company the employees will always lose to some degree. yet people get fired all the time for things that aren't their fault because its in "the best interest of the company", we can't protect a dodgy company because it will cause some sort of unemployment. would we not send a father of 3 to jail for fraud just because his family survive of his ill gotten gains? why make that exception for a company?

    32. Re:He got notified? by MimeticLie · · Score: 1

      Not the AC, but I know Bank of America does it. I'm sure there are others.

    33. Re:He got notified? by sjames · · Score: 1

      Hello, this is Somy Nigerian ofice. Please provide us with your banking details so you can receive you compensation. Don't beliv other claims we're the reel somy.

    34. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i got my email today from sony. but i'm hoping at least to get a trophy out of it. i can't remember if i left my CC details are in the system or not. i've only put $30 bucks ($35USD) into the system. it could even be my old CC details.

    35. Re:He got notified? by Dragon_Punch · · Score: 0

      WOW! That seems like a legitamant offer!! You better grab that one while it is hot!

      --
      Pylons?
    36. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will definitely be on the lookout for my notice to opt out. If I see any erroneous charges on my card stemming from this massive amount of incompetence, I want to retain my full legal right to bring my own suit against Sony

      If I see someone ordering a single salted peanut on my card I'll sue Sony over this. Heck, if the sun rises tomorrow I'll sue Sony because hey, it's Sony, they deserve it.

    37. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol.. well i garantee all they have to do is hit a button.. to notify users
      since all email accounts would be saved in there db's

    38. Re:He got notified? by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      Heh. Just got the Dutch notification, too. It says data was 'compressed' and more crap like that. Seems they can't even be bothered to get proper translators.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    39. Re:He got notified? by GNious · · Score: 1

      I got notified a couple of hours ago - in an email with a link to sign into PSN to change my details. Oddly enough, the link didn't work.....

    40. Re:He got notified? by ZerothAngel · · Score: 1

      Not the AC either, but Citibank offers such a service. I've used it a few times for those random one-off purchases, especially from stores I will probably never do business with again.

      Though, it's probably not very useful for subscription-type services or places you do business with regularly. (Unless you really want to generate a new CC number for each order.) I guess the previous poster's suggestion of having a low-limit card would be helpful in that case, something I plan to look into for myself.

    41. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mind to post it here ?

    42. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same. I just received mine today which is extremely poor on Sony's behalf. I love the PS3 but this lack of protection and communication is going to hurt Sony considerably.

    43. Re:He got notified? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      So how come you could claim $500? In the UK you can only claim for losses you suffered, so I suppose most of your claim would be punitive since a few weeks without PSN isn't causing you an financial hardship.

      How does it work in the US? How is the level of punishment decided?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    44. Re:He got notified? by SJ · · Score: 1

      When was the last time Visa was hacked? (Their payment processing system, not their web site)...

      Or MasterCard for that matter...

      Systems CAN be built to be very secure. Most companies just don't want to.

    45. Re:He got notified? by FictionPimp · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not the AC, but here was my email

      Valued PlayStation(R)Network/Qriocity Customer:

      We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011,
      certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account
      information was compromised in connection with an illegal and
      unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this
      intrusion, we have:

      1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;

      2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full
      and complete investigation into what happened; and

      3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our
      network infrastructure by rebuilding our system to provide you
      with greater protection of your personal information.

      We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill
      as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and
      efficiently as practicable.

      Although we are still investigating the details of this incident,
      we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following
      information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country,
      email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login,
      and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data,
      including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip),
      and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may
      have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your
      dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have
      been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit
      card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have
      provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity,
      out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit
      card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have
      been obtained.

      For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email,
      telephone and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive
      information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email,
      asking for your credit card number, social security number or other
      personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information,
      you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation
      Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that
      you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation
      Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or
      accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them as well.

      To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we
      encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and
      to monitor your credit reports. We are providing the following information
      for those who wish to consider it:
      - U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually
      from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report,
      visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.

      - We have also provided names and contact information for the three major U.S.
      credit bureaus below. At no charge, U.S. residents can have these credit bureaus
      place a "fraud alert" on your file that alerts creditors to take additional steps
      to verify your identity prior to granting credit in your name. This service can
      make it more difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however,
      that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you,
      it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your
      identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the others
      are notified to place fraud alerts on your file. Should you wish to place a
      fraud alert, or should you have any questions regarding your credit report,
      please contact any one of the agencies listed below:

      Ex

    46. Re:He got notified? by delinear · · Score: 1

      It's also missing the much bigger picture, namely someone will pay for this. Sure, the employee mopping floors didn't know what was happening, but does that somehow make it fairer to push the responsibility onto the customer who bought in good faith? Or onto the poor retailers who are going to get scammed and chargebacks from the credit card companies? If anyone has to pay it should be the company that was in a position to do something about it, not a bunch of third parties who didn't have that option - sure it sucks for the non-related employees but it's still the fairest of the alternatives.

    47. Re:He got notified? by delinear · · Score: 1

      Besides, maybe if employees were at the sharp end they would speak up about indiscretions in their own departments. I'd be surprised if this was caused by some incompetency in the company's IT department, more likely it was caused by cutting corners. If employees knew their jobs were on the line because some bean counter further up the chain was making "efficiency gains", more people might speak out when they witness negligent practices.

    48. Re:He got notified? by uncledrax · · Score: 1

      "Maybe after the smaller Sony parented corporation that runs PSN files for bankruptcy, investors in other companies will start asking the CIO to ensure security at any cost."

      Fixed that for you.
      Lets be real, no single lawsuit of this nature would even come close to toppling something like Sony (from just the lawsuit.. it's possible it might negatively affect sales down the road.. but there will still be tons of people that buy Sony products regardless of what happens with the current PSN/breach thing)

      --
      ----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
    49. Re:He got notified? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      Sadly, I know how this is going to turn out. There will be a class-action suit in which Sony is fined heavily. But the vast majority of the money will go to some shark lawyer, and the only thing the people affected by this will receive is a free 1-month subscription to PSN+. Actually, I'll be surprised if they even give us that much.

      So don't join the class action. File a suit in small claims court. As some fellow said below, at $500 fine / damages per suit, that's close to $38b. Even if you only get $50 per suit, that's their operating income for a decade down the swannie.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    50. Re:He got notified? by gravis777 · · Score: 1

      I'll wait until after a few people have won against them before I make a lawsuit. If I wait enough, I may not have to have to pay a lawyer

    51. Re:He got notified? by gravis777 · · Score: 1

      Nothing in my inbox.

    52. Re:He got notified? by uncledrax · · Score: 1

      (IANAL)
      I'd guess this would become a class action suit .. and assuming it is judged against Sony, the actual awarded damages to plaintiffs would end up being pretty small.. I'd guess sub-$100USD/person [to cover things like 'loss of functionality to the network' and covering additional credit monitoring products.. etc..].. there could be additional assessed penalties/fines based on the findings of the court, and of course the lawyers will probably be able to retire afterwards.

      --
      ----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
    53. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the class action attorneys are sharks and your personal attorney is what, a saint?

    54. Re:He got notified? by delinear · · Score: 1

      What you need is the ability to tie a number to a specific retailer to make multiple purchases with that retailer, but that would be useless with any other retailer. You'd still be open to fraud if someone used your card to make purchases with that one retailer, but it would mitigate potential for fraud to some extent. I wish credit card companies were doing more to give us the tools to make ourselves more secure - I couldn't even find a card (that I'd heard of) that offered the one time use feature when I was shopping around last year (in the UK). I guess they have it set up pretty nicely to shift the onus onto the retailers if there is a fraud, so they probably figure why waste the money offering these features, if it costs our customers X amount of time and hassle to sort things out, well, what are they going to do - go somewhere else for the same level of service?

    55. Re:He got notified? by Israfels · · Score: 1

      I'm sure most people don't mind occasional outages. In this situation, however, you're paying for many services linked to a PSN account and not only are you not getting the service promised, but they're hiding the fact that your personal information has been compromised. This is a step below bait and switch. instead of a lower quality service, they're providing an unservice. Deliberately hiding knowledge of the loss of private data for this long is at the LEAST a fine.

      Losses suffered don't have to be financial. The loss of security can be costly. In this day in age when identify theft can wreak havoc, having personal information floating around the internet can be difficult and expensive to monitor and defend against. The damage is the loss of a secure identity, at a minimum.

      I don't have a PSN account, I'm just following this story out of interest in security practices.

    56. Re:He got notified? by Kielistic · · Score: 1

      If we stopped rewarding this behavior with "We can't punish them! Investors!" maybe there'd be some more reputable companies.

      You are right that cheating makes more money. But if people don't invest in cheating companies because it's a bad investment well then those companies won't make it too far will they?

    57. Re:He got notified? by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 1

      You could claim that you suffered a loss by having to check your CC statement daily for a month, then weekly for a year.

      Claim the time spent on the phone with the CC company to get a new card issued.

      Claim the time you spent between when the old card was axed and the new card arrived.

      Claim the increase in SPAM via email and snail mail.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    58. Re:He got notified? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      *notes down list for future reference*

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    59. Re:He got notified? by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      The point is if the investors suffer the companies are encouraged to act in a more correct manner. If we never punish them for this, then no one ever learns.

    60. Re:He got notified? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      They ALREADY provide you with credit monitoring, and free fraud alert:

      http://us.playstation.com/support/answer/index.htm?a_id=2185

      Sony was slow to respond, slow to inform consumers and failed to maintain security of the system.

      However, they aren't being complete idiots about it.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    61. Re:He got notified? by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 1

      They're not providing anything. That "annualcreditreport" link is an existing legal obligation on the reporting agencies imposed by the US govermnent. Sony did nothing apart from provide a list of affected persons to the credit agencies.

      --
      "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    62. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Emails have been going out, mine arrived this morning. Sending 77 million emails takes some time to run through an MTA, they should have teamed up with a spammer ;-)

      Here's the scary part:

      Although we are still investigating the details of this incident,
      we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following
      information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country,
      email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login,
      and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data,
      including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip),
      and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may
      have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your
      dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have
      been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit
      card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have
      provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity,
      out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit
      card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have
      been obtained.

      Based on this, Sony needs a serious whack from the data protection and security laws in each country. I'll join any class action here. I don't want money, PSN bonuses, free games, or anything for myself. I want those bastards to be slapped as hard as possible all over the world. They're a massive $80b company and they're played the cheap route on security. Karma's a bitch!

    63. Re:He got notified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Definitely. I'd love to see Sony deal with 77M suits in small-claims court.

      At $500 per suit, that would be something like $38B.

      Is this like a DDOS attack through the court system?

    64. Re:He got notified? by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "If there ever was a business where nice guys finish last, this would be it."

      Try my industry sometime, where 99% of the stores are simply resellers selling a ton of lies, perform no meaningful research, and use wikipedia's incomplete and (usually) inaccurate articles as 'reliable sources' or 'research' without having ever touched an actual plant.

      Seriously, it's tough having to dispel the sheer amount of bullshit that has been introduced to the world of horticulture thanks to (primarily) misinformation on cannabis websites.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    65. Re:He got notified? by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "In the UK you can only claim for losses you suffered"

      Not in cases of violation of the UK Data Protection Act

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    66. Re:He got notified? by powerlord · · Score: 1

      Isn't that one of the reasons Class Action Lawsuits exist?

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  8. signed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    signed

  9. Ugghh! by Chubcorp · · Score: 2

    It takes time to find out what has been compromised. The hacker won't just come out and say "All your base are belong to us" Sony told us when they found out. If they did say that there is a possibility on day one that it may be compromised then there would be a lot of hectic and closing bank accounts on an hunch. If nothing had been compromised and they told us it may be (on day one) then people would be mad and still sued Sony for misleading them. Crap happens, suing doesn't make it better. Plus nobody said you had to create an account, nor did you pay for it.

    1. Re:Ugghh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whether I had to pay to create the account and whether I had to pay for it are not relevant. What is relevant is Sony's legal responsibilities to take appropriate precautions with customer's personal information. As far as "Sony told us when the found out" - are you kidding? If that is the case then why was I wondering Saturday and Sunday and Monday why the network was "down for maintenance"? Sony never told me - I found out through news reports. You are an apologist moron.

    2. Re:Ugghh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "nor did you pay for it."

      Then why would they have credit cards on file?

      Ans. Because people purchased things from the PSN.

  10. Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by cultiv8 · · Score: 5, Informative

    46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4

    --
    sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
    1. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anton is great :)
      What bullshit.........

    2. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's not quite the whole key.

      46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2

    3. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2

    4. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by shish · · Score: 4, Funny

      If those are the grid references for the different pieces of Sony's battleship, I'm surprised it can float in the first place o_O

      --
      I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
    5. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that, did you say
      erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B
      riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D
      pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19
              R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17
              n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1
              K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D
          Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70

      ?
      You know, I could have sworn that the ability to play blu rays on my PS3 was taken away by SONY, to ensure PSN security.

    6. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by froggymana · · Score: 1

      46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4

      Hey! Thats the password I used for my PSN account!

      --
      "To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
    7. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      Given the depth of their legal coffers, I'd say it's more likely to be a floating fortress, yes. Those are just the coordinates to the thermal exhausts.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    8. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, you're so fucking cool. I like you. Rather that contribute some useful information or insight, you just want to look like a rebel. Please, oh please, let me suck your cock too. (ha ha, captcha: jerking. Definitely fits you.)

    9. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by marcansoft · · Score: 1

      Mod parent down for perpetuating a useless, incorrect key that just won't die.

      That's the USB dongle service mode authentication key, which is useless for breaking PS3 security except as an accessory to some now-disabled functionality that requires leaked service executables. In other words, it's 1) impossible to use legally, as you need to infringe copyright to use it, 2) useless since a few updates ago, 3) won't help you break into lv2, 4) won't help you break into the security system, 5) won't help you break the chain of trust, 6) won't help you run Linux.

      It was only ever used as part of a commercialy distributed firmware downgrade trick designed for a commercially distributed piracy tool.

      Now can we please switch over to a relevant string of hex digits when talking about PS3 security? Please? I suggest "Da" from geohot's keydump, which is the metldr private key, and infinitely more relevant than this 46 DC nonsense.

    10. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

      You joke but it kind of was in the end.

    11. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by geekoid · · Score: 1

      uh, NO.

      It was way easily recognizable way to deliver a joke.

      Which is a form of humor. You might want to look into it.

      Then there was the Kevin Butler incident, as well as Sony getting punk'd with it.

      I mean, just paste it into google, and see how wide spread it is.

      Yes, it was only used to jailbreak and play homebrew games.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    12. Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You just tried to tell off marcan of fail0verflow

      You fail

  11. And he is an affected party how by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How can he sue for damages if he has no damages to sue for?

    1. Re:And he is an affected party how by tysonedwards · · Score: 1

      Well, you could always argue that being without your credit card for a week while waiting on your bank to issue another one is "damaging" to one's quality of life.

      If they need to take time out of their day to go to the bank to get cash from a human, the additional time spent conducting cash transactions versus the use of cards, the time to get your accounts updated to use the new Card Number to prevent your power from being shut off, and so on, then "damages" can actually be shown.

      Not much different from the random times when your wallet is stolen.

      --
      Thirty four characters live here.
  12. A password crackers gold mine. by elucido · · Score: 0

    So why would this data be valuable to hackers? Two reasons I can think of.

    1. It's a password gold mine. Since most customers reuse passwords knowing one set of irrelevant passwords can give clues or even directly produce another set of more valuable passwords.

    2. If it's information such as full name and address, and other personal information, this information can be sold on the underground black market or in the regular market. Hackers can use the personal information to commit crimes against these people, to intimidate, or to socially engineer. And if any Sony employees also had accounts it's possible they could have been compromised as well.

    So the way to protect against this is simple. Never reuse passwords. Encrypt the names and addresses so that it's only accessible from inside the building. This wont prevent hacking, but it will make it hard enough so that only an insider can hack. Something as simple as
    a smart card ID for all employees accessing the personal information would be enough to create an audit trail, make it harder to access remotely, and to provide the decryption key in an easy to use intuitive format. You scan your ID into the computer when you get to work and it can decrypt. You remove the ID and it's encrypted. Someone hacks into it, unless they have an idea card it should be encrypted.

    1. Re:A password crackers gold mine. by Fractal+Dice · · Score: 1

      Also a good idea to not use real names and push credit card companies to develop a system of one-time tokens that are only good for a single buyer-seller relationship ( or even for a single translation ) so that the stolen information has little value.

  13. DRM anyone? by lasinge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's funny how Sony works so hard to protect their data and content via all their DRM attempts, when it's their customer's - not so much. On the other hand, they now have something to point to when people want to run whatever OS they want to run on their machines. Still, they can't stop it, they should focus on keeping their customer's credit card info out of harm's way (remind me why they need to keep persistent credit card data anyway? That should be an opt in only type of thing, with a required expiration date otherwise.) On a related note, when I set up a new account at my bank they only allow alpha-numerics with no special characters. WTF? Try to explain rainbow tables to a bank representative. So I used all of them ... I had the longest password she had ever seen.

    --
    you are in a twisty maze of different passages.
    1. Re:DRM anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 .. 5 .. ?

      That's the same password to my luggage!

    2. Re:DRM anyone? by Sinthet · · Score: 1

      Storing credit-card numbers == potential cash for Sony. Ethically, I agree it should be an opt in type of thing, but by making it automatic, I'm assuming (I don't own a PS3) that people can automatically buy content, which they're probably much more likely to do when they dont need to get up off the couch to get their credit card.

    3. Re:DRM anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, I got a chuckle out of "I had the longest password she had ever seen."

    4. Re:DRM anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod parent up, it's the most interesting point yet!

    5. Re:DRM anyone? by shermo · · Score: 1

      ...dont need to get up off the couch to get their credit card

      Doesn't everyone here remember their credit card number anyway? It's 2 phone numbers. I guess if you have multiple credit cards it could be an issue, but doing so must have saved me literally tens of minutes.

      --
      Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
    6. Re:DRM anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (26+26+10+10+10) ^ LEN = (26+26+10) ^ ( LEN*y )
      y = ln(26+26+10+10+10) / ln(26+26+10) = 1.067

      Nothing special to a computer about the 'special' characters. Adding them in only makes your password slightly stronger, you would get the same effect by choosing about a 7% longer password.

    7. Re:DRM anyone? by vegiVamp · · Score: 1

      Not exactly. Your card is stored, so the PS3's master account holder doesn't need to get off his arse to top up the PS3 points wallet. Once that walled is topped, all of the system's users can buy content.

      Topping up the wallet isn't automatical. You need the master account password to do it.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    8. Re:DRM anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On a related note, when I set up a new account at my bank they only allow alpha-numerics with no special characters. WTF? Try to explain rainbow tables to a bank representative. So I used all of them ... I had the longest password she had ever seen.

      My thoughts exactly ! Our passwords are even limited between 8-12 alphanumeric characters !
      Well at least I know my PIN and TAN are safe /sarcasm

    9. Re:DRM anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know that PSN content was stolen as well?

    10. Re:DRM anyone? by mjwx · · Score: 1

      It's funny how Sony works so hard to protect their data and content via all their DRM attempts, when it's their customer's - not so much.

      More ironic then funny,

      Ironic that their attempts at protecting customer data have been as successful as their DRM.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    11. Re:DRM anyone? by delinear · · Score: 1

      Ugh, I hate that - besides I'm always dubious when special characters aren't allowed in passwords. If they're hashing it, it shouldn't matter to them what characters I use, so it always makes me wonder why they'd have such a policy unless they're storing it plain text and don't want to worry about sanitising little Bobby Tables. I hope your password was along the lines of: y0urCr4ppyP4ssw0rdSyst3mThr34t3n5MyS3cur1ty

    12. Re:DRM anyone? by I'm+not+really+here · · Score: 1

      Seriously. I'm leaving my bank because their password policy is:

      Alpha and Numeric values only, no punctuation, no special characters. Minimum length: 6 characters. Maximum length: 8 characters.

      I explained to their security department how ridiculous this was, and that a password like that is inherently highly insecure, detailed all the reasons, explained that I use passwords that are full sentences with punctuation and a few special characters peppered throughout... their answer? Sorry, allowing longer passwords leads to more requests for password resets.

      Convenience for the bank support desk was ranked more important than my ability to secure my financial data. Yep... looking for a better bank.

      --
      Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
    13. Re:DRM anyone? by houghi · · Score: 1

      remind me why they need to keep persistent credit card data anyway? That should be an opt in only type of thing, with a required expiration date otherwise.

      The only reason is so they can easily charge you without you having the need to click OK. Because that could mean that you won't click OK the next time.

      Opt in? That would mean trying to transfer the blame to the customer.

      There is absolutely no need to keep the credit card number and in some countries it is even forbidden.

      How things should work:
      1) Customer types in credit card stuff.
      2) Company asks CC Company if payment for XY amount is autorized.
      3) CC Company says yes and gives a reference number
      4) Company forgets the number, except the last four and combines this with the name of the customer, time it was done, IP adress, email adress and reference number.

      That will be enough to identify the customer if he complains. If the card was not called in as stolen he has to pay. If he didn't, he is responsible for it.

      But then in Europe it is pretty common NEVER to give your card to anybody else, including waiters. They will come with the machine, put it in the machine that reads the chip card. In the US often the magnetic strip is the one that is used.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    14. Re:DRM anyone? by lasinge · · Score: 1

      Opt in? That would mean trying to transfer the blame to the customer.

      I hadn't looked at it that way, I suppose a lawyer would argue that. So the question is how do we push for laws that make it illegal to persistently store CC info, I am guessing this case will affect a lot of people and as the CC companies are the ones who end up footing the bill for fraud, it should benefit them as well.

      --
      you are in a twisty maze of different passages.
    15. Re:DRM anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On a related note, when I set up a new account at my bank they only allow alpha-numerics with no special characters. WTF? Try to explain rainbow tables to a bank representative. So I used all of them ... I had the longest password she had ever seen.

      Your password is abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890?

    16. Re:DRM anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      when I set up a new account at my bank they only allow alpha-numerics with no special characters. WTF? Try to explain rainbow tables to a bank representative. So I used all of them ... I had the longest password she had ever seen.

      So, your password is "thequickbrownfoxjumpsoverthelazydog1234567890"?

    17. Re:DRM anyone? by lasinge · · Score: 1

      ummmm, no.

      --
      you are in a twisty maze of different passages.
    18. Re:DRM anyone? by lasinge · · Score: 1

      pretty much, except in a different order.

      --
      you are in a twisty maze of different passages.
    19. Re:DRM anyone? by lasinge · · Score: 1

      Thanks for that, seriously I wouldn't have thought that. What are you defining as "special characters"? I'm not sure if I follow your equations either, forgive me for being daft I honestly want to know.

      --
      you are in a twisty maze of different passages.
  14. Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually I just got a notifaction from Sony abou this today.
    And According to this http://vgn365.com/2011/04/26/psn-users-reporting-hundred-of-dollars-stolen-from-them/
    The CC's are already in the wild.
    I know Visa is aware of the issue. They have reissued me a new card based on this information.
    So yea it could go somewere

    1. Re:Well... by master811 · · Score: 1

      Actually I just got a notifaction from Sony abou this today.
      And According to this http://vgn365.com/2011/04/26/psn-users-reporting-hundred-of-dollars-stolen-from-them/
      The CC's are already in the wild.
      I know Visa is aware of the issue. They have reissued me a new card based on this information.
      So yea it could go somewere

      And yet you believe this? There is no proof and according to Sony all CC data was encrypted. For all we know it's simply a troll trying to stir up trouble.

      http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/04/28/playstation-network-and-qriocity-outage-faq

    2. Re:Well... by Cederic · · Score: 1

      VISA don't issue credit cards.

      Not to mention that the set of "PSN users" and the set of "People whose credit cards have been fraudulently charged" were never mutually exclusive, so PSN users suffering card fraud is not itself an indication that the PSN compromise led to that fraud.

      Of course, sensible people with either cancel their card or at least closely monitor their statements for a few years. But sensible people monitor their card statements anyway..

    3. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2 users (out of 77M PSN users) almost certainly get their card skimmed somewhere, blame it on Sony, and /. mods it to 5 Interesting? WTF?

      Captcha: unbiased

    4. Re:Well... by master811 · · Score: 1

      Actually VISA do issue credit cards, not directly of course, but through other banks etc. Although, I still find it unlikely that these 2 people have actually lost money because of this.

    5. Re:Well... by Khyber · · Score: 1

      I'll believe it, my fiance is missing a bunch of money suddenly from his own bank account. Yesterday direct deposit of paycheck. Today, more than half of that is suddenly missing with the bank (Wells Fargo) calling us to confirm all of these wild transactions are legitimate.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  15. Is a lawsuit necessary at this stage? by joeflies · · Score: 1

    So he's after recovery of damages, but so far it doesn't indicate that he's experienced fraud, and it's not going to come out of his pocket anyways (the credit card company would handle any fraudulent charges).

    He also wants credit card monitoring services, but it's not exactly clear that Sony would not have offered such services. It sounds like they're still investigating the extent of the breach. By making it part of the lawsuit, just how long will it take to get the services? After the lawsuit has been settled several months from now? I'd bet that he'd get the services a lot sooner through public pressure than as a remedy of a lawsuit.

    Which leaves the third part of what he seeks - recovery of lawyer fees. Now it's pretty clear why this lawsuit exists at this stage - the opportunity for the lawyers to get rich in the name of consumer protection.

    1. Re:Is a lawsuit necessary at this stage? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sony has already announced what happened...NOW is the time for them to offer credit monitoring services. Not in a month after the data has already made its rounds in the hacker circles.

    2. Re:Is a lawsuit necessary at this stage? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      And your credit card has been used to launder money by buying child porn and the FBI is about to knock on your door and destroy your life.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  16. Ooops by M0j0_j0j0 · · Score: 1

    They really messed up this time! life is a bitch aint it?

  17. Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by artor3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Our wonderful, conservative-activist Supreme Court just ruled today that any company may stick a line in their EULA stating that by using their product, you forfeit the right to sue, and must instead use a private arbiter of the corporation's choice. They based this decision on a 90 year old law that was written to cover maritime shipping disputes.

    Of course, since most contracts these days state that the corporation has the right to change the terms at any time without notice, this basically means that you can no longer sue a company that you've entered into a contract with.

    Still think you have rights? Not as long as a Republican holds office!

    1. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sony can put anything they want into their EULA, that doesn't mean it's legal or enforceable.

    2. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by artor3 · · Score: 1

      Keep telling yourself that. The Supremes just ruled otherwise, and their opinion is the one that counts.

    3. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by fermat1313 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Um, you completely don't understand this. Arbitration is a long-standing method of settling a dispute between parties. It is extremely common in Professional Services engagement agreements, and it is also very common in other service agreements. I'm quite sure almost every agreement you sign for internet, phone, electricity, cable TV, etc also includes arbitration language.

      Arbitration is a good thing. It allows small matters to be handled quickly, less expensively, and without mucking up our already congested court system. If you read the opinion, the court indicate that AT&T's arbitration agreement is specifically written to encourage the company to act in good faith. If a customer receives an arbitration award greater than the last written settlement offer, the customer gets $7,500 + twice any lawyer's fees. Clearly, AT&T has incentive to provide a good settlement. In this case, AT&T would have offered the plaintiffs $30.22, which is what the plaintiffs were (perhaps) wrongly charged in sales tax. Any decent arbitrator would have given the plaintiffs $30.22, which is what they were their real loss. Trust me, arbitration agreements are a good thing. Our court system would be practically non-functional without them.

    4. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by lenroc · · Score: 3, Informative

      Our wonderful, conservative-activist Supreme Court just ruled today that any company may stick a line in their EULA stating that by using their product, you forfeit the right to sue, and must instead use a private arbiter of the corporation's choice.

      Not true, actually. They ruled that customers that have signed a contract with a clause to that effect are bound to it. AFAIK, there is no settled case law saying that a shrinkwrap EULA is equivalent to a valid, signed contract.

    5. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by xMrFishx · · Score: 1

      EULAs don't trump consumer laws, especially in europe. You don't have a signature on a EULA, they don't mean jack shit over here. The ICO (information comissioner's office) - responsible for the data protection laws in the UK is already looking into this.

    6. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by bobstreo · · Score: 1

      I did not accept the EULA.

      Any lawyers want to represent?

    7. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by PRMan · · Score: 5, Informative

      Techdirt just found that 96% of awards in business vs consumer arbitration go to the business. Still stand by your statement?

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    8. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by raehl · · Score: 1, Informative

      If by "go to the business" you mean the customer was charged $30.22 extra, and the business offered $30.22 credit, and the customer wanted arbitration, and the arbitrator decided on $30.22, then yes, I stand by his statement.

    9. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats not what he means, and you didnt read his link ass hat.

    10. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still think you have rights? Not as long as a Republican holds office!

      Someone still clings to the delusion that there are meaningful differences between the two parties...

    11. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by cptdondo · · Score: 2

      Arbitration works well between equals, or those who have equal exposure, and in highly technical disputes like proifessional services where a jury of one's peers would be hard to find.

      That relationship does not hold for an individual customer against a company that is larger than most nations, and controls vast resources.

    12. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by MimeticLie · · Score: 1

      I took that statement as being ironic, given that it's a Democrat who's in office at the moment.

    13. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by sound+vision · · Score: 0

      I don't believe the supreme court judges are affiliated with any party. I know they are often classified as either "conservative" or "liberal", but that's just another false dichotomy. As for the elected officials, one house of our Congress is not controlled by the Republicans, nor is the office of the president. So, I do not believe it is fair to lay the blame for anything wrong with our country solely on one party. Expressing that sort of blind partisanship makes you no better than those demanding of Obama multiple birth certificates, college transcripts, and Certificates of Non-Muslimity. As much as I want to go further into this, I won't. There are sure to be political articles on Slashdot where this discussion won't be completely off-topic.

    14. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      p>Still think you have rights? Not as long as a POLITICIAN holds office!

      There

      Fixed it for you

    15. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by delinear · · Score: 1

      As far as I can see, unless they make you read and agree to the EULA before any money changes hands, there's no way such a clause added after the contract should be able to change the nature of the contract. It might be fairer if I were allowed to return the item if I don't agree with the EULA for a full refund, but since most places don't accept non-faulty returns on sonftware or consoles (and when they do it's only for store credit) I don't see how this could ever meet even the most rudimentary test of fairness required to form a contractual obligation.

    16. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wacky liberals who don't understand the law and blame everything on republicans.

    17. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And even if you had a signature on an EULA, it would just be a normal contract and in most of Europe enforceable contracts can't contain clauses that contradict the law.

    18. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Arbitration is nice in theory, but in reality it gives business more footing, more power, and less accountability.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    19. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, you think that it is a good idea to let the opposition choose the referee?

      Referees like to get paid, guess which ones will get repeat customers.

    20. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Dude (or Dudette),

      You're simply blind. Both (D) and (R) are completely complicit in robbing us of our "rights". The (D) love to take away 2nd Amendment rights, while establishing "rights" that require taking from others to complete (health care) denying others of their rights. It is a mother's"right" to kill unborn babies, which deny babies the RIGHT to live.

      This isn't to say that the (R) are innocent here either, because they are not. As long as any (D) or (R) holds office, our rights are being eroded. Yes, I'm a Libertarian, and I can't stand people who don't know what a "right" is.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    21. Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue by artor3 · · Score: 1

      Every vote in favor of this ruling came from a Republican. Every vote against this ruling came from a Democrat.

      I know you need to rationalize your decision to vote for a Republican, but the truth is that the parties are very very different.

  18. Re:Good FUCKING Grief... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In a country where corporations like Sony effectively own lawmakers, criminal remedies are impossible. Civil cases involving "lawyer whores" are the only recourse allowed (short of vigilantism).

  19. Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Mad+Leper · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmm, something not right here.

    PSN is free, so it's hard to imagine how anyone is entitled to any compensation there unless it's through a goodwill gesture by Sony (which they definitely should do).
    No proof yet any credit cards have actually been compromised. And before you all get puffy and worked up, literally, NO PROOF of any CC problems that can be linked to the PSN breach have been proven (yet).
    There's no way the banks would allow Sony to have access to CC accounts without being regularly audited, never heard of any problems there. So I would think it's safe to assume they've been following safe business practices or else we would have heard something by now.
    According to latest reports, Sony reported the possibility of account & CC details being compromised a little over a day after they found out. Difficult to claim that's an egregious length of time given the circumstances.

    With all that plus the fact that it's common knowledge that Sony has been repeatedly targeted by hackers and thieves out of revenge for Sony having the audacity to protect their network and customers, this lawsuit is going to have a very difficult time making any headway.

      So what is exactly this lawsuit about? Since this originates in the US (the most litigious country in the world) I say it's just more ambulance chasing i.e. business as usual.

    1. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We're in some pretty muddy water with this one. PSN is *NOT* free since you need to have a PS3 to use it (barring other devices that might use it, eg. PSP). If I go out and buy a PS3 and then I can't use it due to PSN being down then is there a cause for action? I'm essentially being locked out of a device that I've paid for. We don't yet know the legalities of "always-on" tied services but it's pretty clear right now there's a bunch of people that can't play multiplayer games on a console that they've bought. Now if I were being sensible I'd say "who cares? Wait a few days and try again" - just like I'd expect my parents to have told me several years ago. Given the "I want, I want, I WANT!! GIMME!!" attitude of modern kids and their litigious parents these days though I wouldn't be surprised to see this cranking through the courts.

      The second part of the question is whether having your card details stolen is a grounds for action either. The US has no data protection law (except California) so I'd immediately have to say "Um, no" and that's the echo you'll get from a courtroom. Is that right? Probably not, but that's beyond the point. Sony can't really be held responsible for every Joe Haxx0r in the universe that's out to get them, and you can't defend against 100% of threats no matter what software you're using. It's pretty hard to prove negligence when there's no real gold standard for security.

    2. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by raehl · · Score: 1

      PSN is free. The multi-player game that doesn't work at all if PSN is down isn't.

    3. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "PSN is free," is that why there are credit card numbers stored on it?

      Before you comment on topics like this, ask yourself, what is 2+2?

      Come back when you understand the subject.

    4. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by greg1104 · · Score: 2

      Look at the Davidson data breach class action lawsuit for a case extremely similar to this one. There's also the (still pending as far as I can tell) Citizens Financial Bank breach case. Not following the standards of the industry for securing this sort of data can absolutely lead to a class action settlement, even if there is no hard written security standard.

    5. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by tgd · · Score: 1

      On top of that, there is zero liability, generally, for fraudulent credit card transactions, and they didn't have enough data for real identity theft.

      Card numbers getting stolen are a pain in the ass, but I've never seen anywhere liable for anything more than once in a while paying for a year of credit monitoring service or something.

    6. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PSN is free, so it's hard to imagine how anyone is entitled to any compensation there unless it's through a goodwill gesture by Sony (which they definitely should do).

      I pay for PlayStation®Plus. It's not free for me.

    7. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the single player games that stopped working because they couldn't verify. They never guaranteed you'd e able to play multiplayer, but I'd love to see them try and squeeze out of a single player game for a home console...that won't work because a server you didn't know it needed was down somewhere. Remember, they only require you to have an Internet connection for it to work, they never mention that it has to actually connect to their server (for single player)...

    8. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You would be wrong. Sony has to inform people when these kinds of things occur; to sit on it is negligent, period. The only thing Sony had to do was tell people as soon as they found out that the compromise had occurred. Instead they sat on this thing for 6 days. As for the origin of the lawsuit, I'm pretty sure there are good and bad lawsuits everywhere.

      As for Sony being attacked for protecting their network and customers, ha, that's laughable. Sony has never looked out for anyone other than Sony, it was only several years ago they were installing rootkits on customer machines, kind of their way of saying thanks!

    9. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "PSN is free, so it's hard to imagine how anyone is entitled to any compensation there unless it's through a goodwill gesture by Sony (which they definitely should do)."

      Because they caused damages.

      I don't have to pay anything to have some guy run over my foot in his car because he's not watching where he's going. Doesn't mean he can't be held financially liable for the injuries he caused me.

    10. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by ProfMobius · · Score: 1
      For what I gathered so far (I don't own a PS3), PSN is free, buying on it is not. The credit card is not required to register to PSN but only if you buy games on it.

      You are the one without a clue, go play somewhere else.

      --
      EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
    11. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And before you all get puffy and worked up, literally, NO PROOF of any CC problems that can be linked to the PSN breach have been proven (yet).

      Thankfully, the CC protection laws aren't written like that, because they'd be completely worthless. What do you expect them to do, interview the Romanian mob and ask if they got the CC#s from the PSN? Of course not. You don't need proof that this is how the thieves got the data because that proof is essentially impossible to get.

      So what is exactly this lawsuit about?

      Failure to protect private information. Sony has some legal obligations to protect credit-card related info. They haven't necessarily violated that, but it does sound extremely likely that they have. "Debug access" is very, very frequently an all-encompassing thing.

    12. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PSN is free. The multi-player game that doesn't work at all if PSN is down isn't.

      Like the multi-player xbox game that wont work when the player DOESN'T have xbox live?

    13. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would not mind PSN being down if they did not force third party apps developers to check for PSN to be logged in. Now a lot of things are not working like online games, probably purchased movies and Netflix (some Netflix customers can still stream but not all of them, again because of DRM). These are things that people paid for and cannot use, all because Sony did not allow for failover. If psn got hacked, just setup fallback servers which allows people to run in degraded mode when talking to Sony is not an absolute need. I'm pretty sure a lot of online games would still work.

    14. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're right, then Final Fantasy XI and XIV, being MMO's, have been hit pretty hard and people will be cancelling accounts in droves. XIV was doing pretty bad even at the beginning, from what I remember in an earlier slashdot story. Whoopsie.

      That'll make Square think twice about pushing out online-only versions for at least a couple more revisions.

    15. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Nemyst · · Score: 2

      1) PSN is free, but that doesn't mean anything. The information I've given Sony have been given in the assumption that they would be kept with a modicum of safety. This was obviously not the case. It's even worse if the credit cards have indeed been compromised, in which case monetary compensation is far from being out of the question.

      2) Reported a day after, where? I'm sorry, but saying it somewhere on the internet doesn't count. If you don't contact your customers on agreed-upon areas (email is the sole official contact anybody registering has given them), you haven't reported anything. I've received the email this morning. That's not one day.

      3) Oh sure, so now because something's a target they're shielded from being dumb? Much of it is actually Sony reaping what they've sowed, but even notwithstanding that, it doesn't matter. If a bank gets a lot of frauds, does it mean it can stop paying back the customers?

    16. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PSN is free yes, but what rights do those that signed up for PlayStation Plus have?

      Not only is their PAID subscription service offline for almost a week, Sony lost their trusted information.

    17. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by The+Moof · · Score: 1

      There's also some additional services that require a card on record at Sony tied to your PSN account (Qriocity and Playstation+). There's also the stored card information for your wallet if you set that up as well.

    18. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by chrismcb · · Score: 1

      There's no way the banks would allow Sony to have access to CC accounts without being regularly audited, never heard of any problems there.

      Really? Perhaps the banks don't know that Sony has access to CC accounts. AFAIK banks don't go around auditing their customers to see if they are complaint with storing CC accounts (and yes actually I am a bank customer. I wrote the code that sends the CC off to the bank. And no, we don't store the CC anywhere on our system. But the bank doesn't know that)

    19. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because the service is free doesn't give them the right to not treat your billing information with care. Sony's incompetence led directly to around SEVENT FIVE MILLION PEOPLE having their personal information put online.

      I'd hate to be SCEU right now. The EU doesn't fuck around with their data protection laws. The resultant fines could very well bankrupt the branch.

    20. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On top of that, there is zero liability, generally, for fraudulent credit card transactions

      That is true, but Sony also accepted debit cards, and the liability limitations (and general negotiating positions) are less consumer-favorable there. Plus, a large loss to a checking account linked to a debit card can cause you to bounce checks, incurring more losses which are not refundable, even if the initial loss is only temporary.

      Anyway the real problem here is not showing harm, I would think (there are already some reports of losses; there are bound to be, and it's easy to convince a jury those are most likely from this breach rather than another), but rather showing that Sony didn't take reasonable precautions and should be liable. As the GP points out they probably have regular audits to prove otherwise. If they can show they took the standard security precautions, then if I were the court I'd be tempted to say "sue the hacker," or if the security standards are too weak, then "sue the banks that established the standards Sony followed."

    21. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by vegiVamp · · Score: 2

      > PSN is free
      Playstation Plus isn't.

      > NO PROOF of any CC problems that can be linked to the PSN breach
      Pretty hard to prove in the best of cases. You could just as easily go the other way and have Sony prove someone else leaked the card. You'd need to track down the source of the fraudulent charges and keep tracking right to the source in both cases.

      > no way the banks would allow [...] without being regularly audited
      Are you really suggesting that banks audit their corporate customers' software, on a regular basis?

      > Sony reported [...] a little over a day after they found out
      Umm... they've taken PSN down a week ago. I only just today received notification. They reported 'external intrusion' on their blogs almost a week ago. That tells me the 'possibility' was known from way back then.

      --
      What a depressingly stupid machine.
    22. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In the case of people within the EU that're affected, whether it's free or not is largely irrelevant, I believe (IANAL). Organisations have a responsibility to protect any customer information they hold. Local laws vary throughout the EU but in the UK it'd largely be under the Data Protection Act.

      That act, directly, doesn't provide any legal recourse for individuals (from memory) but the punishments for companies can be severe.

    23. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Cederic · · Score: 2

      they didn't have enough data for real identity theft

      Well, no, they didn't have full DNA samples, photographs of all scars and tattoos and a voiceprint to enable full replication.

      I guess it's lucky that they can't do too much damage with name, address, date of birth, security question answers and credit card details.

      Care to share yours?

    24. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Cederic · · Score: 1

      You probably ought to read up on PCI DSS then. Start here:
      https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/merchants/index.php

      The bank maybe doesn't audit you, but in this country they will demand certification from a QSA, and those guys will audit you because they're liable for your fuck-ups if they sign you off.

    25. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about my privacy? what about the fact my e-mail *was* spam free before this shit happened?

      What's that worth? To me, a fair bit, but not to Sony, it seems.

      Oh, and here is some evidence for you, posted way back in February:
      http://www.twitlonger.com/show/8vok1d
      And, just to clarify: "even though the account in question has only ever been used on the psn"
      Assuming this guy isn't bullshitting (and I have no idea why he would, as this post is way older than the past week), Sony has a lot to answer for.

    26. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They stored CCVs. This is a cardinal sin in credit card storage guidelines. They could not have passed a legit PCI-DSS audit while storing CCVs. Either they fudged their audit or they aren't required to have one (non-US company maybe?)

    27. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah but Sony did very little to protect their customer's info. Banks don't audit the security of every company that takes credit cards. Sony's security model relied solely on not being broken into. Hell locking a file using MS Excel's password feature would be more than Sony did.

      Yes there's no proof any credit card info was exposed. But clearly Sony are being tight lipped about this. Which begs the question: What aren't they telling us? If taking them to court is what it takes to get answers... so be it.

    28. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And before you all get puffy and worked up, literally, NO PROOF of any CC problems that can be linked to the PSN breach have been proven (yet).
      There's no way the banks would allow Sony to have access to CC accounts without being regularly audited, never heard of any problems there. So I would think it's safe to assume they've been following safe business practices or else we would have heard something by now.
      According to latest reports, Sony reported the possibility of account & CC details being compromised a little over a day after they found out. Difficult to claim that's an egregious length of time given the circumstances.

      With all that plus the fact that it's common knowledge that Sony has been repeatedly targeted by hackers and thieves out of revenge for Sony having the audacity to protect their network and customers, this lawsuit is going to have a very difficult time making any headway.

        So what is exactly this lawsuit about? Since this originates in the US (the most litigious country in the world) I say it's just more ambulance chasing i.e. business as usual.

      According to this article (taken from a post that was submitted while you were writing yours) CC problems have surfaced: http://vgn365.com/2011/04/26/psn-users-reporting-hundred-of-dollars-stolen-from-them/

      The mass litigation is a crock though- just an opportunity some scumbag lawyer sees to retire off of.

    29. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by nstlgc · · Score: 1

      PSN is free, so it's hard to imagine how anyone is entitled to any compensation
      So the people who entered their credit card info did so for shits and giggles? Obviously some part of the network required payment.

      No proof yet any credit cards have actually been compromised.
      "Yet" being the key word here. I've read a few posts from people who have already seen fraudulent charges on their credit card, so I assume the "proof" you're asking for isn't very far away.

      There's no way the banks would allow Sony to have access to CC accounts without being regularly audited
      Lol, what?

      According to latest reports, Sony reported the possibility of account & CC details being compromised a little over a day after they found out.
      I heard it took them 6 days, but even a day would be quite alot of time.

      hackers and thieves out of revenge for Sony having the audacity to protect their network and customers
      Obviously they're doing a shit job at both protecting their network and their customers. First those Anonymous script kiddies cripple PSN, then it gets hacked. Don't fool yourself, all they're interested in is protecting their own asses.

      Apologist much?

      --
      I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
    30. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they didn't have enough data for real identity theft.

      Not enough data for real identity theft? I'm pretty sure a small child could take the stolen data and go to work pretty easily. Not to mention what someone who has chosen social engineering as a profession would be able to do with that information.

      Although we are still investigating the details of this incident,
      we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following
      information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country,
      email address, birthdate,
      PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login,
      and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data,
      including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip),
      and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may
      have been obtained.

    31. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes because noone can be concerned about the security withough being a sue happy american

      How dare people use hardware they have bought to run there own programs! expecially when sony has already removed those features kindly enough for us aswell

    32. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have played the home team to those auditors many a time.

      You know how you get through them?

      Your company spends a whole ton of money and time, because they fucked up in the first place or:

      They lie and perform cursory repairs that the auditors (who aren't all that well trained) believe are sufficient.

      Which means: you encrypt your fields, and hide the key in your registry, or a flat textfile in "bob's" home directory, etc etc. Compliance means learning the test, it's like primary school: teach to the standards and your kids can pass the test, it doesn't mean they learned a damn thing though.

      I couldn't stand this crap and had to leave the credit processing arena on principal.

    33. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by delinear · · Score: 1

      More likely if there is a danger of people cancelling they'll throw them some free gear.

    34. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by nschubach · · Score: 1

      We're in some pretty muddy water with this one. PSN is *NOT* free since you need to have a PS3 to use it (barring other devices that might use it, eg. PSP).

      Technically, you do not need any Sony device to have a PSN account. You can create an account online.

      You also don't need the device to "use" the account unless you consider "use" buying items. In which case, you'd still be wrong because you can download things from the online store to your PC.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    35. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      They moment they know they were compromised, a statement to consumers should have gone out. Literally within minutes.
      AN update late could give more specific information.

      They should also redirect all attempts to connect to PSN to a page that shows the most recent information instead.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    36. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Banks don't audit corporations at all for PCI compliance. Once you show your system is sound they never look at it again and PCI issues are only brought forth on a complaint basis. In other words: more companies are unsafely storing your credit card information than you can possibly imagine, and if you think that banks are protecting you from companies who don't know how to look after data, then you're in for a really rude awakening.

      Banks don't police people who collect card numbers. They sort-of police people who make card-processing software, and publish standards by which to treat cardholder information, but on your own system it is too easy to bypass these best practices - and they'd never know unless there was a breach.

      The only reason a bank would be useful would be for their CC fraud procedures, which you'd use once the company has allowed your card and other personal information to be compromised.

      In summary, your statement that banks would not allow sony access to CC accounts without being regularly audited is false.

    37. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and there's 'no proof' 9/11 was an inside job.

    38. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://vgn365.com/2011/04/26/psn-users-reporting-hundred-of-dollars-stolen-from-them/

    39. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Sony Computer Entertainment of America.

      That is clearly an American-based company.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    40. Re:Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As you know nothing at all about the issue it's amazing you've been modded insightful.

      The lawsuit isn't about the fact that PSN is down; it's about the fact that Sony failed to properly secure the private information of it's customers. As far back as February it's been public knowledge that Sony was not encrypting ANY personal data. Check here http://www.ps3hax.net/2011/02/call-of-privacy-modern-spyware-by-playstation-network/ for more relevant info. Sony has know SINCE THE BEGINNING that your credit card information was completely unencrypted on their servers and just assumed that their network security would be good enough.

      Having your credit card information (including the security code) stolen IS a credit card problem.

      Your "common knowledge" is (as common knowledge usually is) based on a cursory understanding of the issues people were having with Sony previously. If you knew anything less about this situation--or even how banks work--I would be amazed.

  20. Two Words: Electronic Discovery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sigh. What is with all these "hard time showing it" posts. He won't have a hard time if he gets a remotely qualified lawyer if they're at all at fault, although it may be incredibly costly.

    IANAL, but maybe one can comment.

    By filing the lawsuit, Sony has effectively been put on notice that they have a duty to preserve any and all evidence reasonably remotely related to this incident. They can still perform PR, issue press releases, study the breach...whatever. But any and all notes, emails, IMs, data records, metadatas, and files that are reasonably likely to have anything related to this incident must NOW BE RETAINED and are no longer subject to normal corporate data retention policy. That means they can't just ship the computers off to some third party forensics specialist who can conveniently lose them if they decide they can't get enough information to press charges against whoever did it. It means that if they have a policy of deleting any unused emails in 90 days, they probably get slapped hard. I believe some states even treat this as presumptive guilt these days.

    Beyond any sort of wall-street /corporate data retention records, even their day to day correspondences are presumably subject to discovery...

    Should they delete an email, a voicemail, shred a fax...whatever--they are likely to be sanctioned in the event it wasn't a reasonable accident. Given the nature of how corporations and the legal system work, the only reasonable thing to do if you suspect Sony was at fault IS TO FILE IMMEDIATELY. Because in a month, some of the relevant data may already be long gone.

    And given we know they sat on it for a week, it seems reasonable to me to assume they have gravely screwed up--if only in due diligence and their ability to figure out what went wrong in event of a problem. And now Sony has to preserve all that related ESI and can't just shred it to protect their share price.

    There's a reason they say justice favors the vigilant--given the workings of the system--the sooner you file, the more likely they are to have information you can access.

  21. SCEA or SNEA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got an email last month telling me that I needed to agree to new terms of service for the PSN, as they were transferring ownership from SCEA to a new Sony subsidiary, Sony Network Entertainment of America (SNEA). According to the terms, if I didn't agree, my PSN account would be closed and I would actually get a refund of outstanding funds in my wallet (i.e. it's serious enough for Sony to actually part with money). I haven't bothered with looking at the new terms (either way, PSN is useless when I'm still running firmware 3.15), but I have to ask: who exactly got attack here? Is there a meaningful difference? Would my info be on the compromised systems when I've not consented to SNEA's terms?

    1. Re:SCEA or SNEA by Penguinoflight · · Score: 1

      Given that Sony simply imported the data from one "child" company to another I don't expect that the owner of the company matters. It interests me that by closing the service on one company and opening it on another (along with a completely new TOS), would clauses regarding forcing a customer to use arbitration then be rendered void? The EULA is a legal document which supposedly forms a contract between one party and another; by failing to continue to provide service on the original company sony has breached that contract.

      What of the millions (of 77+ I'm sure there's a few) who have yet to agree to the new EULA. Even in the case that one or both EULAs contain requirements that users handle disputes through arbitration I'd expect many individuals would not be held to these requirements at all.

      Any lawyers care to correct me?

      --
      "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
      1 John 4:14
    2. Re:SCEA or SNEA by nomadic · · Score: 1

      Most of these kinds of contracts allow the company to assign their rights in the contract to another party.

  22. Like Bitcoin? by elucido · · Score: 0

    I agree with the one time tokens. That would be a good start.

    I think we have to consider that even if we did secure financial information, and we definitely should, what about the address and other information? The company has to have that unless we can find a way to secure it offsite and add it to the one time token concept. This way the entire token expires immediately after payment, including the real name and address which could be within the token.

  23. Delayed Reaction.. by Billlagr · · Score: 1

    Well, I recieved 'official' notification about this approximately 2 hours ago - 8.55am, April 28 (Aus EST). The email is vague hand waving at best, and they suggest once that the service is restored, the you change passwords and check your credit card statement. Of course, they couldn't have my CC details, because Sony wouldn't have stored such information in plain text, now would they...?

    1. Re:Delayed Reaction.. by compro01 · · Score: 1

      Of course they wouldn't. This is Sony. They have their own non-ASCII, non-unicode, propitiatory format for storing text.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    2. Re:Delayed Reaction.. by ozdeadman · · Score: 1

      Of course they wouldn't. This is Sony. They have their own non-ASCII, non-unicode, propitiatory format for storing text.

      mod this up, i find it hard to believe that sony would be using non-proprietary methods to store data given Memory Stick, MiniDisc, UMD etc

  24. A departure for me- by rogerdugans · · Score: 1

    Usually I am against the rampant lawsuits over hot coffee and anything else the shills can think of, but this is one I am in favor of.
    Sony seems to have taken over as the current best example of "Evil Large Corporation" in the public eye, and deservedly so.

    Now if we could just get the pharmaceutical companies.......

    --
    Linux computers, watercooled, photography
    1. Re:A departure for me- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Usually I am against the rampant lawsuits over hot coffee and anything else the shills can think of, but this is one I am in favor of.
      Sony seems to have taken over as the current best example of "Evil Large Corporation" in the public eye, and deservedly so.

      You must be confused, I haven't seen Sony behave in an evil way that is at all dissimilar to the other evil companies (MS, Apple, Nintendo, etc). So why should they be given the title of "best example of ELC".

      In this case they had a data security breach, we'll have to wait to find out if this was caused by negligence or not. Even if it was negligence, stupid =/= evil.

    2. Re:A departure for me- by Voyager529 · · Score: 1

      Usually I am against the rampant lawsuits over hot coffee and anything else the shills can think of, but this is one I am in favor of.
      Sony seems to have taken over as the current best example of "Evil Large Corporation" in the public eye, and deservedly so.

      You must be confused, I haven't seen Sony behave in an evil way that is at all dissimilar to the other evil companies (MS, Apple, Nintendo, etc). So why should they be given the title of "best example of ELC".

      Apple and Sony both sell devices whose firmware was jailbroken. Both jailbreak methods were made available through significant contributions from George Hotz. One of them brought Hotz to court. Guess Who.

    3. Re:A departure for me- by rogerdugans · · Score: 1

      Usually I am against the rampant lawsuits over hot coffee and anything else the shills can think of, but this is one I am in favor of.
      Sony seems to have taken over as the current best example of "Evil Large Corporation" in the public eye, and deservedly so.

      You must be confused, I haven't seen Sony behave in an evil way that is at all dissimilar to the other evil companies (MS, Apple, Nintendo, etc). So why should they be given the title of "best example of ELC".

      In this case they had a data security breach, we'll have to wait to find out if this was caused by negligence or not. Even if it was negligence, stupid =/= evil.

      As said by another respondent-

      Sony has for quite a while now been conducting themselves badly- rootkits, locking down devices and generally doing anything and everything they can to prevent consumers from being able to exercise their rights to use their purchases in any legal way they see fit.

      I guess I just don't understand how developing a rootkit that will install itself on any customer pc a disk is accesses by can be looked at as anything but a criminal action.

      Maybe its me....

      --
      Linux computers, watercooled, photography
    4. Re:A departure for me- by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "Now if we could just get the pharmaceutical companies......."

      to do what? cure more people? continue to make vaccines at close to zero profit? Continue to spend billions in research? Eliminate more diseases and plagues that had haunted mankind for it's entire history untill about 60 years ago?

      Fuck you.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:A departure for me- by praxis · · Score: 1

      Now if we could just get the pharmaceutical companies to be more transparent with their pricing structures, especially when it comes to prescription coupons.

  25. Just received by flyonthewall · · Score: 1

    This is one week after the shutdown:

    "Add PlayStation_Network@playstation-email.com to your address book

    "line" (to account for the junk filter)

    PlayStation(R)Network

    "line" (to account for the junk filter)

    Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:

    We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:

    1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;

    2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and

    3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by rebuilding our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

    We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.

    Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password, login, password security answers, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data may have been obtained, including purchase history and billing address (city, state/province, zip or postal code). If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained.
      While there is no evidence that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may also have been obtained.

    For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security, tax identification or similar number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them as well.

    To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports.

    We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority.
    Please contact us at 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.

    Sincerely,

    Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment

    --
    "The avalanche has already started. It's too late for the pebbles to vote." - Kosh
    1. Re:Just received by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      too bad the stenenography in that notice means the hackers now have your slashdot ID! j/k

  26. Sony does have the image of a devilish corporation by elucido · · Score: 0

    And not protecting customer information is the single worst thing they could do to harm their image.

    I'm not even a Sony customer, and I don't own a PS3, but now that I see how lax their security is with such critical personal information, I will not be buying Sony products in the future. Sony is going to lose customers due to their obsession about profits and making money even at the expense of consumer information security.

  27. That's gonna fail because of this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.latimes.com/business/sc-dc-0428-court-class-action-web-20110427,0,1239412.story

  28. Sony was thinking about maintaining profits. by elucido · · Score: 1

    They could have warned you but they didn't. They knew it would cause panic and this panic could cause them to lose some customers.

    Now we know 77 million customers are owned by hackers. We can thank Sony for waiting so long to tell us, and we can thank Sony also for caring more about DRM and security of their intellectual property than the security of personal critical consumer information.

    What? Is your private information not as important or as valuable as theirs? I wonder how many celebrities and powerful families got their personal information compromised over this...

  29. Still no email from Sony to me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I still don't see any email from Sony to me. I know some people have gotten them, but it seems they're taking their sweet time on something that should have been sent A WEEK AGO.

    If this goes class action, unfortunately this is going to end up with everyone getting $5 voucher towards a purchase on PSN or some other nonsense.

  30. Code? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4

    Is this some sort of code?

    1. Re:Code? by froggymana · · Score: 1

      Hey! Who told you my password?

      --
      "To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
  31. Re:Good FUCKING Grief... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, I'm ethically OK with pursuing the only legal recourse available in the near-total absence of modern statutory consumer protections (e.g. Europe).

    But if you'd rather the vigilante route, we can always sic Anonymous on them again.

  32. Incoming. by westlake · · Score: 1

    46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4

    I intend to be elsewhere when the 70 million PSN account holders get a real live geek within their sights.

    It is not going to be pretty.

    Not to mention the money and firepower backing up those who sell products and services through PSN -

    and the banks who finance and service the transactions. They too will be out for blood.

  33. Dont class action by Bruha · · Score: 1

    Sue the crap out of them and be rich, otherwise you'll just probably end up with free X days the service was down, and your lawyer will be rich instead.

    1. Re:Dont class action by xs650 · · Score: 1

      The real value of a successful class action suit is that it can get the point across to a company that it can be cheaper to behave honorably and competently than not.

      If you get some money, that's just frosting on the cake.

  34. There is plenty you can do about it by elucido · · Score: 0

    For one, you don't make getting in as simple as cracking one password from one computer which just happens to be connected to the internet and sending and receiving emails, running and downloading files, etc.

    Malware is easy to protect a network from. Just don't let the network run anything it's not supposed to be running. Check files on the computer for changes once a day, basic stuff.

    On top of all this, use encryption, and don't rely on passwords. Rely on something more secure than something which can be cracked by a dictionary or standard password cracker. Make the hackers crack the hardware and actually have to write code to hack the network.

    It's always going to be possible with social engineering and unknown exploits or bugs in code, but you can audit code, you can use hardware to secure things that software can't, and you don't have to trust your employees.

  35. Re:A week is long enough for hacker to do plenty.. by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 1

    Yeah, so, they'll get a fine to offer affected customers a free downloadable game right? So what, they're just Custopeons.

    But if you copy their game first, you're going DOWN terrorist!!

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  36. Not a lick of sense. by westlake · · Score: 1

    Sony seems to have taken over as the current best example of "Evil Large Corporation" in the public eye

    It isn't Sony getting its reputation blackened. It is Anonymous, the geek, the cheat, the thief and the hacker, which the public sees as all of one kind.

  37. RSA can be cracked by differential power analysis by elucido · · Score: 0

    Side channel attacks can work even when everything is right meaning implementation of a cipher is often a lot harder than the actual security mathematically. It's actually fairly easy to code or even design (theory) a cipher which cannot be cracked on paper, but then when you try to implement it that is a different story. If the cipher is symmetric then its very easy to make it uncrackable and it wouldn't require a difficult design, but then the user has to memorize an extremely long password. This wouldn't work unless the user has a smart card with a smart card reader, or is some sort of rainman genius who can remember all the digits of pi.

    Security has to be strong and simple. Simple enough that a child can use, strong enough that a PHD student would have to crack it. Passwords no longer are simple enough, and they never were strong enough when the websites limit password length to 12 characters. So truthfully we need to move away from passwords and move toward symmetric encryption. A smart card and a reader with hardware encryption, hardware generated entropy, hardware is harder to hack than software. And on the other end the company or bank has hardware, and a smart card reader. It's just not going to be cracked period, you can use symmetric AES256 and guarantee it.

    But someone can steal the smart card and open it.

  38. Not this one by symbolset · · Score: 1

    This one is looking like a global crime network with money laundering facilities and boots on the ground. This one is going to sting, based on some reports of illicit card accesses that have happened in the past week.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
    1. Re:Not this one by mywhitewolf · · Score: 1

      yeah, a global crime network in the same sense that piracy is run by a global crime network. There are anonymizing services on the net for laundering money, and there isn't any need for boots on the ground, although the hack to get into the development environment on the PS3 was built by a larger group of players, this attack could have been pulled off by a single person.

    2. Re:Not this one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are anonymizing services on the net for laundering money,

      ;) Citation needed ;)

  39. Precisely. Why didn't they just listen to you? by elucido · · Score: 0

    I'm furious for the same reason. There is no reasonable excuse for being that ignorant when they have billions of dollars. They could have hired you, they could have hired me, and either of us could have secured their network better than that.

    Do they even have an audit trail? What is the name of the man who was the Administrator? Or did they just root the Administrator computer and find a text file with everything on it?

  40. Re:A week is long enough for hacker to do plenty.. by elucido · · Score: 0

    Yeah, so, they'll get a fine to offer affected customers a free downloadable game right? So what, they're just Custopeons.

    But if you copy their game first, you're going DOWN terrorist!!

    And it's this profit over customers attitude that has turned customers against Sony. I'm sure many of these hackers like games and probably were fans of Sony before the boycott and protesting.

    Now we see Sony doesn't care about customers at all beyond using them as a type of cattle to profit from.

  41. Transaction servers should be write-only by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It should not be possible to get card data out of your transaction processing server. That should be obvious. It should be able to receive card data and a linked account, and accept and confirm transactions from the linked account, but it should be completely unable to transmit card data. Obviously, card data should not be stored outside the transaction processing server in any form, format or fashion.

  42. Won't matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The supreme court will just say we can't sue the anyway.

  43. As one of the plainiffs being represented! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I HOPE HE WINS!

  44. evidence that Sony failed to protect the data? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's been going for how long without an intrusion? And the first sign of trouble they shoot themselves in the foot economically by pulling the plug on the service while they completely rebuild it, and go over every single log inch by inch to find out what the hacker did?

    Oh, and there's a SLIGHTEST chance that some credit card information MIGHT have been comprised, (and then not even enough to make purchases with), they warn people to be wary of charges?

    So again, what evidence is there that Sony failed to protect the data?

    Sure, they've been a aggrivatingly close-lipped about it, but they informed the public about what information might have been compromised.

  45. wouldn't it be nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they'd bring the network back up so I can figure out which password I used and change the relevant ones in my other online affairs?

    Sadly, I know this is never going to happen with existing passwords in the wild.

  46. Storing the CVV2 Number?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If I remember correctly, the post from yesterday mentioned that included among the data that was compromised were CVV2 codes (that 3-digit code on the back of your CC).

    Here's an interesting point about storing CVV2 codes...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_security_code

    For that alone, Sony should have all of its merchant accounts revoked immediately.

  47. Why the delay in disclosure? by Ambiguous+Coward · · Score: 0

    My money's on the week-long delay between break-in and public statement about what information was grabbed was because Sony wanted to give its legal department a week to wind up before lawsuits started coming in. I bet that within 12 hours of Sony discovering the break-in, they knew exactly what was going and fired up their legal department, calling in every single lawyer they have access to, and said lawyers have been working around the clock to brace for the impending legal storm.

    When they were saying crap like "We're assessing the situation," it was entirely true...they just didn't specify that it was from a legal standpoint, rather than a technical one.

    --
    Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
    1. Re:Why the delay in disclosure? by ADRA · · Score: 1

      That's just retarded, really? Why is Slashdot so full of trolling anti-Sony's? Have you ever been a systems administrator? It takes time and effort to actually detect and then judge the severity of a given attack. One week does not seem like a big deal from -woops we have a big problem- to sending out a formal acknowledgement of the issue. Hell, it would take at LEAST 1 day for a Sony rep to officially write up the disclosure in legally tin foil jargon and probably another for the notice to be translated into every language that Sony officially supports.

      --
      Bye!
    2. Re:Why the delay in disclosure? by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      Hell, it would take at LEAST 1 day for a Sony rep to officially write up the disclosure in legally tin foil jargon and probably another for the notice to be translated into every language that Sony officially supports.

      that there is a massive problem in itself, I think you are probably right but for their sake I hope your wrong as it says they were more concerned about their own arses than ensuring people were informed of the issue. In these cases the users at risk should be EVERYONES first priority, I hope it was just a case of it taking that long to sift through logs to track down what had happened and that then then immediately released the information (ie within a hour or 2 of knowing) otherwise I hope they get sued to hell and back.

    3. Re:Why the delay in disclosure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, that's SONY. You know? SONY
      How can they be so stupid?
      They deserve to shut their fucking doors, and never come back again.
      That's it.

    4. Re:Why the delay in disclosure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even in trying to defend Sony and claim they're likely focusing on the technical rather than the legal implications of this mess you admit that they probably wasted a day converting the message to CYA legalese. It just goes to show that for every Sony hater there's at least one Sony shill - the difference is most of the haters have been burned by Sony and speak from experience, not fanboyism.

    5. Re:Why the delay in disclosure? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      The moment they shut down, emails should have gone out that say there has been a breach, and they are investigating.

      This is not a system admin issue, it's a management issue. A bad decision to not inform customers.

      And the legal Jargon is boiler plate.

      I have been in situations like this, admittedly no 75million people, but in principle it's the same.
      Shut the networks
      Notify customers of a down time do you possible breach.
      Update every 12 hours on any progress. Even if the update is just a post saying it's ongoing.

      Can you imagine you ISP shutting down all of a sudden an not notifying you for over a day?

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  48. Guilt by Association by TemperedAlchemist · · Score: 1

    Because clearly, it's Sony's fault-- and not the hackers' fault-- that the hackers broke into Sony's network. Sony's questionably ethical business practices do not warrant them the blame. He's suing the wrong people, all Sony is going to do is throw their EULA in his face.

    1. Re:Guilt by Association by anonymov · · Score: 1

      You say that like there have to be only one side is to blame in this.

      Hacker should be sued by Sony, as he illegally accessed Sony's computes, and Sony should be sued by customers, as they entrusted Sony with their data which was given away by negligency.

    2. Re:Guilt by Association by TemperedAlchemist · · Score: 1

      "We exclude all liability for loss of data or unauthorised access to your data, Sony Online Network account or Sony Online Network wallet and for damage caused to your software or hardware as a result of using or accessing Sony Online Network."

      - PSN EULA

      ---

      They're not liable for unauthorized access.

    3. Re:Guilt by Association by delinear · · Score: 1

      I wonder why they didn't say that in their official press release. Maybe because they know it's not worth a damn and was only ever intended to put people off suing over minor indiscretions - it's a bit harder to say "hey, we lost the details of 77 million people but they agreed we have zero responsibility so go whistle". Still, if anything good comes out of this we can only hope that it's the courts ruling that EULAs are worth less than used toilet paper in order to prevent a possible public backlash.

    4. Re:Guilt by Association by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Yeah, well I guess where going to see about how effective a statement in a EULA which isn't signed, that the business is fully aware most people don't read and don't understand, can be updated after the fact, puts all responsibility of negligence onto their customers is going to work out for them. Hopefully this goes to the supreme court.

      I can't help but notice Sony hasn't put that into their press releases.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:Guilt by Association by TemperedAlchemist · · Score: 0

      Yeah, well I guess where going to see about how effective a statement in a EULA which isn't signed, that the business is fully aware most people don't read and don't understand, can be updated after the fact, puts all responsibility of negligence onto their customers is going to work out for them. Hopefully this goes to the supreme court.

      I can't help but notice Sony hasn't put that into their press releases.

      "I didn't know" is not an acceptable response to getting past the EULA. It's true, the majority of the populace don't read EULAs, they merely pressed, "I agree". This is not an excuse, as it is explicitly mentioned that by doing such is saying that you do understand and agree to the terms presented.

      I also like how Sony is getting trashed by people without any such proof about how the breach occurred and the methods involved-- Hell, I'm pretty sure at this point Sony doesn't even know itself. Hackers getting into Sony's security does not prove that their security is weak. Sadly, what is happening here is "guilty until proven innocent" because people just plain don't like Sony. Hence, guilt by association.

    6. Re:Guilt by Association by Khyber · · Score: 1

      EULAS MAY NOT TRUMP PRE-EXISTING LAW.

      Especially DATA PROTECTION LAWS.

      Jesus fucking christ people get that through your thick skulls.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  49. turbo fire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  50. Re:Good FUCKING Grief... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fuck Sony out of some money you really do not deserve

    you're right, i don't deserve a house, car, loan, money (even if i earned it myself) or anything that could happen because of the lapse in security that gives criminals enough information to ruin my credit rating and bankrupt me.

    but your right,I'm just trying to make a quick buck :)

  51. E-mail from Sony... by LongearedBat · · Score: 1

    I got this e-mail from Sony this morning. A little late, perhaps? <sarcasm>

    Though here's a question: How many other companies have the backbone to own up quite so readily, instead of trying to cover it up to save face?

    Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend Sony (after all, it seems thay they're finally getting help to make their system more secure, implying that their efforts were not solid enough to start with). But what I am saying is that I generally don't trust businesses to keep secure personal and credit card information, which is why I didn't give Sony my credit card details (but sadly had to give my personal information.)

  52. SONY BMG RIAA MPAA ETC by NSN+A392-99-964-5927 · · Score: 1

    These companies are all interlinked and they deserve a good suing. 77 million users cannot be wrong.... take that on the chin you cnuts!

    --
    All cows eat grass!
  53. Die Sony, Die by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, but it's time for Sony to die a quick death.

    Rootkits, DRM, removal of "Other OS", lawsuits, and other stupid antics is what made Sony a big target.

    If only Sony realized that they work for the consumer, and not the other way around.

    Bye. Playstation was great, but your money men were not.

  54. too soon.. by SuperDre · · Score: 0

    It's too soon to file a lawsuit if you really want to win, at this moment there is no real information on what really happened, and according to Sony they really only knew about the possible theft a day before they announced it due to the analysis being performed. Also it's not clear if security was adequate according to current standards (remember, NOTHING is unhackable).. He should at least have waited a few weeks before filing a lawsuit..

  55. Alarmists will be alarmists, and douche bags by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People are so over reacting, if my credit card has been stolen then well Sony you fucked up. If hackers didn't break the encrypted servers, well looks like someone got my personal info without being my friend on facebook. I'm only slightly upset over this whole deal at this point and that's mostly because I have to wait a while longer to play Arcana Hearts 3

  56. Does anyone else feel raped? by theKingofShit · · Score: 1

    This would not happen to amazon, paypal or any other instance with 77 million users - with sensitive personal data. I'm still hoping that it wasn't criminally motivated intrusion. There is still a tiny chance, that the one who did it was just proving a point. Tried to play something last night, but it didn't feel the same any more. Might say that now i know how abused spouses feel.

  57. is it just me by luther349 · · Score: 1

    is it just me or does a certen hacker would have a reasion to desotry sonys network and get sony sued and this certen persion would have the talent to pull it off heh, but relly sony did need this realty check they have been riding a hi horse and even thretning custmers with moddded systems its nice to see the knife pointed at them. and the sad fact is the guy who is sueing is totaly correct sont was way overzaules that there ps3 and network could not ever be hacked and didnt bother to encrypt shit past the first stage of securty why we have the keys for both psp and ps3 and someone got dev acess to the entire network. who knoes what relly happond thow maybe it was a case of a disgruntled dev.

    1. Re:is it just me by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      You are an idiot.

  58. Wait a Minute.... by Shifty0x88 · · Score: 1


    Wait a Minute... Didn't they take away the Install Another OS feature due to "security concerns."

    And now the PSN has been hacked, my information taken and I'm now at risk of fraudulent credit card charges....

    I'm sorry but where's my check????

  59. Anonymous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some how I suspect that Anonymous are behind all that's happening now to Sony. It all may be a very clever plan to make Sony pay for some of their sins.

  60. So Sony, how about that Geohot? by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

    You've made an enemy out of a lot of the community.
    I have 2 PS3's and 25 games on my shelf.
    LEGITIMATE games.

    Do you know why I purchased a PS3? The real reason I orginally purchased it? There was 2 reasons.
    1 was God of War 3, which took 2 years after I got the thing and was surprisingly not as good as #2
    2 XBMC was rumoured to be coming to PS3, via the loophole to the hypervisor through linux. More beautiful XBMC goodness.

    You closed that loophole and I STILL forgave you because I loved the games, I forgave you guys for a lot of shit, a LOT - I even put up with taking linux away - but this Geohot thing was the final straw.

    Even if my details are compromised as one of the customers, who cares. GOOD - fuck you assholes for treating the customers with utter contempt.

  61. Looks like Hitler will join the suit by MotorMachineMercenar · · Score: 1
    --
    "We have an A-Bomb...what more do you want, mermaids?" --I.I. Rabi, speaking in defense of Robert Oppenheimer
  62. If anyone should sue by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    it should be Visa and Mastercard. I doubt Discover would; they're just happy to be finally noticed by scammers.

  63. Sony has never had a decent customer service model by sarbonn · · Score: 1

    This really doesn't surprise me at all. Sony has historically had a horrible customer service model in pretty much all of its products and services. I remember the days of dealing with Sony Online Entertainment, and realizing this was the wrong way to do business with people. The company has always been top down directed, in that they respond only when faced with a scandal or its customers start leaving in mass, which was done in the early days of Everquest due to some horrid PR decisions they were making. Fast forward to so many of their stupid responses and actions in other areas, like trying to maintain control over the music market, and now this debacle of PR with the playstation, and it really shouldn't surprise anyone else either. Sony historically thinks of Sony first, and the customers are only there to pay the salaries of those who feel they are unreproachable. Duane Gundrum http://www.duanegundrum.com/

    --
    Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
  64. I'm not worried by senorpoco · · Score: 1

    I am sure that if anyone tries to use these credit card details Sony's much vaunted DRM system will install a rootkit onto their computer. Right?

  65. Damnit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Someone get me this moron's address. I'm within punching range.

  66. I'm usually against stupid lawsuits, but... by JustAnotherIdiot · · Score: 1

    ...I really hope this guy kicks Sony's ass.

    --
    What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
  67. Wouldn't be surprised if... by Chewbacon · · Score: 1

    The root password was "password" after the random numer flaw was exposed in their encryption.

    --
    Chewbacon
    The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
  68. Where did the 75 million stat come from? by Illpalazzo · · Score: 1

    So 75 million people out of the 77 million filed lawsuits with a day and half of notice. Where does this information come from? As one of the 77 million people, who received the message from PSN that my account info may have been accessed. I've been spending my time reviewing credit card purchases for the last week and requesting a new card number. Honestly I think this issue is just getting so over exaggerated because of panic and misinformation. Now granted alot of this is because of the legal vagueness of Sony's email. But I'd like some reference to these statistics before I'll accept them as facts.

  69. I got notified yesterday by mapuche · · Score: 1

    This is the mail (in Spanish):

    Add PlayStation_Network@playstation-email.com to your address book

    PlayStation(R)Network

    Estimado cliente de PlayStation Network/Qriocity:

    Hemos descubierto que entre el 17 de Abril y el 19 de Abril de 2011,
    determinada información de usuarios de PlayStation Network y Qriocity
    fue puesta en compromiso en conexión con una intrusión ilegal no autorizada
    en nuestro sistema. Como resultado, las medidas que hemos tomado hasta la
    fecha son las siguientes:

    1) Temporalmente cerrado los servicios de PlayStation Network y Qriocity.
    2) Puesto en contacto con una agencia de seguridad externa de prestigio para
    conducir una investigación exhaustiva de lo ocurrido; y
    3) Rápidamente tomar las medidas necesarias para fortalecer nuestra infraestructura
    en red, y reconstruir el sistema ofreciendo una mayor protección de vuestra información
    personal.

    Realmente apreciamos y agradecemos vuestra paciencia, y estamos trabajando
    muy duro y haciendo todo lo necesario para resolver este problema de una
    forma rápida y eficiente lo antes posible.

    A pesar de estar todavía investigando los detalles de este incidente, creemos
    que personas no autorizadas han podido obtener vuestra información personal:
    nombre, dirección (ciudad, provincia, código postal), país, dirección de correo
    electrónico, fecha de nacimiento, nombre de acceso y contraseña de PlayStation
    Network/ Qriocity, y PSN ID. Es también posible que vuestros datos de perfil
    así como historial de compra, y dirección de cobro hayan sido obtenidos.
    Si habéis autorizado una subcuenta asociada a vuestra cuenta principal a
    otra persona, la misma información de esta persona ha podido ser obtenida.
    A pesar de no haber evidencia de que los datos de tarjeta de crédito hayan
    sido obtenidos no podemos negar esta posibilidad. Si has facilitado tus
    datos de tarjetas de crédito a través de PlayStation Network o Qriocity,
    debemos contemplar por motivos de seguridad, la posibilidad de que el
    número de la tarjeta de crédito (no incluyendo el código de seguridad),
    y la fecha de expiración de la misma hayan sido también obtenidos.

    Por vuestra seguridad, os recomendamos que seáis extremadamente cuidadosos
    con estafas vía email, correo, o teléfono preguntando cualquier tipo de
    información personal sensible. Sony nunca se pondría en contacto con vosotros
    de ninguna manera, incluyendo correo electrónico, preguntando por vuestro
    número de tarjeta de crédito, número de la seguridad social, identificación
    de impuestos o cualquier otro tipo de información personal de identidad.
    Si alguien se pone en contacto preguntando por este tipo de información,
    os aseguramos que Sony no es la entidad que requiere esta información.
    Adicionalmente, si usas el mismo nombre y contraseña que los usados para
    PlayStation Network o Qriocity para otros servicios o cuentas no relacionados
    con Sony, recomendamos que también sean modificados.

    Para evitar un posible robo de identidad o perdida financiera, recomendamos
    revisar regularmente el saldo y movimientos realizados en vuestras cuentas corrientes.

    Os agradecemos vuestra paciencia hasta haber completado la investigación
    de este incidente, y sentimos mucho las posibles molestias ocasionadas.
    Nuestros equipos están trabajando sin descanso, y nuestros servicios serán
    restablecidos lo antes posible. Sony se toma la protección de la información
    muy en serio y continuará trabajando para asegurarse de que medidas adicionales
    son tomadas para proteger dicha información. Proveer un servicio de
    entretenimiento seguro y de calidad para nuestros consumidores es nuestra
    prioridad principal.

    Para mayor información contáctenos en 1-800-345-7669.

    Sinceramente,

    Sony Network Entertainment y Sony Computer Entertainment

  70. iraq3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    thank you a lots

  71. wrong focus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If sony spent less time patching PS3 firmware to prevent folks from doing what they want to with the systems they own and more time protecting customer data that would have never happened.

    Would have been nice to have gotten an email from sony the day of the data breach rather then more then a week later.