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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.'"
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.
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..."
Thank you Mr. Armchair Expert!
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.
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.
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!
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).
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.
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.