Slashdot Mirror
Playstation To Restore Services This Week
iSimon19 writes with word that after last week's unscheduled service disruption and security breach, "On their blog last night, Playstation representatives announced they were restoring services throughout the week. This also included giving all users a month of Playstation Plus free, as well as select downloads for free with their 'Complimentary Offering and "Welcome Back" Appreciation Program.'"
Better would be some kind of detailed explanation of how the hell this could have happened in the first place, and what they have done to make sure it won't happen again...
Will be paid for by a random credit card number.
That costs them nothing. I want ID theft protection. They hinted at it, but were very vague.
Does anyone else have a hard time believing the majority of the comments on the blog post are real? They're all along the lines of, "Hallelujah, Sony is wonderful for getting the service back up!!!!!!!" Or are people so desperate to go back to playing CoD multiplayer that they're willing to take any sandpaper-wrapped anal raping that Sony will give them?
I'm not going to go back to the PSN until Sony gives me a year of credit monitoring and the ability to sue them (not that I would, but thank you SCOTUS).
You can download some games for free, but you must remain a PSN+ member to keep playing those games. So in reality they're offering you a free month of a service they expect you to keep paying for. Would be much more impressed with a year of free PSN+
From the Blog Post: "The company is also creating the position of Chief Information Security Officer"
Translation: During this difficult time, we have discovered that we have no security on our network and no one to blame for this. We will now have someone to blame and publicly humiliate when (not if) this happens again.
When is the US consumer ever going to learn that the credit card is one of the worst inventions ever! Of course it's Sony's fault but you are using a broken system. Make direct online banking the standard, not some insanely insecure card or some horrible third-party service like paypal. Here in The Netherlands we Have iDeal We need to get to such a system on a global scale. The tech is there and it's more secure, so what the hell are they waiting for.
The OP is modded flamebait, but he's actually posting a VERY relevant point. Sony is a shady company with a repeated history of bad decisions and anti-customer practices. There is a very easy way to avoid these types of things: Stop paying Sony to spit on you!
Actually, it started with me when my Sony home theater system broke. I sent it to them, they kept it for over SIX weeks, and when they sent it back, it was STILL broken the same damn way it was when I sent it to them to start with, but with a nasty scratch down the left side. So I sent it back again, and after several more weeks, it finally arrived, this time actually fixed. Or so I thought. A few months later, just after the one-year warranty period expired, it broke yet again. I called Sony, and they refused to fix it again without me paying for repairs, even though they had the thing in their possession over two of the twelve months of the warranty period. Instead, I took the damn thing to a recycling center.
A few months after that, my PS2 broke. It was well out of warranty, around five years old. I don't know what the useful life of a PS2 is supposed to be, but I'd hope it's more than five years. Under normal circumstances, I'd normally chalk it up to crappy luck and not be too mad about it, but since I'd just been through my home theater system ordeal, yeah, it really pissed me off. (That's mad, not drunk, for you Brits.)
Then the root kit fiasco hit shortly after that. Then my computer's Sony DVD burner stopped working. By this time, I had sworn off all Sony products. I think I remember an article hitting Slashdot around that time frame about Sony USB drives being infected as shipped from the factory. Then there was the Blu-ray shenanigans. Then there was the Other OS thing. Then the GeoHot lawsuit.
So yeah, the PSN thing didn't affect me at all. I'm convinced that it happened because of Sony's lax security practices, and it couldn't have happened to a scummier company. Personally, I think that any Slashdot reader who was affected by this is a damn fool and practically deserved it. I've told all of my friends and family about Sony, and most of them avoid the company, too.
My suggestion to everyone here is to stop accepting being butt raped by this company. Don't just post here about how sad/amused/mad/whatever you are, help spread the word. Post these headlines on your social network. If you're reading Slashdot, your geek cred is probably pretty high in your family and circle of friends, TELL people to avoid Sony. Only by putting them out of business once and for all, or impacting them enough to make them make significant changes, will they ever shape up or ship out.