Sony Delays PlayStation Network Reactivation

i4u writes "Earlier this week chatter in an IRC network led to speculation of a third attack on Sony's network. For its part, the company steadfastly promised that at least some services would resume by the end of this week. But now it looks like Sony has given up on that goal. The PSN reactivation has been delayed. Sony's explanation? They were 'unaware' of the extent of the attacks on their system."

Comments

I don't care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Iâ(TM)m sorry, but I really donâ(TM)t have time for this. In the fucking WEEKS since my Play Station became worthless, me and my cute Emo boyfriends have been strutting around in our Speed Racer briefs sporting awesome erections, and now weâ(TM)re just too hot and bothered to care about Sony.

Re:I don't care.

[Culture20]

Sony America CEO Howard Stringer, is that you?

Re:I don't care.

[Anonymous Coward]

â(TM) ?

Are you trying to use the wrong character for apostrophes? It's ', which isn't really that hard to type.

Re:I don't care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all keyboards resemble the US standard keyboard layout. Particularly ones outside the US and English-speaking Canada.

Re:I don't care.

[BlueScreenO'Life]

No, just trying to trademark the circumflex marked 'a'.

Re:I don't care.

[GumphMaster]

Try a deceptively familiar Turkish Q keyboard to type English text some time. For a while many an apostrophe will be wanting and letter i dot-less.

Re:I don't care.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, slashdot has a problem with anything other than 7-bit ASCII. And he's probably using a browser with shitty encoding support.

Not Aware?

[Squiddie]

Well, what ARE they doing scheduling reactivation if they are not aware of the extent of the attacks? Something tells me that Sony just has poor handle on everything security related.

Re:Not Aware?

[Mashiki]

Sony security is handled with 3 chimps and a hamster. You can't expect anything more from that motley crew, except the complete works of Shakespeare done on a typewriter.

Re:Not Aware?

[0100010001010011]

I've seen hamsters escape.
I've seen chips use tools at the zoo.

Don't degrade them by lumping them in with Sony Security.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

s/security/technology/

Re:Not Aware?

[Sponge Bath]

I've seen chips use tools at the zoo.

British chips or US chips?

Re:Not Aware?

[airfoobar]

Micro chips. Skynet became self-aware a few weeks ago, but they were able to stop him thanks to a perfectly-timed DMCA notice sent by a certain J. Goldblum.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

Well, what ARE they doing scheduling reactivation if they are not aware of the extent of the attacks? Something tells me that Sony just has poor handle on everything security related.

Really? This is something you are berating Sony for?

They are doing the exact right thing here. First, they assessed the damage and worked to get PSN up as fast as possible. During that process, they discovered that the intrusion was more extensive than they thought, and instead of simply bringing PSN back up on their original schedule, they are allowing new information to alter their plans.

If this were some Linux archive, like for example sourceforge, or the Debian repositories, and they did the exact same thing, you'd be heaping praise upon them for doing the right thing and not adhering to bullshit corporate image demands, but since it's Sony who's doing the right thing, it must be bad somehow, right?

Re:Not Aware?

[TemperedAlchemist]

And something tells me you should read up on your computer forensics. Not knowing the extent of the damage immediately is common in most computer forensics investigation. At the end of the day you're simply pointing your finger at Sony without evidence or legitimate reason. Skepticism is good, criticism without reason or evidence is foolish.

Re:Not Aware?

[shutdown -p now]

For one, I'm not aware of any past cases of Debian (or any other distro) repositories going down for two and a half weeks to clean up the mess. But at least with repos it's actually explainable - the attackers could have inserted malicious code into packages, so you need to audit or roll back to last backup. What is it about PSN that warrants such a long downtime? Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up. It doesn't take two weeks!

Another thing is that Debian users don't pay anything to access the repos, nor for Debian themselves. In this case we have an army of paying customers locked out of a major feature of the product.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anrego]

Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up.

One would assume they are also beefing up security to prevent this from happening again. Re-imaging the servers back to the state that let them get hacked in the first place is probably not sufficient. Tell you the truth I can't see how they could do anything substantial within a period of weeks to take them from the clearly messed up state they are in now to a state where people will trust their info with Sony again. Something like this should take months.. but the horde of angry gamers won't wait that long.

In this case we have an army of paying customers locked out of a major feature of the product.

Indeed. That month of free access to something most people don't care about isn't gonna cut it for many. Sony is gonna have to make some serious reparations here. They've probably already lost a metric ass-tonne of customers regardless of what they do at this point, and there are probably a group of customers who don't care about this outage and will stick with playstation regardless. The larger middle angry gamer group however, they are going to need to find the right balance between cost of lost business and cost of keeping that business. Should be interesting to see what they do.

Re:Not Aware?

[shutdown -p now]

One would assume they are also beefing up security to prevent this from happening again. Re-imaging the servers back to the state that let them get hacked in the first place is probably not sufficient.

Running up-to-date software would probably be a good start. The rest isn't rocket science either. Creating secure networks is not some esoteric art. I mean, plenty companies out there run their servers for years without having issues like that. Some even do it on *gasp* Windows servers! Maybe Sony needs to hire some of people who manage that?

In any case, I don't think it's something that can take months. I just can't think of any activities that would take that long. Especially when you're a company scrambling to fix things and pouring massive amounts of money into it (which Sony does... or at least should, otherwise customers have even more right to be mad).

Tell you the truth I can't see how they could do anything substantial within a period of weeks to take them from the clearly messed up state they are in now to a state where people will trust their info with Sony again.

That's true, but it's a PR problem, not a technical problem.

As far as PR goes, yeah... I wouldn't want to work in Sony marketing today. I honestly don't see what they could possibly do to restore the image. Even if they make significant reparations to appease active customers, the memory of this ("Sony customer == your CC gets stolen") will hang around for a long time to come.

Re:Not Aware?

[Daniel Phillips]

What is it about PSN that warrants such a long downtime? Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up. It doesn't take two weeks!

I suspect that restoring their user data from backups was never tested and turns out to be harder then they hope. Perhaps they now find themselves writing a lot of custom code trying to rebuild a database without dangling links and halfway up to date. I also think that Sony worked hard at digging themselves a very deep karma hole and now they have fallen into it.

Re:Not Aware?

[msauve]

"I've seen chips use tools at the zoo."

Yeah, but they had help from the fish.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporateshillmuch? C'mon have another glass of the kool-aid. Don't you know that it's cool to hate on Sony for any/everything?

Re:Not Aware?

[stealth_finger]

Sony security is handled with 3 chimps and a hamster. You can't expect anything more from that motley crew, except the complete works of Shakespeare done on a typewriter.

And they've got to do the Shakespeare thing done first and we all know how long that's going to take.

Re:Not Aware?

[Squiddie]

I would guess that it is reasonable to think that when Sony said it was bringing PSN back up, that they had figured out the extent of the damage. I don't know, maybe I expected them to be professional or something. How silly of me.

Re:Not Aware?

[amicusNYCL]

They are doing the exact right thing here.

Ha. Haha. HahahaAHAAhahaha.

ahhhhh

Re:Not Aware?

[hedwards]

A repository shouldn't go down for that long. And you certainly shouldn't have all repositories going down at once. Most distros, at least all the big ones, have plenty of mirrors available such that something like this taking down one shouldn't be that much of an issue. Beyond that, the security problem which led to this for Sony could much more easily be handled with just a throttling of the sites as this would have required a dozen or more servers to be incompetently administered.

Re:Not Aware?

[greg1104]

He actually meant CHiPs.

Re:Not Aware?

[nonsequitor]

Why hasn't Sony halted sales of products which require the PSN to work at all like the PSP go? If the PSN is indefinitely down, it is impossible to load games to play offline making them guilty of fraud for continuing to sell it.

It's hard to say they're doing the right thing when they're continuing to sell gaming systems that can't play games.

Re:Not Aware?

[petermgreen]

I'd think with any complex system it would be easy to get to a state where you believe that you have figured out the extent of the damage but then later discover some damage that you missed in the intial investigation.

After discovering you missed something you would then have to do a load more investigation as to the implications of the stuff you missed.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

Wow, this is a new low for Slashdot. I'm a "shill" for not being a fucking moron who thinks it's impossible for Sony to ever do anything right? When your shit gets hacked, you take it offline until you can put it back up safely. This isn't being a "shill", it's just being rational and not being a whiny little bitch just because we are supposed to hate some company.

Re:Not Aware?

[TemperedAlchemist]

And any professional would tell you that this happens all of the time in computer forensics.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

Why hasn't Sony halted sales of products which require the PSN to work at all like the PSP go? If the PSN is indefinitely down, it is impossible to load games to play offline making them guilty of fraud for continuing to sell it.

It's hard to say they're doing the right thing when they're continuing to sell gaming systems that can't play games.

Well, your post lives up to your name.

As to this very different point, if you think Sony is committing fraud, I'm sure there will be a class action suit in no time. Lawyers love this shit. Also, perhaps you should contact your local district attorney's office. If Sony is committing mass fraud in your state, that would be pretty serious.

Although this has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it's right for Sony to keep their servers down while they fix them.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

Which has nothing to do with whether or not Sony keeping their service down for this long is right or not. I can't even fathom why the collective slashdot nerd-mind seems to think Sony would be deliberately keeping their services offline. It's utterly moronic. Sony is losing a lot of money and public image each day this continues.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

For one, I'm not aware of any past cases of Debian (or any other distro) repositories going down for two and a half weeks to clean up the mess. But at least with repos it's actually explainable - the attackers could have inserted malicious code into packages, so you need to audit or roll back to last backup. What is it about PSN that warrants such a long downtime? Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up. It doesn't take two weeks!

So what exactly do you think is Sony's motivation for keeping PSN down for so long if it's not to make sure they are no longer compromised or vulnerable to compromise?

As for re-imaging the servers, if they did that, then they would just be rehacked. This is a big fucking mess for Sony, and they can't let it happen again.

Another thing is that Debian users don't pay anything to access the repos, nor for Debian themselves. In this case we have an army of paying customers locked out of a major feature of the product.

Not sure what being paid has to do with how much effort is involved in fixing their service. Computers don't operate differently based on whether they generate revenue or not.

Re:Not Aware?

[Valen0]

Debian.org was compromised back in 2003. You can read a blow-by-blow account of the attack at: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/11/msg00012.html and http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/12/msg00001.html

It took Debian about 3 weeks to get all affected services back online after the attack.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if only they had done the right thing and NOT infected millions of people with a rootkit.

Or maybe if they had done the right thing and owned up to it without a lawsuit.

Or maybe if they had done the right thing and NOT taken away the 'other os' feature from all those who had paid for it.

Yeah.. sonys real good at doing the right thing....

Re:Not Aware?

[robogun]

That's all well and good, but since I can't use this stuff, I'd like a refund in full for the console, and also for over $1,000 in unplayable games, in order to buy a similar system from a competitor who has much better goddamn security.

Re:Not Aware?

[The Dawn Of Time]

You should also demand a unicorn and daily blowjobs for life.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was Debian selling products that required access their services to use?

Was Debian.org run by a multi-billion dollar mega-corp?

Re:Not Aware?

[justforgetme]

somebody sed too much here...

Re:Not Aware?

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I always figured 3 chimps and a hamster were far more likely to randomly type out some Perl than they would Shakespeare.

Re:Not Aware?

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

That's an option?! All my buddies got was a month of free access and some identity theft monitoring!

Re:Not Aware?

[shutdown -p now]

So what exactly do you think is Sony's motivation for keeping PSN down for so long if it's not to make sure they are no longer compromised or vulnerable to compromise?

As for re-imaging the servers, if they did that, then they would just be rehacked. This is a big fucking mess for Sony, and they can't let it happen again.

I'm not saying that Sony deliberately holds back on bringing the network up. I'm saying that customers are in their right to be angry and frustrated at Sony, and people bashing Sony for being clueless are spot on, because this "big fucking mess" is their fault entirely. That's all there is to it.

Not sure what being paid has to do with how much effort is involved in fixing their service. Computers don't operate differently based on whether they generate revenue or not.

Computers are fixed by people, however, and people (generally speaking) work better when they are financially incentivized. Debian servers are run by volunteers. Sony servers are (presumably) run by well-paid, skilled admins. The latter are expected to do better than that.

Re:Not Aware?

[Billlagr]

I want Eric Estrada's hair. It is a thing of beauty.

Re:Not Aware?

[arcade]

Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of how Sony /not/ should do it.

The gentleman known as "shutdown -p now", seems to suggest that Sony should use their energy to get the servers back into a state where they can be re-breached within minutes of going back online!

Of course, this is exactly what we should expect from armchair know-it-alls. One should not trust sysadmins / system engineers who knows the situation and how to take care of it. The armchair know-it-all will scream "No! They made it this bad in the first place" - without caring one moment to think about the layer known as "management". The layer that demands that "if it works, do not touch it at all! it works! Downtime is Verboten!"

It doesn't take two weeks!

They have to:
  1. Remake installation routine
  2. Reinstall servers
  3. Reinstall software
  4. Reload the user data .. this is probably done within a day or two.

Then they have to:
  5. Harden the new systems.
  6. Harden the firewalls.
  7. Pentest the shit out of it
  8. Get it audited.
  9. Re-harden, according to audit-report
  10. Get audited again.
  11. Repeat the two steps above until audit report is clean.

And this didn't even touch onto the huge topic of making sure that there isn't any breach of workstations that can be used to gain administrative access to the systems and so forth. It doesn't touch upon the topic of verifying user data integrity. It doesn't touch upon the topic of checking for backdoors that gains the attacker elevated access to the network, without admin privileges (but with an easier attack vector from being completely outside).

Meh!

Re:Not Aware?

[DrXym]

What is it about PSN that warrants such a long downtime? Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up. It doesn't take two weeks!

Are you serious? There are 60 million PS3s that implicitly trust PSN. If the service is hacked then it's not hard to imagine the damage that could be done. Someone could remotely brick boxes, wipe trophies, spam users with messages, clear accounts or otherwise maliciously interfere with the service.

As for the time frame I suggest if you drew a network plan of PSN or a similarly sized service that you're probably looking at hundreds of servers for login, downloads, streaming downloads, web, messaging, databases, credit card processing, Home and so forth. Reviewing the security around each, and the code they run and ensuring appropriate changes and hardening the perimeter and setting up a DMZ and so forth is time consuming. Apparently they're even moving datacentres and doing a few other things on their existing roadmap.

Two weeks is ambitious to say the least. I expect when it does come back up it will be a skeleton service with services coming back on line after that.

Re:Not Aware?

[DrXym]

Running up-to-date software would probably be a good start. The rest isn't rocket science either. Creating secure networks is not some esoteric art. I mean, plenty companies out there run their servers for years without having issues like that. Some even do it on *gasp* Windows servers! Maybe Sony needs to hire some of people who manage that?

I think it's reasonable to ask how the hell they got themselves into this mess, but it's not reasonable to suggest security is trivial or straightforward or anything else.

Your hypothetical company might be running for years without attack because no one has seriously bothered to attack them. They might be attacked because of some bad press, or a disgruntled employee, or for the lulz, or a day-0 exploit appears, or because some idiot leaves their laptop on a train, or because they add wifi or VPN to their network and don't lock it down properly, or they buy new hardware and don't secure it properly or because someone clicked on an attachment they shouldn't have.

Re:Not Aware?

[Xest]

I think it's more the irrationality of your argument that's the problem.

You're making Sony out to be somewhat competent in taking their time bringing this all back up and taking longer discovering further intrusion their systems, when the real incompetence lies in the fact that somewhat got so deep into their systems in the first place without them even batting an eyelid.

It doesn't matter how careful they are about bringing things back up slowly (although I disagree, I do not believe it need take as long as it is- it can be done far quicker with just as much certainty regardless), it should never have got that bad in the first place.

My bet? Their disaster recovery plan and implementation is as fucking useless as their security policies and procedures. That's what there is absolutely no excuse for other than sheer and outright incompetence. I've never worked anywhere where a disaster recovery plan that can take weeks in even the worst case scenario to get things back up and running would ever be remotely acceptable, even for just internal company use, let alone to paying customers. No, I don't think they even have considered disaster recovery prior to this happening at all in fact.

Re:Not Aware?

[DrXym]

You deserve a refund if you are on PSN+, you deserve an apology and some form of compensation as goodwill for the time you lost playing online. You absolutely do not deserve a refund on the price of your console or your games. With the exception of purely online games, all the rest work perfectly well in offline mode until the service returns given that PSN is not mandatory for most games except for the likes of MAG.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

the hamsters escaped with freedom fries?

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

> restoring their user data
If restoring from the backups doesn't work, perhaps they could ask Anonymous for a copy of the data!

Re:Not Aware?

[Builder]

More importantly, if it takes a woman 9 months to make a baby, why can't 9 women make a baby in 1 month!?

Re:Not Aware?

[Bloem]

And Debian explains in detail what has happend. I'm hoping Sony will do the same eventually.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having 77 Million customers from around the world paying with a credit and debit cards and not having a single firewall and having outdated and unpatched software is like leaving your windows and doors open for people to just walk in and steal stuff.

So, no they have never been doing the right thing until now.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

I you read the various "hacker" chats you'll see that the whole PSN infrastructure was a gigantic mess:
The tens or hundreds or servers all ran different software with different levels of update, like if they were managed by various entities.

From their PR it appears Sony at least intends to do the good thing, that is consolidate their servers to use a a minimal set of softwares, all up to date.

So no, they don't have to "just re-image all servers running the thing", they have to rebuild the "thing" that runs on all those server, ensure it all works then re-image everything...

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've probably already lost a metric ass-tonne of customers regardless of what they do at this point

I doubt it... they all have Playstations and heaps of games... what are they gonna do, go somewhere else? They'll be right back on Sony's tit as soon as it's offered.

Re:Not Aware?

[ilguido]

Running up-to-date software would probably be a good start. The rest isn't rocket science either. Creating secure networks is not some esoteric art. I mean, plenty companies out there run their servers for years without having issues like that. Some even do it on *gasp* Windows servers! Maybe Sony needs to hire some of people who manage that?

There are good evidences that their servers were up to date:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1549251&postcount=491
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=2673715&postcount=961

Noboby has fully assessed what happened. Nobody but the usual mythomaniac guys that crowd the big net.

Re:Not Aware?

[Lord Byron II]

You do deserve at least a partial refund if you bought it for an advertised purpose (ie, multiplayer) and Sony can't deliver. At this point, I wouldn't say that three lost weeks of online multiplayer is worth much, but if this goes on much longer, anyone who owns/plays games on PSN wouldn't be in the wrong for wanting a little more compensation than just a free month.

Re:Not Aware?

[AmiMoJo]

Maybe the don't trust the data any more. Who knows how long the hackers were inside and what they did there? A bank would have meticulous records of all transactions (I hope) but somehow I doubt Sony does...

Re:Not Aware?

[jez9999]

Did they ever figure out what that 'somehow' was that allowed the hacker to gain root access from an unprivileged account?

Re:Not Aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap like this gets modded insightful?

I'll say it again, since you seem a bit thick: Sony screwed up.

Stop denying that, please. That's where the "shill" label is coming from. They generate enough revenue that its reasonable to expect them to be better than this. Hopefully they will learn their lesson and not let this happen again. In the meantime, paying customers are operating in a "reduced service" level. Acting like people don't have the right to be upset about it makes no sense at all.

Re:Not Aware?

[kelemvor4]

Or perhaps they don't want to bring the same insecure system back online and are rewriting some of it instead of just doing a restore of the old crap?

Re:Not Aware?

[elrous0]

Don't waste chimps on Perl. You could use any animal for THAT.

Re:Not Aware?

[elrous0]

What's more, Sony users even had the option of buying a perfectly functioning online version of most games. All they had to do was buy the version marked "Xbox 360," and they would never have experienced any online outage at all. So what exactly are they complaining about?

Re:Not Aware?

[__aailob1448]

Sony hasn't lost any customers with this whole thing. In fact, they gained many customers since the PS3 was hacked.

If people could force sony to exchange their PS3 with an xbox360, then I'm sure maybe 5 or 10% of PSN customers would switch.

Under current conditions, negligible amounts of people will switch.

Re:Not Aware?

[Anrego]

Indeed.. the PS3's are already bought and paid for.

It's gonna be the next round of consoles where Sony feels it. They need to have this burried in the very back recesses of everyones mind when PS4 comes out.

Re:Not Aware?

[toriver]

Po-tah-to chips or po-tay-to chips?

Re:Not Aware?

[spamking]

Is there a rootkit out there for this problem yet?

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

No shit they screwed up. Where do you get the idea I said otherwise? The only thing I'm specifically saying they've done right is not bringing PSN back up until it's fixed, and in fact delaying their restoration of service once they found out the damage was worse than they thought. That's the right thing to do.

Nowhere ever did I say they didn't screw up.

Acting like people don't have the right to be upset about it makes no sense at all.

Acting like I said that makes no sense at all. What also makes no sense at all is giving Sony shit for doing something right.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

What's amazing is that you and every other back-seat nerd here on slashdot seems to think *YOU* could fix this mess in like two days easy. Well, shit man, call Sony right now and offer your services. You could literally write your own ticket. I bet Sony would gladly pay you a few million to have everything fixed and patched by Friday.

If you're as smart as you think you are, what are you doing gabbing away on Slashdot? You don't like easy money or something?

Or, maybe, shit like this is hard, and deep down you know that. It's a wonder, there is no shortage of nerds out there saying things like, "all you have to do is..." about any and every problem they see, but somehow there's a vast shortage of people who actually seem able to *actually* do these things.

Re:Not Aware?

[node 3]

Um, where in your purchase did Sony promise to keep PSN running without outage? If you bought your products in the last 30 days, you can probably get a refund from your retailer, otherwise you are taking a risk that the service will remain up indefinitely. Same goes for Xbox Live.

Sony (and Microsoft, and Steam, etc.) have to keep their services up in order to keep customers and draw new ones. The idea that you are due a refund is absurd. The idea that Sony has to get things back up as quickly as possible is not. They know you, and millions of other people, are pissed. They know Microsoft is probably seeing a spike in sales right now. They know the clock is ticking here.

There's nothing you can do to speed things up, and you can't do anything about what Sony will offer in recompense, and they surely will offer something (they already have made some promises in this regard, they may have to up it a bit now though, although I don't really expect them to), all you can do is either wait it out, or play games on your Wii or 360.

Or, I guess, bitch on slashdot, and make silly demands.

Re:Not Aware?

[Xest]

On the contrary, I agree that fixing the problem is extremely hard. Once you've made this big a fuckup I completely agree that cleaning up is a major headache.

What is relatively easy is, as I said, making sure things don't go this badly wrong in the first place. Sony clearly have no way to tell when security was breached on different systems, and what was breached, hence why it took them so long to find the deeper intrusion, and hence why the cleanup now is so difficult, because literally everything has to be checked because they simply had no way of knowing what was clean which they should have.

The problem isn't what's going on now, as I quite clearly said, it's that Sony wasn't doing things right before, and that is why I wouldn't go and work somewhere like Sony because when you have that level of incompetence in management it's infuriating for those who want to do it right. I've no doubt Sony has some good staff in exactly this situation who did warn of the issues, but that incompetent management got in their way- I say this because I've seen it before first hand, and I got out of such companies ASAP. This is also precisely why I can comment on this, because I develop distributed systems for a living and currently work somewhere where we can and do do things right, such that we don't have to deal with such horrendous fuckups. I dare say this is also why other Slashdot commenters say the same- because unlike you they're talking from actual cold hard experience.

If you're attacking those who say the cleanup is difficult then I agree with you, I think it probably is, but this does not absolve Sony of blame- it's only difficult because they didn't have the policies and procedures in place and in action to prevent this being so difficult. The news said this morning Sony wont have things up and running until the end of the month now- that stinks of a systemic lack of security procedures, a systemic lack of auditing, and a lack of disaster recovery plan from the outset- my point isn't that things are easy to restore for them now, it's that things WOULD be easy to restore for them now if they'd done it right, and done it competently in the first place. Sony isn't the first and wont be the last to get themselves in this situation- GOA and Valve are two examples that went through exactly the same beforehand again, through sheer incompetence, but they are in this situation and they can be forgiven for the hack, but the fuckup of a recovery is a problem of their own creation.

Re:Not Aware?

[Fallingwater]

since it's Sony who's doing the right thing, it must be bad somehow, right?

Yes. Sony can't ever do anything without screwing it up in some critical way. I wish I were fucking kidding.

Who & Why

[F34nor]

is this black hat or revenge for the removal of install other os?

Re:Who & Why

[somersault]

Yay, let's take revenge on the removal of OtherOS by removing the remaining features from our PlayStations, and those of all our friends! Pissing off the gaming community is sure to garner their support and goodwill!

Re:Who & Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Never attribute to malice (of "hackers") that which is adequately explained by stupidity (of Sony).

Re:Who & Why

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

My suspicion(totally without any unusual knowledge, of course) is that it is a mixture: The core penetrations, and the exfiltration of CC details and other identity-thefty stuff look a lot like the usual commercially motivated electronic criminal activity. However, the sorts of people who do that are opportunists, and generally not morons: Sony's current deep unpopularity with a segment of ideological hackers/bored 4channers likely provides both a certain amount of 'free' security testing done by third parties and then dumped into forums and chatrooms, there for the taking, and provides a certain amount of concealment: If only through sheer bulk, wading through all the not-too-competent attacks mounted by assorted under-18s who would probably get a month in juvy and are barely worth hunting down, in order to pick out the sophisticated operators is going to be rather more difficult than just finding the sophisticated operators.

As for the support/goodwill thing, I suspect that those doing the attacks aren't really interested in that. The professional thieves, of course, don't care; because they are there for the money. Any ideological attackers don't care because they are there to make Sony bleed and/or clearly demonstrate the vulnerability of services and hardware cryptographically locked to a single service. The support of Sony's customers is worthless to them; because(by design) Sony's customers have basically no power. Creating as much angst and suffering among those customers, on the other hand(in addition to any amusement that might be derived) hurts Sony's commercial standing.

Re:Who & Why

[Pharmboy]

Occam's Razor may apply. - I thought I read that they were running an unpatched version of Apache on a system without a firewall, including here on /. The motive could have simply been "low hanging fruit with a high return". The real question is "why the hell did it take so long for someone to pwn them?"

Assigning it to "them black hat hackers" seems akin to them blaming Anonymous. Normally, if it was done for hactivism, someone would have taken credit for it by now. The simplest explanation would appear to be that they did it to make money.

Re:Who & Why

[artor3]

Yes, I'm sure Sony just accidentally forced hackers to break into their system. Just like when you forget to lock your doors, you are forcing someone to rob you.

Re:Who & Why

[sqlrob]

If you leave your keys the ignition in the car here and it gets stolen, guess who gets charges brought against them.

Re:Who & Why

[Runaway1956]

Actually, Sony CLAIMS that hackers broke into their systems. They CLAIM to have found an incriminating file which they ATTRIBUTE TO Anonymous. Actually, none of us knows what the hell happened. Personally, I'm not believing much that Sony says. How's that saying go? "Pictures, or it didn't happen!"

Re:Who & Why

[TFAFalcon]

They can just not play games that require an online connection.
And if they have a problem with it, I'm sure there is a line in the EULA that gives Sony the right to shut down the PSN.

Re:Who & Why

[node 3]

If you leave your keys the ignition in the car here and it gets stolen, guess who gets charges brought against them.

The person who stole the car gets charges brought against them. It's not illegal to leave your keys in your car, but it is illegal to take a car that isn't yours, even if there are keys in the ignition.

The context of your post implies you think it's the other way around, which really boggles the mind.

Re:Who & Why

[sqlrob]

Actually, yes, it is illegal to leave keys in your car ignition.

So both get the charges and insurance doesn't cover it.

Re:Who & Why

[Anonymous Coward]

But Sony's whole future world depends of a vision where you ONLY play games online.

Re:Who & Why

[shutdown -p now]

Pissing off the gaming community is sure to garner their support and goodwill!

Given that OtherOS was always a geek feature, there was never any support to speak of in the first place. The majority of PS users simply didn't care (and many didn't even know to care).

On the other hand, right now, Sony's image is significantly tarnished by them not being able to deal with the problem for so long. They can blame it on hackers all they want, but it's abundantly clear by now that it's also a matter of their incompetence that lead to the hack in the first place, and delays their efforts to recover. In the end, users don't really matter - all they know is that PSN is down (and will remain down, per TFA) while e.g Xbox Live works just fine.

So, as far as garnering support goes, this hack is definitely not taking any points. But as pure spiteful revenge? It's wildly successful, if you ask me.

Re:Who & Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. It's not illegal to leave your keys in the car. It's stupid. But not illegal.

You are correct though that insurance likely won't cover it.

Re:Who & Why

[Z34107]

Yay, let's take revenge on the removal of OtherOS by removing the remaining features from our PlayStations, and those of all our friends! Pissing off the gaming community is sure to garner their support and goodwill!

The "gaming community"? Do you mean the petulant whiners who think George Hotz is paying his lawyers in stolen CC numbers? Or the ones who seem completely oblivious to the months of identity theft hell they're about to face because of Sony's incompetence?

Of course, leaving all that information completely unsecured would've been perfectly okay, if not for those meddling kids.

In seriousness, Sony's incompetence is borderline illegal. But, you think this is homebrew's fault?

Re:Who & Why

[sqlrob]

TX Transportation Code 545.404

Re:Who & Why

[msauve]

"Actually, yes, it is illegal to leave keys in your car ignition."

What state are you referring to? Please provide a legal citation to support your claim.

Re:Who & Why

[sqlrob]

Texas Transportation Code 545.404

Re:Who & Why

[UncleTogie]

Incorrect if you live in Texas; it's illegal to leave your keys in an unattended car.

Here's a link from the Texas DMV stating as such: http://www.txdmv.gov/protection/auto_theft/hold_key.htm

Here's a link to the actual statute: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/TN/htm/TN.545.htm#545.404

This .PDF will show that one and some other minor offenses you might not have been aware of. http://www.tmcec.com/public/files/File/The%20Recorder/2003/NL11_03.pdf

Re:Who & Why

[Schadrach]

...and it certainly doesn't help that it happened the week of the release of Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat.

Hell, I haven't played Portal 2 Co-Op yet because PSN isn't up and my grand plan was to buy the PS3 version, redeem the PC copy to my Steam account, then have my nephew come over, log on his own PSN/Steam accounts so we could play MP together while only buying one copy. We both beat the single player the same day PSN went down.

Re:Who & Why

[jthill]

No, because the white hats figured out how to put the feature back, and stopped there. Everyone could have stopped there, and it'd all be cool.

The bad part started with GeoHot cracking the second key and Sony taking vengeance. That opened the floodgates. What's happening now is the real underworld criminals, seeing ready-made scapegoats and knowing Sony will perceive an advantage in blaming those, decided on a mutually-advantageous transaction.

Re:Who & Why

[Riceballsan]

It isn't illegal to leave your keys in the ignition of your personal car, but it is gross negligence to leave your keys in the ignition of, say an armored truck filled with someone things.

Re:Who & Why

[jhoegl]

I almost think this is a "wag the dog" by Sony and an attempt to get the FBI/CIA more involved with the "anon" group.

What better way to get the FBI/CIA on someones ass than to fake data breach and fake data stolen.
Biggest clue? $1 million for 77 million + accounts possibly stolen.
Yeah... like that is going to cover everyone.

Re:Who & Why

[jhoegl]

Hi.... have you taken a look at SoE games in the past 10 years?
They love to let online games die. It is almost like they sabotage them in order to make them go away.

Re:Who & Why

[node 3]

And that has what to do with Sony? And it doesn't remove the fact that the person who steals your car is still committing theft.

All this is is a silly diversion. Sony is guilty of nothing, but the hackers are. And even if Sony committed a crime, the hackers are still criminals as well.

Re:Who & Why

[mug funky]

there's a problem with Sony having no liability, as it was not their information to be careless with.

i sincerely hope breaches like this lead to legislation that forces a duty of care for any company that collects customer information.

if Sony have indeed been negligent in their security practices (which i think most slashdotters would agree they have been), they should be legally liable for it. as should anybody who holds information about others.

medical records are kept safe by law. CC details should be no different.

Re:Who & Why

[Anonymous Coward]

"why the hell did it take so long for someone to pwn them?"

The fact that their systems were vulnerable long before the DDOS, and subsequent infiltration means this wasn't an active on-going profiled target. Sony finally started getting enough negative daily media attention, that they became a high profile target. After that, it's a race to the finish line for the dark horses.

Re:Who & Why

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

...Sony is guilty of nothing, but the hackers are. And even if Sony committed a crime, the hackers are still criminals as well.

If I entrust my car to a secured lot, I expect more security than a drunken pensioner next to a sign that says "Please do not steal" and perhaps a chalk outline where the fence would go. The hackers are certainly guilty, but Sony has to share some of the guilt out of sheer negligence.

Re:Who & Why

[ArsonSmith]

Yea, I mean look at the way Sony was dressed. She deserved to bet raped.

Re:Who & Why

[Udo Schmitz]

I thought I read that they were running an unpatched version of Apache on a system without a firewall, including here on /..

Yup. Don't remember the post, but this is the linked article:

http://consumerist.com/2011/05/security-expert-sony-knew-its-software-was-obsolete-months-before-psn-breach.html

Re:Who & Why

[L4t3r4lu5]

You seem to be of the opinion that the removal of OtherOS was the reason for Sony having poor security on their servers. This is not the case. Sony may well have been attacked through exactly the same vectors, with exactly the same outcome, had the OtherOS feature never been removed. The server-side security was not affected one single bit by the removal of OtherOS. The two are not linked. If the DDoS attacks on PSN provided a convenient smoke-screen for the hack, then that's all it did. The hack may well have simply been performed at a different time. As someone below has said, this kind of hack is planned, but opportunist. The time was right, and the hack was done.

In short, you have assumed, and we all know what that does.

Re:Who & Why

[somersault]

My post was entirely sarcasm. Note the "funny" mods.

Re:Who & Why

[somersault]

Where in my joke did I indicate any fault? There is no real evidence who is responsible. It could have been for money, it could have been Anonymous, it could have been Microsoft, who knows..

Re:Who & Why

[somersault]

You can play local co-op on PS3, that's what I did. It's fine only having half the screen of a decent HDTV, even after playing through the single player.

Re:Who & Why

[vegiVamp]

Nobody forced anybody, but if you leave your doors unlocked, it's your own god damned fault if you get robbed. Personal responsability, such a wonderful concept.

Re:Who & Why

[chebucto]

It's hardly an either-or question. If you leave your door unlocked and get robbed, you are negligent. The thief is still at fault for the crime, though.

Shared responsibility, what a concept. Take appropriate precautions, and don't be an asshat.

Re:Who & Why

[vegiVamp]

Have you tried explaining this brilliant concept to your insurance, and have them pay half of the damages?

No, I didn't think so.

Re:Who & Why

[chebucto]

Irrelevant. Try to imagine the thief explaining the same concept to a cop. Think he'll get half the jail time? No. Claims adjusters and cops have different remits.

Re:Who & Why

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall seeing Sony state when the attack occurred, only when that it was discovered recently. Is it a coincidence that this was only just discovered when Steam integration was going prod?

Seems likely to me that the network has been infiltrated by organized crime for some unknown period, and has zero relationship to the DDoS or to the geohotz crack.

Re:Who & Why

[Tridus]

In Texas it's also illegal for an atheist to hold public office, so Texas isn't exactly a very good example.

Re:Who & Why

[Whatanut]

How about West Virginia, then?

http://law.justia.com/codes/west-virginia/2005/17c/wvc17c-14-1.html

I'm sure most states have similar laws. Took 30 seconds on google to find this one.

Re:Who & Why

[Anonymous Coward]

"Normally, if it was done for hactivism, someone would have taken credit for it by now."

This is spot on. Even discounting ones interest in how others perceive them, where the 'profit' is personal fame for the hack, hactivism tends to have a point behind the breach which must be disseminated. Only someone who can reasonably show that he was responsible(or knows how the responsible party did it) would get any attention when delivering such a message.

The chance of this being a vigilante decreases if no warning or ultimatum is given. I'd bet that this is for money in some way or another.

Re:Who & Why

[JourneymanMereel]

OK.... but it's not illegal to leave them on the dashboard. Yet, even if the keys are on the dashboard, the thief is still the criminal. Of course, the person who left the keys on the dashboard is an idiot, but not a criminal.

Re:Who & Why

[JourneymanMereel]

I just recently read that statute from a few posts higher, and nowhere in it does it say that it's illegal to leave your keys in your car. It only says that you must remove them from the ignition before leaving the car.

Makes me wonder, though, do cops needing the fill their ticket quota just hang out at the local tow shop waiting for a call to come in from somebody who locked their keys in their car?

Re:Who & Why

[JustSomeProgrammer]

At this point there is no way this is advantageous to Sony in any way. This length of downtime very well could kick them out of the console market which is one of their more successful sources of revenue. Any perceived benefit is minor next to the possibility this length of downtime could ruin their market share completely. I think they are blaming people because they need to find someone responsible for them losing absurdly large amounts of dollars. Their online store is closed for something like a month, no multiplayer on any of their titles, many designed specifically FOR multiplayer, consumer confidence pretty much gone. There is no way Sony could perceive this as a good thing at this point.

Of course I'm assuming by mutually-advantageous you meant for the underworld criminals and Sony. If it was some other party I missed it.

Re:Who & Why

[Khyber]

In most states it can net you a negligence charge.

Re:Who & Why

[jthill]

You're forgetting the PR and lobbying leverage Sony gets out of smearing everyone but themselves.

Before this (the dos'ing included), Sony was certainly struggling if not outright losing the PR game, and what people would remember, all the evidence anyone could point to, the worst thing any of the actors in this little drama had done, was Sony breaking part of their customer's equipment and claiming it was ok because customers could choose which part to let Sony break.

So now they're the good guys again, _and_ they can smear everyone but themselves as criminals. I have to say, I think they deserve sympathy for their loss here. It seems beyond the demands of justice even leaving out the part about hurting everyone else who cares. So they're _legitimately_ the good guys again. What they did was peanuts compared to this.

I hadn't considered that this might actually break the PS3's back. If that happens, I'm wrong. If it doesn't, I think the public sympathy this got them is more valuable than you do.

Maybe that was a protest after all

[spaceplanesfan]

My senses suggest me that the theft of personal data is just a coveup story by Sony.
I think some angry hacker just wiped out their servers, and backups are as usual stored on /dev/null.
And so they have to rebuild the whole thing.
Anyway revenge is complete regardless of whom did that.
Sad that users are possibly affected as well.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[Lunix Nutcase]

My senses suggest me that the theft of personal data is just a coveup story by Sony.

Because Sony would want to willingly pay for millions of dollars in identity theft services when no personal data was taken?

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[Lifyre]

It makes for a decent PR move regardless of anything being taken and helps reinforce the story that it was a theft operation. I'm not passing judgement on the validity of either theory.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[bloodhawk]

It doesn't make sense at all, a complete disaster where everything unrecoverable would be a far better story than 100 million accounts stolen both from a PR point of view and from a monetary point of view. The current situation will see them stuck in legal and financial problems for years to come not to mention a serious loss of faith with consumers.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[DarkOx]

I agree with your assessment it makes no sense at all form them say the account information was stolen unless they either know it was or can't be sure it was not. If they knew the data was not leaked they would not be writing checks for identity theft protection.

I don't understand the big mystery here. I suspect the issue is there is something very fundamentally broken about how the PSN does authentication and or authorization, and they can't figure out a way to fix it without breaking all the existing software out there. They can't go live again until they fix the hole because if anything more people know the details of the hack, and they would 0w3d again. They can't fix it unless the fix can be made at least opaque enough that a few library updates to the consoles takes care of things without having to touch application layer code, which allot of is found on ready only blue-ray disks.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[node 3]

It doesn't make sense at all

It makes sense if you hate Sony.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[spaceplanesfan]

Your comment makes a lot of sense.
However, we don't know the minds of sony execs.
Maybe they just don't want to admit that they got a sizeable blow from these hacktivits.
Maybe for them blaming criminals is better.
Maybe it was a mixed attack, just like sony said, a DDOS by script kiddies followed by professional hack done by criminals that took the advantage.
Dunno.
One thing for sure, remember that we discussed the day on which users are supposed to boycott Sony and create riots at their stores.
and how that was useless.
That PSN hack sure did damage their sales and I say that like some say, they got a return, regardless of who did that.
On the other hand, if I were a sony user I would probably mad at comment as the one I am writing.

So dunno, anyway, PSN isn't a life critical feature. Its just a game zone.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[DarkOx]

Maybe they just don't want to admit that they got a sizeable blow from these hacktivits.
Maybe for them blaming criminals is better.

I just don't see it. In the eyes of the law the hacktivists would be vandals, it might not be as serious a crime as larceny but its still a crime. I don't know about the Japanese public but the American public if anything takes a dimer view of vandalism than theft. So strictly from a PR point of view I don't see how "Crackers broke in a stole from us" is really all that different from "Crackers broke in a trashed our stuff".

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[bloodhawk]

I actually hate sony, but silly conspiracy theories just make the tinfoil hat brigade look stupid. The majority of the time the simplest answer is the correct one and to suggest that sony would choose a more embaressing and costly scenario to cover up a less embaressing and costly one is like migrating from tinfoil hats to full body suits of the stuff.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[spaceplanesfan]

You are right probably.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[anomaly256]

They only pay if the identities are actually stolen afaik

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[JamesP]

I think some angry hacker just wiped out their servers, and backups are as usual stored on /dev/null.

Well, silly them! I always put my backups on /dev/random. Never had a problem recovering them.

Of course, my db stores Youtube comments, so your mileage may vary...

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[bloodhawk]

Identity theft services are basically insurance companies, Sony has to pay to provide a guarentee that if a users identity is stolen they will be covered for up to 1 million in damages. for the average person to go out and buy these services cost around $100 a year for a person and just like all other insurance you pay whether you need to claim or not.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[hedwards]

/dev/null? Don't they know that's not secure? This is exactly why I store all my backups in /dev/rand, it just amazes me after all these years how it just keeps on securely storing my data.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[zMaile]

Isn't it Japanese culture to 'save face' though?

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[Schadrach]

PS3 games check online for updates at startup (heck most of the library for the PS Move is existing titles patched for support -- like Heavy Rain). So the change could require application level updates without any problems, since most online games won't let you play without the newest version anyways.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[jhoegl]

Taking into account the Japanese culture... it is possible that one thing is seen as less embarrassing as the other.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[node 3]

Right, because this is making Sony look so good.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[bloodhawk]

In japanese culture the little privacy a person has is deeply valued, from a cultural perspective this is about as bad as it gets. The consumer trusted them with their information and they let it get stolen.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[Legion303]

As I pointed out elsewhere, Sony's not going to risk a congressional anal probing and PCI smackdown by Visa just to have some sort of cover story.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[sincewhen]

I disagree. If you can blame someone else for the problem, you have half the PR work done already.

Re:Maybe that was a protest after all

[zzsmirkzz]

I think it comes to this (and I'm not claiming to believe any theories) - If the hackers broke in and wiped everything out including backups then it cannot be proven that they didn't steal user information so it must be assumed they did. It becomes pretty impossible (especially involving computers) to prove a negative - that an action did not occur.

Well, it's pretty clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

...to me that Sony's headquarters are right now a war field between IT engineers, security consultants, executives, directors, marketing agents, lawyers and everyone.

On one side, consultants want to turn everything off. On the other hand, the executives want to restart the money maker machine. Finally, on the third hand, the lawyers ask for precaution.

That's why every single day they send contradictory messages all over the press and the Internet. Big corps suck big.

And?

[coffii]

I cant say I'm surprised, if they have to rebuild their network expect it to take months, this really isnt a case of patching a windows server and rebooting.

I expect one of the things keeping them offline will be the credit card companies, they are probably the ones in control right now.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying they would have been better off running windows?

They have to be extra careful

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as they put it back up it's going to be a huge target. Can you imagine the hit on Sony's reputation if it gets taken down again?

Shocking

[saikou]

What are they, trying to write their own web server from a scratch?

Besides, they will probably get an earful from the "security companies" they have hired, because it implies that even after all the audits not all security holes were found.

I know what's holding everything up.

[Lose]

They're having problems re-sorting all their credit card data stored on the admin's desktop by penis again. They must not have taken a screenshot.

This could take ages.

Re:I know what's holding everything up.

[brenddie]

http://www.arrangebypenis.com/

Re:I know what's holding everything up.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're having problems re-sorting all their credit card data stored on the admin's desktop by penis again. They must not have taken a screenshot.

This could take ages.

Well, there's no way to sort by penis...

MICROSOOOOOFT!

Careful

[Anonymous Coward]

Reactivation tests can be dangerous. How good is their synch ratio?

Original source

[Chris Mattern]

If you'd like to actually ready what Sony has to say for themselves instead of giving clicks to the self-promoting second-hand site: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/06/service-restoration-update/

Re:Original source

[MimeticLie]

this blows. we should all go out and kill anyone who claims to be anonymous, this is freaking stupid go away you dam hackers

This was the only post that mentioned Anonymous in the first 50 comments. Looks like Sony's users are starting to blame them for the breach and the downtime.

Re:Original source

[Runaway1956]

DON'T CLICK THE LINK!! It's nothing more than official Sony brainwashing!

Re:Original source

[Dachannien]

Judging from the graphics on their website, the real problem is that somebody poured Coca-Cola in their servers.

Re:Original source

[stms]

I can't stand reading the PlayStation Blog the comments piss me off to much... I mean c'mon do they really expect me to believe that someone actually posted this statement "I think I’m used to the waiting by now. Thanks for the update." If I had a PS3 right now I would be swearing at Sony.

Re:Original source

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd like to actually ready what Sony has to say for themselves...

Oh come _on_, the last thing I need is another line of bullshit from SONY. They're a squadron of dishonest scum that got caught trying to nail their customers to the floor, and there is a chance in hell that they will be one iota different once they are up and fortified again. If anything, the crap out of them is going to come down ten-fold. You can bet that they will punish everyone, every.single.customer, for this incident.

Re:Original source

[Anonymous Coward]

If Sony isn't sure as to the extent of the compromise, you might be feeding a third party your browser information... So maybe not following the link is a good idea.

Re:Original source

[sincewhen]

See my comment above.

Re:Original source

[Just Some Guy]

I don't directly connect to anything Sony unless I absolutely have to. While I'm running Linux behind an OpenBSD firewall/IDS, there's no point playing with fire.

IRC?!!?

[Anonymous Coward]

An observer of the Internet Relay Chat channel used by the hackers told CNET today that a third major attack is planned this weekend against Sony's Web site. The people involved plan to publicize all or some of the information they are able to copy from Sony's servers, which could include customer names, credit card numbers, and addresses, according to the source. The hackers claim they currently have access to some of Sony's servers.

So this observer witnessed some "hackers" in a, probably open to all, IRC channel, discussing about stolen credit card numbers and other sensitive info....

yeah, right.

Re:IRC?!!?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's what EFNet is these days, then I wonder why I left it in the first place.

Re:IRC?!!?

[Nikker]

Doesn't seem likely to me either. It's almost like hanging out at a coffee shop over hearing some talk about stocks and screaming the market is falling.

Re:The most important thing

[jo_ham]

They have a right to drive traffic to their site for ad hits too, err, I mean to do whatever it is they were doing.

Plan B

[DigiShaman]

Alright Sony. Time for you to stop what you're doing and execute plan B. Nuke n' pave your servers and rebuild from the ground up. Then, import user data and purchases from backups. Screw trying to reverse engineer the security damage. You can do that on your own time and a separate test network. Just get those customers up an running ASAP!

Re:Plan B

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, import user data and purchases from backups.

Backups?

Re:Plan B

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, take the morning after pill or get an abortion and get rid of the retarded PSN and rebirth one with less genetic defects!

Re:Plan B

[DarkOx]

That sounds like a great plan. Put the system back online without knowing how it was cracked. That way everyone can get their new CC number stolen too! Customers will love that....

Re:Plan B

[Runaway1956]

Yes, backups. Help me out here, alright? Just where is /dev/null/? Do we keep it in the server room, or under the boss's desk, or where?

Re:Plan B

[gweihir]

Alright Sony. Time for you to stop what you're doing and execute plan B. Nuke n' pave your servers and rebuild from the ground up. Then, import user data and purchases from backups. Screw trying to reverse engineer the security damage. You can do that on your own time and a separate test network. Just get those customers up an running ASAP!

Might still take months,...,years. And if they do not do it better this time, they will just get hacked again. It is now known that they are an easy target. I agree that the attack analysis is a red herring. It is however quite possible that is the only thing they can do at the moment, or rather the outside security experts they brought in. Don't forget this is a Japanese company. TEPCO comes to mind.

Re:Plan B

[Culture20]

Don't forget this is a Japanese company. TEPCO comes to mind.

Someone should do a remake of the Nuclear Boy educational video with PSN PR Boy and his stinky poo gas.

HR

[pjh3000]

I think they might need to hire more than one person to work on this.

Hmm ...

[lennier1]

Translation:
"Someone changed the passwords to something other than the defaults and we can't get back into the servers again."

Re:Hmm ...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're running unpatched Apache servers, anybody can get back into them again.

ZING

Re:Hmm ...

[lennier1]

Not exactly. Most people need to get bored past a certain level to kill some time doing stuff like that.

Translating corporate-speak

[Animats]

Sony:

"We're still working to confirm the security of the network infrastructure, as well as working with a variety of outside entities to confirm with them of the security of the system. Verifying the system security is vital for the process of restoration. Additional comprehensive system checks and testing are still required, and we must complete that process before bringing the systems online."

To understand this, read VISA International's "What to Do if Compromised..

"Working with a variety of outside entities to confirm with them of the security of the system." means VISA International and/or MasterCard, Inc have invoked their contractual rights to send in auditors, security experts, and computer forensics experts. They do that for big security breaches. "Additional comprehensive system checks and testing are still required, and we must complete that process before bringing the systems online." means "VISA, etc. won't let us go back on line until we pass their security tests."

So Sony isn't entirely in control of when they go back on line.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[cbhacking]

Damn good thing, too. I have no particular love for the credit card companies, but I trust them to act in their best interest here, which is:
A) Ensure that people are happy with using their credit cards (which means their data isn't getting stolen, and they aren't needing to replace their cards, and ideally anybody whose card info did get stolen gets it re-issued with a new number and expiration immediately).
B) Ensure that they aren't going to have to eat a bunch of fraudulent charges (a large batch of fraudulent charges is a huge headache, and possibly impacts their bottom line; I believe in a case like this they can make Sony pay instead though).
C) Ensure that this won't happen again next month (meaning Sony has to actually get their security right this time).

These goals are either beneficial or irrelevant to me, as a credit card user. However, they contrast strongly with Sony's interests, which are:
A) Get PSN et. al. up again ASAP (customers want this, but if it's not secure this time they'll just be attacked again).
B) Get people to pay them money again (the credit card agencies won't allow this while there's a high risk of that info getting stolen).
C) PR damage control (sorry guys, you screwed the pooch and have already lost your reputation for security).

The only one of those that benefits anybody outside the company is (A), (B) would help the credit card companies except I'm sure this fiasco cost them, and (C) is arguably detrimental to the ability of customers to make informed decisions.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing is, that they probably already went through this when they set up the thing in the first place. Didn't help much.

Although to be honest, I also thing it's really NOT COOL if someone intentionally caused that much destruction.
(Yes, I still think Sony is FAIL for keeping their network that insecure. But come on. If I did it, I would have a bad conscience.)

Maybe one can say: If you act like a dick (Sony), someone will act like a dick on you (the attackers).

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[debrain]

So Sony isn't entirely in control of when they go back on line.

Sir –

Why not provide the service for free until Sony fixes their payment problem?

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[hedwards]

C) PR damage control (sorry guys, you screwed the pooch and have already lost your reputation for security).

Wait, Sony had a reputation for security? Why was I not informed?

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[BKX]

Concerning 1.B: Merchants are the ones held responsible in cases of fraud. If you steal a credit card and buy $1000 worth of Wal-Mart shit, then Wal-Mart is out $1000 unless they can figure out who you are and either have you arrested so you can pay restitution or sue the crap out of you. Generally, most companies are forced to pick option C which is: bitch about it, fire someone and do nothing to stop it from happening again.

That's where your point 1.C comes in. VISA is going to do exactly 1.C by threatening to issue their contractually allowed $100,000 fine for a data breach if Sony doesn't fix the original problem, which can escalate to $500,000 if VISA wants to be a dick about it. That's probably the main reason why the PSN isn't back up. Well, that and if Sony reactivates the PSN without at least looking like they took care of the problem, VISA could terminate Sony's merchant contract altogether. So I agree with you that Sony fixing this problem for real instead of for fake is caused by VISA acting in their own interests. It just happens to be that it's in Sony's best interest to shut up and take the hit for the team, lest they have real problems like not being able to take VISA. If it wasn't, you bet your ass the Sony wouldn't have shut down the PSN and would already be on our third or forth breach.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[WuphonsReach]

The old saw comes to mind:

If you owe the bank $100, they are in control. If you owe the bank a few billion, you are in control.

No way in hell will VISA or MC terminate Sony's merchant contract. When the client is that large, normal rules no longer apply.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[qzjul]

Even still, I suspect with 75 million customers buying games what, a couple per month, they're probably not even close to among MC/VISA's top customers; banks and larger retailers like Wal Mart I suspect are the big guys. From Wikipedia: In 2009, Visa’s global network (known as VisaNet) processed 62 billion transactions with a total volume of $4.4 trillion. I suspect Sony doesn't even make a drop in that bucket =/ That said, I'm sure MC/VISA will handle them slightly differently due to their larger volume, but I suspect they're still the ones calling the shots.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[Whatsisname]

I don't believe that is true. Merchants are generally not held responsible for fraudulent charges, otherwise the card issuers would have absolutely no motivation to even bother preventing fraud.

It is against the merchant agreement of pretty much all cards to require any verification beyond the signature on the back of the card, so it would be completely unreasonable to stick Walmart with the bill.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[drinkypoo]

Why not provide the service for free until Sony fixes their payment problem?

And this is why Microsoft will still be around after Sony has been reduced to a brand name that gets handed from company to company like a baton.

Re:Translating corporate-speak

[Tridus]

The card issuers motivation to prevent fraud is that users seeing fradulent transactions tend to be really unhappy, and credit cards are a competitive and highly profitable business. They WANT you to be happy using your card so you keep on using it.

Pandimentional Super-Inteligent Mice.

[VortexCortex]

Perhaps this is just further testing of their hypothesis:

If you only slightly abuse the consumers, they will dump you for another company that treats them better; However, If you abuse your customers thoroughly enough they will never leave you.

Instead they'll start making excuses for their abusers: "It's not Sony's fault! They were pwn'd by 1337 haxorz, see they still love me, they promise not to be reckless like that ever again..."

Ultimately, after being subjected to enough abuse, they begin lying to themselves: "I'm sorry, Sony, please don't raise the prices. You can charge me again, I'm just grateful for the DRM you let me pay for, I'll try not to loose my downloaded data anymore... You're right, I should have backed up my data -- How stupid of me to think you'd let me re-download without paying, It's not like it costs you nothing to retransmit me the file -- I'll pay for a better connection next time."

"We're sorry for wanting to use the hardware the way we want -- You're right Sony, Hackers ARE bad. I see now that I should loathe Anonymous and Mr. Hotz -- People like that rob me of my PSN, and cause cheating -- It's not like I should expect my player hosted online matches to work without your amazing authentication server to coordinate the connection -- Yes, I'm sorry, I am too untrustworthy to be given the option of entering the IP addresses of our peers, please give me back the central network! I'll behave! I promise!"

Re:Pandimentional Super-Inteligent Mice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stockholm syndrome, I see.

cap: stockade

Bionic Commando Rearmed 2

[skirmish666]

Has anyone heard what Capcom has to say about people who would like to play their games?

Outdated servers? yes, 2.2.11 and 2.2.10

[Tei]

There has ben some rumours, back and for, discussing about what versions where installed in Sony servers.

Based on this nmap of the network:
http://pastebin.com/bAUHxtNr

Nmap scan report for account.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.177)
Host is up (0.077s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for login.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.162)
Host is up (0.085s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.

Nmap scan report for commerce.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.135)
Host is up (0.071s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp closed http
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for auth.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.136)
Host is up (0.075s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for store.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.140)
Host is up (0.070s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for rc.store.playstation.net (199.108.4.141)
Host is up (0.080s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

Nmap scan report for native.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.144)
Host is up (0.073s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 (mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)

* login server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* account server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* commerce server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* auth server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* store server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* rc store server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* native server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)

There are some talking about the server auth.np.ac.playstation.net. That one was updated.

Nmap scan report for auth.np.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.73)
Host is up (0.070s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.17

TL:DR
YES, Sony was using outdated servers. Unpatched? no idea.

Re:Outdated servers? yes, 2.2.11 and 2.2.10

[xenobyte]

As nice as distributions are when it comes to automated package handling and updating, as potentially disastrous are they when it comes to compatibility... we've had 'old' webservers being upgraded as they go, including to newer distributions when they became available, but unfortunately the morons developing PHP (among others) quite often break backward compatibility, thus rendering countless sites broken when you upgrade. Worst has been the upgrade from Debian Lenny (PHP 5.2.*) to Debian Squeeze (PHP 5.3.*) because it turns out that a lot of commercial stuff (shops, message boards etc.) simply doesn't work under PHP 5.3. But if you skip upgrading due to PHP you'll get stuck with apache 2.2.9 in as opposed to 2.2.16...

Re:Outdated servers? yes, 2.2.11 and 2.2.10

[Anonymous Coward]

watch out everyone, this guy knows nmap!

Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[Sarusa]

Look at what they're doing here:
      - completely rearchitecting their security and network
      - completely reimplementing their security and network
      - physically moving the servers
      - redeploying this worldwide

Two weeks? I don't f@#4ing think so. They're just stringing you along or they really do have no idea what they're doing (I'll buy either).

I wouldn't use it for a couple weeks either till they work out the bugs. Me, I've been playing Portal 2 on PC.

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[lennier]

Look at what they're doing here:

      - completely rearchitecting their security and network

      - completely reimplementing their security and network

      - physically moving the servers

      - redeploying this worldwide

You forgot:

* deploying mirrorshades razorgirls to the BAMA Sprawl to hunt the console cowboys who cracked their ICE
* impersonating the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority
* burning Chrome

I love living in the squalid cyberfuture.

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at what they're doing here:

      - completely rearchitecting their security and network

      - completely reimplementing their security and network

      - physically moving the servers

      - redeploying this worldwide

You forgot:

* deploying mirrorshades razorgirls to the BAMA Sprawl to hunt the console cowboys who cracked their ICE
* impersonating the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority
* burning Chrome

I love living in the squalid cyberfuture.

>mirrorshades razorgirls console cowboys cracked ICE
>burning Chrome

I giggled.

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[gweihir]

If they are doing anything at all a this time. It is quite possible they are still trying to grasp what the external security experts have told them. In my opinion that could well have been "You cannot repair this trash. Throw it _all_ away, sack the incompetent idiots responsible for this (and that includes management) and start over. Time: 1-2 years at least."

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[Sarusa]

I would mod you up if I could, Hiro

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the mycotoxin!

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[Kenja]

Can you reemployment something that you never implemented in the first place?

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[Anonymous Coward]

goddamn I wish I was logged in (password is a hash at home, I'm thousand miles away) so I could mod this up

Mod parent up!

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[Anonymous Coward]

You just made all that up and even got people to upmod you. Bravo!

Re:Two weeks was fraudulently optimistic

[An ominous Cow art]

'Case', not 'Hiro'. Wrong author :-).

Also, I think it was the 'Eastern Seaboard Fusion Authority'.

Sony:

[Bytesahoy]

you dun goof'd.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[SniperJoe]

I hate to defend Sony here (it'll probably cost me some karma), but it seems like they're in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" scenario. A week and a half ago, they disclosed the nature of the personal information breach and everyone seemed to be clamoring about how long it took them to say something. In this case, they release more information during their press conference a few days later, then they discovered that it was a bit worse than they had thought and now everyone is pointing the finger at them because they released information that was incorrect. In a perfect world, we would all be able to release completely accurate information right after the event, but everyone here knows the difficulty in that.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly wanting them to release CORRECT information in a TIMELY manner is an unrealistic expectation. They don't get any cookies from me any time they do one and not the other.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[sexconker]

I hate to defend Sony here (it'll probably cost me some karma), but it seems like they're in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" scenario. A week and a half ago, they disclosed the nature of the personal information breach and everyone seemed to be clamoring about how long it took them to say something. In this case, they release more information during their press conference a few days later, then they discovered that it was a bit worse than they had thought and now everyone is pointing the finger at them because they released information that was incorrect. In a perfect world, we would all be able to release completely accurate information right after the event, but everyone here knows the difficulty in that.

No, Sony's in the typical "damned because they didn't" scenario.

Damned because they didn't respect consumer rights.
Damned because they didn't test their system's security.
Damned because they didn't realize that taunting hackers was a bad idea.
Damned because they built a shitty network and stored unencrypted credit card data (if at this point you still believe their bullshit about it being encrypted, you're the dippest of shits). Several friends have been hit with fraudulent charges in the last few weeks, and I myself have pending charges stuck in limbo on my card. I can't even fucking dispute the charge because it hasn't posted yet.
Damned because didn't figure out what happened before they started trying to fix it.
Damned because they didn't try to find out who did it, and just blamed "Anonymous" because they need to lash out at something.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[UnifiedTechs]

I think people are upset because they delayed info because they wanted it to be correct... then had it be incorrect anyways. So as a consumer/victim I ended up with incorrect info 2 days late, and then gave it more credibility because they had time to figure it out instead of judging it as just out info that may or may not be fully correct. I would prefer knowing of the possibility my info was stolen ASAP and then continuing updates as more info is given. Holding off telling me gives me no opportunity to protect myself, and I rather be on alert with the wrong info then thinking all is well with no info.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the time and money Sony has spent on blu-ray and ps3 encryption (neither of which were effective), I suppose the non-damning solution would have been to hire someone who knows what they're doing to implement a solid security system for their customers data. Since they didnt do that, or failed to update it to keep it effective, then they should be damned.

I suspect this is simply a case of what's endemic in the industry these days: hire cheap people without experience who cant do the job, and probably not enough of them to do it even if they were competent.

Speaking for myself, I was moderately happy with my PS3's gaming and media playing capabilities and liked that I could use it for multiplayer games and netflix without paying an annual fee like I do with my xbox 360. I was considering buying a second one for the other tv, but after this fiasco I think I'll sell the PS3 when the prices go back up (you cant give them away right now) and buy a roku player or another media player box and pocket the difference.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually.. that may very well be why they're taking more flak. If you're going to sit on this sort of news, get your shit right. I'd be more sympathetic if they just owned up to the problem early and then announced updates.

But.. We're going to wait to tell people we've fucked up. Then oops, we told but its even bigger than we thought. Then, we're gong to have it up soon. Then, uh sorry just kidding.

That isn't a progression of statements that inspires acceptance or sympathy much less confidence or forgivness.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[weicco]

Marketing 101. If you let your customers down there's hell to pay. Satisfied customer tells 3 people you got good service, dissatisfied tells 20 people, and probably even more in the current social network era, that they got lousy service. To win back a dissatisfied customer you need 20 times more effort than keeping old customer happy.

Luckily for Sony, they are the sole provider of PS and PSN which might save their butt.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely they were damned from the point in time that their security was so lacking as to permit such a data theft?

It's not that they have two choices both leading to damnation, rather they have choices but they're *already* damned.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[DrVomact]

What burns me is that I'm being denied a service by SOE that I am paying for. As an Everquest player, I hardly count...but I get charged a monthly fee to play this game. Sony has said nothing about a payment moratorium, so I assume they're going to keep charging me. When I try to log in, I get a message that I have been disconnected from their server, and a link to their "support" website that basically tells me that the service is down, and that hasn't changed in over a week.

What could they do instead? Well, I don't see why they couldn't at least bring up the game, with a warning to change our passwords. If they can't do that, then I'd like to know the reason why. Or I would like the opportunity to unsubscribe from their non-existent services. I'd say that SOE's reaction to this debacle is something like a man who's been stung by a swarm of bees, and then thinks it will help if he douses his house with gasoline and lights everything on fire.

Possibly their databases are so messed up that they can't collect their monthly payments? Hey, I bet that's not the case! I'll have to watch my credit card account to see if they make charges. Along with those other strange transactions that have started to pop up. Did I really buy a yacht in Singapore? Damn.

Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Sony is fucked now that they repeatedly lied about the severity of the exploit or just have no clue, which is even worse, screwed over their customers and committed fraud by removing advertised features of a product, conducted lawsuit wars against security researchers and people who legally want to use the products that they own the way they are legally entitled to do so, violated the trust of their customers partners and vendors by flagrantly violating computer security best practices, ignored warnings of problems found by outside parties of said security problems, fucked over the banks who will now have to re-issue credit and debit cards and will have to deal with the fraud committed, fucked over all of the retailers and vendors who will get screwed when those credit card numbers get used, plus all of the shitty things they have done in the recent past like the Sony CD rootkit incident?

Yea, they are looking pretty damned to me.

Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

I am totally fed up with you anti-Sony people having a field day with this story. IT HAPPENED. It could have happened to your sacred Apple, Microsoft, or Nintendo. Give the hater shit a fucking rest...seriously. Getting lame. Story Update! Then I get all excited to read, just to hear some basement dwelling fucktard bitch about the rootkit from almost a decade ago. Give me a break. You can buy or steal good music everywhere, just because Justin Timberlake's CD fuck up your shit and your're 36 doesn't make it an issue for everyone. You don't buy Sony anymore? Oh, you'll be missed. My 52" Bravia with an out of the box home theater from 14 years ago will be doing just fine. Why don't you post on some other story? Perhaps iphone or Drioid tracking? Something you can be relevant in.

Sorry about the rant. All I wanted to say was that a large corporations like Sony have a massive IT crew on trhis, and its a fucking joke that its been almost a month. I'm as pissed as you guys are. ts not two Spherion hired lackeys fixing this shit. Im very pissed off about the whole thing, how long its taking, etc. It IS bullshit, but it happens, to everyone. I've been calmly waiting it out, I think everyone else can. Data breaches happen, what can you do? If it's so imporant for to you to complain about old shit, you might want to check yourself and the life you lead. Just beacause I owned a Pontiac Fiero doesn't make all GM cars garbage. If you longer buy Sony, why comment? To whoever this might offend, fuck you, seriously, wait until Kroger gets hacked and they steal all your government assitance info. Keep jerking off to porn on your Vizio. Dickheads.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[kanguro]

Hey guys, he he hehe he.. I'm sorry to bother my I'm with Sony Tech Crew.. I need some help here.. he hehe he someone know something about apaches?... he hehe hehe..

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

It's basically the size of their mistake and the dishonesty that's bothering everyone. They have to offer identity theft protection services to the victims, the government wants to know what's going on, the FBI is involved, VISA and Mastercard have to audit their online system before they'll be allowed to take payments again. This has all occurred shortly after they made a legal attack on GeoHot and others for trying to make the system more open, all that effort into alleged security and they didn't even bother to firewall their network. If you don't see why this is such a big deal you're in denial.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Are you guys hiring? =D I prefer PR or Marketing!!

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh OH, we got an ANGRY little man here!!!!
Hhahaha, we are laughing at you bro, not with you.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Man On Pink Corner]

I am totally fed up with you anti-Sony people having a field day with this story. IT HAPPENED. It could have happened to your sacred Apple, Microsoft, or Nintendo

Says a lot when Sony's karma is in worse shape than Microsoft's.

As long as people are stupid enough to keep giving money to Sony, they have no real incentive to change.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've been calmly waiting it out, I think everyone else can."

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[gweihir]

It is a systemic problem at Sony, who fosters a culture of incompetence and arrogance when it comes to security. You cannot see that? Well, in that case, please throw more money their way like a good sheep.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

ME TOO. This is retarded, everyone acts like they themselves have implemented a secure gaming network.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! One of the biggest corporate security breaches of all time and you fucking Sony losers are calling it "hater shit," how fucking stupid and out of touch with reality can you be? Enough to buy a PS3 I suppose.

Fucking butthurt little loser. Getting tired of having your favourite waste of money dragged through the mud are you? Maybe you can ask one of the people who now have your credit card number to buy you a console that's actually -worth- a few hundred bucks you fucking knob. Go back to masturbating in front of your piece of shit Bravia and pretending like you made the right decision, your parents probably do the same thing when they think about you.

TL;DR: XBox.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

I'm a victim myself, but I don't see GeoHot as Che Guevara or Jesus. I didn't care that they took away the Other OS option..really..all I wanted to do is play games that I bought. Theres been huge ID theft stories before, and there will be again, but c'mon. I know its a big deal, its a mind boggling amount of people, and if you want to bring GeoHot into this, the average human will be very fucked off. We didn't want, nor care to, fight his war. Think about it, does Joe Citizen miss OtherOS or playing Modern Warfare 2?

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

> Sorry about the rant.

Don't apologize. I've never had any direct benefit from PSN since I don't play computer games, but watching Sony fanboys explode with nerdrage, week after week, is mildly entertaining, so in this way you could actually say it's made PSN a more effective source of entertainment for me. Not that I give a shit about Sony one way or the other: enraged fanboys are always amusing, whatever their affiliation. Please continue!

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Thats a sentece in your """. not a word. Yes, wooosh, I get it.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Thanks, anonymous. Do you work for Sony or just a dripping wet pussy>

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Ahhhh...its so nice to feed trolls and see them come out in droves.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Seumas]

I haven't. But I also do not have a $35-billion company with 167,000 employees and hundreds of millions of customers and 65 years of experience with which to deploy one and properly react to emergencies like this without totally flubbing it up.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Seumas]

When it happens to any other company and they miserably fail at recovering and managing their public facing interactions, we'll all rip on them, too. People aren't anti-Sony. They're anti-shitty-security and anti-bury-your-head-in-the-sand-and-blow-hot-air-up-your-customer's-asses. Until then, don't take it so hard. You shouldn't rest all of your self-esteem on your choice of gaming platform.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because you weren't just pissing your pants in anger, you were "feeding the trolls." That's cute, trying to make less of an embarrassment of yourself and save face by claiming that you're smarter than the people who are making fun of your sorry, pathetic ass. Begging for people to "please mod flamebait" too, god you're a fucking loser.

How's that overpriced BluRay player with shitty games working out for you now you bitch? Not very well by the sound of your little ragefit. Keep it up, you're a good fucking laugh, just like everyone who was stupid enough to buy a Pussy3 in the first place.

Incidentally cocksucker, you know who wins when you feed a troll? The troll. Every. Fucking. Time. Now be a good little boy and perform like a fucking monkey for me, come up with some other witty little retort, bang your fists on your keyboard like the bitch that you are. You're a puppet on a string, bitch.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Most sensible reply to this point. I couldnt agree more. I'm really not a fan of one platform versus another (ok, I will say I hate my Wii for lack of HD), but this has gone on far too long. Its getting to the point that you hate Prodigy because yout DLed something that had the Michaelangelo virus (throwback), so lets post and bitch, and get modded up. For people that play on PSN and like keep tabs on whats going on, it be a nice conversation, not so much because people want to spew their anti-Sony shit. Fine with me, but the issue is the issue. Trying to keep people on Slashdot to remain on topic is like trying to re-invent the wheel. Good luck. I've shut up through about 20 of these stories, now I wanted to speak. Damn, MY info was stolen, but it could have been any company. 300 snide comments per story dont add up to 1 intelligent one. Beneficial, as you can see, trolls need to eat too.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Wow, AC, I'll be sure to read that.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

You know he's a troll and you're feeding him, right?

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[sexconker]

They have to offer identity theft protection services to the victims

Because the first thing a sane user will do after this fiasco is click a link in an unsolicited email from Sony, then provide some random, totally secure, well-intentioned 3rd party with their name, address, birth date, credit card, and SSN to sign up for an identity protection service which totally won't auto renew at the end of the free period, honest.

Tomorrow I'm FedExing Sony a turd I squeezed out of my bowels.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[sexconker]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! One of the biggest corporate security breaches of all time and you fucking Sony losers are calling it "hater shit," how fucking stupid and out of touch with reality can you be? Enough to buy a PS3 I suppose.

Fucking butthurt little loser. Getting tired of having your favourite waste of money dragged through the mud are you? Maybe you can ask one of the people who now have your credit card number to buy you a console that's actually -worth- a few hundred bucks you fucking knob. Go back to masturbating in front of your piece of shit Bravia and pretending like you made the right decision, your parents probably do the same thing when they think about you.

TL;DR: XBox.

This is funny because it's true.
And it's also funny because XBots and Sornies are in a vicious battle for 2nd place. A distant 2nd place.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

It's cool, I'm getting full.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

I have to ask, how do you know about the culture at Sony? Or is this some sort of anecdotal thing?

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

People keep buying the same iPhone, Windows XXX, and GameCube (with motion control - Wii). Problem?

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

No need to bother, they already have all that info short of the turd. That identifty protection thing is REALLY iffy, couldnt be something everyone has heard of before, just some fly by night company. Thats really going to help me sleep at night. I agree all the way.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

To your kids playing shovelware on Wii?

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[arose]

The company who managed to compromise their private keys by not using anything resembling random numbers is incompetent in terms of security? Unpossible.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[amicusNYCL]

It could have happened to your sacred Apple, Microsoft, or Nintendo.

No company is sacred. Yes, that includes your beloved Sony.

Then I get all excited to read, just to hear some basement dwelling fucktard bitch about the rootkit from almost a decade ago. Give me a break. You can buy or steal good music everywhere, just because Justin Timberlake's CD fuck up your shit and your're 36 doesn't make it an issue for everyone.

You're missing the point. It's the lack of concern for their customers that had people pissed off, not the fact that everyone complaining about the rootkit that happened 6 years ago was personally affected. You didn't care when Sony showed its colors before, but now all of a sudden you're all pissy about it because it affects you. Believe it or not, but a major reason why I never bought a PS is because of the rootkit thing. I'm not exactly regretting that decision at this point. It sounds like you are (if you aren't, you haven't learned anything).

It IS bullshit, but it happens, to everyone.

That's not true, that attitude is bullshit. Regardless, it is once again Sony's fault that they've fucked up and screwed all of their customers. You probably don't care about that though, you're going to line up to buy the next internet-enabled Sony TV that stores your data on it. It's not like Sony actively sets out to do horrible things, but the fact is that they now have a record of making a series of bad decisions that end up with their customers getting screwed.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Is the Microsoft link in your sig irony or what?

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Damn, I just tired of all the complaining. I agree with you, I thought I made that clear. I challenge you to find one story about this on /. that doesn't mention the rootkit, modded up like its a fucking nugget of wisdom. I'm not a complainer about the situation, I'm a complainer about the complainers. Feel free to use that as a sig, it beats your Yakof Smirnof shit from when my mom was 20.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[jhoegl]

You complain about the complaining?
How innovative. How far has that gotten you in life?

See I can interwebs too.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[arose]

It's a testament to Microsoft's legendary integration. Just get everything from Microsoft, it will work together without a hitch!

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Indeed. Where is my checkbook?

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

I'm Team Leader at my McDonalds...wait....nevermind.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[arose]

On your Windows Server, but you will have to wait for a user CAL to free up to connect to it.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[JohnRoss1968]

Its about time we started a contest to see how can come up with the best description of what PSN stands for...
heres a few to start......
Painfully Sh*tty Network
Playing Solo Now
Personal-info Server Network (ok this one is stretching it a bit, but its describes it well)
Porous Security Network
Perfectly Stable Network *NOT*

SONY Stands for..
System Online? Not Yet

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[JohnRoss1968]

I Laugh at your pain and use your tears to sweeten my Iced Tea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Man On Pink Corner]

None of those companies deliberately included malware in a product I purchased from them.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Nyder]

I am totally fed up with you anti-Sony people having a field day with this story. IT HAPPENED. It could have happened to your sacred Apple, Microsoft, or Nintendo. Give the hater shit a fucking rest...seriously. Getting lame. Story Update! Then I get all excited to read, just to hear some basement dwelling fucktard bitch about the rootkit from almost a decade ago. Give me a break. You can buy or steal good music everywhere, just because Justin Timberlake's CD fuck up your shit and your're 36 doesn't make it an issue for everyone. You don't buy Sony anymore? Oh, you'll be missed. My 52" Bravia with an out of the box home theater from 14 years ago will be doing just fine. Why don't you post on some other story? Perhaps iphone or Drioid tracking? Something you can be relevant in.

Sorry about the rant. All I wanted to say was that a large corporations like Sony have a massive IT crew on trhis, and its a fucking joke that its been almost a month. I'm as pissed as you guys are. ts not two Spherion hired lackeys fixing this shit. Im very pissed off about the whole thing, how long its taking, etc. It IS bullshit, but it happens, to everyone. I've been calmly waiting it out, I think everyone else can. Data breaches happen, what can you do? If it's so imporant for to you to complain about old shit, you might want to check yourself and the life you lead. Just beacause I owned a Pontiac Fiero doesn't make all GM cars garbage. If you longer buy Sony, why comment? To whoever this might offend, fuck you, seriously, wait until Kroger gets hacked and they steal all your government assitance info. Keep jerking off to porn on your Vizio. Dickheads.

Do you feel better now?

Here's the problem, while it could of happened to those companies you listed, it didn't. It happened to Sony. Sony who's stance is, our shit don't stink, we have an unhackable PS3, and we will nickel & dime you on the Station Marktet.

Well, when the PS3 turned out hackable, Sony thru a fucking fit. A huge fucking fit. Not just the crying, bu the whole being on the ground flailing your limbs around fit. While they were having that fit, someone decided to use thier UNPATCHED, NON FIREWALLED sever for access to data. Now people hacking into companies computers to steal CC info isn't new. Which is why it's a big ass FAILING of SONY for getting owned in such a big way. We aren't talking small breach here, we are talking a huge fucking breach.

I know i'm talking to deaf ears here, but this is sony's fault, 100%, and they deserve it for being dip shits.

Yes, this effect me. I play(played) EQ2. Now i don't, because the server is down. And it's sonys fault for being shitheads, no one elses.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Hehe!

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[BigSes]

Are you new to Slashdot, or technology for that matter? I'm pretty happy that Sony doesn't know where I am 24/7, have a bullshit OS, or have a gaming system that is the GameCube with new controllers being hacked and modded to death. At least Apple denies, Microsoft find the piracy brings in new customers, and Nintendo accepts. [citation needed]? Read /.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[gweihir]

Expert opinion based on the available data. Also, without both technological incompetence and management incompetence it is very, very unlikely to suffer a data-breach this bad. As this is obviously a disaster for the company, the arrogance is a very easy deduction step.

You might say I have nothing. But I am pretty sure I right on the mark with high probability. And you will not get anything much more solid. The security folks they hired to look at the mess are not going to talk, Sony will have made very sure they are discreet. Inside sources cannot really be trusted and will in most cases not have the whole picture. The facts are not that easy to interpret. There are precedents though. With RSA (SecureID) I know about the arrogance, and the incompetence can be directly inferred from them either having one of their most important databases getting hacked or at least them thinking it highly possible. This while being an IT security company. There are other precedents I have access to but cannot talk about.

Re:Fuck you, and I do mean YOU

[Vectormatic]

SONY Stands for..
System Online? Not Yet

The PSN stuff was rather lame, but this one nearly made me fall of my chair, kudos sir!

Re:The most important thing

[mrcvp]

Stop plugging your own site it's lame, and you already have it in your signature.

Thwir system is just far to broken

[gweihir]

My guess: The external IT security experts they have had to contract are refusing to sign off on the "repaired" system, because it is just far too broken. Maybe it cannot be repaired at all, which would mean either a few more months of outage or a good likelihood of getting hacked again in a short time.

So what if it happens again?

[antdude]

Will Sony keep delaying the reactivation? :P

Re:So what if it happens again?

[tepples]

I'm betting it won't get reactivated until the PlayStation 4 comes out.

Re:So what if it happens again?

[Dunbal]

Nah, they'll turn 360 degrees and walk away...

Re:So what if it happens again?

[antdude]

How much do you want to bet? ;)

Re:So what if it happens again?

[Osgeld]

so will their customers

This is by far the biggest IT clusterfuck in histo

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony is handling this outage in such a bad way, seriously, it's been what, 2 weeks?

They had no time frame for a resolution and when they set one ("next week") they failed miserably.

Utter failure from Sony.

I own a PS3 and at this point, I no longer give a fuck.

This is by far the biggest IT clusterfuck in history.

I work in IT and having systems down for a few hours is a catastrophe.

Having to shut down everything for 2 weeks?

I can't imagine how deep a hole they've dug themselves.

FUCK SONY. I WANT THEM TO BE PUBLICLY SHAMED AND FALL EVEN FURTHER IN DISREPUTE.

They only deserve it.

Re:This is by far the biggest IT clusterfuck in hi

[Seumas]

Sony is handling this outage in such a bad way, seriously, it's been what, 2 weeks?

As of tomorrow morning, it will have been 20 days since the outage started (April 20th) and 24 days since the breach occurred (April 16th). If they're not expecting to have it up this week (which doesn't surprise me, I said it would be around a month as soon as we learned what happened), then it'll end up being at least 27 days since the outage started and 31 days since the breach.

I don't want rewards, bonuses, freebies. I just want them to be an example of a humble and gracious company communicating with customers in an honest and direct way that shows they appreciate their customer base and understands that their customers are neither idiots nor ignorant. And, more than that, I just want them to get the shit secure and running again.

Until then, it makes it easy to decide on the "which console do I buy this game for?" front. Buy it for the system I can actually play it on. :)

Direct Fucking Link Here

[Seumas]

Rather than Slashdot linking to some site called "I4U" which links to Joystiq, which links to the article on Sony's playstation site, how about we just fucking link to the Sony article and do away with the blog self-promotion chain?

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/06/service-restoration-update/

Get a real penis first

[Runaway1956]

I, for one, am NOT pissed about the Sony breaches. (plural, of course) I think it's fucking hilarious. What's even funnier is, all the people who gave Sony their credit card info have probably used those same credit cards on Google, Amazon, one or more other online games, Ebay, Newegg, hell, they probably entered their credentials into eggdrop.com and iloveyou.net. The Sony breaches are just the beginning of the story! Consumers just don't learn . . .

Re:Get a real penis first

[BigSes]

Consumers just don't learn . . .

So that must be why you're mad, your EQ account got hacked? Incidentally, my Q key is broken. Do you know how hard it is to steal a Q from somewhere? About as hard as hacking PSN.

Re:Get a real penis first

[Runaway1956]

Google helped me to figure out what you were talking about. No, I've never had an EQ account, so no Q keys, thank you very much. My sons and I did play Everquest a few times on our home computers though. Seems ages ago - ten years? Anyway - it seems that Google serves up more EQ hacks and scams than EQ sites with the search term "EQ Key". That's a pretty good indication that EQ is truly secure, right?

Re:Get a real penis first

[BigSes]

Might want to re-Google the story. People who had Ever@uet accounts years ago through SOE got their infomation stolen too, I guess you didn't, and thats a good thing. I honestly meant my Q key is broken...on my keyboard. I understand the confusion though, I meant that I had to go find something that had one in it, and paste it in to use it as my own. I never played that game.

Re:Get a real penis first

[DrXym]

If your credit card is used fraudulently you are not liable for the losses assuming you diligently alert the bank to them. But it does hilight that Visa / Mastercard could really help the situation here by prohibiting merchants from holding the credit card number in the first place.

When a person adds a new cc number to Amazon (for example), Amazon should submit it to Visa / Mastercard for validation and receive a signed hash in return. The hash is unique to the merchant and to the card and is used for transactions. If Amazon got hacked, all the hashes would be revoked and it wouldn't affect the credit card being used on other systems which would have different hashes. Amazon might still store the last 4 digits to print out on invoices, and maybe the cardname & expiration date, but not the number itself.

Second to that I wish Visa & Mastercard would make it simple for any card holder regardless of country or issuer to setup virtual numbers either 1-shot or limited in some way (e.g. max balance, expiration). Perhaps it could be done in a way similar to Paypal where you create a relationship between your card and a vendor. At checkout for the first time you are taken to the Visa / MC site to create the relationship and at any time thereafect you can disconnect. If the virtual number is stolen it's little use to thieves and it can be terminated too.

Re:Get a real penis first

[Runaway1956]

You, Sir, are thinking. I like that. Let me answer your first paragraph first:

While I will ultimately not be held liable for any fraudulent charges made on my card, there are hoops to jump through. For starters, I must realize that one or more charges on my card are fraudulent. The guy who gets a million card numbers, and only takes $1 from each card might actually net a million dollars, because many people will just skim over that irrelevant charge. Second, I must report the fraud, which will almost certainly result in my card being locked. Third, I must cooperate with the CC company if they ask my assistance in gathering any kind of information. And, finally, I must wait for a new card to be issued, activated, and funds transferred. So, the inconvenience of being compromised may be minor, or it may be considerable, depending on any number of things.

Second paragraph? I like. Personal data should NOT be saved on any server, anywhere, in a form that is useful to anyone. Even a simple hash would probably be sufficient, since it represents a unique relationship between two unique parties - you probably can't duplicate it again. I'd still prefer a complex salted hash - something much more complicated than Windows XP used. (saminside is just to damned easy, LOL)

Finally - those virtual numbers. I've read of them. The bank and credit card company that I use doesn't make that available to me, so I've never had the opportunity to use them. It sounds great to me! Personally, I would use it as an added layer of protection. First, I would put the money I expected to spend online onto my debit card, then use that debit card to create these one-time numbers. Let them try to go back to my real checking, or my real credit card from that!

Re:Get a real penis first

[DrXym]

I realise there is inconvenience to getting unauthorized transactions on your card. I'm just putting it in perspective that it's a hassle not the end of the world. I realise that a million cards could be billed a dollar, but even if you don't report the fraud, there would be 999,999 others who potentially could. I think thieves who rip off credit card databases would be better off to break them down into bunches of 1000 and sell them on to other criminals for use.

Sony...

[msauve]

SO, Not Yet.

Re:Sony...

[sexconker]

S O N Y
y n o e
s l t t
t i
e n
m e
s ?

Vertical because fuck you

Re:Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

it get's even better ...
SONY - sounds like the german - SO NIE ... meaning: like that, never

Re:Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or...
Safe Online? Not Yet!

Fuck the PSN.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Fuck the PSN, and fuck Sony. Fuck Xbox Live and Microsoft as well. When these cunts announce their new consoles, I'm going to ignore them (and Nintendo as well), build a PC, and ignore consoles. I've had enough of this shit. If Valve can't keep Steam's data locked down, then I'll just download bootleg games.

Re:Fuck the PSN.

[Vectormatic]

You know, you could just start ignoring them right now.

Re:Fuck the PSN.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

You know, you could just start ignoring them right now.

I already have a PS3 and a 360. I want to get my money's worth out of 'em, and I don't feel like explaining to my wife why I'm going to get rid of three "perfectly good" consoles.

@somersault

[Anonymous Coward]

go back to your jailed life you twit. IF you think this wont happen again your deserving it. AND after the rootkit you still bought into SONY. TOO bad for you.

So when do I get to use my PSPgo?

[nonsequitor]

I just got a PSP go thinking it would be perfect to compliment my kindle for an upcoming international flight. But I can't even play the games that came with it since the game installer disk needs to authenticate with the PSN to install the games.

I have been considering shipping it and the bonus game disk back for service, maybe they can load the games for me.

Re:So when do I get to use my PSPgo?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got a PSP go thinking it would be perfect to compliment my kindle for an upcoming international flight. But I can't even play the games that came with it since the game installer disk needs to authenticate with the PSN to install the games.

I have been considering shipping it and the bonus game disk back for service, maybe they can load the games for me.

Use CFW and install cracked games... (if you feel ok doing such in a scenario when you are forced to go pirate lol)

Re:So when do I get to use my PSPgo?

[Anonymous Coward]

So... you "just got" a PSPgo, in the middle of this hellish chaos, not knowing that PSN has been down for about a month?

And here is why Sony (and any major corp) will keep doing "business as usual", cutting corners, and screwing all consumers for a buck.

I rest my case.

Sony Delays PlayStation Network Reactivation...

[Anonymous Coward]

...at request of the US government as the recent downtime showed just how effective the military can be when not distracted by invading hordes of aliens. It is hoped that a few more weeks will enable the economy to be fixed.

PSN stands for........????

[JohnRoss1968]

Painfully Sh*tty Network
Playing Solo Now
Personal-info Server Network

Re:This is by far the biggest IT clusterfuck in hi

[JohnRoss1968]

"I just want them to be an example of a humble and gracious company communicating with customers in an honest and direct way that shows they appreciate their customer base and understands that their customers are neither idiots nor ignorant"

So you want them to lie and fake it??????

Sony's punishment?

[future assassin]

Does anyone have any news if Sony will get any punishment for this from VISA/MS/Gov? I'm really interested who this works out regarding PCI/PA-DSS. Seems Sony should have gotten a whoops for this

If we don't see any harsh punishment for breaking PCI-DSS then the whole certification process/requirements are a farce and don't apply to big corporations.

Has anyone check to see if its plugged in????

[JohnRoss1968]

The number one cause of Tech support calls. Unplugged computer.
Number Two goes too... The coffee cup holder doesn't work anymore.

If the hackers get caught...

[JohnRoss1968]

If the hackers ever get caught they are in for it.
All of the fines, the court costs, Legal fees. Its going to cost them a fortune.
Its a good thing that they have about 75 Million credit cards to pay for all of that.

Great going!

[warGod3]

Well, this whole incident has reaffirmed my complete LACK of faith in Sony and any of their entertainment services. My son asks me daily if I have heard an update and I tell him. He just nods and guess what? He doesn't need his PS3... he's happy off playing Legos or riding his bike or watching TV or whatever...

Me, I couldn't care less. I'm sick of the speculation and hearing about how a corporation got completely self-confident and self-absorbed to where simple system updates were not done... I mean are they all running Window 95 out there??

Sony "High Command'" Targeted

[Anonymous Coward]

The PSN outage and continuing server breaches point to "investigators" searching for Sony's CEO, CFO, COB, Board Members, First Echelon Presidents, Second Echelon Managers identites and credit card, passport, visa, numbers, home addresses, home telephone numbers and any information of their daily locations and whereabouts.

Whoever is doing this wants this data.

They will not stop.

When "They" have this data, look for ... bodies!

"They" want blood!

WoW!

It only does

[mjwx]

It
Only
Does
Trolling.

Honestly, this is pathetic.

[anlprb]

I happened to use the same ID/PW on both my PSN and my LOTRO account. Three months ago, someone had the ID to the LOTRO account and sold all my stuff. Long story short, Sony has NO F'ING CLUE how long they were being exploited. I never logged in anywhere other than personal machines to LOTRO, so there is NO WAY it could have been stolen from anywhere else. They were broken into over three months ago and they never knew it. They only just found out because some silly kid who had access decided to put a file on their servers that they FINALLY SAW. This honestly is pathetic. I have no faith in Sony anymore. They lost me and everyone I advise in a technical capacity. They will never know how many people that is, but I will. Standard response now is. Go with Xbox for games, Western Digital streaming device for Netflix, and a stand alone blue ray player if needed. At least Microsoft knows it is a target and has some semblance of a clue for NOT putting all of their proverbial eggs in one basket. I don't even know how to express the anger that I have for something that I thought would be safe and turned out to have them just having completely no clue on. For a major corporation, this is pathetic. There is no going back from this. Everyone in my family and everyone who I consult at work and personally will be told what happened and how long it has happened. I have already had people say "I thought Sony was a good company." Well, they weren't. To them, this is PR, to me, this is my personal information and my time spent in a game. Wasted, because of their hubris. Thanks Sony. You just lost me, my family and everyone whose ear I can bend. You won't care, but I do.

Re:Honestly, this is pathetic.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what, the LOTRO folks can't restore your stuff? Maybe you should add them to your rant.

Re:Honestly, this is pathetic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me make sure I follow here. Three months before the only known hack on PSN took place, someone stole account information from Sony, in a dastardly scheme to cross-reference these passwords on MMOs in order to collect virtual money that they could sell for a pittance relative to how much effort went into gathering the information in the first place? WTB Tin Foil Hat x1 PST.

Re:Honestly, this is pathetic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the first thing a hacker is going to do when he breaches the Playstation Network is run to Lord of the Rings: Online and try all of his new ID/PW combos, so he can sell some items for ingame money.

I think you got keylogged because you tried to download hardcore fetish porn and got bit in the ass and don't want to tell mom and dad what really happened.

Re:Honestly, this is pathetic.

[JustSomeProgrammer]

I find this not very credible. There's lots of ways that people hack into accounts in MMOs. The most common is to see someone online with stuff desired then try to crack their password. Hacking into a third party like Sony to try to get your MMO password? Really? That's the reason for the attack? There's no other place in the world that you use this password that you could have had cracked? Like even using the same password for your email address you used to sign up with? You never signed up for a newsletter about LOTRO from some third party or fan site? LOTS of people over the years have had similar experiences to yours. I had my Asheron's Call account hacked like more than 10 years ago and it was a common practice on other MMOs like Everquest, FFXI, and I hear of people complaining about it on WOW. Is all that because of lousy PS3 security?

I know you want to know how someone got your password, but I *REALLY* doubt that someone had this much access to Sony servers 3 months ago and everyone on PSN doesn't already have their identies stolen and extra mysterious charges.

heloo

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope they never get it started i hate sony from 2005 to now. They sell over price products that i can buy same quality for less.

They were 'unaware' of the extent of the attacks

[Chas]

Then they weren't just stupid and security-lazy. They were criminally negligent.

If the attacks were able to successfully penetrate to such an extent that you're still down and cleaning 2+ weeks later, you done goofed. BIG.

The Terrorists Have Won

[hduff]

SONY appears awfully inept in their response to and handling of this problem, making the Pakistani Intelligence Agency look like rocket scientists in comparison.

From Nelson:

[Anonymous Coward]

HAAAAAA HAAAAA!

Re:From Nelson:

[Anonymous Coward]

lOl!

Re:This is by far the biggest IT clusterfuck in hi

[Vectormatic]

i'll take all the freebies they are willing to give me, some extra games for my psp are more then welcome

That PSP though, will be my last sony device for the next ten years at the least

Sony Playstation

[hotelogix]

It is very heartening to see Sony is taking so much time for reactivation of play station network

The saddest part is...

[S.O.B.]

Obviously the risk of identity theft is the main concern with the Sony breach. But for anyone who's life has been most severely impacted by the inability to access the PSN for a few weeks then it's a clear sign from whatever deity you worship that you need to go AFK.

Read a book, go for a walk (after changing out of your pyjamas of course), talk to another human being face to face instead of through a headset.

Not buying it

[Jawnn]

Sorry, but discovering at this late date yet another possible threat/compromise is indicative of only one thing, an inadequately administered network. It's bad enough that the breach was allowed to occur in the first place. It is inexcusable that what, almost two weeks in, they have not been able to figure where to look to find more tampering? That should have been all done and over with in the first 72 hours, and I am being generous here. Why don't they know enough about their own systems that it takes this long to find another soft spot?

VISA advice to Sony - Make it a one-day story.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what VISA advices to all merchants. It seems Sony either did not read that or decided to ignore it.

http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/cisp_responding_to_a_data_breach.pdf
Make it a one-day story. By communicating
early and delivering on promised updates,
the company reduces the chances the media
may make more of the story than it might
deserve. The harder a journalist has to work
to dig up the information about your breach,
the more value the reporter and his/her
editors will place on the story — and this will
be reflected in where it is played and how
long it is considered newsworthy.

Brace New World

[Custard Horse]

I heard on the grapevine that Sony were working on an incredibly secure method of reactiviation. Once patched, you can play games on the PS3 as normal but - this is the clever bit - without connecting it to the interweb.

The details are sketchy but the machine must use some form of *artificial intelligence* (crazy, I know!) to *replace* characters that would otherwise be controlled by humans.

I feel privileged to be part of a world that is advancing at such a phenonmenal rate that these things are not just probable but *possible*!

Conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I finally got it. The whole Osama death is a diversion to drive attention away from sony's wrongdoings. CONSPIRACY!

PSN reactivatiobn delayed till end of May?

[JavaBear]

On the Scandinavian PSN Forum, one of the mods have forwarded a satatement that the expected timeline says partial reactivation pf PSN by may 31st. http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/Announcements-Events/PSN-er-nede/m-p/12818124#M2817 "31st is the aim for all the PSN services to be restored and "Restoration of Online game-play across the PlayStation®3 (PS3) and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) systems" is the first phase of that restoration plan."