Slashdot Mirror
PSN Up, And Then Down Again
RdeCourtney writes "The PlayStation Network is down again. Sony had originally enabled passwords to be reset onscreen simply by entering an email address and date of birth. Whoever has the data from Sony, could, in theory, then reset any of the captured users accounts simply by entering the details they stole."
It seems to me that the 13-yr olds that run FARK have a far better security system in place than Sony does. Their people have no plan, no concept, no big picture at all, of what to do.
They are grasping at straws, throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, or whatever tired car analogy you wish to entertain. Point is: I think it's time they gave up and went home.
If they are lucky, they will shut down for 8 months and rebuild from scratch. If they are stupid (most likely scenario), they will continue to prop up a house of cards with a few pieces of sticky tape, and it will come down again and again, until no one is left and they've wasted a great deal of money only to arrive at the conclusion that they should have done the rebuild from scratch in the first place.
Of course by then, management will look at the numbers and get out of the game business entirely, leaving MS and Nintendo.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
But I've heard reports that the e-mail reset page is down.
The e-mail included a key to keep this from happening, but someone must have broken that key generation scheme.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
At the time I type this, the PSN is actually up and running. Or at least, it's online gaming components are. The Store and other features that require payments are still offline, as they have been since the initial shutdown several weeks ago. But you can, should you feel so inclined, log in and play games online at present. Whether this may change over the next few hours is open to question - while it wouldn't completely surprise me, I suspect that Sony will try to keep the network itself up this time..
What's just been taken offline is web-interface for changing passwords. Now, that's still pretty bad - in fact, given how stupid the mistake in this case is, it's verging on the awful - but I dare say that a lot of PSN users may not actually notice until Sony tells them. Furthermore, just to add a little perspective, stupid though Sony's mistake here is (and it is very stupid indeed and then some), no additional personal information or credit card details beyond what has already been leaked will have been compromised as a result of this - not least because you can't, so far as I know, actually input new credit card details into the PSN yet.
So it's a further embarrassment for Sony and will further undermine confidence in them (do you really, really want to trust them with your credit card details ever again). But unless I'm reading things wrong - and if I am then happy to be corrected- there's not been any actual additional harm done to users this time.
Meanwhile, you have the CEO of the company dismissing this whole thing as a "hiccup," which pretty aptly demonstrates just how seriously Sony apparently takes its security. No way I want my CC number or private info involved in their next "hiccup."
And also saying he can't promise you security after this attack. "It's the beginning, unfortunately, or the shape of things to come. It's not a brave new world — it's a bad new world" is what he said exactly. So is he preparing us for an endless number of "hiccups"?
My work here is dung.
The Japanese PSN isn't up because the Japanese government isn't letting them put it back up until they can demonstrate they've properly secured it.
Speaking of police work, Slashdot editors should try actually verifying their stories. PSN isn't down. It's up right now I type this. Apparently, what's down is the email reset page.
As for your credit card number, there is no evidence credit card data was obtained in the PSN breach. Credit card companies would have noticed an increase in fraud and alerted their customers. The alarmism on forums is ridiculous, and most of it is driven from Sony hatred rather than facts. This is the website on which a commenter to a story on the Japan earthquake delaying the Sony NGP justified the lethal disaster by saying, "Anything that hurts Sony is good for the consumer." It got +3 Funny.
Speaking of dumb, PSN isn't down. This story's headline is completely inaccurate. What's been taken down is several website login pages that use PSN accounts, such as Qrocity.com.
All that ranting about "fanbois," and you didn't even have all the facts. You said that last time you pointed out how bad things were, you were modded down, but your last post was actually a false claim that PS3 users weren't been able to play their games during the PSN outage, and others corrected you.