Encryption only really works if you do it right, every time. Screw up only once, and you could leave enough crumbs to compromise it all.
We're talking about the NSA getting this drive. So by doing it right you mean everything's encrypted and in the event of a raid the drive is melted with thermite, mixed with neodymium magnet dust, placed in a 5T magnetic field, stepped on by five elephants, mixed into bird food and fed to a flock of >100 migratory birds.
And it would've worked if they hadn't kept those backups readily available on all those thumb drives!
Others think it might have something to do with the console's high price ($250) and the lack of big-name titles available (Mario and Zelda are not yet out)."
This. I'm not going to spend $250 on a paperweight. Which this is until they get some decent games. This IS a gaming system. Without games, it's worthless to me. Sure it might have the augmented reality stuff (which does look cool) and some other features, but without a killer app, I just can't justify spending $250.
I think the fact Sony has left the PSN in a completely disabled state for the past week could hint at some internal problems with not knowing what the hell they're doing in the first place. Their servers have been compromised and can no longer be trusted. In my world, that's a perfect time to re-build your systems from a pristine backup. So why doesn't Sony patch the vulnerability and deploy new servers? Perhaps it's because they don't have a clue what the vulnerability is...
Your generalisation is without merit. Here is an excellent example:
Switch Sound Converter by NCH Software out of Australia: US$34.99. All this software does is convert between audio files. That's it. There is a free version that is crippled, which is fair enough. I think it locks out certain formats or has a time limit. Can't remember. I did pay for it because I liked its UI and "just works" simplicity, especially with getting audio out of a video file. What I didn't expect was paying AGAIN when they went up a version. Not even a full version, but a ".3" to ".4" version. There was no warning. I was just told I had to pay full price again. I think they have a Larry Ellison in their organisation somewhere.
WavePad Sound Editor by NCH Software again: US$59.95 for the Standard Edition. Never forked out money for it. It's a stupid amount of money to ask for a glorified Audacity.
.....and speaking of Audacity: $0. It's free or you can donate money and/or coding skills if you want to support development. I use it. A bit fiddly with getting it to use the LAME.dll happily but I'm fine with that.
My generalization is without merit because you can produce an example of the "not" my generalization accounted for? WOW. That's amazing.
You could at random times during that two weeks. Microsoft communicated the issue and an expected turnaround. As well, MS comped subscribers a free live arcade game. Not to mention they didn't lose your personal data in the process. Don't forget to cancel that card!
Sony does offer a paid service. It's called PSN Plus and it's $60/yr. It's the same service with discounts on a few download titles plus automatic patch downloading.
Having a paid service wouldn't make it any better, anyway. They're not a little startup. It's Sony. I'm pretty sure they can bootstrap a service on their own dime without a significant impact to the bottom line. Especially when it's used to bolster the userbase for their mainline product.
Also, don't forget when XBOX Live had an outage for . . . a week? Or was it even longer?
Of course, that was an outage. Not a complete failure of all security measures.
If I remember correctly, it was an outage due to unexpected demand. A new game that came out over the holiday season, might've been one of the Halo titles. At least Live communicated the issues, even as they were on-going and intermittent.
Even if Sony offered a pay service, the same would have likely happened. I don't see the validity in your complaint.
Yet, if the same thing happened with XBOX live, Microsoft would have communicated the outage, and an expected uptime. If the downtime was significant, Microsoft would have comped paying subscribers with a free xbox live game. The risk of alienating paying subscribers is a motivating force for communication and haste.
Sony doesn't have this motivation, and what little they've communicated so far comes across as "It'll be done when it's done, and not before. Now leave us alone so we can get this done".
Bottom line: This can CERTAINLY happen to XBOX Live (or any system hosted on a public network). The fact that it's taking so long to correct is a little disconcerting, but I'd rather they fully correct it then bring a vulnerable system back online.
I'd be surprised if (evil) Microsoft didn't have a much more elaborate and robust system for countering "external intrusions". I'd chalk up their unwillingness to tie into many outside networks (Steam for one) as proof of their caution. With as much money as Live makes for them, they'd be foolish not to protect their cash cow.
(eviler) Sony, on the otherhand, has shown the opposite. With the rootkit on audio CDs, and now this. As well, Sony LOSES money on the playstation network. Their focus is likely on how to make it profitable, not secure.
If you'd rather trust your personal data (including credit/debit card) to the company with a record of security failure, have at it.
Yeah, it's not the outage that makes Xbox live better, it's the external intrusion. Nothing quite like an external intrusion into a company that holds your credit/debit card data to make you wish you could pay for better service.
That actually depends on the source DVD. For instance, upconverting Night at the Museum looks almost like blu-ray. However, other DVD's that are older usually don't look nearly as good compared to the blu-ray version.
That ALSO depends on the player. Some upscaling DVD players barely do anything, while others make gold out of lead.
I suspect most people aren't that bothered by picture quality.
DVDs are handier than tapes, you don't need to rewind.
Not to mention how good some DVD players are at upscaling. It's not HD, but it's close enough for the majority. Count that in with the compressed HD streams that many people are used to seeing from their cable provider and what HD actually looks like gets muddied in the public eye.
If you look at the screenshots he posted (example) you'll see that some of the screens were in the German language or a derivative thereof. Why would a New Mexican power plant have its systems in German!?
Because if the hacker got into anything, it was the honeypot that he/she was meant to get into.
Loser dude, who can't meet chicks on his own, steals idea of social network, fucks over his partners, gets rich, gets laid, still is a loser.
Did i get it all?
Don't be stupid. Even Zuckerberg has openly dismissed the claim made by the movie The Social Network that it was about getting laid. The getting laid part is just the minimal amount of Hollywood spin required to keep a consistency in all works produced that keeps Women whores and Men unproductive from the cheating - its just a form of control with little bearing on the underlying story or on the real-life people the characters are modeled after. Facebook is about controlling people through the sale and exploitation of their personal information - not getting laid.
That depends on which side of the curtain you reside upon. =D
I really want my child to learn about atheism. On Sunday we will sit and read Richard Dawkins books. Which is a bit hard going as I agree with him; but he is a bit too smug.
As are many religious leaders. Everyone seems to be a Bible-thumper these days. Either it's the Holy Scriptures, Origin of the Species, or the Anarchist's cookbook.
So, is it going to be made out of 18 layers of pizza, or 6 layers of phone books?
Both, in interwoven delicious layers. A nice advantage to this solution, after you take a blast, you just browse the armor plating for the number of the local pizza place, and you can have repair parts delivered!
Slashdot Mirror
Encryption only really works if you do it right, every time. Screw up only once, and you could leave enough crumbs to compromise it all.
We're talking about the NSA getting this drive. So by doing it right you mean everything's encrypted and in the event of a raid the drive is melted with thermite, mixed with neodymium magnet dust, placed in a 5T magnetic field, stepped on by five elephants, mixed into bird food and fed to a flock of >100 migratory birds.
And it would've worked if they hadn't kept those backups readily available on all those thumb drives!
Good point, I wonder if any Pakistani officials are sweating right now.
at this moment, it's 88. But later it's going to be 110. So if those Pakistani officials aren't sweating now, they're going to be!
Others think it might have something to do with the console's high price ($250) and the lack of big-name titles available (Mario and Zelda are not yet out)."
This. I'm not going to spend $250 on a paperweight. Which this is until they get some decent games. This IS a gaming system. Without games, it's worthless to me. Sure it might have the augmented reality stuff (which does look cool) and some other features, but without a killer app, I just can't justify spending $250.
Perhaps they feel it's an inside job.. At least partly.
As in maybe someone decided to play a SonyBMG music cd off one of the PSN network servers?
makes you wish you had an Xbox.
I think the fact Sony has left the PSN in a completely disabled state for the past week could hint at some internal problems with not knowing what the hell they're doing in the first place. Their servers have been compromised and can no longer be trusted. In my world, that's a perfect time to re-build your systems from a pristine backup. So why doesn't Sony patch the vulnerability and deploy new servers? Perhaps it's because they don't have a clue what the vulnerability is...
FTFY.
Sony said it has temporarily shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services and hired an outside security firm “to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened,” but refused to offer details on the hack.
Your generalisation is without merit. Here is an excellent example:
Switch Sound Converter by NCH Software out of Australia: US$34.99. All this software does is convert between audio files. That's it. There is a free version that is crippled, which is fair enough. I think it locks out certain formats or has a time limit. Can't remember. I did pay for it because I liked its UI and "just works" simplicity, especially with getting audio out of a video file. What I didn't expect was paying AGAIN when they went up a version. Not even a full version, but a ".3" to ".4" version. There was no warning. I was just told I had to pay full price again. I think they have a Larry Ellison in their organisation somewhere.
WavePad Sound Editor by NCH Software again: US$59.95 for the Standard Edition. Never forked out money for it. It's a stupid amount of money to ask for a glorified Audacity.
.....and speaking of Audacity: $0. It's free or you can donate money and/or coding skills if you want to support development. I use it. A bit fiddly with getting it to use the LAME.dll happily but I'm fine with that.
My generalization is without merit because you can produce an example of the "not" my generalization accounted for? WOW. That's amazing.
And XBOX Live is any better? Remember when XBOX Live was out for two weeks? You couldn't play that, either. And that isn't free.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/xbox-live-outage-day-13-still-up-and-down-still-preventing-fu/
You could at random times during that two weeks. Microsoft communicated the issue and an expected turnaround. As well, MS comped subscribers a free live arcade game. Not to mention they didn't lose your personal data in the process. Don't forget to cancel that card!
In short, yes, XBOX Live IS better.
Sony does offer a paid service. It's called PSN Plus and it's $60/yr. It's the same service with discounts on a few download titles plus automatic patch downloading.
Having a paid service wouldn't make it any better, anyway. They're not a little startup. It's Sony. I'm pretty sure they can bootstrap a service on their own dime without a significant impact to the bottom line. Especially when it's used to bolster the userbase for their mainline product.
Also, don't forget when XBOX Live had an outage for . . . a week? Or was it even longer?
Of course, that was an outage. Not a complete failure of all security measures.
If I remember correctly, it was an outage due to unexpected demand. A new game that came out over the holiday season, might've been one of the Halo titles. At least Live communicated the issues, even as they were on-going and intermittent.
Two things.
a. I thought slashdot didn't edit articles. I'm obviously wrong.
b. This smells of anonymous....
That guy always was a coward...
Even if Sony offered a pay service, the same would have likely happened. I don't see the validity in your complaint.
Yet, if the same thing happened with XBOX live, Microsoft would have communicated the outage, and an expected uptime. If the downtime was significant, Microsoft would have comped paying subscribers with a free xbox live game. The risk of alienating paying subscribers is a motivating force for communication and haste.
Sony doesn't have this motivation, and what little they've communicated so far comes across as "It'll be done when it's done, and not before. Now leave us alone so we can get this done".
that's a more generic social/economical problem. Free/less expensive is always perceived as less quality.
It is perceived as such in the software world, because more often then not, it's true.
Bottom line: This can CERTAINLY happen to XBOX Live (or any system hosted on a public network). The fact that it's taking so long to correct is a little disconcerting, but I'd rather they fully correct it then bring a vulnerable system back online.
I'd be surprised if (evil) Microsoft didn't have a much more elaborate and robust system for countering "external intrusions". I'd chalk up their unwillingness to tie into many outside networks (Steam for one) as proof of their caution. With as much money as Live makes for them, they'd be foolish not to protect their cash cow.
(eviler) Sony, on the otherhand, has shown the opposite. With the rootkit on audio CDs, and now this. As well, Sony LOSES money on the playstation network. Their focus is likely on how to make it profitable, not secure.
If you'd rather trust your personal data (including credit/debit card) to the company with a record of security failure, have at it.
A one-week outage does not make Xbox live better.
Yeah, it's not the outage that makes Xbox live better, it's the external intrusion. Nothing quite like an external intrusion into a company that holds your credit/debit card data to make you wish you could pay for better service.
which include timestamps of two photos.
The obvious response? They will start sending ONE timestamped photo.
That actually depends on the source DVD. For instance, upconverting Night at the Museum looks almost like blu-ray. However, other DVD's that are older usually don't look nearly as good compared to the blu-ray version.
That ALSO depends on the player. Some upscaling DVD players barely do anything, while others make gold out of lead.
I suspect most people aren't that bothered by picture quality.
DVDs are handier than tapes, you don't need to rewind.
Not to mention how good some DVD players are at upscaling. It's not HD, but it's close enough for the majority. Count that in with the compressed HD streams that many people are used to seeing from their cable provider and what HD actually looks like gets muddied in the public eye.
If you look at the screenshots he posted (example) you'll see that some of the screens were in the German language or a derivative thereof. Why would a New Mexican power plant have its systems in German!?
Because if the hacker got into anything, it was the honeypot that he/she was meant to get into.
If you look at the screenshots he posted (example) you'll see that some of the screens were in the German language or a derivative thereof.
English?
Yes.
Portal 2 Bringing Steam To the PS3
Something needs to bring some steam to the smoldering heap that is the PS3.
You must have AT&T.
Loser dude, who can't meet chicks on his own, steals idea of social network, fucks over his partners, gets rich, gets laid, still is a loser.
Did i get it all?
Don't be stupid. Even Zuckerberg has openly dismissed the claim made by the movie The Social Network that it was about getting laid. The getting laid part is just the minimal amount of Hollywood spin required to keep a consistency in all works produced that keeps Women whores and Men unproductive from the cheating - its just a form of control with little bearing on the underlying story or on the real-life people the characters are modeled after. Facebook is about controlling people through the sale and exploitation of their personal information - not getting laid.
That depends on which side of the curtain you reside upon. =D
I really want my child to learn about atheism. On Sunday we will sit and read Richard Dawkins books. Which is a bit hard going as I agree with him; but he is a bit too smug.
As are many religious leaders. Everyone seems to be a Bible-thumper these days. Either it's the Holy Scriptures, Origin of the Species, or the Anarchist's cookbook.
Don't sweat it, I got 50% funny and 50% flamebait from the mods. Looks like I need to start using tags =D
So, is it going to be made out of 18 layers of pizza, or 6 layers of phone books?
Both, in interwoven delicious layers. A nice advantage to this solution, after you take a blast, you just browse the armor plating for the number of the local pizza place, and you can have repair parts delivered!