Didn't say Karma, I said the word Insightful next to your post.
If that was something I cared about, you would probably see me quote my own posts in my signature.
I'm not confused about anything here. I don't go around referring to my computer as a "tower", I don't refer to all soft drinks as "a Coke", and when I'm talking about a particular operating system I just name it instead of using ambiguous terms.
My goal has nothing to do with karma on Slashdot, I'm pretty sure it's already as high as it can go (half the time I don't even see scores next to anyone's posts, I haven't bothered to look into why). Yes, I checked the link. I realize that people commonly use "PC" to refer to Windows, for whatever reason. That still doesn't mean that it's incorrect to refer to a Mac as a PC. We've established that a Mac is in fact a personal computer. How much longer did you want to argue about this?
It is a computer that is personal, not a Personal Computer.
"A computer that is personal".. that's the same thing as a personal computer. So a Mac is, in fact, a personal computer. So it's not incorrect to refer to one as a PC, if you're into the whole brevity thing.
I know you and the dumb-shits wasting mod-points on this conversation are not this ignorant.
You're right, I'm not ignorant, I just don't base my definitions on marketing drivel, thank you very much.
Really? A Mac is not a personal computer? What kind of device is it, then? Perhaps a "different computer"? Also, why does the definition of what a Mac is relate to how long someone has been in a coma? Surely the presence of recently-comatose patients would not change the nature of the machine itself.
I find it interesting that they gloss over the fact that to completely avoid this all you need to do is turn off download safe files in safari, and/or not be stupid. Their solution is to purchase their anti-malware package for Mac.
So you're under the assumption that if you disable this particular setting, then you are now immune to all present and future malware on a Mac, correct? That proactive things like anti-virus or malware scanning are unnecessary, right? That the entire Mac malware threat ends with a single checkbox, is that about it?
You realize that nearly every time a piece of malware comes out for Windows that there's typically a single setting you can change to mitigate that one specific threat, right? Has that fact stopped criminals from finding new infection vectors?
The news here is not this one piece of software, or how it gets installed, or what it does, or how to stop it. The news is the fact that the professional malware authors are now targeting Macs, and they have the automated toolkits to do it. A little checkbox in your browser isn't going to change that fact.
What's the best practice when reinstalling Windows from disc so that the computer doesn't get owned before it finishes downloading the updates over a slow Internet connection?
Has that really ever been a problem? I used to remember hearing theoretical numbers about how long it would take an unpatched XP to get compromised, but I've never actually heard of it happening in reality. I don't even know how many copies of XP I've installed over the years and have put online to download all kinds of things before anything was patched, and the system never got compromised before I could do so. I've got a friend that runs a computer maintenance/install/repair business and he's never mentioned having that happen with any of his clients.
There's no reason that should be controversial. The US fields the most advanced military in the world. It makes sense for any country, even our allies like Britain and France, to run simulations featuring an opponent army that is advanced as it can be. Right now, that's us. It doesn't seem like we're in the game for ideological reasons, it seems like we're there for technical reasons. It would even make sense if we base our own simulations on an enemy with similar capabilities. If you train for the worst possibility, then you should be able to handle anything less.
If a handful of companies like these refused to authorize online credit card payments to the merchants
You suggest that as if this specific activity was not these people's business model. A credit processor in Azerbaijan doesn't just one day decide to start processing spam purchases, they open their business specifically for that purpose. Good luck getting them to switch business models just because you want them to.
Exactly. Look at the storm, what color is it? It's white. What else is white? Angels. This is not a storm, this is a gathering of angels to.. well, storm the Earth. They better get moving if they hope to be here tomorrow.
I have to agree. If Americans don't want to be spied on then they should also be opposed to spying on foreigners as well.
It's an interesting contradiction. The American people have the rights they have because they demand them from their government, but foreigners can't really demand anything from the US government because it's not their government...
Screw it, it works for us! wait..
The idea that Americans are somehow better than other people is an outdated notion.
You're just talking about nationalism, every country that fields an army has it. You just hear about Americans doing it because either you're an American, or because our media is so loud, or because your media pays attention to what we're doing (and you watch it).
It sounded like Google was able to secure licensing deals from several labels, they specifically called out independent labels as being easy to work with, but it sounds like Sony and Universal refused to come to terms.
Clearly, this is not the music service Google wanted to offer. And Google director of content partnerships Zahavah Levine -- who led the company's negotiations with the major labels -- made it clear who she feels is to blame.
"We've been in negotiations with the industry for a different set of features, with mixed results," she told Billboard the night before the announcement was made. "[But] a couple of major labels were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms."
Sources tell Billboard that Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group proved the bottlenecks in this case. Google wanted to offer a scan-and-match style locker service -- where instead of uploading different copies of the same track to store in a locker for each users, the service would scan users' libraries and match the songs they own to a centralized server, paying rightsholders for each stream. Without the rights to do so, the message from Google is clear -- either get on board or we'll move on without you.
"A large segment of the music industry worked cooperatively and was extremely helpful sorting out the issues of online licensing," she said, giving particular credit to the independent label and publishing communities.
But the same article also explicitly says they're launching without any licensing deals at all. It looks like Sony and Universal torpedoed the boat for everyone.
in military slang, "used his wife as a human shield" no doubt actually means "the wife was closest to the door when we kicked it open, so we shot her first".
The wife rushed the SEALs while OBL was standing there, and they shot her in the leg. They shot OBL in the left side of the head, twice. If they wanted to kill his wife, they would have, especially since she charged them. They didn't kill her though, they left her there with a wounded leg. At any rate, the "human shield" woman, regardless of whether or not she was being used involuntarily, was not the wife in his bedroom and wasn't covering OBL, she was covering one of the other men who died (possibly the courier who fired on the SEALs when they landed, or OBL's son).
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.
Would you really want MPAA to get limitless power to track your every movement?
What kind of ridiculous question is that? No one wants the MPAA to have "limitless power to track your every movement". But we're not talking about "limitless power to track your every movement", are we? Nice strawman.
What next, install tracking equipment and video cameras in your home so can MPAA can make sure you aren't making backups own your movies?
Continuing right along, now it looks like you're at the slippery slope fallacy. You're exactly right, if the MPAA has the ability to stop browser vendors from implementing tracking privacy settings, and to stop requirements that online companies respect the browser settings, the logical next step is full-time in-home video surveillance. I don't know why more people can't see that. Good thing you brought it up.
I don't have any love for the MPAA in particular or the anti-privacy laws in general, but your arguments aren't exactly helping. Maybe you can try again with a little less hyperbole if you expect anyone to take you seriously.
Am I the only one who read this as: It's too complicated for the entry level IT guys we hire to use....
Probably not, but at least you're not the only one who is wrong.
The end users are not quoted in this article. The security vendors are the ones who are quoted about the entire process being to complicated for companies to actually implement it.
DLP is the "most disappointing" portion of the security market primarily because of the amount of time it takes companies to identify the data they want to protect, create profiles and taxonomies to categorize it and put in place the software that will protect it, John Vecchi, head of global product marketing for security vendor Check Point told a Register reporter at the company's annual conference today....
That "boil the ocean" approach doesn't deliver much benefit until all the pieces are in place, which makes even companies enthusiastic about automating their data protection shy away from the work of actually doing it.
That's a problem for companies like his that develop the software, CheckPoint CEO Gil Schwed said in his keynote.
It sounds like you know better than all those drooling morons though, so there's your niche where you can make your millions.
Saying anonymous is responsible for this (or anything) is like saying democracy is responsible for causing the wars in the middle east. You're mixing up an idea, an ethos, with an organization.
Are you equating the loosely-affiliated group Anonymous with a concept like democracy, or are you redefining the common definition of Anonymous as a loosely-affiliated group to now mean anyone involved in hacking or online attacks for an ideological reason other than financial gain? I've never heard proponents of democracy, or any other ethos, say something as cheesy as "We are [ethos]. We are Legion. Expect Us." The words "we" and "us" clearly identify people as a group. That is, even Anonymous thinks they're a group and not just an ethos. They are not an ethos, they are a group of people with some common world views, regardless of whether or not they have an official roster.
It's perfectly reasonable that a not-for-profit attacker would in fact steal valuable information just to steal it, not necessarily to release or sell it. It makes Sony look much worse, and costs them more, to have their customers' financial and personal data stolen, even if that information never actually gets used or released. In addition, it's not Sony's customers that Anonymous wants to attack, it is Sony itself. It doesn't serve their goals to release customer information, all they need to do is steal it. In other words, it would fit in with the idea of revenge against Sony to simply do as much damage to them as possible even if you don't plan on benefiting directly from the attack.
But the US Govt might have wanted to have firmer intel on that before sending DEVGRU a 100 miles into Pakistan, wikileaks may have forced them to act on not solid intel.
I seriously doubt Wikileaks "forced" them to do anything. The document says that this guy, LY-10017, had communication with Bin Laden's courier, and that in 2003 LY-10017 lived in Abbottabad. He moved somewhere else in 2004 or 2005, before Bin Laden's compound was built. The only connections are that it lists the name of the courier, and indicates that this particular detainee once lived in the same city that Bin Laden turned out to be hiding in (but not at the same time). It's more of a coincidence, the document doesn't even draw a link between Bin Laden's courier and the town, other than a guy who once lived in the town also once communicated (indirectly) with the courier.
Putting rootkits on CDs is evil. Storing passwords in plaintext is stupid. Being evil doesn't make you stupid.
"Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity." Putting rootkits on CDs is also stupid. Being evil doesn't make you stupid, and vice versa, but the results of each look pretty similar. But it's interesting to me that you seem to imply that you are happy to do business with an evil company, but not a stupid one.
So, again, Sony's consumer-unfriendly attitude does not indicate that they would take reckless chances with protecting information that they face potential liability claims over.
Obviously their risk management department isn't doing its job if they decided to store usernames, passwords, and payment card information in a way that is not secure. They didn't expect the breach, and they didn't take measures to protect the data because they didn't think the breach would happen (obviously, because of a complete lack of information from Sony, this is speculation). In other words, they didn't consider it reckless. This goes back to them being stupid.
I don't get why their history with rootkits has anything to do with the fact that I seriously doubt they stored passwords in plaintext.
They're stoooooopiiiiiiid. But the passwords don't need to be plaintext. They very well may have been encrypted. But encryption doesn't matter when someone also steals the encryption algorithm and keys. From the little information we have, it sounds like Sony doesn't even know how this happened or what the extent was. What I do know is that Sony has never claimed that their systems are PCI compliant, even when asked, so they very well may be storing things in plaintext.
I refuse to believe that even Sony would have stored them in plaintext.
What do you mean "even Sony"? This is the same company that decided a rootkit on their audio CDs was a great way to stop piracy. Exactly how much do you really think Sony cares about you or your information? All they want is your money, and you gave it to them. You didn't learn the first time, so now you get to pay for it this time.
Go ahead, ask me why I never bought a Playstation, or any other Sony device after the rootkit fiasco. Go ahead, ask. I'll tell you. (hint: it's about trust)
I would expect some serious mea culpas and free crap out of them
Why the hell would you expect that from Sony? Again, there's historical data here. Go back and look at how they "rectified" the rootkit issue. You should expect the same level of "customer service" (in the George Carlin sense). That's right, you're the customer, and Sony is "servicing" you. I hope it was good for you.
In the settlement filing, Sony states that it will immediately recall all XCP CDs and replace them with non-content-protected CDs. It has also agreed to offer incentives to U.S. customers to "ensure that XCP CDs are promptly removed from the market." Sony first released details about its CD recall scheme in late November.
Customers who exchange their XCP CD can either download three albums from a list of over 200 titles, or claim a cash payment of $7.50 and a free download of one album. To claim this compensation, customers must return their XCP CDs to Sony or provide the company with a receipt showing they returned or exchanged the CD at a retailer after Nov. 14.
Sony is not recalling MediaMax CDs, but has agreed to compensate buyers of these albums by allowing them to download one free album, as well as offering them MP3 versions of the music on the MediaMax album.
But don't worry, the next time they come out with something shiny I'm sure you'll have forgotten all about this. They're counting on it.
Just out of curiosity, what's the minimum geographical accuracy required before this behavior becomes "not OK", where it can be abused? The police are already using the current set of data to provide another point of evidence that you were in the area where they say you were.
Here's another question: if Apple could get a GPS location as efficiently as recording cell tower UIDs, is there any reason to believe they wouldn't? It sounds like the only reason they store cell tower UIDs instead of GPS data is because it would kill the battery to continually get the position via GPS. Not because it's wrong, but because it's more power-expensive.
For bonus points, explain why anything that Google or Android does has any bearing at all on what Apple does (exonerates or vilifies).
Slashdot Mirror
Didn't say Karma, I said the word Insightful next to your post.
If that was something I cared about, you would probably see me quote my own posts in my signature.
I'm not confused about anything here. I don't go around referring to my computer as a "tower", I don't refer to all soft drinks as "a Coke", and when I'm talking about a particular operating system I just name it instead of using ambiguous terms.
My goal has nothing to do with karma on Slashdot, I'm pretty sure it's already as high as it can go (half the time I don't even see scores next to anyone's posts, I haven't bothered to look into why). Yes, I checked the link. I realize that people commonly use "PC" to refer to Windows, for whatever reason. That still doesn't mean that it's incorrect to refer to a Mac as a PC. We've established that a Mac is in fact a personal computer. How much longer did you want to argue about this?
It is a computer that is personal, not a Personal Computer.
"A computer that is personal".. that's the same thing as a personal computer. So a Mac is, in fact, a personal computer. So it's not incorrect to refer to one as a PC, if you're into the whole brevity thing.
I know you and the dumb-shits wasting mod-points on this conversation are not this ignorant.
You're right, I'm not ignorant, I just don't base my definitions on marketing drivel, thank you very much.
Really? A Mac is not a personal computer? What kind of device is it, then? Perhaps a "different computer"? Also, why does the definition of what a Mac is relate to how long someone has been in a coma? Surely the presence of recently-comatose patients would not change the nature of the machine itself.
I find it interesting that they gloss over the fact that to completely avoid this all you need to do is turn off download safe files in safari, and/or not be stupid. Their solution is to purchase their anti-malware package for Mac.
So you're under the assumption that if you disable this particular setting, then you are now immune to all present and future malware on a Mac, correct? That proactive things like anti-virus or malware scanning are unnecessary, right? That the entire Mac malware threat ends with a single checkbox, is that about it?
You realize that nearly every time a piece of malware comes out for Windows that there's typically a single setting you can change to mitigate that one specific threat, right? Has that fact stopped criminals from finding new infection vectors?
The news here is not this one piece of software, or how it gets installed, or what it does, or how to stop it. The news is the fact that the professional malware authors are now targeting Macs, and they have the automated toolkits to do it. A little checkbox in your browser isn't going to change that fact.
What's the best practice when reinstalling Windows from disc so that the computer doesn't get owned before it finishes downloading the updates over a slow Internet connection?
Has that really ever been a problem? I used to remember hearing theoretical numbers about how long it would take an unpatched XP to get compromised, but I've never actually heard of it happening in reality. I don't even know how many copies of XP I've installed over the years and have put online to download all kinds of things before anything was patched, and the system never got compromised before I could do so. I've got a friend that runs a computer maintenance/install/repair business and he's never mentioned having that happen with any of his clients.
There's no reason that should be controversial. The US fields the most advanced military in the world. It makes sense for any country, even our allies like Britain and France, to run simulations featuring an opponent army that is advanced as it can be. Right now, that's us. It doesn't seem like we're in the game for ideological reasons, it seems like we're there for technical reasons. It would even make sense if we base our own simulations on an enemy with similar capabilities. If you train for the worst possibility, then you should be able to handle anything less.
If a handful of companies like these refused to authorize online credit card payments to the merchants
You suggest that as if this specific activity was not these people's business model. A credit processor in Azerbaijan doesn't just one day decide to start processing spam purchases, they open their business specifically for that purpose. Good luck getting them to switch business models just because you want them to.
Exactly. Look at the storm, what color is it? It's white. What else is white? Angels. This is not a storm, this is a gathering of angels to.. well, storm the Earth. They better get moving if they hope to be here tomorrow.
I'm sure that such associations of speech with attitudes happened in Ancient Greece.
Ah, like man-boy love. So you've got that in common too.
I have to agree. If Americans don't want to be spied on then they should also be opposed to spying on foreigners as well.
It's an interesting contradiction. The American people have the rights they have because they demand them from their government, but foreigners can't really demand anything from the US government because it's not their government...
Screw it, it works for us! wait..
The idea that Americans are somehow better than other people is an outdated notion.
You're just talking about nationalism, every country that fields an army has it. You just hear about Americans doing it because either you're an American, or because our media is so loud, or because your media pays attention to what we're doing (and you watch it).
Why settle? My two 28" monitors make life much easier for me. Especially since one of them is portrait, and one is landscape.
It sounded like Google was able to secure licensing deals from several labels, they specifically called out independent labels as being easy to work with, but it sounds like Sony and Universal refused to come to terms.
Clearly, this is not the music service Google wanted to offer. And Google director of content partnerships Zahavah Levine -- who led the company's negotiations with the major labels -- made it clear who she feels is to blame.
"We've been in negotiations with the industry for a different set of features, with mixed results," she told Billboard the night before the announcement was made. "[But] a couple of major labels were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms."
Sources tell Billboard that Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group proved the bottlenecks in this case. Google wanted to offer a scan-and-match style locker service -- where instead of uploading different copies of the same track to store in a locker for each users, the service would scan users' libraries and match the songs they own to a centralized server, paying rightsholders for each stream. Without the rights to do so, the message from Google is clear -- either get on board or we'll move on without you.
"A large segment of the music industry worked cooperatively and was extremely helpful sorting out the issues of online licensing," she said, giving particular credit to the independent label and publishing communities.
But the same article also explicitly says they're launching without any licensing deals at all. It looks like Sony and Universal torpedoed the boat for everyone.
in military slang, "used his wife as a human shield" no doubt actually means "the wife was closest to the door when we kicked it open, so we shot her first".
The wife rushed the SEALs while OBL was standing there, and they shot her in the leg. They shot OBL in the left side of the head, twice. If they wanted to kill his wife, they would have, especially since she charged them. They didn't kill her though, they left her there with a wounded leg. At any rate, the "human shield" woman, regardless of whether or not she was being used involuntarily, was not the wife in his bedroom and wasn't covering OBL, she was covering one of the other men who died (possibly the courier who fired on the SEALs when they landed, or OBL's son).
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.
They are doing the exact right thing here.
Ha. Haha. HahahaAHAAhahaha.
ahhhhh
Would you really want MPAA to get limitless power to track your every movement?
What kind of ridiculous question is that? No one wants the MPAA to have "limitless power to track your every movement". But we're not talking about "limitless power to track your every movement", are we? Nice strawman.
What next, install tracking equipment and video cameras in your home so can MPAA can make sure you aren't making backups own your movies?
Continuing right along, now it looks like you're at the slippery slope fallacy. You're exactly right, if the MPAA has the ability to stop browser vendors from implementing tracking privacy settings, and to stop requirements that online companies respect the browser settings, the logical next step is full-time in-home video surveillance. I don't know why more people can't see that. Good thing you brought it up.
I don't have any love for the MPAA in particular or the anti-privacy laws in general, but your arguments aren't exactly helping. Maybe you can try again with a little less hyperbole if you expect anyone to take you seriously.
Am I the only one who read this as: It's too complicated for the entry level IT guys we hire to use....
Probably not, but at least you're not the only one who is wrong.
The end users are not quoted in this article. The security vendors are the ones who are quoted about the entire process being to complicated for companies to actually implement it.
DLP is the "most disappointing" portion of the security market primarily because of the amount of time it takes companies to identify the data they want to protect, create profiles and taxonomies to categorize it and put in place the software that will protect it, John Vecchi, head of global product marketing for security vendor Check Point told a Register reporter at the company's annual conference today. ...
That "boil the ocean" approach doesn't deliver much benefit until all the pieces are in place, which makes even companies enthusiastic about automating their data protection shy away from the work of actually doing it.
That's a problem for companies like his that develop the software, CheckPoint CEO Gil Schwed said in his keynote.
It sounds like you know better than all those drooling morons though, so there's your niche where you can make your millions.
Saying anonymous is responsible for this (or anything) is like saying democracy is responsible for causing the wars in the middle east. You're mixing up an idea, an ethos, with an organization.
Are you equating the loosely-affiliated group Anonymous with a concept like democracy, or are you redefining the common definition of Anonymous as a loosely-affiliated group to now mean anyone involved in hacking or online attacks for an ideological reason other than financial gain? I've never heard proponents of democracy, or any other ethos, say something as cheesy as "We are [ethos]. We are Legion. Expect Us." The words "we" and "us" clearly identify people as a group. That is, even Anonymous thinks they're a group and not just an ethos. They are not an ethos, they are a group of people with some common world views, regardless of whether or not they have an official roster.
It's perfectly reasonable that a not-for-profit attacker would in fact steal valuable information just to steal it, not necessarily to release or sell it. It makes Sony look much worse, and costs them more, to have their customers' financial and personal data stolen, even if that information never actually gets used or released. In addition, it's not Sony's customers that Anonymous wants to attack, it is Sony itself. It doesn't serve their goals to release customer information, all they need to do is steal it. In other words, it would fit in with the idea of revenge against Sony to simply do as much damage to them as possible even if you don't plan on benefiting directly from the attack.
But the US Govt might have wanted to have firmer intel on that before sending DEVGRU a 100 miles into Pakistan, wikileaks may have forced them to act on not solid intel.
I seriously doubt Wikileaks "forced" them to do anything. The document says that this guy, LY-10017, had communication with Bin Laden's courier, and that in 2003 LY-10017 lived in Abbottabad. He moved somewhere else in 2004 or 2005, before Bin Laden's compound was built. The only connections are that it lists the name of the courier, and indicates that this particular detainee once lived in the same city that Bin Laden turned out to be hiding in (but not at the same time). It's more of a coincidence, the document doesn't even draw a link between Bin Laden's courier and the town, other than a guy who once lived in the town also once communicated (indirectly) with the courier.
*clap clap*
Rarely do I literally bust out laughing. Well done.
Putting rootkits on CDs is evil. Storing passwords in plaintext is stupid. Being evil doesn't make you stupid.
"Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity." Putting rootkits on CDs is also stupid. Being evil doesn't make you stupid, and vice versa, but the results of each look pretty similar. But it's interesting to me that you seem to imply that you are happy to do business with an evil company, but not a stupid one.
So, again, Sony's consumer-unfriendly attitude does not indicate that they would take reckless chances with protecting information that they face potential liability claims over.
Obviously their risk management department isn't doing its job if they decided to store usernames, passwords, and payment card information in a way that is not secure. They didn't expect the breach, and they didn't take measures to protect the data because they didn't think the breach would happen (obviously, because of a complete lack of information from Sony, this is speculation). In other words, they didn't consider it reckless. This goes back to them being stupid.
I don't get why their history with rootkits has anything to do with the fact that I seriously doubt they stored passwords in plaintext.
They're stoooooopiiiiiiid. But the passwords don't need to be plaintext. They very well may have been encrypted. But encryption doesn't matter when someone also steals the encryption algorithm and keys. From the little information we have, it sounds like Sony doesn't even know how this happened or what the extent was. What I do know is that Sony has never claimed that their systems are PCI compliant, even when asked, so they very well may be storing things in plaintext.
I refuse to believe that even Sony would have stored them in plaintext.
What do you mean "even Sony"? This is the same company that decided a rootkit on their audio CDs was a great way to stop piracy. Exactly how much do you really think Sony cares about you or your information? All they want is your money, and you gave it to them. You didn't learn the first time, so now you get to pay for it this time.
Go ahead, ask me why I never bought a Playstation, or any other Sony device after the rootkit fiasco. Go ahead, ask. I'll tell you. (hint: it's about trust)
I would expect some serious mea culpas and free crap out of them
Why the hell would you expect that from Sony? Again, there's historical data here. Go back and look at how they "rectified" the rootkit issue. You should expect the same level of "customer service" (in the George Carlin sense). That's right, you're the customer, and Sony is "servicing" you. I hope it was good for you.
In the settlement filing, Sony states that it will immediately recall all XCP CDs and replace them with non-content-protected CDs. It has also agreed to offer incentives to U.S. customers to "ensure that XCP CDs are promptly removed from the market." Sony first released details about its CD recall scheme in late November.
Customers who exchange their XCP CD can either download three albums from a list of over 200 titles, or claim a cash payment of $7.50 and a free download of one album. To claim this compensation, customers must return their XCP CDs to Sony or provide the company with a receipt showing they returned or exchanged the CD at a retailer after Nov. 14.
Sony is not recalling MediaMax CDs, but has agreed to compensate buyers of these albums by allowing them to download one free album, as well as offering them MP3 versions of the music on the MediaMax album.
But don't worry, the next time they come out with something shiny I'm sure you'll have forgotten all about this. They're counting on it.
Roguelikes are about using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges.
Ah, so like Portal 2 and Angry Birds, right?
Just out of curiosity, what's the minimum geographical accuracy required before this behavior becomes "not OK", where it can be abused? The police are already using the current set of data to provide another point of evidence that you were in the area where they say you were.
Here's another question: if Apple could get a GPS location as efficiently as recording cell tower UIDs, is there any reason to believe they wouldn't? It sounds like the only reason they store cell tower UIDs instead of GPS data is because it would kill the battery to continually get the position via GPS. Not because it's wrong, but because it's more power-expensive.
For bonus points, explain why anything that Google or Android does has any bearing at all on what Apple does (exonerates or vilifies).