Things move to "Very Bad" on the Sony/PSN Front.. (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Silverman]

I didn't get anything directly from Sony yet; I just heard secondhand.


And I still don't get the hate for Sony. So what if they're not handing out $60 games for free? (I've played Infamous and Super Stardust; I'll take two of the others without grumbling, although I think it could have been a longer list.) What exactly should they do? It's as if Sony hacked their own network just to piss people off. It's been a hassle, but sh*t happens; get over it.


(Oh yeah, I went there. )

 

[Josh Dial]

It's considered by many to be the largest single breach of personal data in the history of the internet. I know a lot of people are more angry at Sony's handling of the situation (I'm talking in terms of timeline, here), than at the actual incident itself (as shit does indeed happen) or the compensation.


Quite simply, I don't buy for a second Sony's claims that their response time was because of third-party verification. Someone potentially gains access to my personal info, and your first call is to me, full stop. Feel free to contact me later saying "good news! Your personal data was most-likely not compromised."


There are also indications of some negligence on Sony's part. I'm only a law student (and Canadian law, at that!), but even I can tell Sony is absolutely praying there are no compensable damages from this incident.


It's pretty sad when people think *Microsoft,* the perennial whipping-boy of the computer age, would have handled this incident better--by a large degree, at that.

 

[Sam Posten]

Sony r teh dum:


http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/18/psn-logins-exploited-again-sony-takes-sign-in-pages-offline/

 

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten

Sony r teh dum:


http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/18/psn-logins-exploited-again-sony-takes-sign-in-pages-offline/

Sony claims that the exploit wasn't actually hacked and fixed it. The fact that it came to light at all though paints Sony, one of the largest consumer electronics manufacturers in the world, might still not have a grasp on the situation. It's not fair, but really, I was comfortable to use my CC on the PSN since it was Sony. I mean, if you can;t trust Sony to be secure, who can you trust?


And sorry too, but free games are great compensation, I would prefer newer options then ones that are a year or older.

 

[Sam Posten]

It WAS exploited and they probably have NO WAY to tell how deeply. Was there time for someone to make a batch file to run through millions plus accounts and try it? Probably not. But there was a greater than zero number of people affected.

 

[Jeffery_H]

This has all been VERY well documented by many in the media. If anyone has been following podcasts such as Gamespot, TWIT, This Week in Windows, or any of the game sites then you know what has gone on in detail. It was not just a breach, but a very bad one. One of the worst in memory of such a large company and many in the tech industry called them "complete idiots" because it was so stupid how they were doing things on their end. Most are upset too over how Sony handled the whole thing, which kept getting worse. Sony IS to blame, not just the hackers because it is their responsibility in the first place to have everything as secure as possible. Anyone that knows anything at all about tech or IT security will tell you Sony's was rank novice at best and they never gave it much thought at all.


Note, the latest word is they have taken down several of their web pages due to a possible exploit they found there too. It involved that if the information that was taken is used, they could log into you account via the web and not the PS3. They have taken them down and will have them back up soon, if not already. Also, they said to be on the lookout for fake emails too.

 

[mattCR]

People can bash Microsoft, Google, or Apple however they want. But could you imagine ANY of them handling a hack problem anywhere anything like this? Microsoft is often leveled as the company most often attempted-to-hack; Hackers generally loath MS, so they make efforts constantly; Google I'm sure has people who try. Apple has to be a target because of iTunes. Imagine at any moment something goes wrong for any of them.. could you imagine any of those handling it any worse?


Hell, a year ago, Monoprice had one of their credit card services (not them, their service provider) get hacked; and their response was immediate; they shut the doors, notified people within 4 hours, did a security review, posted updates every 4 hours, sent out notices, asked people for information, and helped people straighten things out.


Now, they didn't have the size of customers Sony did. But they are a much smaller company also.


If some small company can handle a hack where people will be unhappy but at least make an effort, then what the hell is wrong with Sony?


This stands out as one of the worst handlings of problems ever. People compared this to Microsoft having "erratic" XBOX Live in winter '07/08 (didn't effect all users, just some, and even then, sporadically).. in that case, MS gave out free Live points, etc. and posted updates frequently as they replaced a server - and that didn't have any data security breaches, elongated universal downtime or consumer risk. Sony has a serious meltdown and has absolutely went dark.


Worst crisis management of a problem I can remember.

 

[Bryan^H]

Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman )

I never blamed Sony. Sure they could have responded formally much sooner, but I think they were in full fledged 'panic mode'.

No, the blame here lies solely on the irresponsible, and reckless behavior of the douchebag hackers. They knew the implications of this, yet they probably went about it laughing, and boasting. I reserve their type in the same class of combative telemarketers, and people that talk on their cell phones at the theater.

 

[Ruz-El]

PSN is up, but not up enough to download the extra value content that came with my copy of L.A. Noir. Ugh! I really want to start the game, but I want to wait until it's all loaded since I don;t know how you access the extra cases and I don't want to bugger up the story line. :S

 

[Jeffery_H]

Originally Posted by Bryan^H




I never blamed Sony. Sure they could have responded formally much sooner, but I think they were in full fledged 'panic mode'.

No, the blame here lies solely on the irresponsible, and reckless behavior of the douchebag hackers. They knew the implications of this, yet they probably went about it laughing, and boasting. I reserve their type in the same class of combative telemarketers, and people that talk on their cell phones at the theater.

Totally 100% incorrect. Your comments sound like someone that is just a fanboy or a child trying to defend something they know nothing about. Seriously, go read the sites and listen to the podcasts I have already noted. Sony IS the most to blame here because they were total idiots for not having things properly secured to begin with. As I have referred to above, this is a FACT pointed out by nearly everyone in the media or is IT knowledgeable. You just don't operate the way Sony was doing and then blame someone else, it was their fault period.

 

[mattCR]

I believe the Hackers deserve a ton of blame. I am not absolving them. They deserve a large share of the blame.


Sony's blame in this situation is different. They were in charge of personal information of millions of people. While bad things happen, a company has a responsibility when it does to take quick, fast moves to inform and protect their customers. Sony didn't do that. In fact, we have since learned that in the last year, most of the department that would have been in charge of network security at Sony got fired, about a month before this happened.


Sony took shortcuts to protect important information that their users entrusted them with. They took a gamble and they lost. The stand up thing for Sony to do would have been to come out to their customers, apologize and give frequent updates and work to help their customers understand. Instead, Sony hid out. They through press conferences (ONE) that started near midnight EST so most of the US missed it. They then drastically understated the problem, not once, but twice. They changed up their blog, they denied issues until they couldn't.


Sony did everything they could wrong. It's a bit like an airline crash. Sometimes bad things will happen. If it's horrible weather or a fluke, everyone involved feels bad and the company works on crisis management to help people. Instead Sony hid out. They had a crisis and they ducked it and ran until they were forced into it.


Their apology through a select set of games is ridiculous. Preposterous. PSN+ users are guaranteed to have almost all of these titles. Damnit, I already own Infamous (and giving it away is laughable since Infamous 2 is supposed to come out this fall, so it might as well be a red box sony title as a promo) StardustHD was a PSN+ giveaway a few months ago. So we already have that. Wipeout XL was sold to PSN+ users for $6 on a discount two months ago. They are handing out "makeup" titles that are the cheapest, oldest titles they can fob out and get people to agree to by bending the arms of vendors. Oh, they are giving away LBP1 when LBP2 has been on the market for almost 6 months.

I get that people say "do you really deserve freebies".. that isn't the point. There are lots of things that Sony could have done to settle this. Their harm for me isn't "oh, it was offline, big deal" No, the harm was now some a---hole has my email address, my physical address, and tons of information about me that I give to almost no one. And that's on Sony.

 

[Carlo_M]

I liken it to this:


When you get rear-ended by another driver, the other driver is to blame.


However, if your car manufacturer took shortcuts, didn't install airbags, didn't properly reinforce the frame and chassis of the car, and turned what would have been a fender bender with a light case of whiplash into something much worse...well the car manufacturer is to blame for a totally different aspect of the crash. True the car maker can't help that you got hit. But it could have taken the proper safety precautions to ensure that you have the maximum chance of survival and minimize the damage and harm to you.

 

[Jeffery_H]

It's more like this: if you leave your keys in the car all the time and don't secure it, then act like only the thief was wrong for taking it, you were an even bigger idiot for YOUR responsibility of security in the first place.

 

[Jeffery_H]

Just a note about Microsoft to compare, only about 10,000 users are affected by some models not being able to read the new game discs that have more storage data (about 1GB more). They are giving those users all free new consoles, shipping to them at their expense and 1 YEAR of free XBox Live service for the trouble.


That's just for 10,000 that were bothered by this, not an entire group. By comparison Sony should've at least given ALL users free PSN+ for 1 year too.

 

[Sam Posten]

More bad news:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002160.html

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I'm not saying that Sony hasn't screwed up here. I guess I'll just never completely get used to the overheated vitriol that gets spewed on the internet (and I've been online since the '80s). . .

 

[Carlo_M]

Aaron, I agree the internet can be an overheated place.


But to be honest, if a non-internet company did the same thing to my personal information, and didn't take care of their customers after their screwup, I'd be pretty heated when talking to their CSR over the phone (or in-person).


This is not a trivial "PSN was down for a few weeks stop yer crying, fanboyz" scenario. This was a major data/information/security breach of a company that quite frankly 1) should have been better protected up front, and 2) should have handled the aftermath better.

Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman

I'm not saying that Sony hasn't screwed up here. I guess I'll just never completely get used to the overheated vitriol that gets spewed on the internet (and I've been online since the '80s). . .

 

[TonyD]

More bad news:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002160.html

Sam it drives nuts that you always post just the link without at least a tiny synopsis. "We know you're not supposed to kick somebody when they're already down… but we just found a live phishing site running on one of Sony's servers." So anyway what is the latest on the playstation net? Does it work? What's this business about free game? Wen I go onto my ps3 all I can get to work is Netflix.

 

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by TonyD



So anyway what is the latest on the playstation net? Does it work? What's this business about free game?
Wen I go onto my ps3 all I can get to work is Netflix.

Speaking FOR MYSELF AND MYSELF ONLY! PSN works for online game playing. I can play my Tiger Woods 12 online and compete in the live tournaments. You should all be jealous since you people are all too busy shooting people in your games instead of playing the glorious, gentleman's game of video game golf.


No Store yet on the PSN! Which means there is no ability to download free games. I AM GUESSING that it will be through the sony website that you would sign, pick the games you want and they would email you the download codes. Since there is no store, I don't think there is way to download ANYTHING other then the odd system update. I'm basing this SPECULATION on my inability to download the free bonus cases to L.A. Noir that requires you to enter a download code under your account management thing in the menu bar thing.

 

[Sam Posten]

Originally Posted by TonyD

More bad news:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002160.html

Sam it drives nuts that you always post just the link without at least a tiny synopsis.
My work here is done!