PlayStation 3 Console Discussion

[MadDog]

US blog:

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/04/sonys-response-to-the-u-s-house-of-representatives/

 

Happenstance beat you to it dude. By miles.

[Happenstance]

Anonymous denies PSN credit card theft

 

Hacktivist collective Anonymous has denied stealing credit card information from PlayStation Network.

 

"If a legitimate and honest investigation into credit card theft is conducted, Anonymous will not be found liable," the group declared in a press release sent to VentureBeat.

 

"While we are a distributed and decentralised group, our leadership does not condone credit card theft.

 

"We are concerned with the erosion of privacy and fair use, the spread of corporate feudalism, the abuse of power and the justifications of executives and leaders who believe themselves immune personally and financially for the actions the undertake in the name of corporations and public office."

 

The statement answers yesterday's finger-pointing by PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai. He told Congress in an open letter that Anonymous' DDOS attacks on PlayStation Network opened the door for the credit card thieves.

 

Anonymous does not deny attacking PlayStation Network, merely its involvement with the stolen credit card details.

 

In his letter, Hirai said that PlayStation Network stored, globally, around 12.3 million credit card details. Does that mean only 16 per cent of the 77 million PSN account holders buy content? This excludes people buying PSN content on pre-paid cards.

 

Hirai went on to say that 5.6 million Americans had their credit card information stored on PSN.

 

Those numbers, he elaborated, incorporate both active and expired credit cards.

 

PlayStation Network went down on 20th April in the US. Sony plans to reinstate PSN functionality in a phased roll-out this week. When this will happen in Europe the platform holder won't say.

 

"We'll announce more details of the phased roll-out, along with specific timings for the UK & Europe, in due course," a spokesperson reiterated to Eurogamer this afternoon.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-05-anonymous-denies-psn-credit-card-theft

 

This is all I can picture when they talk about their leaders:

 

[Cube]

But it's a group of random unconnected people. It would be like Obama saying "I wouldn't hack the PSN, so it can't have been anyone in the USA".

[Daft]

Kotaku summed it up pretty well, "The dilemma presented by this new Sony hack shows how Anonymous' greatest asset—its amorphous, grassroots nature—can also be its greatest weakness."

[ReZourceman]

When is PSN back online? Annoying now.

[Daft]

PSN is down?

[canand]

Come on Sony I need my Call Of Duty Black Ops fix and if its still down this weekend then We can't get double XP.

[Emerald Emblem]

Incredibly frustrating right now. it's fine having single player games but then there is the affect this downtime will have on DLC releases.

[flameboy]

Didn't they say PSN would be back on by 2nd May or did they take back when things started to look more severe and insecure?

[Ryan]

There's never been a date announced, ever. All they've said is some rollouts should start "this week". In my book that means, Sunday night latest.

[flameboy]

There's never been a date announced, ever. All they've said is some rollouts should start "this week". In my book that means, Sunday night latest.

 

i'm getting mixed up they said week beginning second of may which like you said leaves up to Sunday night.

[Jon]

They posted a message last Thursday saying some function would be restored a week from the day before that (Wednesday). So something should be back up and running by now.

[Happenstance]

To be honest its just gonna be back when its back, nothing we can do but wait.

[flameboy]

To be honest its just gonna be back when its back, nothing we can do but wait.

 

That's true and yes they have to get their end of things 100% in order before they get online BUT I still think all of this is being communicated terribly, this much uncertainty etc...is damaging them even further, i they were doing excellent job of letting people know what was going on then fair enough but they aren't

[Daft]

[Aimless]

Well Sony are apparently in "the final stages of internal testing", so as long as nothing else goes wrong I presume the service will be up, at least in some capacity, come Saturday.

[Hero-of-Time]

Rumour time.

 

A group of hackers says it is planning another wave of cyberattacks against Sony in retaliation for its handling of the PlayStation Network breach.

 

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.

 

Should the planned attack succeed, it would be the latest blow in a series of devastating security breaches of Sony's servers over the past month. The failure of Sony's server security has ignited investigations by the FBI, the Department of Justice, Congress, and the New York State Attorney General, a well as data security and privacy authorities in the U.K., Canada, and Taiwan.

 

Several weeks ago the hacker group known as Anonymous targeted several Sony Web sites, including Sony.com and SonyStyle.com, with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in retaliation for what its members saw as Sony's unfair legal action against hacker George Hotz. Two weeks ago Sony's PlayStation Network, along with its Qriocity service and Sony Online, were the target of an attack that exposed the personal information of more than 100 million Sony customers. Sony was forced to shut down PSN, Qriocity, and Sony Online, and is currently working to bring them back online after rebuilding the security of its servers.

 

Sony says it doesn't know who orchestrated what it's calling a "highly sophisticated, planned" attack, but it has dropped hints that the group Anonymous is involved. Kazuo Hirai, chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment, told a Congressional subcommittee in a letter yesterday that the intruders on its servers planted a file named "Anonymous" containing the statement "We are Legion," part of the group's tagline.

 

Anonymous issued a statement yesterday denying it was involved in the PSN breach. "While we are a distributed and decentralized group, our 'leadership' does not condone credit card theft," the statement said.

 

Now it seems the same group of hackers that was able to infiltrate the PSN servers is planning to hit back against Sony.

 

Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20060227-260.html?tag=cnetRiver

[ReZourceman]

These X360 fanboys are getting out of hand now. I mean I've seen jealousy before but this is getting ridiculous.

[Cube]

The worst kind of hackers are the ones who say that they're doing it for a cause that is a complete lie.

[Diageo]

I don't exactly get what the cause is. What's the cause of the retaliation?

[Pit-Jr]

The worst kind of hackers are the ones who say that they're doing it for a cause that is a complete lie.

 

I can't think of a good kind of hacker, because 100 percent of them are riding someone else's dick, unless they're hacking themselves for some reason.

 

Ok maybe Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day but thats about it.

[Cube]

I don't exactly get what the cause is. What's the cause of the retaliation?

 

The best known reason is that these people hate Sony because they are preventing the use of homebrew on the PS3.

 

Note: The methods that allow homebrew also allow pirated games to be played on the console.

[Choze]

I don't exactly get what the cause is. What's the cause of the retaliation?

 

There isn't any real cause. You have people spouting random nonsense to their liking.

 

Anonymous will use any and all ammo possible to justify their attacks. Whether its linux, Geohot or even tired old DRM conspiracy theories. It seems anything works for justification. The dumb thing is Sony are hardly an evil company, more so when you compare them to their competitors or other large multinationals.

 

Attacking a gaming network and the PS brand just makes anonymous look superbly pathetic. Attacking users and their account details even worse. Chasing up kids of executives is even worse and downright disturbing.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Choze
Automerged Doublepost

[Tales]

To put a face on some of them:

 

This is from when they attacked the website of the largest party in government coalition because they accepted a law the EU pushed one us. It's the one about increased electronic monitoring to prevent terrorism. They are standing in front of the government building.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Tales

[Diageo]

Found an article about their security.