Originally posted by Rohn

According to testimony, they knew about the weaknesses in security.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/05/05/expert-says-sony-knew-of-psn-security-weakness/

well, well, well...

---

Originally posted by saxifr

---

Originally posted by TUX426

This isn't a "tough break" - this was a "finally caught" imo.

---

This.

---

For all the greedy things that they have done to their customers. For all of the neglect and blatant lies. This was Karma finally catching up to them.

Originally posted by Coldmeat

At the risk of sounding like I'm defending Sony, which I'm not, I'm fairly sure that most anyone that's been on the internet for more than a month already has all their personal information out there where anyone with a bit of know how can get it.

That said, there's a special level in hell for the management at Sony.

The question is what upper management will get fired over this and could it be the end for Smedster?

Also makes me wonder if the hackers were looking for the Pre-CU code for SWG lol...

Originally posted by Rohn

According to testimony, they knew about the weaknesses in security.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/05/05/expert-says-sony-knew-of-psn-security-weakness/

The PlayStation Network outage plot thickens. In today's hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Sony executive vice president Kaz Hirai refused to testify. One who did testify, however, wasUS Public Policy Council of the Association for Computing Machinery head Gene Spafford, and did he ever have some words for Sony.

During his testimony, Spafford claimed that Sony was well aware of the security holes in the PlayStation Network, asserting that PSN was using old software that was "unpatched and had no firewall installed." He also noted that these security issues were brought to the table in a Sony-moderated forum, but no action was taken as a result.

If these claims are true, Sony is in for an even bigger world of hurt, and this situation could escalate into something not even a complimentary Batman mask can rectify.

In related news, TG Daily reports that New York's Attorney General has subpoenaed Sony over the data breach and what "representations" were made to its customers in regard to the security of their information.

__________________________________________

Bye bye Sony!

Bye bye SOE!

They are going to get sued to death, the more and more disgusting details crawl out of this huge can of worms.

---

Originally posted by TUX426

---

Originally posted by SaintViktor They'll never been the same anymore. I don't see how anyone could trust them now after what has happened. As a customer would you give them your creit card number again knowing what just happened ? I know I wouldn't. Sorry but I'm not a glutton for punishment.  

---

Sure they will.The day these services come back online, people will clamor to the PSN/SOE networks and gleefully plug in their new 16 digit number so they can collect their Batman mask.However...litigation might sink em. But that's years away.

---

I won't. I just resub's to Station Pass in March and was playing SWG and EQ2, with a brief tour in VG.

I am no fan of SOE. I am a fan of some of their MMOs. I really enjoy some of them.

As soon as the SWG servers go back up I will log in and pull my harvesters and houses. My characters in both MMOs will then get deleted. I will uninstall all SOE software from the computers in my home.

I enjoy SWG for it's old features (those that are left) and EQ2 but it's too dangerous to trust SOE with anything ever again as far as I am concerned. Never again will I play any game/mmo/mmorpg/console game of Sony/SOE/PSN.

In a way I feel bad for SOE's employees... but a Corporation can not get careless with personal info and expect to not pay a huge price for that carelessness.

Good luck with personal identity damage control over the next 30 years everyone.

I'm unable to summon any tears for $OE, you reap what you sow.

hahahaha-...   FTW.. 

Originally posted by w4spl3g

Wait, What? We're supposed to feel bad for one of the most evil corporate entities around? Look at their history. They think their customers are criminals.

 

What an interesting alternate reality you live in where anything that has anything to do with videogames can be described as "evil". 

Leaving aside the fact that suing people who make videogame mod chips is PRETTY FAR DOWN the list of "bad acts" (you know - compared to poisoning the air and water, raping the global financial system, fixing prices on core commodities, building chemical weapons and selling them to the highest bidder, etc), the fact is, the folks Sony sues arent their "customers" - they ARE criminals.

Stealing IP, or creating hardware to facilitate stealing IP, to the VAST majority of normal humans (read - not nerd ragers for whom XBox vs PS3  is an "important issue") looks a LOT like criminal behavior.

Originally posted by mlambert890

Originally posted by w4spl3g

Wait, What? We're supposed to feel bad for one of the most evil corporate entities around? Look at their history. They think their customers are criminals.

 

What an interesting alternate reality you live in where anything that has anything to do with videogames can be described as "evil". 

Leaving aside the fact that suing people who make videogame mod chips is PRETTY FAR DOWN the list of "bad acts" (you know - compared to poisoning the air and water, raping the global financial system, fixing prices on core commodities, building chemical weapons and selling them to the highest bidder, etc), the fact is, the folks Sony sues arent their "customers" - they ARE criminals.

Stealing IP, or creating hardware to facilitate stealing IP, to the VAST majority of normal humans (read - not nerd ragers for whom XBox vs PS3  is an "important issue") looks a LOT like criminal behavior.

You people give Anonymous way too much credit!

You really think some kids that performed a couple of DDoS attacks against some corporate websites are behind the Greatest Data Theft in history ?

This is done by a well organised cybercriminal organisation who were just lying in the wait till the right moment to do it and then have these kids from Anonymous get the blame for it, because they were putting out threats towards Sony. And everyone falls for it.

Those kids from Anonymous most probably do not even know what they would want to do with all this data, not to mention the shitstorm it would unleash upon them, they probably wouldn't even dare to even undertake such an act.

organised cybercrime organisations exactly know what to do with this kind of data and have the right connections and they can make a fortune on it, by just selling it to Spam organisations alone. And themselves they will use it for Phishing and Identity theft practices.

That is why people really need to take this debacle a lot more serious!

There is a good reason why SOE came out so quickly this week with a compensation programme for Identity Theft protection and Credit monitoring for those affected!

As we can pretty much guarantee, seeing the scope of the breach and the amount and kind of data that has been stolen, that it has ended up in the hands of people you really don't want it to be!

One thing is true, people do not think clearly when they think about SoE.  

NGE everyone blames SoE, yet no one ever blames the half of SWG that wanted the game changed the most, the half that had the most control over the game.  SoE took the fall for Lucas Arts for sure, at least aprtially.

SoE is said to not listen to the customers, yet i see an awful lot of changes to their games directly based off what players wanted.  Specifically those changes people say 'killed EQ' were changes the community begged for (such as easier travel to meet up with your friends).  

The RMT gets a lot of hate, however SoE has been doing it for years now and it has never remotely come close to a 'pay to win' scenario.  Nothing sold in cash shops in eq or eq2 gives you an advantage.

Their customer service sucks, another complaint.  As with any other MMO on the market the customer service ranges from good to bad.  the only two companies Ive really dealt with customer service are blizzard and sony, and sony was faster and more willing to resolve my issues.  But everyones mileage may vary on that.  Basically MMO service is six of one, half dozen of another when comparing two companies.

Yes, SoE has made some bad decisions.  Yes, they deserve a lot fo blame for at least how the NGE was handled.   Yes, Smedley says stuff that turns out to be not true, and msotly due to bad communication amongst different people at SoE.  the company definitely has issues.  EQ1 and EQ2 have been showered with support in terms of content over the years.  No one can say that SoE hasnt supported these games and its clear that they do spend money on them.  But after fixing Vanguard (oh and they did fix it, its actually great now when it was pitiful at launch) they pulled all support for it and left it to die.

But its not like they are 'more evil' than anyone else.

Oh, Blizzard is to be commended on their latest charity RMT.  If I was playing WoW right now I would buy the pet just for that reason.  But lets face it, Blizzard's other RMT exploits are 100% cash grabs.  They are already sitting on money because the glacial development pace for the game shows that they need to hire more people, but don't.  they release an expansion slowly over the course of two years (which makes sense in some ways) and make it look like you are getting free updates.  But they rely way too much on repetition of content being content.  even when they 'added' mid level content for the first time in 6 years, at was recycling old content.  hey, 2 new dungeons!  Oh wait, recycled content.  I understanmd the point of too much content too fast, but WoW is not remotely near that point.  Right now this game has no content for max levels outside of repeating instances of some kind or doing stuff trivial for your level.  Not acceptable for a company with nearly limitless resources

Oh yeah, SoE lies to people.  So do other companies.  Blizzard had said theyd never allow PvE -> PvP transfer for instance.  Somewher ealong the line they figured 'hey, were robbing ourselves of money' and instated it.  There wasnt a big outcry for it, people fully understood the reason.  But they did that instead of something like player/guild housing that people actually want but wont make them extra money.  Or there development of the battle.net/facebook type system that took an enormous public outrage for them to put it on hold.  but they thought it would be a good diea?  Maybe they did, I still think it was done for money but I have no proof of that.  but then I ahve no proof that SoE does a lot fo the stuff they are blamed for.

And yes, Im dumping on blizzard but I am familiar with them more so than most other companies.  So lets look at their security now.  yes, yes you can get a free authenticator on mobile phones, all well and good.  Yes, its fairly cheap to get them to send you one while they inexplicably havent packaged one with a store bought copy.  But overall they get brownie points for authenticator.  Here is their big fail though:  Ina  agme PLAGUED by accounts being 'hacked' they FORCED...yes FORCED people to change 1/2 of their login information to the email address they signed up for the account with.  What?  Yes, some people have multiple accounts set up and dont use their main email account for WoW, but many people, especially 6 years ago, never dreamed that it would actually be the way they signed into the game.  Why on earth make this change which has undoubtedly led to some hackings.  I cant think of one good reason for this change.  yes, yes...they wanted to link battle.net accounts across multiple games.  but why use the email address as a login?  Sure use it as name of battlenet account but why cant you choose your log in name as something unique?  like it was all along...

Knowing Blizzard takes short cuts like this doesnt make me feel any safer having my info witht hem than SoE.  In fact Blizzard has multiple chefs in the kitchen now with Activision, which makes things even scarier.

Also with security...why isnt Trion demonized for their security flaw?  yes, not as bad as SoE's because people only hacked the accounts but still.  People have already forgotten about this.

Fact is all companies are in it for money.  All probably cut corners, and I wouldnt bet SoE isnt the only one with a security hole that is known but not fixed.  Its easy to jump on one name though.  Hey, Blockbuster was notorious for being 'greedy' and out to screw people with their policies (that were all clearly posted) and Netflix comes along and everyone raves about netflix.  Irony is, you can argue Netflix trests its customers worse than Blockbuster.  Taking longer to mail out their most frequent customers movies.  Giving newer customers movies first to make a good impression.  raising prices because of streaming and addign a cheap streaming only option, but not allowing people who didnt want to stream a mail only option at the old price.  But hey, thats not as bad as telling someone they owe when their movie is returned late, then actually charging them as you said you would, right?  Reality is often different from consumer perception.

IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.

Originally posted by Nethermancer

IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.

If things get real ugly (which more and more seems it's gonna be), SOE won't even be around anymore in a year.

They just recently had to lay off over 200 people and close three whole studios!

And now they are most probably going to be down for a whole month (maybe even longer), take a huge financial hit on compensation programmes for Identity theft and credit monitoring for all those people affected.

And then we are not even talking about all the lawsuits that is going to be thrown at them, due to already pretty much proven negligence.

You can't even remote compare a bad patch of EVE Online from years ago to the Greatest Data Theft in history! Are you serious?

What i dont know about this particular situation is this:

Since both PSN and SoE are actually different entities was this actually their fault or the parent company's fault?  I don't know the answer to this, but when someone says 'Sony' that doesnt mean 'SoE'.  

Originally posted by Nethermancer

IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.

My prediction is people won't care about it 1 month after services come up.  You can bet gamers will take advantage of the free month + each day it's down offered by SOE.  Gamers are fickle, don't think all these threats of quitting and "never again" will really get carried through.  When people can login for free, they're going to login for free and enjoy their time.

Just remember how many times after SWG NGE people swore to not touch SOE products again, yet they trickled back over time.  After EQ's GoD expansion, many said they would not touch EQ again.  Yet timelocked progression servers launched 2 months ago were jam packed of people who said they would never touch EQ again.

The people that'll have greater animosity towards SOE would be foreign individuals that had their cc/bank account #'s stolen.  For U.S. customers, a lot of the information hackers got are readily available online.  Many of which are information people offered themselves through social networking sites like facebook, youtube, forums, gaming sites, etc..  I predict U.S. customers to be logging in and enjoying their 1+ month of free subscription time right as the servers come back up. 

Originally posted by Mardy

Originally posted by Nethermancer

IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.

My prediction is people won't care about it 1 month after services come up.  You can bet gamers will take advantage of the free month + each day it's down offered by SOE.  Gamers are fickle, don't think all these threats of quitting and "never again" will really get carried through.  When people can login for free, they're going to login for free and enjoy their time.

 

Just remember how many times after SWG NGE people swore to not touch SOE products again, yet they trickled back over time.  After EQ's GoD expansion, many said they would not touch EQ again.  Yet timelocked progression servers launched 2 months ago were jam packed of people who said they would never touch EQ again.

 

The people that'll have greater animosity towards SOE would be foreign individuals that had their cc/bank account #'s stolen.  For U.S. customers, a lot of the information hackers got are readily available online.  Many of which are information people offered themselves through social networking sites like facebook, youtube, forums, gaming sites, etc..  I predict U.S. customers to be logging in and enjoying their 1+ month of free subscription time right as the servers come back up. 

Yeah you are absolutely right!

People are readily handing out ther full names, full address, gender, phone numbers, email addresses, login/account names, hashed passwords, answers to security questions on Social Media.

Are you for real?? As don't you worry, above information has also been stolen of U.S. customers.

Please refrain from baiting each other into personal arguments guys. Thanks!

Originally posted by JeroKane

People are readily handing out ther full names, full address, gender, phone numbers, email addresses, login/account names, hashed passwords, answers to security questions on Social Media.

 

These types of information are readily available online, most info are voluntarily provided by individuals.  And no, security questions & answers were not leaked amongst the info that got stolen.  But as said before, you should never use the real answers to security questions anyway, because again, information about you are too easy to obtain online.

Maybe this will be a wake up call for SOE, not just about their security but also for their game strategies. SOE have been sleeping for many years, living on their successes a decade ago.

Remember this and don't give out information about yourself if you can avoid it, this could happen to google or facebook too.

Anonymus warned sony they'd do this if they kept pressing the guy that released the PS3 hacks.. Guess they don't take hacking syndicates too seriously.. Honestly, in this day and age none of our info is ever really safe.. With a simple google search you can find plenty from a person.

Originally posted by firefly2003

The question is what upper management will get fired over this and could it be the end for Smedster?  Also makes me wonder if the hackers were looking for the Pre-CU code for SWG lol...

I'm sure this is said in jest, as I made a similar joke about it yesterday in a thread.  For anyone not in the loop that read this and took it with an ounce of serious context, there would be nothing useful in finding the PreCU code except to point at SOE and call them out on their dishonesty regarding the old code being 'lost' or 'deleted' whichever their final stance was regarding their inability to do a rollback.