Quote:
Originally Posted by WhoaitsZ
...at the same time it does happen and -you cannot stop a hacker-....
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I want to be clear that what I'm about to say is meant in the kindest, least condescending way possible. But, to be blunt, that's complete bullshit, and obviously so.
There's this popular idea, perpetuated I think in large part by the folks in Hollywoodland that a sufficiently skilled/determined 'hacker' can do basically anything with a computer. This idea is utter bullshit.
Think about it for a second. Imagine what the implications would be, if a disgruntled ex-employee or even Joe Random could take down Google on a whim. If Amazon or Apple were unable to say with any confidence that your credit card number wasn't being siphoned off and sent to Russia. If your bank was unable to claim with any confidence that your financial information was secure, or the government your personal records. If it were true that these mythical 1337 h4x0rz couldn't be stopped, there'd be no such thing as a digital economy. It wouldn't be possible. Even TFP wouldn't be safe -- given that most folks use one password for all online services, or at most three to five, TFP's password database, if it were possible to steal, would be highly valuable.
The reality is that everyone from your friendly local sys admin to the math and comp sci PhD's dreaming up the latest encryption algorithms are working to stop hackers, and are generally pretty successful. There are some things that aren't practical to secure (hello, DRM) but that doesn't generally apply to web services, and never, ever applies to sensitive customer data. When these things get breached, it is always, without exception a case of someone in the chain lacking either the proper knowledge or the proper foresight. And even if we don't factor in the gobs of money these people are often paid to prevent this sort of thing from happening, it is quite frankly inexcusable.
This whole PSN thing is bigger than the Gawker breach. There shouldn't even be a question about user data -- it should all be heavily encrypted, so that even if some punk did get their hands on it it's so much useless noise. There is no excuse in this day and age to store or transmit anything in plaintext.
I don't own a PS3. I've been planning to buy one for a while now. After this past week I've started to seriously question that decision.