PSN still down

[fill23ca]

Now entering it's 6th day down, the Playstation Network was attacked by outside sources forcing Sony to fix it. They deny that any customers credit card information was compromised. It has 70 million registered accounts worldwide who have downloaded more than 1.4 billion pieces of content.
I am one of them. It is very frustrating to me at this time because most of my gaming is online with my brothers (MW2, Black Ops, MLB 11 and Tiger 12).
However, I can't really get too upset because it is free (unlike x-box live) and if they have to do this to make it more secure, I'm cool with it.
But it is still frustrating.

[WhoaitsZ]

IMHO I think Sony has lost their fucking minds. I know they don't like hackers... not many companies do. at the same time it does happen and -you cannot stop a hacker-. So they made a console with the option of your own OS and then make it obsolete (which should be illegal imo) which ended up making hacking worse...

now this....... idk. sometimes its best to just call it a day instead of fucking honest users over....

I think Micro$oft and Sony both deserve bitchslaps. Micro$oft for requiring pay to play on servers and Sony for being total dicks.

[MontanaXVI]

I'm looking at all the news on this very closely. I am seeing them reading various outlets and Sony themselves reporting that damn near everything associated with my account (PSN ID, e-mail, address, real name, birthday, password, challenge questions, order history, billing information) were all accessed. They say it is possible my credit card was as well but they don't know for sure.

The biggest problem I have with all of this is Sony in how they handled the problem.

They (Sony) claim this breach took place April 17-19th. They then shut down the PSN on the 19th-20th. When the PSN first went down we were told NOTHING, you try to log in and you just got a generic error code. Then after a day, when all the talk on the 'net of Anonymous being the ones responsible for it going down Sony came out and said it was just some maintenance and everything would be back up in a couple of days.

Fast forward a couple more days then Sony comes out and says it was an external factor that caused them to shut it down, now a few more days later they want to come out and play damage control and tell me what all has been accessed and how much more could have been?????

I don't care if the service is free or I pay for it, no one IMO should be anything other than outraged by this blatant mishandling of the truth, plain and simple.

I'm seeing more people pissed they cannot play Gran Turismo than I am people mad that all of their personal information may be out there in someone's hands making identity theft a very real possibility as a result of this issue. This isn't like the simple breaches in the past where a database containing my name and e-mail address were compromised. This data breach is the exact thing that malicious individuals are looking for that lead to identity theft and other problems for the user who had their information stolen.

[Vaultboy]

IMO, Sony should have kept the whole service free OR they should have kept pay elements pre-paid. The security requirements for maintaining confidential information on a free service was always going to suspect - since PS3 investment was already way too much, so I can't imagine SOny putting appropriate resources into a non-paying service, plus Sony are way less experienced and capacitated than M$ to deal with internet security.

[Martian]

Originally Posted by WhoaitsZ

...at the same time it does happen and -you cannot stop a hacker-....

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.

[streak_56]

I got an e-mail for Playstation saying my account info was "taken," other than learning my location and password.... I'm not too worried, I have a different password for everything.

[KirStang]

Sony's going to suffer some bad rep for this. People's credit card information is being stolen (got a buddy who's already noticed 3 charges). And Sony didn't step up to address the situation. Shame on them.

[MontanaXVI]

An update to earlier reports.

I just read that Sony is now saying that no credit card details were compromised in the attack and that the credit card database was encrypted.

I don't know if I can take that for face value though. I recently started using LastPass and can't wait to get back on the PSN and change everything around, not to mention been keeping a close eye on the card I had attached to my PSN account.

[boink]

at this point I don't know what to believe.

I'm pritty shure I tried to add money to my PSN wallet about 3 weeks prior to all this, and for some reason I was rejected. I went on the website and deleted my card info and left it that way. hopefully it really was deleted.

I have a different nic for PSN than any other place and password too. I havent seen any odd charges on my card.

I dunno, the whole thing makes me feel kinda sick. I don't really feel like playing any game.

[dlish]

why dont you cancel your credit card with the bank and get a new one?

sounds logical to me, and you wont have to feel 'sick' worrying about whether it was comprimised or not.

[boink]

I only have the one card. I'd be stuck with cash for however long it'd take to mail me a new one.

[dlish]

if you explain this to your bank, some banks can give you a temporary card so that you can withdraw from ATM's. Or you can walk into your branch and withdraw from a teller.