Playstation Network Is Coming Back Online Now

[ForbiddenFruit]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/15/playstation-network-coming-online-throughout-north-america/

It's creeping through the states right now, so I'd expect to hit PAL territories (Australia, Europe, etc.) within 24 hours, or maybe even later today.

However, PSN store is still down even in the places where the network and gaming is up, so you can't redeem your freebies - 2 PS3 games from a list of 5 and 2 PSP games from a list of 4 or your free month of PS+. The free games haven't been specified either.

There's a software update available now worldwide, you have to get that before you can go back on.

Well, at least it wasn't going down forever. But 3 weeks, all because Sony pissed off the wrong people, and even then some personal info has been stolen...

[Guest lilme]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/15/playstation-network-coming-online-throughout-north-america/

It's creeping through the states right now, so I'd expect to hit PAL territories (Australia, Europe, etc.) within 24 hours, or maybe even later today.

However, PSN store is still down even in the places where the network and gaming is up, so you can't redeem your freebies - 2 PS3 games from a list of 5 and 2 PSP games from a list of 4 or your free month of PS+. The free games haven't been specified either.

There's a software update available now worldwide, you have to get that before you can go back on.

Well, at least it wasn't going down forever. But 3 weeks, all because Sony pissed off the wrong people, and even then some personal info has been stolen...

ya, Q and I are back online this morning. It's about damn time lol.

[Santiago]

This is not Sony's fault - blame the hacker. Since when do we blame the victim? Obviously no security network can defeat a determined and capable hacker - but why shouldn't the hacker be held responsible?

[Guest lilme]

I don't blame Playstaion.. I agree, they're the victim.

What's ironic though is, Q got tired of waiting for PS3 to come back online, and we own an xbox. So he bought a 3 month subscription to xbox live and a copy of black ops which is coming in the mail, and the next morning PS3 is back online

[Zander]

This is not Sony's fault - blame the hacker. Since when do we blame the victim? Obviously no security network can defeat a determined and capable hacker - but why shouldn't the hacker be held responsible?

Although I agree with your point for the most part, its just not that simple. The sheer incompetence shown by Sony's IT folks in managing their environment deserves some punishment. The really basic requirements that absolutely should have been in place simply were not - they didn't have firewalls set-up or configured properly, data that should have been encrypted wasn't, they hadn't been patching their systems, etc. etc. This is because the cost *to Sony* of loosing your information isn't anything like the cost it will be for you when you find your bank accounts cleared out and 2 mortgages opened in your name.

By not hitting Sony with a huge fine, we're saying to business all over the world that we're allowing these kinds of incidents to be passed off as a negative externality (or more precisely, a moral hazard). To solve this problem at a reasonable level we must force companies to internalise the costs of these kinds of incidents. That way they will invest at the right level to protect their digital infrastructure and insure against those threats they can't reasonably afford to protect against themselves.

Let me try an analogy: you board a ferry to take you on holiday. On the trip out of the harbour, some kid crashes his toy boat into it. Normally, the ferry would shred the toy boat and carry on unharmed. In this case, because the ferry hadn't been maintained in years, had a major rust problem and leaking fuel tanks, it caught fire and sank. Sure, the kid is responsible for triggering the incident, but surely the ferry operators deserve a large portion of the blame here. If they had paid the small costs it required to check the ferry and keep it in good working order, they wouldn't have had this problem to start with. At the moment they have no incentive to pay these small costs as its only a PR problem if a boat sinks (so they invest in a good PR company, not in maintaining their boats). If a ferry sinks they only have to replace the boat - they don't have to pay anything in compensation for the people who suffered or died as a result. By forcing those costs on to them, they'll factor them into their business plans and risk analyses and the invisible hand will do the rest.

[ForbiddenFruit]

Well, it's come back here now.

As for the whole 'it's Sony's fault' thing, it's a long story, so grab a coffee.

I'm not trying to paint Sony as the villain here or defend the hackers - I'm just saying that Sony brought this on themselves for several reasons and as much as I support them they've made some incredibly stupid decisions.

First, a little reminder of Sony's most notable prior experience with piracy.

You know the PSP, yes? Believe me when I say PSP piracy and modding is rampant, and I mean RAMPANT. One in 3 copies of PSP games are pirated. Now, there were similar situations with the PS2 and PS1, but they had MASSIVE install bases. Only a small percentage of users pirated games on them. The PSP, however, is miles behind the DS in sales. A lot of the people who owned them were really into their games, and since hacking let you bring your games with you instead of carting around the discs, piracy took off on it.

This is some of my own speculation, but in Sony's shoes, if you saw the PS3 start to get hacked when your income mainly comes from its software, not its hardware, and you know the damage piracy can do from your other system, you have an obvious knee-jerk reaction: stop the hackers. Stop them NOW. NOW.

Now, up until a few years ago, back when the only PS3s were the old fat ones, the PS3 had a feature called 'Install Other OS' - 'OS' being 'Operating System'. It meant you could set aside 10 GB of hard drive space to run PS3-tailored operating systems like Yellow Dog by Linux to give your PS3 features of a semi-decent computer (nothing fancy, but it did allow for some neat things). It wasn't widely used though.

It was removed because a hacker called George Hotz or 'Geohot', the man who started iPhone hacking discovered how he could start PS3 hacking via the OtherOS system. He didn't intend to use it for piracy but for homebrew (this is exactly what happened with the PSP, the guy who STARTED the hacking scene didn't support piracy). However, homebrew will lead to piracy, always. No exceptions. Since Sony knew what could happen if the PS3 piracy spread, they had to do something fast. What did they do? Made the next PS3 update block off the Other OS feature, and it was never included in any PS3 Slim models. They could have patched it to remove the exploit, but no - they just did the knee-jerk reaction because they needed something fast.

Now, this pissed off a lot of people, the ones who used OtherOS for legitimate things, and considering the slims didn't have Backwards Compatability with PS2 games, it seemed like Sony was taking out features. There were even lawsuits against Sony. This isn't the main crux of the story but it's a contributor, started a snowball effect.

Fast-forward to less than a year ago. Tech used to fix 'bricked' PS3s (not from hardware errors, but from corrupted software) was stolen and the rootkits leaked. This is a bit complex and I don't understand it all myself, but the bare bones of it is that the PS3 has a certain 'code' like a password to determining what can and can't run on it. The problem?

Every single code was the EXACT same. When hackers got their hands on it, the ones who didn't update and still had Other OS, they went to town on the PS3. With the one magic code, the entire thing fell apart, this system that Sony had always touted as being unhackable. Think of it as a suit of armour - it seems indestructible but once someone finds that tiny hidden flaw, it falls to pieces. PS3 piracy and hacking went on for quite some time and Sony still haven't FULLY solved it - games like Demon's Souls, MAG and even Black Ops still have the occasional hacker, even though most have been banned or blocked by firmware updates by now.

So again, Sony retaliate. And though they go at it the right way from their own perspective, going straight for the root (the hacking group which included Geohot), they weren't going for the pirates. A lot of people saw this as 'picking on the little guy' as George didn't do this with piracy in mind, and Sony were literally out for blood, even if it was in their best interests.

Now, when you add them relentlessly hunting this one person to a list of innumerable other flaws that left customers dissatisfied - removal of Other OS, initial price tag (FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE US DOLLARS), openly saying they see customers as 'renting' the system and it's not actually theirs, charging half the price of a new system to send you a refurbished one that's likely to break in a couple months, using copyrighted tech in the PS3 owned by LG, and claiming this system was unhackable - it's a case of 'the straw that broke the camel's back'. When you piss off enough people, you're sure to get some flack for it. Sony threw down the gauntlet innumerable times, and not expecting a challenge it finally came to bite them in the ass. HARD.

The first group was 'Anonymous', as in not just an unknown person, but THE Anonymous, the ones that took on scientology, the ones that work as a co-ordinated group. They wanted to harm Sony for 'obstructing free speech' and going after Geohot. They launched a DDoS attack (Direct Denial of Service) on PSN servers, and this is what made it go down for a couple days at a time or just very unstable. They also attempted a worldwide in-store boycott on a selected date but it failed as that required leaving their mothers' basements. On their own, the Anonymous attack amounted to this:

However, that wasn't the last of it. People supported those Anonymous idiots, praising them as the robin hoods of the internet, stealing from the big bad corporations and giving to the poor. This opened the floodgates, and then IT happened.

Actual hackers, not basement dwellers, REAL skilled people with grudges against Sony, hacked them. This isn't what caused the 3 week downtime, oh no. They were in the servers, stealing personal information. And this is what REALLY upset and hurt honest consumers - info like names and addresses and emails and telephone numbers were in PLAIN TEXT. They were NOT encrypted as they should have been, and the credit card info protection wasn't much better (there are reports of CC info being stolen and misused as a result of this). They were in for almost a whole WEEK before Sony realised what was going on. When they found out, what was their only option?

SHUT.

DOWN.

EVERYTHING.

They've spent these past 3 weeks on damage control, rebuilding the network from the ground up, and getting some decent security in this time, but that won't reverse the damage done. People are still dissatisfied with a lot of Sony's customer service, as they at times can't see the importance in customer satisfaction and almost seem blind to the fact that the iron grip they have on the PS3 is very over-protective (firmware can really help the indie scene, believe it or not). That info was still stolen. Another group is going to try and hack PSN again, their ONLY intention being to get personal information.

Here's hoping that this time the security is up to scratch, and that Sony realise what the hell they're doing.

Well, that's my piece over, I'm sorry for it being overly long, just stating all the facts I know. Remember - I like Sony and the playstation brand, and this is primarily the fault of the hackers, but I'd be lying if I said they aren't entirely free of guilt here.

[ForbiddenFruit]

And I've taken up half of the topic so far, and Zander said in 3 paragraphs what I said in innumerable ones.

God damn it.

[sweetandsensitiveguy]

i'm just glad to be back in dcuo

[Dougie]

Millions of kids got better grades, completed their homework on time, and learned to play outside with friends. OH THE AGONY!

[Zander]

As an update to my past reply in this topic, Sony has finally accepted being fined for the data loss by the UK regulators: ..."Sony has begrudgingly abandoned its fight to contest a £250,000 fine handed down by the Information Commissioner’s Office after its massive 2011 PlayStation Network data breach."...