May 3, 2011
Just when it seemed safe to go back in tubes another trug of turd hits the fan. Today Playstation Network and qriocity were supposed to be fired back up, limping on three cylinders, but usable. D-Day came and twitter was alight with “is PSN back up yet?” messages. Most users were memed in return with this link: http://www.ispsnupyet.com/.
That’s going to continue for a while, mainly because Sony appear to have made a bit of a school boy error. While they were busy dealing with the exploit that allowed 77 million users data to be stolen they sort of forgot to check whether other parts of their business could be breached in the same way. Cue the head of security for Sony Only Entertainment going very pale while the sound of 100 million facepalms echo across cyberspace.
Playstation+?
100 million? Yes, 100 million. That’s the 77 million users on PSN who originally had their data stolen, PLUS the 26 million SOE clients whose details have now also been stolen. It was such a bog deal that Sony Online Entertainment requested that the information be posted to the Playstation blog in this post.
Tokyo, May 3, 2011
- Sony Corporation and Sony Computer Entertainment announced today that their ongoing investigation of illegal intrusions into Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE, the company) systems revealed yesterday morning (May 2, Tokyo time) that hackers may have stolen SOE customer information on April 16th and 17th, 2011 (PDT). SOE is based in San Diego, California, U.S.A.This information, which was discovered by engineers and security consultants reviewing SOE systems, showed that personal information from approximately 24.6 million SOE accounts may have been stolen
This means that PSN, qriocity and SOE are all offline while Sony resolves the issue. There’s no information at the time of writing as to when PSN or any of the other services are likely to be live again.
The good news is that that was the bad news.
The Good News
The good news is actually information that should have been released at the same time as the original “oops we’ve had a boo-boo” press release. In the original press release, FAQs and even the emails that were sent to some PSN users it stated that information including passwords had been stolen. And they weren’t encrypted.
It turns out that semantics made a bad situation into a nightmare for the millions of users who scrabbled to change their passwords on as many sites as they could remember in case the nefarious net villains started plundering everything from Paypal to Neopets. Sony revealed yesterday that while the passwords were not encrypted, they had been hashed.
Well why didn’t they just say so!?
For those with the puzzled expression on their faces right now, hashed information is one step away from full on encryption. It means that passwords were not in clear text and so can only be revealed if the hash-key is known. It’s extremely unlikely that Sony would leave the hash key lying around for anyone to steal….. maybe a topic for a future press release from Sony though?
Essentially, passwords are safe (for now).
Now we just have to wait for the services to come back online and everyone can get back to normal.
David Nicol is a gamer, blogger, podcaster and video creator based in the UK. Responsible for TBFmedia.com, thegamerscraic.com, backslashgaming.com and is articles editor at hupitgaming.com
The good news really is that “Sonys” insecure so called now secure firmware 3.60 will hopefully be jail broken but more importantly eventually be released showing how full of it “Sony” actually is.
The bad news is that I know value, functionality, and over all a better deal which “Sony” does not allow so I would have to say “F*** Sony” which coming from a non-hacker and instead a regular consumer is saying alot!
Sony can’t pretend to play its Gestapo garbage here as I will jailbreak mine and play all the old classic which sony does not allow and will play games straight from my hard drvie which sony does not allow and will and custom application so as to make my console system so much more user end friendly in terms of functionality that pound for pound its outweighs any value that online play might have and since sony does not allow it hey “They can stuff their online where the sun doesn’t shine” along with their restrictions, circumvention of the fair use law for consumers and their repressing youtube videos under threat as this means that this “Gestapo” under threat would even seek to curb or limit freedom of speech which for an entertainment giant tells me as a consumer that they do not really represent my best interests as a consumer nor as a human being.
I’d rather be free to play games much faster and smoother from my hard drive while protecting my original game title from harm, I would rather play Super Mario, or Genesis and Nintendo and many many others which I can only Sony wont allow, I would rather have the kind of console which I want that I can improve and have the freedom and value that I seek as a gamer and consumer than not have that, I would rather be able to install package files so as to add new programs while expanding “My Systems” usefulness and functionality rather than not be allowed to because even though I bought it the system is not mine which is horsesh**
I would rather have so many options and features which most users will never have under “Sonys” repressive dictatorship type of entertainment console by truly freeing mine to do what gamers and consumers whom know value when they see it really want their system to be able to do rather than have “Sony” pretending to try to tell me that I have no fair use rights or say in the system which I bought.
I would rather be free then repressed by anyone let alone have a gaming company act as is they own “My Console”..
I paid for it and “NO I Am Not A Hacker” just so you will know and instead a regular consumers who knows that SONY has shown me more than enough for me to NEVER trust in misplaced power because you don’t own me nor “My System” as I bought it and its mine and you will NEVER tell me what I can or cannot do with it.
I highly suggest you read this and learn because your current attitude is a bit too high and mighty and perhaps you’ve grown a bit too big for your own good so I hope Jailbreakers DO release the Jailbreak for your so called secured PS3 3.60 firmware so as to slap some humility because consumers and all human beings have rights and your NOBODY to say otherwise!!
If you want to play legacy games and run homebrew then might I suggest that you put your efforts in to building yourself a decent Linux machine instead of getting angry at Sony for attempting to prevent the Playstation 3 becoming the hacked mess that Xbox is.