Gearbox Head Blasts "Evil" PSN Hackers

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McMullen

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John Funk said:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.
There are many things being called terrorism these last ten years that devalue the meaning of the word, a trend the media has supported with overwhelming, childlike, reckless, and disturbing glee. This is potentially not one of those.

If this attack was for the purpose of harming Sony rather than actually using the info stolen (which seems to be the case, as no actual thefts or fraud have been conclusively linked to the breach yet), then yes, it was an act of terrorism. A public and high-profile attack on a high-profile target for the purpose of making the public lose confidence in the target's ability to protect them or their data. That is terrorism.

And it's about time that it starts getting into the media that we should be going after the hackers and not Sony. Yes, there was that thing about their servers being outdated and unprotected, but that has been refuted since. Sony might not have been the most vigilant custodian of our information, but they weren't the least either. In any case, the attack was a crime, and the criminals are for the most part being ignored by the media and by governments, and certainly by the lawyers. The situation is ridiculous and I'm glad Gearbox has called it such. For whatever good it does.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Jun 17, 2009
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I agree completely. I mean Christ, Sony gets attacked here and who do we dump on? Sony.
I think we, the gaming community, need to be ashamed of ourselves, for this, and for a number of other things.

John Funk said:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.
Actually I think "cyber-terrorism" is a very apt description of it. Sure not being able to play video games for a few weeks doesn't really compare to fearing for your life, but the intent behind it is still the same: to spread panic and chaos. And in a big corporation, if you're network gets compromised, you can bet you're going to be panicking.
 

Fearzone

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Dec 3, 2008
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It is best not to look at these things in simple black and white.

Yes, Sony has my support and I hope a better network comes of this. But anyone who had Linux installed on their PS3 and now can't, at least not legally, they have my sympathy.
 

Daveman

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Jan 8, 2009
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So Sony baked you a lovely pie and left it on the windowsill to cool. Then some hackers come and steal the pie. Then your natural response is to bitchslap Sony for leaving the pie on the windowsill. You don't care about the fact that somebody stole your pie because you don't know who did it so it's hard to blame them, so you just take all your rage out on Sony.

Domestic abuse... always fun to joke about.

But yeah, sure Sony has pissed off some people and sure their security wasn't perfect but surely you guys remember that story of that one British guy who hacked the fucking PENTAGON for kicks, hardly anything is impenetrable. It's annoying but tbh they're suffering just as much as you are and they've already agreed to reimburse anyone whose financial details are used. What more do you want from them?

(Hacking the Pentagon - http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/mckinnon/ )
 

BDNeon

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They are threatening and attacking anyone who doesn't agree with their anti-captalism anti-personal rights way of life. They use threats to accomplish their goals, such as by threatening to attack or release personal information.

If that's not terrorism I don't know what is.

And regarding Linux, it still amazes me how ignorant people are on the subject. You've always been able to install linux on the old PS3's. They just removed your ability to do it on current firmware. The whiners are complaining because Sony wont let them access a secure network with a compromised platform, and for damn good reason.
 

Axelhander

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John Funk said:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.

Is it criminal? Absolutely. But "terrorism" seems a bit much.
This part of the post was not required and is rather "Kotaku-esque." This bit of news didn't require your two cents.
 

DustyDrB

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Jan 19, 2010
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This isn't a black and white, either/or situation.
You can be angry at both the hackers and Sony. I blame the hackers way more of course, but I'm not with the people who wants to give Sony a hug for comfort. I sympathize with them, but I'm still angry (yes! It's OK to have mixed feelings). Security failures on this scale do not happen. And I'm not really even that angry on the behalf of gamers. Publishers and developers are the ones who are being hit hardest by this, from big companies like Capcom to smaller ones like Aksys.
 

Roboto

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Sorry Randy but the last thing you're going to get from the customers you constantly screw up the wallet is a hug.
 

Whoracle

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drowboy said:
No one is arguing that Sony dropped the ball, but if you go to the website they have promised that they are giving complimentary Identity Protection services and help to psn members as compensation in the from of free Playstation plus/qrocity services for 1 month plus however long the network is down. This is them saying OK we're sorry, now we'll fix it and here's something for the inconvenience. As long as them admit guilt and cover for any losses due to this issue I feel that they should be forgiven for their mistakes.
Oh, sure, it's nice that they promise to better themselves, abd they shouldn't be sued from here to no tomorrow for being the victim of a crime, but, and that's what bugs me, the gearbox guy seems to want all the people to forgive Sony and put no blame at their feet. At least that's how it comes across to me.

And I believe their promise to better themselves in terms of data security when they have implemented said better security and have had a complete audit of the system by independent experts that go on record and say: "This time, they've done everything possible."

After all, they promised to keep your data secure when you first gave it to them, so another promise of "yeah, this time, for real" does not hold much water, for me at least.

And as for the gearbox guys motives: Gearbox has games on the PS3, right? Ones that use PSN? (I really don't know...) So if that's true, well, he's loosing sales for every customer that drops off Sonys monolith, so there's one motivation.

Another one is liability shift for DRM-caused catastrophes. After all, when the next DRM fiasco hits, one can always blame someone else and point to the Sony case and say: "Hey, we're the victim here. If everything went as we wished it, our system would have been perfect."

Granted, that works only for f***ups that weren't self-inflicted, but still.

See the flak Capcom is currently getting for their Always-On-DRM in the aftermath of the PSN desaster.

Also:
Daveman said:
So Sony baked you a lovely pie and left it on the windowsill to cool. Then some hackers come and steal the pie. Then your natural response is to bitchslap Sony for leaving the pie on the windowsill. You don't care about the fact that somebody stole your pie because you don't know who did it so it's hard to blame them, so you just take all your rage out on Sony.
Well, if all of your neighbors' pies got stolen during the last weeks, you'd get RIGHTLY blamed for not at least have an eye on the pie, wouldn't you?
In a perfect world, noone would steal, so nothing would have to be guarded. But it's more than common knowledge that we don't live in such a world, and a lapse in security coming from the same guys that have a fear of theft that is borderline paranoid at times is rather hypocritical, isn't it?

The Same Guy said:
But yeah, sure Sony has pissed off some people and sure their security wasn't perfect but surely you guys remember that story of that one British guy who hacked the fucking PENTAGON for kicks, hardly anything is impenetrable. It's annoying but tbh they're suffering just as much as you are and they've already agreed to reimburse anyone whose financial details are used. What more do you want from them?
And that's exactly what I mean. One single guy can hack the pentagon. And this is commonly known. Then WHY hasn't Sony protected the data better? Granted, nothing is safe, but one can at least make the best effort to approximate absolute safety that is possible. Which Sony clearly did not do.

(Quick aside: I damn sure hope someone other than Sony is the next victim, with comparable circumstances, so it doesn't seem that I harp on Sony that much. But being an IT professional it bugs me every day when I see security sacrificed for money. And it happens all too often...)
 

Kimarous

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John Funk said:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.
Uh, no. People have been less upset about their inability to play online and more worried about the safety of their credit card information. If you seriously think that a whole bunch of people threatened to leave PS3 altogether just because of a few weeks of down time?

I heard one person define terrorism as "an attack on non-military targets in an effort to damage peoples' faith in a higher authority" (or something to that extent). Is that not what happened with the PSN attack? They went straight for the personal information and caused people to lose faith in Sony as a result, even if they don't use that information. That IS terrorism.
 

MysticToast

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Glad to see someone in the industry agrees with me ( and apparently quite a few Escapist members too :D )

I never once pointed a finger in blame at Sony because of this. They didn't "lose my money/personal information", they got hacked. Why can't some people get that through their heads?
 

beema

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How about we blame both? Why does one side have to be blameless and the other demonized? It's not a black & white issue going in either direction.
Sony certainly does not deserve our "hugs," and yes we should be hunting down the hackers who did this and burning them at the stake as well.
 

Whoracle

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beema said:
How about we blame both? Why does one side have to be blameless and the other demonized? It's not a black & white issue going in either direction.
Sony certainly does not deserve our "hugs," and yes we should be hunting down the hackers who did this and burning them at the stake as well.
Thank you for providing a way less wordy version of my posts than I ever could :)
 

John Funk

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Dec 20, 2005
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Carlos Alexandre said:
John Funk said:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.

Is it criminal? Absolutely. But "terrorism" seems a bit much.
This part of the post was not required and is rather "Kotaku-esque." This bit of news didn't require your two cents.
Thanks for your input, but we exist as news writers specifically to inject our two cents into matters.
 

John Funk

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Dec 20, 2005
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Kimarous said:
John Funk said:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.
Uh, no. People have been less upset about their inability to play online and more worried about the safety of their credit card information. If you seriously think that a whole bunch of people threatened to leave PS3 altogether just because of a few weeks of down time?

I heard one person define terrorism as "an attack on non-military targets in an effort to damage peoples' faith in a higher authority" (or something to that extent). Is that not what happened with the PSN attack? They went straight for the personal information and caused people to lose faith in Sony as a result, even if they don't use that information. That IS terrorism.
By that logic, every crime is terrorism. What the hackers did is the equivalent of breaking into a bank and stealing information instead of money. It's crime, but not systematic terrorism.
 

icame

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Aug 4, 2010
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This guy is seriously becoming my favorite person in the gaming world. I <3 Gearbox.
 

Mr.Petey

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beema said:
How about we blame both? Why does one side have to be blameless and the other demonized? It's not a black & white issue going in either direction.
Sony certainly does not deserve our "hugs," and yes we should be hunting down the hackers who did this and burning them at the stake as well.
Generally the reason why we don't is that we cant spend forever gauging all the shades of grey and debating who was to blame. That's time I'd rather not spend and in fact focus my support on Sony. It isn't easy being a high profile company that's been essentially robbed and it happens to many other companies also.

Finger pointing may be one of the easiest things to do in life (and can often be misguided) but in this case it is fairly clear cut that these scum have no right of defence for their crimes.
You hack into a system and access private information, ergo you will be subject to the law and the vilification of the "pitchforks and torches" of the people
 

Whoracle

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Mr.Petey said:
Finger pointing may be one of the easiest things to do in life (and can often be misguided) but in this case it is fairly clear cut that these scum have no right of defence for their crimes.
You hack into a system and access private information, ergo you will be subject to the law and the vilification of the "pitchforks and torches" of the people
I see noone absolving the criminals of their deeds. At least not in this thread.
For the "but" see my earlier posts. Someone who does not care about doing the tasks they have been given/taken on themselves (guarding the data) properly does not deserve hate, but he does not deserve support either, or else he'll never do his work properly.
 

MegaManOfNumbers

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Cyber-terrorism, huh, that WAAAY too fitting.

I really hope Sony fixes this issue and stomp out these terrorists, I REALLY want to try out the new inFAMOUS 2 beta!
 

Sniper Team 4

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That's the first remark regarding this whole mess that I agree with. I honestly think that, if everyone rallied behind Sony and started looking for these hackers, they'd be in prison by now. Or dead. Either works for me.