Gearbox Head Blasts "Evil" PSN Hackers

[Angry_squirrel]

How is his unprecedented? Are hackers new all of a sudden? If you are online with whatever piece of plastic hackers are a risk. Always have been, always will be. Sony doesn't get hugs for allowing it to happen. Sony gets chastized for not being 1 step ahead of them like they should be. You don't give a cookie to the security guard who slept through the robbery do you? Both (Sony and hackers) are wrong for different reasons and both deserve to be punished.

This.

 

[9Darksoul6]

1. That is NOT terrorism. To call such crimes "terrorism" is, among other bad things, an insult to real victims of terrorism.

2. Sony caused this by pissing off the hacker community; you simply don't do that; ever. As far as I know - as a reminder of this attack being directed to Sony, and Sony only - the XBL service is still running.

3. It's also their fault if their "crack-proof" security system was, in fact, completely stupid and an absolute failure (google it).

I'm not saying, by any means, the hackers aren't the bad guys here... but I'm not giving Sony my support either.

 

[Jumplion]

I've been saying this practically since the whole ordeal started.

I say we back off, let Sony, the FBI, Homeland Security, and various other organizations find the bastards who did this, let them rip various new ones upon them, and then if we still feel like it we can get on Sony's case. It's all well and good to blame Sony for their fuck up, but when all of our information is still out there, I would think that the first priority would be to find the bastards who stole that information in the first place.

 

[Johnson McGee]

As someone who may have been exposed to identity theft and credit fraud as part of this attack, I wholeheartedly agree that this is terrorism. It makes people afraid to do anything online for fear of having their identity stolen.

This kind of attack happened because of three things: hacking is (relatively) easy, it's hard to capture the perpetrators and the penalties for being caught are usually small. If this problem is to be addressed, there needs action on all three of these issues but only one of them is in Sony's domain.

2. Sony caused this by pissing off the hacker community; you simply don't do that; ever. As far as I know - as a reminder of this attack being directed to Sony, and Sony only - the XBL service is still running.

Inviting or provoking crime is dumb, sure, but so is blaming the victim. For example, do women deserve to be raped for dressing provocatively? At this point the so called hacker community is more comparable to a gang that attacks any perceived disrespect with completely disproportionate response. As a result, millions of innocent and unrelated users had their information exploited for profit.

 

[mjc0961]

Sony will get my support when I get my e-mail telling me how to sign up for that identity theft protection they promised. Until we all get those, I think it is the time for pointing the hate cannon at Sony. Is pointing out that yes, we all hate those bastards that did this and hope they get caught going to actually help catch them? No. But is letting Sony know that we want what was promised or we'll take our business elsewhere going to put pressure on them to make good on their word? Yep. Not to mention the huge backlash they'll get if they announce outright that they changed their minds or something.

 

[lastjustice]

In year people will forgive Sony for this....We still won't have forgiven Nintento for Another M heh.

 

[poiuppx]

The hackers are not evil, but very foolish.

No, I'd argue that deliberately breaking into the system and stealing the names, addresses, passwords, and financial information of over 70 mil. accounts in one system and about 25 mil. in another counts as evil, malicious, and worthy of at the very least execution. But hey, we're each entitled to our own opinions.

 

[poiuppx]

So, putting the financial well being of millions of consumers at tremendous risk isn't an act of terrorism? You're joking, right?

No, it's crime. If someone broke into, say, Bank of America and stole money from millions of accounts, would you call it terrorism? No, it's theft - on a huge scale, yes, but it's still not terrorism. Terrorism is means to an end; from what we can tell this attack was the means and end itself.

It would be like terrorism if, say, they kept breaking in and stealing bits and pieces of user data - a few thousand here, a few thousand there - in an intentional campaign to break the public trust with Sony and drive customers away from PSN lest their data be compromised. That would be cyber-terrorism. This is just cyber-theft.

Hate to butt in and disagree, but the fact they hit both the PSN and SOE, two seperate systems belonging to the same company, implies to me at the least there was some malicious intent directed towards the company specifically. A hack of this magnitude, by its very nature, calls into question and negatively impacts the company, as well as disrupting the lives of those hit by the fallout (developers, publishers, gamers, etc.). It causes fear and confusion and disorder, and makes people act and think in ways they wouldn't have previously. It may not involve car bombs and religious ideologies, but it damn sure wears the general cap of terrorism quite nicely.

 

[42]

Im with Pitchford on this. Sony has taken quite a lot of flak for the mostly the loss of information, but no one's else has taken time to criticise the people behind it (mainly because they dont know who). maybe we should send Duke to find out.

 

[Whoracle]

Im with Pitchford on this. Sony has taken quite a lot of flak for the mostly the loss of information, but no one's else has taken time to criticise the people behind it (mainly because they dont know who). maybe we should send Duke to find out.

Well, when you break it down like this, what is there to criticize the hackers for?
"You are criminal fucks and what you did was a crime. A serious crime." - That's about all that can be said to them before they walk off into jail somewhen.
Crimes can't be criticized, since it's bad by its very nature. Crimes can be punished, they can be atoned for, but to criticize a criminal is redundant.

Sony did what it did with no ill intent (at least I think so), so their course of action is criticizable. Until someone proves that they did it on purpose, then they'll be punishable.

 

[42]

Im with Pitchford on this. Sony has taken quite a lot of flak for the mostly the loss of information, but no one's else has taken time to criticise the people behind it (mainly because they dont know who). maybe we should send Duke to find out.

Well, when you break it down like this, what is there to criticize the hackers for?
"You are criminal fucks and what you did was a crime. A serious crime." - That's about all that can be said to them before they walk off into jail somewhen.
Crimes can't be criticized, since it's bad by its very nature. Crimes can be punished, they can be atoned for, but to criticize a criminal is redundant.

Sony did what it did with no ill intent (at least I think so), so their course of action is criticizable. Until someone proves that they did it on purpose, then they'll be punishable.

No what would be redundant is to criticize a criminal that's paid for it ie. served time in prison etc
the only thing sony can be blamed for is not having a strong enough security for their network. other than that the rest is on the hackers i mean come on, i would blame it ALL on the hackers as they have not only stolen infomation theyve also denied access to a service that everyone uses. While what they did was against the law it was also a dick move. and believe me IT WAS A DICK MOVE.

 

[the D0rk One]

Hah!

Cyber-terrorists. More like nerd rage on a huge scale imo.

And Sony playing the victim? Well, sometimes a God complex will reach around and bite you right up the ass.

 

[No_Remainders]

The amount of hyperbole in his statement is actually obscene.

Terrorism? Not really.

 

[Sharalon]

I don't really know how you can get more cyber-terrorismier than this..

 

[Whoracle]

No what would be redundant is to criticize a criminal that's paid for it ie. served time in prison etc
the only thing sony can be blamed for is not having a strong enough security for their network. other than that the rest is on the hackers i mean come on, i would blame it ALL on the hackers as they have not only stolen infomation theyve also denied access to a service that everyone uses. While what they did was against the law it was also a dick move. and believe me IT WAS A DICK MOVE.

Oh, it was a dick move, I'm not going to argue that. What get's on my tits is that Sony and their supporters want Sony to walk away scott free.

I don't really know how you can get more cyber-terrorismier than this..

- Breaking into public transport servers and rerouting subways (may lead to crashes)
- Breaking into weather watch servers and disabling/hoaxing storm warnings.
- Hacking earthquake monitoring servers
- Hacking the servers for electrical power distribution
- Hacking the software for nuclear power plants. Stuxnet, anyone?

And that's just from the top of my head.

Saying that downing PSN is the highest (or any, really) form of cyberterrorism let's me assume you either have no knowledge of how ubiquitous IT systems have become, have not enough fantasy, or are not paranoid enough. Please prove me wrong.

 

[Thimblefoot]

Sony do deserve criticism, just like the hackers do, this should have never have been so severe for a huge company like Sony, and the hackers are just douchebags.

 

[The Hungry Samurai]

Even if you didn't have a credit card stolen. The contact information of millions of minors are now in the hands of strangers for purposes unknown. I'd say terrorist is an appropriate word.

Kudos to Randy Pitchford for standing up for Sony. This whole thing is a huge setback to the entire gaming community and too many of us are acting like whiny entitled brats over it. I probably shouldn't be surprised by this but if there was ever a time for gamers to not be petty then it's now.

 

[Sick43]

Sony is as much to blame as the hackers they're a multi-billion dollar corporation who's security should of been up to the task of not only locking out intruders but more importantly protecting the users sensitive information, and yes the hackers should be hunted down and locked up for the better portion of they're lives but what they did was found a weak spot in Sony's security that Sony should have already been aware of, so Sony is as much to blame as the hackers and deserve every dollar they lose during this down time

 

[Insanity72]

*Hugs for Sony*

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I agree and I've never pointed finger at Sony, I merely wanted hackers dead. For the greater good.

Spoiler: Video with Hot Fuzz spoilers

On-topic, I do blame the hackers who did this. Attacking user info on PSN was just not right. But giving Sony a pat on the back and saying "there, there" is not all right, either. Sony had poor security, and the fact that PSN has been down almost a month with no date on when it will be back up is not a good sign, either. Think of it like this. If a museum was broken into, the thief was in the wrong, to be sure. But would you give the museum a pass if it was only using one security guard, then decided to itshut down for a month to "restructure its security"?