Probably too buried for anyone to read, but I digress.
LulzSec needs to be stopped. They have enough skill to hack into multiple high level corporations and cause massive data leaks that compromise millions of people's security. They are just doing it for fun now, for which I am thankful. If they turned their sights to making money off the credit card information they've stolen, then millions of dollars would be lost. It would be easier to track them down due to bank security measures attached to credit cards, which is likely the reason that they don't do it. I think that if they could find a way around those measures, this would be for profit instead of the "lulz".
As it is, they are still able to cause not only millions of dollars to be lost in damages and hiring of more security firms, but they are also placing at risk the livelihood of every single employee of Sony. The tech guys, programmers, customer support, and the salesmen in their stores. Not to mention all product manufactures and programmers, as well as game designers. I don't know the exact numbers, but I'm willing to bet that there are at least hundreds of thousands of low level employees at Sony who need the jobs they have, especially considering that the world is just getting out of a major economic depression, not to mention the recent earthquake in Japan which certainly would not raise employment rates. If Sony is killed by this, all of these people will be out of a job.
Now for those who say Sony deserved it, I heartily disagree. I admittedly haven't done enough research into the topic, but here's a theroy. Let me know if it holds water.
- Sony releases the PS3 with the ability to install a different OS on it, allowing for cheaper exportation as well as increasing their consumer base by having people buy them as cheaper personal computers.
- A group of people install Linux on their PS3s. (Now from what I understand of Linux, if you know what you're doing you can make it do anything you want.)
- A portion of this group use the capabilities of this to pirate games on a large scale, and hack cheats into multiplayer services, damaging several companies and the multiplayer experience for other gamers. (Speculation on my part, if you know please conform or deny.)
- At this point, Sony could ignore this problem, which would likely cause legitimate users to switch to other gaming systems, but would keep their expanded market. They could alternatively patch the software preventing people who use OtherOS from playing in online games. The problem with that is that these people have Linux, and would likely bypass any security measure that they create (Costing Sony a fair ***** of change) and the whole thing is back to square one, with Sony having gained nothing except lighter wallets and annoyed customers.
- Rather than do this, Sony releases an update nerfing OtherOS, returning stability to online and striking a blow on pirates, at the cost of punishing everyone who installed OtherOS, regardless of whether or not they were using it for illicit purposes. This earns legitimate ire for Sony and damages their reputation and consumer base as they can't punish only the criminals.
- GeoHotz releases a way to get OtherOS back despite the update. Sony throws everything they can at it trying to stop it in order to prevent the above problems. They go way too far and earn the ire of the hacker community.
- The hacking begins, the initial hack causing hackers to swarm Sony with hacking attempts like sharks to blood. (On this, I think the general assumption is that every single attack made it in. This I doubt. If you have ten thousand people trying to hack you simultaneously, it seems impossible to think that some won't get through. And then once some do get through, a quick posting of script will make it so they're all getting through before you can cover the hole. Rinse and repeat.)
- Personal data is exposed. PSN goes down. Sony's handling of this is sub par. Rage spreads across the internet, attracting more hackers.
- A crippled Sony tries to get the PSN back up as soon as possible while trying to protect their customer's personal information. A security and PR nightmare ensues.
- The PSN comes back up. The hacking attempts persist, with new holes in security being discovered while the old ones have been long fixed.
- LulzSec emerges with a strong set of hackers determined to take down Sony, regardless of who else gets hurt in the process. Nintendo and InfraGard also suffer hacks, although these receive less publicity than continued Sony hacks.
- The FBI claims to have arrested a member of LulzSec, although it is as of yet unclear whether there is proof, or if anything will come of it.
- LulzSec denies association with said person. (If I was LulzSec and he in fact had no affiliation, I would start a campaign indicating that he IS in fact part of LulzSec, leading the FBI on a wild goose chase for a bit. But that's just me.)
This is getting far too long to hold most people's attention, so I'll end with this:
This incident could have far reaching repercussions about how anonymity is handled online. It is not something that should be taken lightly or ignored. If a major company can be brought down by a group of people hiding behind computer screens to dodge persecution for what is undoubtedly an act of cyber-terrorism, then it is almost a certainty that governments worldwide will take action to quash online anonymity in order to prevent chaos, especially with so much being online in this day and age.
