After a week of mysterious outages and two days of almost total downtime, Sony has finally admitted that the PlayStation Network was the victim of a hack attack. While "maintenance" has been the official corporate line, Sony communications boss Patrick Seybold has revealed otherwise.
"An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services," he admitted. "In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off PlayStation Network & Qriocity services on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th. Providing quality entertainment services to our customers and partners is our utmost priority.
"We are doing all we can to resolve this situation quickly, and we once again thank you for your patience. We will continue to update you promptly as we have additional information to share."
Anonymous has been the prime suspect, since it's already pulled this kind of stunt. A statement attributed to Anonymous claims it had nothing to do with the incident and instead blames Sony's "incompetence."
It seems that the attack may be caused by those who have modified their PS3s to act as dev kits, in an attempt to steal content from the PSN. This would certainly explain why Sony itself is the one that shut down the service.
In any case, the actions of these few people have pretty much screwed over everyone else, on one of the biggest weeks in gaming this year. Classy.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
9:00 AM on 04.23.2011 | 
Boohoo. I cleaned up the house and played some PC games instead.
@RaginDude
So you're saying that since YOUR agenda wasn't affected, everyone else is just whining, is that it? Seriously, this is a big deal and anyone can see that.
First, I really want those hackers to stop screwing me over and then saying they are fighting for me. I did not asked for their protection and I do not support them and their alleged cause.
Second... Assholes.
Sony shut down the PSN to prevent futher losses.
But of course "Annonymous did it!" Is much better for their reputation in the war. :-)
It's very irritating, and while again I don't blame Sony for it, I would certainly appreciate a gesture on their part to compensate for several days of being unable to get what was advertised.
Tell me you're trolling, and not absolutely fucking stupid. Because that's something absolutely fucking stupid. And people's credit cards might have been compromised? Yeah. Yeah. Get the fuck out, seriously. Sony is really not the bad guy here.
The costs of their actions may in the future make it much more difficult to be "anonymous" on the internet, when public opinion changes and the laws change to better allow for easier identification of individuals who participate in illegal or disruptive actions.
kinda sad really...
Now, if they changed the PSN into a mock-up of XBox Live or somehow enabled cross-system chat or added Guy Fawkes masks to the Playstation Home shops, that would be a huge surprise.
Show us a new trick already, guys. DDoS is so 'Noughties' that it's naughty.
This is almost enough to make the conspira-ma-see nut in me (read: the person bored by the obvious explanations) suspect that Microsoft had a hand in this. The XBox 360 might 'have no gaems' but it doesn't have Anonymous' negative attention, either, so it's the better choice for anyone in the market for a new HD console if they care a whit for online gaming or DLC. It would be a lot more interesting than what is most likely the truth.
It's everyone's fault; hackers for succeeding in fucking up everyones fun in the biggest way possible, and Sony for having such crap security that they have to use drastic measures as a first response, allowing hackers to succeed in fucking up everyones fun in the biggest way possible.
I don't care what the reasons are and I highly doubt that the explanation "it was the bad bad haxx0rz". that's just a cheap excuse for laziness on sony's part.
"We had a big free Easter weekend [PixelJunk] Shooter 2 unlock planned, but we had to give up on it because of the stupid hacker PSN DOS attack, idiots." and, "[That] doesn't make Sony look bad, it makes hackers look bad, and meanwhile unrelated people (us) lose money... crazy times" - Dylan Cuthbert of Q-Games (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/04/the-playstation-network-remains-down-dev-blames-hackers.ars)
Do you know what DDoS is? Where does it say in the article that it was a DDoS attack? Oh right it doesn't, because if it was a DDoS attack then it wouldn't be Sony taking down the servers themselves.
this part is simply hillarious, just shows how terrible is Sony's network infrastructure. even more proof that Sony can't handle the most basic actions properly. they shut down entire network just so those 30-50 guys would not download stuff from PSN for free and called it "external intrusion".
remember when there was massive fraud on XBL with people getting MS points for free from some website? MS either banned fuckers or made their purchases invalid(so they wouldn't even work) without any problem. that's how you properly solve this situation.
This is a shame and I'm sorry to hear it's affect on PS3 players, doesn't matter where you play, this shit shouldn't happen.
I just wanted to play MvC3 online this easter long weekend. I'm a shift worker and I get precious little free time to veg out and play games. I had this whole weekend free - wife has even gone to Adelaide with the baby to see her parents, leaving me home alone.
Super pissed!
Sorry, what? I must've missed the memo where Anonymous were outed as being entirely comprised of "lousy shit pirates". If you're going to hate on them then at least hate on them for reasons which are actually true.
Also, Geohot has never been in support of piracy. Geohot has absolutely nothing to do with exploits made to custom firmware and the like to enable piracy or further exploits like this. Distribution of the root key etc. was reckless and irresponsible, he's not totally absolved from blame, but saying that it's ALL his fault and choosing to focus on him isn't appropriately directing your ire towards the people *actually doing illegal things*.
This is just a huge PR move by Sony. I wouldn't be surprised to see another major attack by Anon lol
@Elsa re: "There are now millions of gamers who are quite willing to vote for and support stronger legislation to deter/prevent and penalize hackers... even at the loss of some of our own internet freedom"
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
/me goes back to playing Portal 2 on PC
VAGRANT STORY.
Also that lockpicking example is pretty flawed in this scenario. Imagine Sony as a bank that hired on lackluster security and got money stolen, so closed down bank transactions until they could recover the money from the thieves. It's nowhere near a decent example either, but it highlights more Sony's role as a service; customers trust Sony to provide them with a service that they're (more or less) entitled to as a PS3 owner and are dependent on Sony to maintain that service.
The problem is that if Sony's security is shit, which thanks to hackers breaking it it is, then people are pretty justified in blaming Sony for not fixing it. You'd be a pretty shitty bank for knowledge of breaking your lock-systems to be widely-known and then not taking adequate measures to make your locks secure again. That doesn't mean that the hackers doing this aren't scumbags that aren't worth the air that they breathe, they are, but there's no sense in giving Sony a free pass just because the hackers are indefensibly doing wrong.
your icon is lol but your comment makes no sense.
I won't preach here about how many of these same asshats praised Geohot, the Anon crew and other hackers, but I'm just glad to shove it back in their face and say "I fucking told you so."
This is the end result, the consumer loses, as is almost ALWAYS the case in this situation. There's nothing to be praised for fucking over literally millions of innocent consumers. And i knew full well when everyone was slamming Sony, saying they were being too harsh to Geohot, that in the end, THIS is why they were doing it. THIS is the bullshit he unleashed, rather he meant to or not.
Let all of those pieces of shit burn.
And please, before you even bother to comment on what I've just said, know that if you disagree, you're wrong. Plain and simple. Thank you.
http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/1261596481_3Fw2MnJ-L.jpg
Those of us that play games on XBL or PC could care less.