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PSN outage

Redress said:
Sony intentionally took the **** down to prevent further security breeches. This is completely different from "can't keep their **** up". SOE has been running online servers almost continually up since 1999.

The fact that some people are poorly informed about this is not Sony's fault. All the information is readily and easily available.
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It must have been one hell of an attack for them to keep it down this long. I'm just glad I didn't put a credit card on my PSN account.
 
Pee Wee Herman isn't losing any playtime because of this. Of course, his play station is his right hand. :mrgreen:
 
danarhea said:
Pee Wee Herman isn't losing any playtime because of this. Of course, his play station is his right hand. :mrgreen:
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He can't stay away from the theatre can he.
 
I actually am a veteran tech journalist writing for several blogs and websites (mostly pertaining to Xbox though) and since the beginning of this entire thing I have said this. Sony went through this entire process as a big mean corporation and didn't do it quietly in a way that Microsoft or Apple for example would have done it. It originated with a guy that just wanted to give PS3 the functionality PS3 used to have. Sony decided they would threaten anyone that went to this guys youtube page to see how to do this by getting their IP addresses from YouTube with legal action. A huge stepping of rights and I figured this would happen. I just didn't realize Sony had such a piss poor network, no security, no firewalls, etc to impede such attacks. **** like this is just another example of why you pay $50 a year for Xbox Live. You get a high quality, consistent service, where your information and your network is thoroughly protected. It doesn't help that PSN is on sockets that most of the other internet is on and Microsoft uses a lot of proprietary and closed networks that a simple Orbital Ion Cannon DDoS attack couldn't do. I've gone onto forums that Anonymous frequents and begged users there to try the same **** on XBL, they simply can't. It's impossible. Sony deserves what happened to them for being a prick corporation and for their ****ty service. America.
 
JohnWOlin said:
I actually am a veteran tech journalist writing for several blogs and websites (mostly pertaining to Xbox though) and since the beginning of this entire thing I have said this. Sony went through this entire process as a big mean corporation and didn't do it quietly in a way that Microsoft or Apple for example would have done it. It originated with a guy that just wanted to give PS3 the functionality PS3 used to have. Sony decided they would threaten anyone that went to this guys youtube page to see how to do this by getting their IP addresses from YouTube with legal action. A huge stepping of rights and I figured this would happen. I just didn't realize Sony had such a piss poor network, no security, no firewalls, etc to impede such attacks. **** like this is just another example of why you pay $50 a year for Xbox Live. You get a high quality, consistent service, where your information and your network is thoroughly protected. It doesn't help that PSN is on sockets that most of the other internet is on and Microsoft uses a lot of proprietary and closed networks that a simple Orbital Ion Cannon DDoS attack couldn't do. I've gone onto forums that Anonymous frequents and begged users there to try the same **** on XBL, they simply can't. It's impossible. Sony deserves what happened to them for being a prick corporation and for their ****ty service. America.
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So much wrong information here. You complain that Sony went after a guy for doing something that could threaten network security and could create unfair advantage for online gaming, and then you complain that Sony did not do enough to stop people messing with their online service. Furthermore, nothing Sony did justifies in any way shape or form an attack like this. You cannot commit criminal acts as a form of dispute, as those involved will find out. They may be good, but even the US government is working on this.

Anon is a bunch of assholes. Sony may be too, I do not know. Personally I have never had a problem with them despite playing SoE games since 2000. Sony may and probably did have issues with their security. None of that justifies what was done, and what was done was a pure criminal act that affects millions who have never done jack **** to Anon.

If you think what Sony was doing by regulating what can be used to access their online service, you take it to court, you do not hack them, you do not steal account and credit card information, you do not act like Anon did here(assuming it actually was them, and right now it appears some in Anon are turning on others and may already be giving investigators info, so it is likely Anon did do this). Blaming the victim is a weak excuse.
 
So much wrong information here. You complain that Sony went after a guy for doing something that could threaten network security and could create unfair advantage for online gaming, and then you complain that Sony did not do enough to stop people messing with their online service. Furthermore, nothing Sony did justifies in any way shape or form an attack like this. You cannot commit criminal acts as a form of dispute, as those involved will find out. They may be good, but even the US government is working on this.
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Everything I say is 100% fact. What that guy did had the unwanted consequence of having an unfair advantage. The same thing happens on Xbox Live, but guess what? Microsoft already had security measures and methods of locking those people out and you never hear about them because Microsoft doesn't make a big stink about it. These people are found quickly usually within a weeks time and at no point do they have the ability to bring down nor compromise inforation. Secondly, true Sony has a right to protect what they want, but they were essentially bragging about wanting to punish the hand that fed them. Are you telling me if you are a guy looking for Uncharted 3 videos you happen to stumble upon this Geohotz YouTube video you deserve to have your IP address and other information turned over to Sony? Sony did indeed have horrible security, and they knew about it. Not only did they use an old version of Apache Server that was filled with known holes, many users on their own forums talked about the security holes that are monitored by Sony members 3 months before this happened and Sony did nothing about it. On top of that PSN had NO FIREWALLS.

Also because of Sony's total disregard of making an actual stable and reliable network this entire debacle has costed credit card companies, Sony, developers, publishers, and so on an estimated $12 billion. Sony's stock has gone down over 20% the past few weeks, Sony has hired someone to be specifically in charge of their network security (they didn't have this before?) and there will likely be an executive shuffling/firing in the next few weeks due to how horribly this was handled.
 
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JohnWOlin said:
Everything I say is 100% fact. What that guy did had the unwanted consequence of having an unfair advantage. The same thing happens on Xbox Live, but guess what? Microsoft already had security measures and methods of locking those people out and you never hear about them because Microsoft doesn't make a big stink about it. These people are found quickly usually within a weeks time and at no point do they have the ability to bring down nor compromise inforation. Secondly, true Sony has a right to protect what they want, but they were essentially bragging about wanting to punish the hand that fed them. Are you telling me if you are a guy looking for Uncharted 3 videos you happen to stumble upon this Geohotz YouTube video you deserve to have your IP address and other information turned over to Sony? Sony did indeed have horrible security, and they knew about it. Not only did they use an old version of Apache Server that was filled with known holes, many users on their own forums talked about the security holes that are monitored by Sony members 3 months before this happened and Sony did nothing about it. On top of that PSN had NO FIREWALLS.

Also because of Sony's total disregard of making an actual stable and reliable network this entire debacle has costed credit card companies, Sony, developers, publishers, and so on an estimated $12 billion. Sony's stock has gone down over 20% the past few weeks, Sony has hired someone to be specifically in charge of their network security (they didn't have this before?) and there will likely be an executive shuffling/firing in the next few weeks due to how horribly this was handled.
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And once again you are passing bad information. From the congressional hearings, PSN did in fact have some firewalls up, just not enough and not covering everything. So you have posted bad information twice now, and blamed the victims of the attack, while claiming the criminals where somehow justified.
 
Everything I say is 100% fact. What that guy did had the unwanted consequence of having an unfair advantage. The same thing happens on Xbox Live, but guess what? Microsoft already had security measures and methods of locking those people out and you never hear about them because Microsoft doesn't make a big stink about it. These people are found quickly usually within a weeks time and at no point do they have the ability to bring down nor compromise inforation. Secondly, true Sony has a right to protect what they want, but they were essentially bragging about wanting to punish the hand that fed them. Are you telling me if you are a guy looking for Uncharted 3 videos you happen to stumble upon this Geohotz YouTube video you deserve to have your IP address and other information turned over to Sony?
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Sony is another over towering corporation that's trying to play big daddy and making a mockery out of it's users. What happened was horrible to those who got their details stolen, me actually being a member of that group, but i hope this puts a bit of humility back into Sony.

On top of that PSN had NO FIREWALLS.
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Source?

Also because of Sony's total disregard of making an actual stable and reliable network this entire debacle has costed credit card companies, Sony, developers, publishers, and so on an estimated $12 billion. Sony's stock has gone down over 20% the past few weeks, Sony has hired someone to be specifically in charge of their network security (they didn't have this before?) and there will likely be an executive shuffling/firing in the next few weeks due to how horribly this was handled.
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As i said, Sony has been targeted the way they unfairly targeted people on the internet and gathered personally identifiable information about them.
 
My source for that information was Gamespot.com. Also through my information working within the industry I know people at the companies Naughty Dog and Activision. Both claim the last 2 PSN updates is what made it possible for this all to actually happen. Something to do with letting better cross game information from games such as Portal 2. Sony indeed had no proprietary firewall simply relying on an old outdated Apache server. They are now saying service will not go up until May 31 which to me is shocking that they are that incredibly bad and slow at making something work and work right.

Redress ok, let me ask you this if you had sprayed water at a bunch of kids with your hose to get off your lawn and told any other kids in the area that you were going to track them down and make sure they go to juvie, go to sleep with your Ferrari in the back yard with a 5 ft fence that anyone can climb over and the keys in the ignition you don't think that guy had it coming? Seriously why do all Sony fans defend this giant company? Xbox Live went down for 3 days back in late 2007 due to server overload from games like Halo 3 and CoD:MW. People demanded service in less than a day, got mad about it, threatened to quit gaming on Xbox etc, and you know what MS did? They gave everyone 3 free months of gold, and a $15 arcade game-for 3 days of down service.

Or then there is RRoD, just like Sony's piss poor security is their fault, Microsoft's piss poor build quality was there's and in the end they lost money because of it but eventually made it right for everyone.
 
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JohnWOlin said:
My source for that information was Gamespot.com. Also through my information working within the industry I know people at the companies Naughty Dog and Activision. Both claim the last 2 PSN updates is what made it possible for this all to actually happen. Something to do with letting better cross game information from games such as Portal 2. Sony indeed had no proprietary firewall simply relying on an old outdated Apache server. They are now saying service will not go up until May 31 which to me is shocking that they are that incredibly bad and slow at making something work and work right.
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Your source is taking a chunk of testimony from some one who got his information off message board comments. He also mentioned that PSN did have some firewalls. The congressional hearing is available in transcript form online.

Redress ok, let me ask you this if you had sprayed water at a bunch of kids with your hose to get off your lawn and told any other kids in the area that you were going to track them down and make sure they go to juvie, go to sleep with your Ferrari in the back yard with a 5 ft fence that anyone can climb over and the keys in the ignition you don't think that guy had it coming? Seriously why do all Sony fans defend this giant company? Xbox Live went down for 3 days back in late 2007 due to server overload from games like Halo 3 and CoD:MW. People demanded service in less than a day, got mad about it, threatened to quit gaming on Xbox etc, and you know what MS did? They gave everyone 3 free months of gold, and a $15 arcade game-for 3 days of down service.
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I do not blame others for people's criminal acts. Sony is culpable for their piss poor internet security. They are not responsible for a bunch of hackers stealing credit card information. You use a flawed analogy and reach a flawed conclusion. Let me ask you something: what did the people who had their CC info stolen do to Anon? What about people like me who can't log in to play a game due to Anon, what did we do to them?

Or then there is RRoD, just like Sony's piss poor security is their fault, Microsoft's piss poor build quality was there's and in the end they lost money because of it but eventually made it right for everyone.
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Making demands of a company is acceptable, and there should be repercussions for poor quality, but stealing and hacking and the actions of whoever did all this is not acceptable. You have made claims of being an industry insider, but have had your facts wrong, and have taken the side of hackers and criminals. This speaks volumes.
 
Its unfortunate that you get your info stolen however, that is apparently what it took for Sony to make the service actually secure. I do not take the side of the people that brought it down, I take the side of people however that have to deal with Sony's piss poor service or those that worried that just because they accessed a freely available YouTube page that perhaps that would be used against them by Sony. Of course these hackers taking information is wrong, but Sony has done a lot of wrong things that brought this upon themselves. These people didn't act just for the hell of it. Sony themselves apparently thought that punishing one hacker for jailbreaking their system software was enough to make sure no one did it again. They seriously thought that. They thought that people with lesser morals would just go, "Oh ok we learned our lesson and we will not try to hack or bring down you badly serviced network."

All I am saying, is Sony has just as much blame as the hackers do.
 
I meant a link or something i could work with. And the guys you know in the industry are just as clueless as the rest of us because nobody actually know's what sony does or doesnt package into its updates. At this point that is just speculation. I also find it very hard to believe, near impossible that the PSN would have gone this far for this long without using a firewall with little mention of it by the congressional committee looking into the hack.
 
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JohnWOlin said:
A huge stepping of rights and I figured this would happen. I just didn't realize Sony had such a piss poor network, no security, no firewalls, etc to impede such attacks. **** like this is just another example of why you pay $50 a year for Xbox Live. You get a high quality, consistent service, where your information and your network is thoroughly protected.
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I wouldn't count on Microsoft that much either. I recall a period for a few weeks where their network was on the fritz, during the Holiday season. And unlike the PS3, the Xbox Live service is far too tied to the daily operations of the gaming console. Without the network, you literally would be immensely limited in being able to view/listen to multimedia.
 
Hackers attacked Sony. Sony brought their own services down to fix themselves. As far as I know the true dammage of the attack has yet to be shown to the public. But sony is still down so surely it must be great? Right? When watching crime solving shows it is almost always someone that knew someone that was related to the attacker that ends up being guilty. (when dealing with rich people who always get others to do their jobs for them) Until they tell everyone exactly who got their info stolen and who didnt the true extent wont be known. From what i saw they sent and email to everyone and gave a free sales pitch to the major credit checking companies. If you want to check for motives on why service is still down maybe check somewhere down that avenue.

Oh, and GameSTflop and their free magazines are obvious microsoft propaganda. Many of their adds say "advertisement. Not an actual review" in little tiny words at the botton. And they sell TONS of **** games that way.
 
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All I am saying, is Sony has just as much blame as the hackers do.
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They should get their fair share, and they are. However, I would not say "just as much." I think they require a royal PR ass whipping, but it should be different in comparison to a bunch of punks like hackers.
 
JohnWOlin said:
Its unfortunate that you get your info stolen however, that is apparently what it took for Sony to make the service actually secure. I do not take the side of the people that brought it down, I take the side of people however that have to deal with Sony's piss poor service or those that worried that just because they accessed a freely available YouTube page that perhaps that would be used against them by Sony. Of course these hackers taking information is wrong, but Sony has done a lot of wrong things that brought this upon themselves. These people didn't act just for the hell of it. Sony themselves apparently thought that punishing one hacker for jailbreaking their system software was enough to make sure no one did it again. They seriously thought that. They thought that people with lesser morals would just go, "Oh ok we learned our lesson and we will not try to hack or bring down you badly serviced network."

All I am saying, is Sony has just as much blame as the hackers do.
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It's turning out Sony did not do as badly as every one is claiming. You know the claim that you referneced that the PSN did not have enough firewalls and was running outdated Apache? Turns out the guy, who based his comments on forum posts, did not know what the **** he was talking about. Sony's Servers Were Up to Date, News from GamePro

According to a page request archived on March 23, 2011, Sony was running version 2.2.17 of the Apache server software, which is the latest stable version available today. This repudiates Spafford's claims, which were second-hand in the first place and may well have stemmed from nothing more than Internet rumors and IRC chatlogs anyway.
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Edit: you can see this by clicking this link.
 
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My bet is this was an inside job and it was a criminal syndicate behind it but that's just conjecture.
 
Chappy said:
My bet is this was an inside job and it was a criminal syndicate behind it but that's just conjecture.
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Could very well be, since they fired 200 people or so, a few weeks before this hit them.
 
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