It seems after all of this discussion that they would be right to feel that way, too.

Personal data of 100 million accounts lost = Minor inconvenience?

Easily available, public data? Yup.

Though I largely agree, and people have been trading personal info for decades until the various data protection laws, the loss of the email is significant. It also wasn't 100 million proper users and their data, and though that figure is great for media headlines, it's not accurate as to the real loss. Still going to be a few tens of millions though, and the loss of old Credit Card data from SOE is a major loss to. We've no word yet on whether their password hashing was reversible or not. If reversible and the hackers gain access to everyone's password, that'd be a massive loss of data.

Were security questions and answers plain-text or hashed?

Whatever.

If you were trying to find data on one specific person it wouldn't be that hard to find most of the data Sony lost. But the work required to gather that type of data set on 10 million different individuals is not trivial and to build such as database is not easy.

But the point is how much of a PITB was it for the user? Next to none (bar changing a few passwords that you should have done/do anyway).

They probably don't need you to decide much of a PITB risk of creditcard fraud and identity theft is.

TBH, I've lost patience on PSN features.

Specifically, I can't easily get into games with friends for games like FIFA.

I recall in the PS2 days, the EA online setup gave you more info about where your friends were so it was easy to follow which lobby they were in, their progress in a game, etc.

Of course, they're going to keep PSN because it's a way to sell DLC and other content, not so much make it easier to play online.

But it's FREE! You're not allowed to criticize it.

So was the PS2 setup.

It's obvious that Sony's priorities are with digital and microtransactions, not enhancing online play.

Well they have gone on record a few times now stating the bottom line is their mail concern. PS+ is solely designed to promote purchasing.

I think that's the major contributing factor to anyone defecting over this hack. The hack in itself isn't majorly critical, unless people really are psychologically addicted to COD, but the lack of PSN service progress for ages will leave people wanting a better online solution looking elsewhere, and this latest incident could be the final impetus to make the switch.

If you think that 1 month of downtime on PSN and a welcome back package of 2+2 games vs dropping the platform completely and leaving cold the money and time already invested in the games on the sony platform is a "clear cut case" i want what you are drinking.

On a per user basis the scale of the leak is irrelevant to the end user. That user is not more inconvenienced because a load of other people are aswell, that doesnt effect them. In fact bigger numbers are probably better because you become less of a target.

The scale of the breach is a problem for Sony, not the individual end user so much.

In the end somebody has your Email, name and address. Nothing you would normally think twice about giving out to people and the type of thing you would send out in plain text in a email or post without worrying about security.

It's risk of creditcard fraud and identity theft. Does no-one understand that? It's not a trivial thing.

I'm not sure what you mean. A clear cut case of what? I said I suspected Sony isn't worried about losing it's hardcore customers over this incident and it seems that Sony would be correct to not be worried. What aspect of this are you arguing with?

Yes, my point was that it being 100 million accounts as you said doesnt make it more inconvenient for the effected individual than if it was much smaller in scale.

Credit card numbers were encrypted. Identity theft is always a risk but to be honest it really isnt that hard to obtain someones details anyway. The post that comes through your door every day has your name and address for everyone to see. It is a breach of trust and a pr problem for sony but i very much doubt there will be mass credit card fraud and identity theft from this.

Sony hacked again, used to host phishing site
 

The first attack was rather minor and involved a breach in the web server that hosts Sony's Thai site. As reported by the security firm F-Secure today, the official homepage of Sony Thailand is being used to host a phishing site for an Italian credit card company. "Basically this means that Sony has been hacked," writes F-Secure.

Unlike the PSN and SOE break-ins, this hack is not likely to have any serious consequences; it should be restricted to a relatively unimportant Web server that has no access to sensitive customer information. Still, it shows that Sony's online troubles aren't over yet—and that the entire company needs to take online security more seriously.

The other attack is more malicious. About 100,000 yen ($1,225) was stolen from Sony customer accounts in Japan, reports Reuters. An intruder reportedly penetrated Sony's online infrastructure and stole virtual points from account holders.

http://arstechnica.com/security/news...shing-site.ars
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/sony-hit-...162227553.html

Sorry I don't understand what you said?

This has happened to me and the only pain has been down-time...and I don't play online much (also it's probably helped that I've been busy with DIY for a while now). Either way, like I said - there's been no massive pain for me.

Which is why everyone gets identity theft protection (not that any PSN CC details were stolen - only data that is largely already 'out there')

So PSN has not improved at no additional cost to the user?

The point was that just because you feel this wasn't much of a pain to you, doesn't mean other will feel that this wasn't much of a pain to them.

They can treat it as a loss leader, stores do that all the time. So give people $6 that they can spend (loss), not enough for a dlc but maybe people will put in the rest of the money themselves to buy a dlc they have been considering, and maybe buy other stuff in the process (gain). Or maybe they just leave the $6 in there and do nothing with it, it's still something. Or maybe they buy some dynamic themes there were considering. I don't think the financial credit needed to be a huge amount really, it's more meant to be a token of "sorry, here spend some free credits in our store". I find it hard to believe that Sony can't afford that given that there are what, 20 to 30 million actually paying + online psn users? They've wasted more than that on studios they have never produced anything profitable so I don't buy it.

Sorry if am jumping to conclusions, but:

The discussion was about (unless i am mistaking) if the welcome back package was "ok".
And tell me how anything from that discussion proved that you were right that Sony doesn´t care about it´s "hardcore" users? If anything those that own both a PSP and a PS3 are those that gain the most.

The only thing the discussion showed was that those that actual have the PS3 as "first choice" was "ok" and there was an understanding that not every company has billions they can use to bribe their customers to stay no matter what they put them through.