[JPT]

I just booted Socom 4/Special Forces for the first time and it told me that a new patch was out and let me download it. Without being signed in to PSN and when it tried to login in afterwards it said PSN down for maintaince.

So not all parts of the net is down at least.

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by JPT

I just booted Socom 4/Special Forces for the first time and it told me that a new patch was out and let me download it. Without being signed in to PSN and when it tried to login in afterwards it said PSN down for maintaince.

So not all parts of the net is down at least.

Yeah, Rockband 3 still shows the new DLC, but of course no online highscores.

[egoless]

When Xbox LIVE went down over christmas week (5 days) in 2007, Microsoft gave the highly rated Undertow (800 points) arcade game away for free to both silver and gold members if I remember correctly. I don't think anything came of the multiple lawsuits though. As for the usual hate in forums, blogs, news outlets, etc, that remained the same. And said factions continued to bitch and moan even when they were given that game for free.

I expect nothing less from those groups and Sony this time for PSN. So far though, I see no major uproar in the usual media outlets. Surprised (where's that sarcastic smiley when you need it).

[Rockster]

But wasn't that 2007 outage actually Microsoft's fault and simply a under provisioning issue? I seem to remember the Halo 3 / Modern Warefare double team overwhelming their expected load capacities.This current Sony outage seems to be the result of some outside influence and not directly Sony's fault. There are protocols every large company has in place in the event of a network breach that must be followed, which usually consists of shutting down the compromised systems to prevent any further leaking of and safe guarding customer data, whilst allow for a investigation of known events and preventative measures to be put in place.

One thing I do find interesting though is how on one side of the fence developers always complain about MS's difficult certification processes and closed nature of their network, and on the other side of the fence as a consumer they have certainly delivered the most reliable and well integrated online experience of all the the consoles I have.

Lets just hope PSN is back up soon.

[Xenus]

Well until the anonymous attack over the Geohotz thing I can't remember PSN ever being down other then the regularly scheduled maintenance so this is a new thing for PSN not a normal occurrence.

[BRiT]

Yes, the 2007 XBL issue was a case of under-provisioning. They simply had not increased XBL's node-count in anticipation. A contact on the ETFS team mentioned he had heard they nearly doubled the number of nodes afterwards.

This PSN outage duration surprises me.

[Mendel]

Well it´s the easter holidays. I would bet that plays a part in why its taking so long.

[makattack]

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2011/04/...for-psn-outage

If there's any truth to the above, that would explain the duration of the outage.

[Cheezdoodles]

If there is any truth to the above, expect lawsuits against sony for breaching their stated private policy?

Assuming there is any truth to the above, unless they have truly incompentent people, they should by now know if any information has been compromized. This should be communicated to their customers asap -> so people can take the necessary steps to secure themselves.

If there is no truth to the above, atleast sony should release a statement confirming that the attack on PSN has not resulted in private information being leaked.

[Rockster]

Depending on the nature of the breach it can be very difficult to determine what information may have been taken. Different companies have different policies on this. Some deem it better to take a more proactive approach and simply inform their customers that there is the possibility their data has been compromised and should take appropriate measures, while others are a bit more conservative and rather not alarm customers unless they are sure data has been taken. I think Sony falls into the more conservative category.

[Npl]

Hmm, I absolutely hate if services store your credit-card detail, PSN does this and so does Amazon.
No easy way to disable this "feature" either.

Successful attackers can do with the rest of my PSN Account whatever they want, they earned all the worthless accomplishments on it

[macabre]

There are new rumours that are about a new CFW that came out earlier this month that allowed users to log in as dev. and download stuff with fake CC info...ok could be possible but why shut down everything, and for so long ?

[deathindustrial]

Originally Posted by macabre

There are new rumours that are about a new CFW that came out earlier this month that allowed users to log in as dev. and download stuff with fake CC info...ok could be possible but why shut down everything, and for so long ?

My guess is that a) Sony over-reacted and then b) something went wrong.

I agree, they should have been able to disable anything sensitive (the store, account updates) but still allow basic authentication to still happen so folks could play games. I wonder if when they disabled things they managed to mess up their internal communication channels and if that is what has slowed the whole process down.

What really makes zero sense is the lame PR they are pushing out. It is like they are totally out of touch with how folks feel about online services and oblivious to how insulting their updates come across.

IMHO of course.

Cheers

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by deathindustrial

What really makes zero sense is the lame PR they are pushing out. It is like they are totally out of touch with how folks feel about online services and oblivious to how insulting their updates come across.

IMHO of course.

Cheers

You're not alone on that, penny arcade did a piece on it today suggesting they should hire a human.

Originally Posted by penny arcade

They have a serious problem here, and as serious as their technology problem might be, it’s not the biggest one they have. Their problem is that they don’t know how to communicate about anything but their legendary prowess. They simply don’t have it. I mean, genetically. They need to find a human being, or hire one, and start an actual dialogue with users.

[macabre]

That`s what a lot of people say. Many accept the fact that they had to shut down , the anger comes from lack of clear information. But the gaming press should also be a little more agressive in researching such issues not just copy/paste from each other but I guess they don`t want to risk their relationship with the industry.

[Xenus]

The anger comes far more from the length of the shutdown and people wanting to use it already then Sony's bumbling PR.

[macabre]

I don`t think so. Anyway, finally some more specific information : http://ps3.nowgamer.com/news/5657/ps...-expert-claims

[Rotmm]

Originally Posted by Xenus

The anger comes far more from the length of the shutdown and people wanting to use it already then Sony's bumbling PR.

You honestly think so? I'd have thought good customer communication, regular progress updates and a realistic timetable (that could easily be extended if necessary) for the resumption would alleviate much of the anger currently being seen.

Edit

Originally Posted by macabre

Anyway, finally some more specific information : http://ps3.nowgamer.com/news/5657/ps...-expert-claims

How is that 'more specific information'? It's yet another guess by someone who is unrelated to Sony.

And of course that's part of the problem... with Sony not making any steps at all to feed information into the marketplace, we have newshounds either adding 1 and 1 and coming up with 7 (Anon) or going to 'experts in the field' to make guesses that are then sometimes taken as facts, or at the very least 'specific information'.

[deathindustrial]

Originally Posted by macabre

I don`t think so. Anyway, finally some more specific information : http://ps3.nowgamer.com/news/5657/ps...-expert-claims

Not sure why this random guy's opinion on when PSN is coming back up is any more likely to be accurate than yours or mine. Also, anyone care to unravel this strange quote?

Some random dude then clarifies possible changes to the service, "the only change the consumer may see is to the way we log in to PSN."

"Automated logins may be disabled, which is what a lot of the Distributed Denial of Service attack programs use to strain the servers."

Hard to tell whether the guy is simply full of it or whether the author just misquoted him or something.

Cheers

[bkilian]

Originally Posted by Npl

Hmm, I absolutely hate if services store your credit-card detail, PSN does this and so does Amazon.
No easy way to disable this "feature" either.

Successful attackers can do with the rest of my PSN Account whatever they want, they earned all the worthless accomplishments on it

I worked at Amazon, and having seen the system they use to protect credit card numbers (affectionately known as CC Motel), I would be extremely surprised if credit card numbers were ever compromised at Amazon. Not even employees can ever retrieve a credit card number from an account, and the system that does store them is physically isolated and has no internet connection. When you add a credit card, it submits the number to the CC Motel (using a serial protocol with only a couple of very well defined simple commands) and gets a token back, which is stored in the account. When you buy something, they present the token and the amount to CC Motel, and it returns if the charge was successful or not. That's it.

[Rotmm]

I want to live it up at the CC Hotel, it sounds such a lovely place

[Rotmm]

Originally Posted by deathindustrial

Not sure why this random guy's opinion on when PSN is coming back up is any more likely to be accurate than yours or mine.

I got a little pissed-off earlier when someone posted the below comment as fact in response to a Kotaku story earlier:

they've lost everything, absolutely everything

trophy data
backup saves
purchase info and previously downloaded content
account info

all gone.

currently trying to piece it all together from historic back ups but according to sources it's not happening

Rumour is Kaz is going to announce a press conference shortly advising users as to how best to recover data from their own machines (if they can work out how to do it).

But the problem is without user account data they cannot reup the data to network because there's nothing to tie it to.

As such it's looking like a day zero reboot and massive headache proving what you've previously purchased for everybody with a PS3

So the first commenter posts it, saying it was from a trusted source and all of a sudden half-a-dozen thickos believe it. A little investigation and I discovered the 'source' of the post being the opinion of an anonymous poster on a tiny messageboard.

And yet, and yet some people were all to willing to believe it and, once can assume, further spread the rumour.

[Npl]

Originally Posted by bkilian

I worked at Amazon, and having seen the system they use to protect credit card numbers (affectionately known as CC Motel), I would be extremely surprised if credit card numbers were ever compromised at Amazon. Not even employees can ever retrieve a credit card number from an account, and the system that does store them is physically isolated and has no internet connection. When you add a credit card, it submits the number to the CC Motel (using a serial protocol with only a couple of very well defined simple commands) and gets a token back, which is stored in the account. When you buy something, they present the token and the amount to CC Motel, and it returns if the charge was successful or not. That's it.

And it does so while being isolated from the net? Wow, Im extremely impressed

[makattack]

Originally Posted by bkilian

I worked at Amazon, and having seen the system they use to protect credit card numbers (affectionately known as CC Motel), I would be extremely surprised if credit card numbers were ever compromised at Amazon. Not even employees can ever retrieve a credit card number from an account, and the system that does store them is physically isolated and has no internet connection. When you add a credit card, it submits the number to the CC Motel (using a serial protocol with only a couple of very well defined simple commands) and gets a token back, which is stored in the account. When you buy something, they present the token and the amount to CC Motel, and it returns if the charge was successful or not. That's it.

Yah, that's a typical solution for "removing a system from direct internet connection" but you have to know that the weakness to that method of having physical security for the system is those systems that *are* connected to it... and those systems are on a network of some sort, which ultimately ends up accessible from the internet.

So, if someone were to compromise the systems with the direct serial connection to the CC Motel, they could conceivable get CC Motel to make a lot of random charges on various accounts... if they know how to craft the request properly... sure, big ifs... but there are always vulnerabilities.

[bkilian]

Originally Posted by Npl

And it does so while being isolated from the net? Wow, Im extremely impressed

Yep, it has a hardline direct to a payment processor. No net at all.