*ren* PSN Down, Customer Info Compromised

[Xenus]

Except for the vast majority of people it did work as intended which is all anyone can reasonably expect. No system will have a 100% success rate.

 

[BRiT]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti..._Sony_highlights_cyber_insurance_shortcomings

Zurich lawsuit against Sony highlights cyber insurance shortcomings

Zurich American Insurance Co. asked the New York State Supreme Court last week to absolve it of any responsibility for defending or indemnifying Sony against claims arising from the recent data breaches at the company.

The data breaches at Sony's PlayStation Network, Sony Entertainment Online and Sony Pictures resulted in account data on close to 100 million individuals becoming exposed and over 12 million credit and debit cards being compromised.

The breaches have so far resulted in at least 55 putative class-action lawsuits being filed against Sony in the U.S and another three lawsuits filed against it in Canada. Sony expects to spend close to $180 million in the next year alone on breach-related costs.

But the company's attempts to get Zurich to defend it against the claims have run into a roadblock.

According to Zurich Insurance, the commercial general liability insurance policy it has with Sony Computer Entertainment America does not cover damages arising from cyber incidents. The policy only covers "bodily injury" and "property damage" caused by occurrences other than the kind of cyberattacks Sony experienced.

Seems like this is going to cost Sony more than the $2.xx they estimated per customer.

 

[patsu]

Didn't know Topiary, tflow and a few others have been caught:

Topiary:
http://blogs.forbes.com/parmyolson/2011/08/01/lulzsec-frontman-topiary-appears-calm-in-court/

Assuming the police caught the right guy, Topiary was wrongly identified as Daniel Akeman by the hacker community a few weeks/months ago.

tflow:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/19/leading-member-lulzsec-hacker-squad-arrested-in-london/

I remember storm cooperates with the police now. They still have sabu, kayla and a few junior lulzsec members to go. There are probably more in Anonymous.

 

[patsu]

Sony names former US Homeland Security official Philip Teitinger as 'Chief Information Security Officer':
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/06/sony-names-former-us-homeland-security-official-philip-teitinger/

Though Sony's initial reaction to the enormous PlayStation Network breach earlier this year may have been less than stellar, the company responded in force as time went on, even vowing to hire a "Chief Information Security Officer" eventually. This morning, the company named the person filling that position: former director of the US National Cyber Security Center Philip Reitinger. Serious business!

Reitinger is actually filling two roles, as he's been hired on as senior vice president as well as chief information security officer, reporting to executive VP and general counsel Nicole Seligman.

...

... plus a scheduled downtime tomorrow:
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/09/07/playstation-network-scheduled-maintenance-5/

Countries: AE, AU, GB, IE, NZ

PlayStation Network is offline for scheduled maintenance from 17:00 until 19:00 on Thursday 8 September 2011, BST.

During the maintenance, you will be unable to access the following services:

PlayStation Store on PS3 and PSP.
PlayStation Network Account Management.
PlayStation Network Account Registration.

In addition, you will not be able to sign in to PlayStation Network from eu.playstation.com. If you wish to play online during the maintenance, please ensure you sign in to PSN before 17:00 on Thursday 8 September 2011.

During this maintenance, you can continue to collect in-game trophies and these will be updated on your profile once PlayStation Network is back up and running.

 

[patsu]

Sony Amends Online Terms To Block Class Action Lawsuits
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/37262/Sony_Amends_Online_Terms_To_Block_Class_Action_Lawsuits.php

Sony this week revised the terms of service and user agreement for its online services, inserting a new section that states users cannot enter into a class action lawsuit against Sony unless Sony agrees to the initiation.

The move comes months after Sony's online services, including PlayStation Network, were compromised by a cyber attack that left millions of accounts compromised. The first class action over the breach was filed in April this year.

The new section of the terms, titled "Binding Individual Arbitration," explains that users must waive the option to open a class action lawsuit against the company regarding its online services.

The new TOS also transfers the operation and funds to SNEI LLC instead of SNEA, Inc.

In the procecss, Qriocity has been removed from the language. Sony Entertainment Network is ushered in.

 

[deathindustrial]

Surprised they did that so soon. . .it's gotta lead to renewed bad press and resulting ill will for Sony.

Cheers

 

[patsu]

I think people will understand. Some will b*tch about it regardless. Sony's finance and legal people seem to move the fastest in the entire group.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

All that means to me is if Sony cock up, they could have a million lawsuits instead of one. Although I guess individuals can't afford to fight Sony individually, hence they've priced themselves out of 'justice' except for those who afford personal justice. Although as one point in the T&C states, they don't actually know if such a move is legal!

 

[AntShaw]

Although as one point in the T&C states, they don't actually know if such a move is legal!

This is the key part. They can put whatever they want in there, but whether that will hold up in a court of law is highly questionable. Personally, I despise this move and I am pretty offended by it. I enjoy my PS3 but when companies do stuff like this to me it makes me not patronize their products.

 

[Carl B]

Not only will this probably not hold up in court, it probably makes a class action more likely simply due to the immense bad-will Sony seems intent on fostering. Myself, I really could not care less as to my own usage patters; I don't read user agreements if I can avoid doing so, and simply expect that what is reasonable and common sense to win out in the end.

 

[patsu]

It may be related to the recent Supreme Court decision about class action:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/business/28bizcourt.html

Businesses may use standard-form contracts to forbid consumers claiming fraud from banding together in a single arbitration, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a 5-to-4 decision that split along ideological lines.

Though the decision concerned arbitrations, it appeared to provide businesses with a way to avoid class-action lawsuits in court. All they need do, the decision suggested, is use standard-form contracts that require two things: that disputes be raised only through the informal mechanism of arbitration and that claims be brought one by one.

“The decision basically lets companies escape class actions, so long as they do so by means of arbitration agreements,” Brian T. Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, said. “This is a game-changer for businesses. It’s one of the most important and favorable cases for businesses in a very long time.”

...

 

[patsu]

Speaking of the Great PSN Outage, here's a strange side effect:
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/playstation-network-outage-led-to-lan-gameplay-in-uncharted-3/

PlayStation 3 owners are eagerly awaiting the release of Naughty Dog's Uncharted 3 this holiday, and interestingly, the game will be shipping with a feature that would never have been included if Sony and its studios hadn't suffered through the PSN hack.

In speaking with IndustryGamers recently, Uncharted 3 game director Justin Richmond noted that Naughty Dog had to create a LAN feature out of necessity during the PSN downtime, and now gamers will be the lucky recipients of this feature when the game finally hits stores on November 1.

"As a developer, one of the things is, you want to keep playing the game. And so, actually, one of the positive outshoots from [the PSN hack] was that we got LAN. So our programmers sat down and said, "OK, how can we continue to work?" And so they hooked up the LAN gameplay mode and now we're shipping with that. So lemons to lemonade," he said.

...

 

[JB9861]

Speaking of the Great PSN Outage, here's a strange side effect:
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/playstation-network-outage-led-to-lan-gameplay-in-uncharted-3/

That's cool I guess. Unfortunate it takes an event like that to become an addition. But what I'd really like is more online co op and ability to take at least one friend online in more games.

 

[specwarGP2]

All that means to me is if Sony cock up, they could have a million lawsuits instead of one. Although I guess individuals can't afford to fight Sony individually, hence they've priced themselves out of 'justice' except for those who afford personal justice. Although as one point in the T&C states, they don't actually know if such a move is legal!

I think that bit is in there because cetain parts of the TOS are enforceable in some jurisdictions and not others.

 

[AlphaWolf]

You forgot the most important reason stuff like that is in there. Intimidation. That's the way most corporations prefer to deal with individual consumers. Most consumers don't really know the law, most won't spend thousands of dollars on a lawyer to find out so corporations use legal sounding documents to scare them.

ie. there's a company here called imperial parking, they put parking spaces on empty lots to make some revenue while the owners speculate on the property value. If you park there without paying they will issue a ticket. The ticket looks and reads very official and legal like, except that private corporations have no right to issue fines therefore you have no obligation to pay them. What they can do is sue you for lost revenue or whatever, but taking people to small claims court for $10 isn't going to be very profitable. I still suspect most people just pay the 'fine'.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It may be related to the recent Supreme Court decision about class action:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/business/28bizcourt.html

I think you're very right about that, as the T&C clearly moves resolution to independent arbritration (which is actually what the law courts should be about ).

 

[Grall]

Mandatory PS3 update removes right to join class-action lawsuit

As Ars Technica reports (based on research from The Examiner), if you accept the EULA for the latest update, you can't sue any part of Sony Corp in court, but must rather resort to arbitration.

Not sure if this would also cover say, Sony Music for example, in case those crazies were to distribute any more stealth-installing rootkits.

If you wisely decide you probably don't want this, you have 30 days to opt out (via letter, none of that modern, convenient email nonsense here!), the details of how to do this is easily found inside the EULA itself, because you all read them all the way through before blindly accepting, yes?

Or you can choose to not download the update and not be able to access PSN or its store ever again.

Now, I don't have any plans to sue Sony, but each time they do scummy underhanded things like this it means I'm less and less likely to buy any more of their products. I'm already unable to play my PS3 games because my launch system dieded on me, and I'm currently incredibly uncertain if I should replace it, or just forget all about it. Considering the encrypted harddrive and my inability to access my own game saves, I think it's time to move on for me.

 

[Jedi2016]

I read this yesterday and the first thing that popped into my head was "can they do that?"

 

[patsu]

I think you're very right about that, as the T&C clearly moves resolution to independent arbritration (which is actually what the law courts should be about ).

Do you see the new ToS when you sign in ? I'm asking because you're not in US. I suspect the new arrangement is only enforceable here, even if you sign it as a UK gamer.

There should be other routes to get them, like going through another entity that represents public interests. ^_^

I doubt this will prevent anything, except perhaps, to add one more layer before going to court.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I haven't been presented with any new T&Cs.