*ren* PSN Down, Customer Info Compromised

[AlphaWolf]

complaining about 30 days plus 15 days of PSN+ is adding so much to the conversation

More than your post.

There wouldn't be any discussion in this thread if people didn't disagree. I'm not sure what you expect should be happening in this thread, people trying to top each other in their congratulations of Sony in how well they handled it?

I personally have no opinion one way or another as to the appropriateness of the welcome back package, but I do find it interesting that people want to stifle the opinions of people because they think they aren't pro Sony enough or use their PS3 enough or something. What exactly is the necessary criteria for having an opinion? And must every disagreement on the console forum degrade to ad hominem. It is possible that people dislike the compensation offered by Sony other than a deep seated hatred of the company.

 

[-tkf-]

What exactly is the necessary criteria for having an opinion?

As evidence shows, the ability to type on a keyboard.

 

[temesgen]

More than your post.

There wouldn't be any discussion in this thread if people didn't disagree. I'm not sure what you expect should be happening in this thread, people trying to top each other in their congratulations of Sony in how well they handled it?

I personally have no opinion one way or another as to the appropriateness of the welcome back package, but I do find it interesting that people want to stifle the opinions of people because they think they aren't pro Sony enough or use their PS3 enough or something. What exactly is the necessary criteria for having an opinion? And must every disagreement on the console forum degrade to ad hominem. It is possible that people dislike the compensation offered by Sony other than a deep seated hatred of the company.

I don't think people are congratulating Sony as much as some of us are responding to what we see as some over sensationalizing the issue. People are entitled to have whatever opinion they want, but again what some of us have been pointing out is that while PSN being down is a problem it isn't the end of the world as some have exaggerated and continue to grandstand to make a point about how great MS is.

SG used the analogy earlier that someone doesn't have to own a Toyota to say their acceleration issues were bad, which is true but if I enter all the post on a car forum that have to do with Toyota and say why GM is better people have a right to point that out, What is even more comical would be bashing Toyota for have acceleration issues and then defending a brake problem that was wide spread on GM cars when in reality whether we are talking about brakes or accelerators the impact on consumers was similar - you couldn't drive the car. So the hypocritical over the top reaction to one problem and praise for the other is apparent to anyone using any objectivity. Joker's comments in my opinion have been fair as have some others, Eastman on the other hand is on his MS PR campaign as always - we have all heard his talking points over and over. MS does everything right, Live is the best, Sony can't do anything right and didn't innovate and on and on. He's entitled to that opinion but it doesn't add anything to the debate and after a while it degrades the quality of the overall discussion because some of us such as myself who usually just listen get tired of it to point have calling it out..

 

[Acert93]

I don't think people are congratulating Sony as much as some of us are responding to what we see as some over sensationalizing the issue. People are entitled to have whatever opinion they want, but again what some of us have been pointing out is that while PSN being down is a problem it isn't the end of the world as some have exaggerated and continue to grandstand to make a point about how great MS is.

PSN being down isn't the end of the world. It is a free service. Sure Sony markets it as part of the package and it does impact the enjoyment of the platform. Those who don't like the lack of service will complain (and Sony will be hard at work trying to make 10 new customers happy to offset the 1 they made unhappy) and if it is a big enough issue they leave the platform.

But that isn't the only thing going on here. Sony has already had a dubious history in terms of invading customer privacy and has had... issues... in regards to PS3 features. This outage is an extension of those bad feels. This time instead of rootkits Sony has shown a less than excellent security approach for consumer data and had one of their key pillars of their platform flatline.

Losing 100M users personal data, on top of prolonged PSN outages, is a very big deal. The only exaggeration would be someone acting as if this wasn't a big deal. I had planned to get a PS3 once it got in the $150 range so I could get ModRacer Nation and possibly sample some of the other killer titles (Infamous 2's gametype creation looks great, Uncharted 2 looks fun for a rental, I wouldn't mind getting some more first hand time with KZ2's visuals, LB2 could be fun) and having a nice BDR would be a perk. Their platform looks less and less enticing right now. So you may poopoo my opinion as not important as I don't own a PS3, I am the very kind of person Sony SHOULD be worried about: potential customer who hears about all their security issues, how they couldn't properly secure their platform to begin with (which resulted in them yanking marketed features) and they pretty much look clueless in all of this.

Btw, as someone who has experienced identity theft, I don't think others can really place a value on it. I can totally see how someone could feel VERY uncompensated by the package if the PS3 is their primary source of entertainment --re: it just does everything--and the kicker being their personal data has been exposed.

 

[manux]

Btw, as someone who has experienced identity theft, I don't think others can really place a value on it. I can totally see how someone could feel VERY uncompensated by the package if the PS3 is their primary source of entertainment --re: it just does everything--and the kicker being their personal data has been exposed.

It's complicated with the psn hack. Yes, sony seems like complete idiots but the fortunate fact still is that the stolen information is encrypted/hashed. I think there hasn't been a case yet where a credit card would have been misused due to the psn hack? At least there is some fortune in the misfortune

 

[Nesh]

PSN being down isn't the end of the world. It is a free service. Sure Sony markets it as part of the package and it does impact the enjoyment of the platform. Those who don't like the lack of service will complain (and Sony will be hard at work trying to make 10 new customers happy to offset the 1 they made unhappy) and if it is a big enough issue they leave the platform.

But that isn't the only thing going on here. Sony has already had a dubious history in terms of invading customer privacy and has had... issues... in regards to PS3 features. This outage is an extension of those bad feels. This time instead of rootkits Sony has shown a less than excellent security approach for consumer data and had one of their key pillars of their platform flatline.

Losing 100M users personal data, on top of prolonged PSN outages, is a very big deal. The only exaggeration would be someone acting as if this wasn't a big deal. I had planned to get a PS3 once it got in the $150 range so I could get ModRacer Nation and possibly sample some of the other killer titles (Infamous 2's gametype creation looks great, Uncharted 2 looks fun for a rental, I wouldn't mind getting some more first hand time with KZ2's visuals, LB2 could be fun) and having a nice BDR would be a perk. Their platform looks less and less enticing right now. So you may poopoo my opinion as not important as I don't own a PS3, I am the very kind of person Sony SHOULD be worried about: potential customer who hears about all their security issues, how they couldn't properly secure their platform to begin with (which resulted in them yanking marketed features) and they pretty much look clueless in all of this.

Btw, as someone who has experienced identity theft, I don't think others can really place a value on it. I can totally see how someone could feel VERY uncompensated by the package if the PS3 is their primary source of entertainment --re: it just does everything--and the kicker being their personal data has been exposed.

I think you are proving his point

 

[Acert93]

It is pretty hard to agree with his position regarding "over sensationalizing" the PSN failure or how the seriousness is "exaggerated." It is a catastrophic failure for the corporation and from a consumer perspective it impinges on current customers' enjoyment, has the potential for long term consumer grief, and has generated enough bad press that it will negatively impact sales and customer brand value in the short term.

It is pretty hard to over sensationalize or exaggerate the impact of this as the PSN hacking and closure is one of the biggest console-related news items of this generation and will negatively impact Sony's brand and ledger in the tune of billions.

I know I don't post here much anymore and parachuted into this conversation mid stream, but I do read the mainstream news and the PSN issues are nothing but ... shocking. Heck, I have seen more mainstream press on this than Amazon's cloud failure.

But if he is only irritated at jvd he should just put him on ignore.

 

[Nesh]

Well the media has been in some occasions "inaccurate" and "exaggerating" in regards to the matter which is what they are great at doing about anything. Besides information accuracy isnt the priority. Its how many views they get. They prefer to create an impression.

edit: The nature of the problem is indeed serious and catastrophic. In the marketing world they say that a negative impression spreads 10 times more than the positive. Its human nature. Sony is fully aware of that. It is a different matter though how and if the seriousness of a problem is perceived in an exaggerated manner by the consumer/ There is a lot of noise certainty going on including from people that werent interested in the product in the first place and people who deliberately want to spread noise

 

[-tkf-]

Sony has already had a dubious history in terms of invading customer privacy and has had... issues... in regards to PS3 features. This outage is an extension of those bad feels. This time instead of rootkits Sony has shown a less than excellent security approach for consumer data and had one of their key pillars of their platform flatline..

So lets drag Microsoft´s windows platform and the security problems related to that into the discussion?
Or can we stay with consoles?
If Sony didn´t learn anything from the Rootkit fiasco then they are stupid, ohh btw, i think they did learn a lesson didn´t they?

And regarding the security of PSN, i don´t think anyone can argue that it is NOT Sony´s responsibility that they failed to protect the users plaintext information, sorry hashed and encrypted data.

But how much do they really suck, nobody knows. From the little we know it could be anything from an extremely sophisticated attack including physical access to the servers to a simple flaw that Sony failed to cover. I hope we get an insider rapport on what actually happened so others can learn.

 

[temesgen]

It is pretty hard to agree with his position regarding "over sensationalizing" the PSN failure or how the seriousness is "exaggerated." It is a catastrophic failure for the corporation and from a consumer perspective it impinges on current customers' enjoyment, has the potential for long term consumer grief, and has generated enough bad press that it will negatively impact sales and customer brand value in the short term.

It is pretty hard to over sensationalize or exaggerate the impact of this as the PSN hacking and closure is one of the biggest console-related news items of this generation and will negatively impact Sony's brand and ledger in the tune of billions.

I know I don't post here much anymore and parachuted into this conversation mid stream, but I do read the mainstream news and the PSN issues are nothing but ... shocking. Heck, I have seen more mainstream press on this than Amazon's cloud failure.

But if he is only irritated at jvd he should just put him on ignore.

Complaining about the loss of 4 USB ports and saying Sony can't count because 30 plus 15 days isn't what they wrote in an email is overreacting. I don't see how anyone defends that as a serious attempt at a discussion.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This thread was gonna be closed as it's just individual fan-based moronisms at the moment, but then I realised that until PSN is fully back up and running, there may be more to talk about. Expect heavy pruning for off-topic fanboy criticisms of how biased everyone is.

 

[BRiT]

It's complicated with the psn hack. Yes, sony seems like complete idiots but the fortunate fact still is that the stolen information is encrypted/hashed.

No. The stolen information contains data that is NOT encrypted/hashed such as email addresses, date of births, and answers to security questions. That information was able to be feed back into Sony's online password reset pages to gain complete control over the accounts.

 

[Jedi2016]

On the "Sony-bashing" thing, all I have to say is that no one else is any better. True, Xbox Live hasn't been hacked... yet. The more people talk about how much better Company B is than Company A because of something like this is just inviting a hacker to take out Company B just to prove a point.

As for the information, it's my understanding that all of the unencrypted information they stole is publicly available anyway. Sure, it's wrapped up in a neat bundle here, but it is at Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, too, just to name a few. But a few minutes on Google could pull up someone's email address, physical address, phone number, etc. It's not hidden stuff. And yes, you could easily dig around and find out what city I was born in, who my first grade teacher was, etc.

Brit, while you're correct in that the information stolen could have been used on their password-change site, I don't believe there's any indication that this actually happened. Just that it could have happened.

As for the "Welcome back" package, I would have much preferred a credit to my online account, allowing me to purchase anything I want from the Store, up to a certain dollar amount. I'll probably download Infamous (haven't played that one), but I'd rather have something like the Prince of Persia remakes.

 

[mrcorbo]

As for the information, it's my understanding that all of the unencrypted information they stole is publicly available anyway. Sure, it's wrapped up in a neat bundle here, but it is at Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, too, just to name a few. But a few minutes on Google could pull up someone's email address, physical address, phone number, etc. It's not hidden stuff. And yes, you could easily dig around and find out what city I was born in, who my first grade teacher was, etc.

It's not that it was impossible to get this information before. It was a lot more effort, though. Because of this, it is also now very much more likely that Sony's customers are going to be targeted compared to a random person who has information available on the internet. We went from being like a single grain of rice in a bag of rice to being like a book in a library.

 

[-tkf-]

No. The stolen information contains data that is NOT encrypted/hashed such as email addresses, date of births, and answers to security questions. That information was able to be feed back into Sony's online password reset pages to gain complete control over the accounts.

Do we know this as a fact? Someone must have the info.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

We've been told as much by Sony. The user data was unencrypted, save for password and CC. As mrcorbo says, although that's not necessarily a release of secret information, it is a wealth of easily obtained information such that, instead of some criminal having to investigate to find my name, address, and email address, they'll have access to that info on a plate. They can then use that for Nefarious Purposes with a database of millions of users, rather than a few scraps they piece together here and there.

 

[Nesh]

As for the information, it's my understanding that all of the unencrypted information they stole is publicly available anyway. Sure, it's wrapped up in a neat bundle here, but it is at Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, too, just to name a few. But a few minutes on Google could pull up someone's email address, physical address, phone number, etc. It's not hidden stuff. And yes, you could easily dig around and find out what city I was born in, who my first grade teacher was, etc.

Come to think of it it is extremely easy to find the birth date and email from some internet places that are totally unrelated to Sony.
Actually I just have access to a shitload f potential PSN accounts without any form of hacking.
If anyone uses the same email and birthdate visible somewhere that is the same as in the PSN network he is screwed
And that wont be Sony's fault

As for the "Welcome back" package, I would have much preferred a credit to my online account, allowing me to purchase anything I want from the Store, up to a certain dollar amount. I'll probably download Infamous (haven't played that one), but I'd rather have something like the Prince of Persia remakes.

That will be quite impossible. It can be done but it will be insane. Anything you will purchase for free from a third party company will actually have to be paid by Sony to that third party company because third parties arent willing to give anything for free. They sell stuff in PSN to get money. Its going to hit badly Sony's liquidity unless they are like MS that have millions of extra cash just to spend for customer retaining. But they are not

 

[NavNucST3]

Come to think of it it is extremely easy to find the birth date and email from some internet places that are totally unrelated to Sony.
Actually I just have access to a shitload f potential PSN accounts without any form of hacking.
If anyone uses the same email and birthdate visible somewhere that is the same as in the PSN network he is screwed
And that wont be Sony's fault
...

I asked if our security questions and answers were plain text with no response but if indeed our security questions are in the wild, that would be SNEs fault.

 

[Jedi2016]

Anything you will purchase for free from a third party company will actually have to be paid by Sony to that third party company because third parties arent willing to give anything for free.

Very true, I didn't think of that.

 

[Phil]

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.

So, give them an amount that is useless on its own which will leave 80% (?) of PSN users outthere to choose between a handfull (yes, mediocre, yes) of games that are within that price because they don't have a creditcard registered and don't intend to use it? Not to mention that after such a breach, I'm not sure the intend to get people to register their creditcard again to make full use of a 'credit gesture' is very clever...

Or - you give them a higher amount where they can actually choose between a few games, but then you have the problem of multiple accounts etc, increasing the loss substantially? I have 4 accounts - how should they tackle that to prevent me from benefiting 4 times?

Not to mention that PSN doesn't work in credits, they work with real money. How do you get around the headache in giving a 'fair package' to everyone? I.e. You may give 20 dollars in the US, and by current exchange rate, that'd be 14.20 Euros. Yet the prices aren't exactly the same accross PSN stores, so you don't effectively get the same. And that doesn't even include the various differences in VAT.

And that, should yield more happy users and less critics than by offering the best of the older games including free PSN plus membership for a limited amount of time?