Hacked to death: Sony faces crunch-time over PSN failures

Infact it isn’t a crime to open a persons front door and walk right inside. Not were I live. It isn’t breaking and entering, not as defined by law. But that is not the point. But if the only part of what I wrote is the analogy were you can find fault, I guess I was spot on.

All I am saying is simple. Sony and ever other hardware manufacturer has to expect hacker attacks. They have to be ready for them and have a plan to deal with them. It is part of the bizz that they are in. Be it an iPhone, PC, or game console. Failure would be in not dealing with them.

I’m as frustrated about PSN being down as everyone else but this article… Sigh. It places to much credit on the shoulders of hackers and it assumes Sony have no right to protect their own property. Which is outrageous, particularly when you factor Sony has a responsibility not only to third-parties and shareholders, but also to customers.

GeoHotz exploit was based on a copyrighted operating system owned by Sony. Had GeoHotz written his OWN operating system for his PlayStation 3 hardware, no one would be going to court. The fact that he modified COPYRIGHTED software and PUBLICALLY relayed it onto the Internet meant Sony was OBLIGATED to go out and pursue him. They were obligated by their shareholders (who would lose money), the development community (who would also lose money through pirated software) AND PlayStation customers whose experience was already periodically compromised by cheating and hacking in popular multiplayer games. To say they should have left him be is ludicrous.

The bigger issue here is the emphasis the gaming media has been putting on hackers and this whole story in general. I think this article is well written and professionally put together, but the writer is backing the wrong corner here.

Sony have taken the PlayStation Network offline this weekend to PROTECT consumer data. Any competent security team would do that if they noticed unusual attacks on the system. I think, until we get more information, it’s unreasonable to sensationalise that this is Sony’s fault.

I do agree, more transparency and updates from the company would be most welcome during this period of downtime. Can’t argue with that.

But the entire tone of this article paints the hackers as some kind of white knight. Almost as though they are the victim. Which is bemusing.

The comments about Valve reconsidering PlayStation support because of unfortunate timing is baffling. Perhaps Zipper Interactive will consider buying themselves out from Sony ownership, and Warner Bros will boycott the PlayStation 3 going forwards too. After all, both parties have been affected by poor timing too.

Or perhaps, they understand, frustratingly, that these things “happen” and we’ll probably all have forgotten about it in a couple of weeks.

I’m not disputing the situation is unfortunate, but this is very melodramatic in the least.

@6 That’s true too. I just didn’t want to state the obvious, really.
@8 Yeah, but like I said, they don’t own both versions of the same multiplayer game. And XBL did get hacked…read this entire article buddy. And frankly, every console does get hacked and everyone ends up forgetting about it…no matter how frequent it may be.

@51
I get your point, but they dealt with it. Obviously you, Pat, and others don’t like Sony’s method, even I admit it wasn’t perfect. But Geohot knew what he was getting it for. What? Just because Apple didn’t sue him doesn’t mean he’s lawsuit-proof. You know the mistake Geohot did (according to me) was? Revealing the root key for all to see, that’s what opened the gate for piracy and cheating online. Fine, his FW wasn’t made for hacking or cheating, but HE opened the door for everyone else to do it with that root key. So he ain’t no saint and deserved the hell he went through. And for Anon, I actually agree with alot of what they do, but in this case, some of them (since they don’t work collectively) went too far, hence they lost a lot of support.

Oh, I will continue supporting PSN anyway. Besides, I’ve always supported extreme punishment for hackers – jail and executions – and had a lot of arguing about this point of view IRL. Now, I could potentially get another argument…

..unless hackers have nothing to do with it and it’s just Amazon servers died and took PSN and a lot of sites and services with it.

i can relate to their cause but not to their actions. theyre just fucking up for everyone who wanna play games. now sonys gonna look like the good guy, while anonymous and other groups fighting for consumer rights will just lose support.

that said, i completly agree that this is embarresing on sonys part.

@38 I’m not protecting Garratt (I don’t think he needs anyone to “protect” him). Infact, like #33, others and you, I disagree with most of the points he puts forward in his piece.

But if you’re gonna express your view, do it in a coherent, mature way. Insulting the guy, calling him a prick (among other things), and accusing him of having a Microsoft dildo shoved up his ass? A bit counter-productive, wouldn’t you say?

I know “this is the internet” and all, but I’m sure you’re better than that.

I’ve been visiting this site for well over a year now. This article is easily the most poorly written I’ve seen. It’s such a shame. It’s pure sensationalism. The whole tone of it.

“You’d have to expect that Gabe and co may think twice before doing that again.”

I mean seriously?? really. honestly?????

I agree with some of that Alakratt.

In my book Geo is no hero. Just a misguided punk, with too much brainpower and too much time.

But Sony is writting the book on what not to do on how to deal with hacking.

I use to be all for sony. hell, my first sony walkman was see through allowing you to see how it worked. Something happened with sony, they changed. First it was Sony: The rootkit of all evil, that was back in 2005. Then
Lik-Sang.com Out of Business due to Multiple Sony Lawsuits that happened Tue Oct 24 2006. Sony made the ps3 and advertised it like a pc. Because of the other os feature that allowed you to run linux. In other words you had a game side and a computer side. when sony first made the ps3, they didn’t want piracy like they had on the ps2. So they made the games region free as well. The issue here wasn’t piracy, it was to re enable a feature that had been removed. It would have been one thing to go after hotz, but they want to take anyone down that has a curiosity about it. going as far as getting ip addresses on anyone who has watched the videos and going after anyone they feel is a threat and trying to sue them together rather than separately. It’s about sony being evil and saying we can install rootkits, drm or any other malware. It’s about the rights of what you own and the freedom to make homebrew games or applications. This is the year that sony reaches its own end

Well… I think that if someone (hackers or someone else) wanted to be the emblem of the “players freedom” and so on, I think they’re acting like shitty bitch who messed up all the PSN users’ minds.
Good method to make a demonstration of a “player’s freedom”.

Strange that Microsoft, meanwhile, is going to make a free weekend also for silver users.

What’s the point of all this mess? We (the gamers) are the only one who take it in the ass with pain. Fuck.

#59: But what should they have done OlderGamer? The whole story only went viral because the Internet turned it into a hot topic. Do you feel they should have done nothing to fight against piracy and hacks in multiplayer games?

@ Old Gamer

Who are you defending, Patrick or the Hackers?

@57

Hehehe, I went to those extremes because this isn’t the first time he’s using the site to write anti-Sony articles. And the fact that he’s using this unfortunate time for gamers and Sony to spread lies and shit to people is just too much. He’s supposed to be a “mature game journalist” but then he writes all this BS?!

@59

Now I’m curious, what would you have done if you were “the man” at Sony?

What the article shows is just the brutal realtity: Sony is everything but innocent in this case. Their behavior was simply wrong and just provoke the hackers. Sony always wanted to show how much better they are and how unhackable the PS3 is; they were too arrogant to admit that the hacker was succesful and so they even endanger their costumers. Waek presentation Sony, very weak. Hope PSn will be online soon. I am planing to buy Brink for my PS3 as most of my freinds owned a Sony-console. BUT I am also able to play it on 360 and PC…so Sony please do something you have really missed the last time: try to improve the PSN or I don´t see a future for that online-service….

@64 @59

I would love to know that too.

Old Gamer, Just an FYI about your break and enter analogy; you don’t need to physically BREAK into something for it to be illegal.

Here is the definition as per the Canadian Criminal Code:

“321…. break means … to break any part, internal or external, or … to open any thing that is used or intended to be used to close or to cover an internal or external opening”

You sound just as biased as the Sony fan boys you are accusing.

#49 Irontag – “Dam hackers I consider you Terrorist , You have forced me to call my ex girlfriend and now we hanging out again.”

I nominate this for best line in this comments thread.

8=====D~~~~~~~ :O sony loves bukkake

64′s last question is really the issue.

What do you do when someone cracks your stuff and opens the door to all kinds of crap?

Pat has it exactly right. I don’t neccesarily agree with the wording. There aren’t a lot of things immature about major coporations, if anything they’re geriatric in their predictability, and that’s the core of the problem.

For the average exec, there’s only one solution, “Legal, legal, legal”. Sony simply pulled the trigger before thinking of the consequences, realized their mistake, and scrambled to catch the bullet before it went too far.

If you don’t have an idea of what the consequences of an act of aggression will be, then make sure you give yourself time to reconsider the situation. Leadership 101.

You gain absolutely nothing as a major corporation by going after one guy who isn’t actively pursueing a campaign against your company. Does it suck to be sabotaged by a homebrew artist? Yes, yes it does, but you’re only gonna fuck yourself over by pursueing that course of action.

The problem is, 90% of all major companies are too conservative to even percieve of any other way. Someone with an imagination would’ve realized that trying to legally assassinate Geohot as a citizen, would probably be the most effective way to make your situation even worse. The only thing you can do when someone cracks your stuff is to prepare for what’s to come, trying to preempt cheaters and hackers on your console. Remaning professional, doing it right, and doing it without causing a major scene.

@ 62 I think OlderGamer don´t want Sony to let the hackers word without resistance but that Sony could be a bid more careful refering to their behavior.

And at some other comments: just because this article doesn´t say the PS3 is the best console on earth and Sony the best company ever created it is not automatically bad!!!

@65

How is Song wrong? What these Hackers are doing is ILLEGAL and is therefore immoral and unethical. How else does it have to be spelt out? Provocation has nothing to do with anything in this case. By your and Old Gamers definition we should be chastising the guy who puts his nice car in a shitty part of town with a club on the steering wheel because he’s “provoking” scumbags into stealing it.

Ok ok, here’s my theory on how this all went down. It happened on 4/20…4/20…you know, weed day. So, I think some Anon members got high and said “that protest was fail and gay, let’s do some real damage maaaaaaan *stoner laugh and lots of lulz* ” And the rest is history. I mean, I got high too but didn’t hack shit….well maybe the toilet…with vomit lol. ahem, anyway, back to topic, please Sony, don’t sue weed!! It’s just too gooooood!!!

Verry nice article.
As much a Hotz presented himself to the world as a douchebag, the way Sony handeled the situation was completly bonkers and did nothing but made them look bad.
The iPhone case is also verry telling: jailbreaking is legal, as long as you don’t run pirated software. And probably why Sony settled out of court. Hotz jailbroke the PS3, but did not use or distribute pirated software. Exactly what he did with iPone, so Sony diden’t have a case.
Just a load of bad PR wich they are trying to dissapear.

Infact simply having the root key isn’t enough to run illegal games. You first have to use that key to create a software loader that allows you to run copied games.
Also something Hotz did not do.

And before you write off the hacking community, this is what is possible using a hacked PS3 Eye.
http://www.eyewriter.org/

I can’t believe that a gaming site blames a console manufacturer for the problems caused by the deeds of hacker!?! I guess it sells clicks and traffi.

@71 Of course it is illegal. But you just need to read the article to understand my opinion. Just think the other way around: if Sony did it the right way would the PSN not be offline since wednesday – but as you knwo it is! What all these guys did is illegal. But to proceed against something like that you need to have a strategy, a way to prevent the attacks and the same way to ensure the safety of the PSN…and of course to get that hacker. Did anything of these aspects happen? No! Of course the “evil one” is the hacker…but a company like Sony should be more experienced and clever in such situations than just sue everything… I just mean that Sony can not act like the big company that is untouchable (like they sometimes semms to be) when there is an agressiv (and yes, illegal) hacker that have enough skills to shut down the whole PSN by himself….So I don´t think Sony acted that responsible in this case…wich doesn´t mean that the hacker did right. This should just show that Sony was absolutely able to get along with the hacker-issue, but just took the wrong way!

Yeah, but with that root key, others did create software for piracy and cheating. Hence, Geohot and whoever made that software for piracy and cheating are to blame.

Take this for example, what if I take your personal info and post it on the net. I didn’t do anything with it, but others did and possibly fucked you up because of it. Now, I’m I innocent or guilty?

@74 You might want to reread the article. Nobody’s blaming Sony for destroying their own network. They’re being critisized for grossly mishandling an inconvenience brought about by homebrewers.

As much as I like this site, I’d like to say I think you’re all fucking idiots, both VG247 and those individuals berating Sony with regards the Hotz situation.

@73 “like”

@75

Okay, fair enough. Now my question is, what would you have done in Sonys shoes. Keep in mind you have an obligation to keep shareholders, 1st, 2nd and 3rd party developers all feeling safe and free from piracy.

@80 How have Sonys actions managed to do anything but make them look stupid?

Geohot isn’t finished, the lawsuit accomplished nothing, and he’ll be joined by even more homebrewers in the future, who will probably see this sort of disproportionate action as a major motivator.

That’s exactly the crux of the article. Sony didn’t stand a chance of getting any kind of revenge on the guy, or preventing the homebrew scene from playing around with their merchandise, and they should’ve considered that before they went that way.

They had nothing to gain, but they did have something left to lose.

Making that realization would’ve been responsibly serving the board, as well as their customers, who are now left without PSN due to overzealous hackers being even more disproportionate than Sony.

Hey guys, remember when Xbox Live fell over from Christmas 2007 into the New Year, an event Microsoft refused to comment on, forcing the company to leave the console business?

No, I don’t either.

Anyway, I don’t think Sony, as a company, had any choice but to sue Geohot.

The individuals involved in the decision more than likely knew it was a pointless endeavour but it wasn’t just a question of Sony’s ‘maturity’ but that of everyone involved; shareholders, partners, third-parties, etc. It’s not enough to be doing something, to keep less informed parties off your back it’s just as important to appear to be doing; the public don’t care if crime figures are down despite funding cuts, they want to see police on the street so they can complain about taxes in safety.

@80 Yeah, nice quastion. First, I don´t know very much of this detailed technicel stuff..but i wonder why the PS3 could be hacked at all. I can tell you why I would (first) not try to sue the hackers. If you do pirate copies of your favorite movie your goverment is able and allowed to take you into prison for at leaset five years. Because they have the power and the sovereignty. In the case of Sony vs. hackers it is not the same situation. The hacker in this case is the powerful one. And like always when the “evil” guy has the biggest power I would be careful what I do and say just to avoid bad PR….in some way it is a similar situation lika a blackmail. I would first try to achieve an agreement (not in court!!!)..even if there will be some headlines like : “Sony collaborates with hackers”…and than later i would take many, many skilled people that try to improve the safety of my online-sevice.

But if i had enough evidences to achieve an indictment against the hacker I would also move to the court. But Sony, like 73 said, ddidn´t have these evidences…or why have you thought Mr. Hotz wasn´t “doomed”.

@82 Sure, but if the cops are seen running away as soon as they spot criminals on the street, then those people will probably be left with a concern or two more than they had before.

And that is exactly what Sony did.

The people advocating a legal response should probably consider what the alternative to a settlement would’ve been. Should he have been fined a hundred million dollars? Should he have been fined a thousand million dollars? Should the judge have made sure that the debt be transferred onto his next of kin in the event of his demise?

None of that would’ve helped the company, deterred pirates, or put a damper on anyones passion to engage in homebrew or cracking in the future.

Really, there’s no win to be had, so starting a war to underline that fact is the stupidest thing you could do.

I’m not saying it isn’t perfectly standard procedure, fuck knows Sony has had the opportunity to learn from countless others making the very same mistake over the last 20 years, but it’s so obviously not a very good solution.

You can’t crack down on pirates. All you can do is try to be one step ahead. Be smarter, not angrier. Sony did pretty well on that, until they fell behind and made sure everybody, everywhere knew about it.

Wouldn´t it be the best way to give Hotz a job at Sony in the section “PSN-safety”…I mean, who knows the PSNs holey places better than him =)

@84 Suing Hotz was an act of appeasement, I highly doubt anyone at Sony thought anything good would come of it; I bet there were people breathing sighs of relief when a settlement was reached.

The truth is if they hadn’t loosed the lawyers this very article wouldn’t be commending their restraint. If anything it would probably be accusing Sony of sitting on their hands whilst the hacker threat ran wild blah, blah, blah.

Confidence is gained through giving people what they want so they don’t have to think about it, not making the ‘right’ choice.

You know that bully who everyone says will pick on that wrong guy.

Sony pushed that wrong person.

Their tactic of sue them into the ground didn’t work.

All Sony’s lawyers and lawsuits are useless, and they have no way to save

face.

@86 I honestly don’t see how anyone would be desperate enough to write an article on nothing happening weeks or months after the fact. Generally if you want to qualify a story, it’s a good thing to have something happen that you can write about, like a lawsuit. Not silence, not quiet. And that’s exactly why it hasn’t happened for Apple. And won’t happen.

Even if someone would write an article like that, it would be a niche opinion piece with a limited audience, as opposed to a dramatic online tsunami of posts and articles, publicizing a pointless lawsuit, that ends up with the people who started it, very publicly backing down.

I’m pretty sure Apple, its board, and its shareholders are just fine enjoying their success, rolling in mountains of cash and watching homebrew artists do whatever marginally disruptive things they do. And I think they’re pretty content not to be in the kind of trouble that Sony are in right now.

I think you’re right that it was an idiosyncratic decision, but making idiosyncratic decisions is the polar opposite of showing leadership. And the fact that someone commends you for showing a bit of common sense in an otherwise fairly unflattering article, shouldn’t really count as a victory to someone who has a worldwide service that’s down going on its third day.

@ 77

Hackers, homebrewers, idiots. The overall problem that has led to the apparent lack of trust in Sony this year is still caused by them and not Sony.

And since we don’t exactly know what the current situation is about, I don’t really see what the fuzz is all about. I this (http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2011/04/23/psn-down-the-theories/) turns out to be true, I don’t see how Sony has handled this situation so badly. An issue such as number 3 doesn’t really concern the customers, and I’m sure they have notified their partners to calm them down.

@89 And nobody’s disputing that. Crackers and homebrewers are not good for a company that’s trying to control its software.

But you still have a choice in how you deal with them, and Sonys disproportionate response to an action that fundamentally meant very little to their business, has lead it to become an issue that means considerably more to their business. Somehow I doubt that notifying partners means they’re joyed to the point of not caring about the revenue they lose from PSN.

You don’t burn your house down because you have mice. You design traps. You act smart, as opposed to just angry and counterproductive.

Simply put: Damage control.

@88 I don’t agree with Sony’s actions, all I’m advocating is appreciating the reasons behind them rather than branding people as incompetent for compromising.

I’m more interested in investigative rather than pejorative journalism.

@48 Spot on!

The main problem is: you can’t hack the PS3, PUBLISH the root key and then say ‘Hey Sony let’s talk about security’! That’s were GeoHot failed hard! You just don’t do that!

@44
C’mon, that way of thinking is terrible. This whole idea is the similar to this recent (last decade or so) way of thinking that EVERYONE [else] is to blame. That’s why the US is so sue-happy right now. Someone hits you in a store? Sue the guy, the store, and anyone else who’s around who didn’t help, etc. Guy’s car hits yours? Sue the other driver, fake an injury, sue the car company for not being safe enough, etc … twisted way of thinking and this is one of the major things wrong in the US right now (ONE of the things, we have tons of problems).

This is a terrible way of thinking about things; everything is the fault of others and not yours. Maybe less than 1/20 times there might have been a situation where something like this happens, but most of the time it’s the fault of the person who did the deed. Looking for someone else to blame as well? Well, in your car situation, you’re to blame as well … in Sony’s situation, Sony is NOT responsible. They DID “lock the car,” so to speak. Tell me how the PS3 and PSN are terrible examples of security when they were the ONLY protected systems out of the big 3? And don’t say xbox live is even protected, because people have been hacking in xbox live online games since the first year.

You can NOT accuse Sony of not having good security, because they still have the most secure system; you CAN however accuse the people who did their best to hack and attack them. Seriously, you call yourself OLD GAMER but your arguments make you seem 18-.

@91 Yeah, that’s certainly fair.

I wouldn’t want to experience corporate politics firsthand, and obviously it’s easy to be a perfectionist after the fact and tell them what they should’ve done.

I don’t agree with Pats wording myself, I just think he’s quite right in argueing that this should’ve gone a lot better for Sony.

This is not the first time, or the second time, or the third time something like this has happened, and while the people in question usually feel “something” from these kinds of lawsuits, they tend to move on to bigger and better things, while the companies themselves really gain absolutely nothing for their bloodlust, except to perhaps give those people their own marketable brand.

The guy from Kazaa went on to create Skype, the guy from Napster made it into the annals of Facebook, Jon Lech Johansen is sure to be another… And the people who sued are none the richer for their efforts.

I had no idea who Geohot was before this. Now I know the face and the name, as do thousands and perhaps millions of others. You can take that sort of publicity to the bank.

At some point, you have to define repeating a common mistake as stupidity.

@60

There is so much wrong with your comment that I don’t know where to begin or if I should. A few points though.

“The issue here wasn’t piracy, it was to re enable a feature that had been removed.”
- So by this you mean that the whole idea in the first place was for people to re-enable the OtherOS feature? If you actually believe this, then I truly feel sorry for you. If you believe for one minute that hacking a GAME system to take custom firmware is for anything else EXCEPT FOR PIRATED GAMES, then you are insane. There might be that one guy or maybe 2 who actually want to make a better cross bar or navigation system in their ps3, and there might be many things that people WANT better on the ps3, but the whole purpose of hacking it, the absolute reason, is to get pirated game to work. Any other way of thinking means either you’re ignorant or lying to yourself.

And about going after the people before they do more hacking … um, yeah, that’s the way to do it. You think microsoft is going to wait until a copy of Windows 7 is reverse engineered BEFORE they go after them? You find the hackers and stop them if you can, otherwise you’re fighting an uphill battle if it’s after the fact.

It seems like you’ve seen too many “Sony is evil” comments and now you think that way. Either you can’t think for yourself or put yourself in their place to see it from their perspective, or you’re pretty weak minded.

@96 So, who has ever undone hacking with a lawsuit? Last time I checked, it’s still pretty popular, even with all these expensive lawyers in the world.

Why wouldn’t Geohot (theoretically) do it again with the next console? What are they going to do, sue and him and back down for the second time? Put him in jail for life? Kill his dog?

It’s just as fanatical to equate a jailbreak to somehow stealing someones entire business. This is going to mean a marginal percentage of piracy for Sony, true, and that’s nothing to cheer for, but it’s still very far from being a devastating assault on their entire business, singlehandedly lead by a dorky kid with funny hair.

I have not read through the comments so forgive me.
This is serious folks regardless of it been Sony or MS.
These guys have taken down a network here.
I mean I have heard about cheats on live but this is a new level really.

How do I play online?
Do I accept this hacking or walk away from it>
I would not know how to cheat let alone be good online.
F****ng pathetic morons imo.
Rant over.

@97

“Why wouldn’t Geohot (theoretically) do it again with the next console? What are they going to do, sue and him and back down for the second time?”

THere wouldn’t be any suing anymore it would be go to jail do not pass go, do not collect 200$. Thats the point of an injunction. He would be going to prison and being passed around like a doobey. So if Geohotz even thinks about breaking a Sony system and then going on Youtube. He better bring his own lube because his ass will need it.

I’d like to see a long and prominent editorial across the major gaming sites once and for all attacking and condemning hackers, MP cheats, pirates and thieves as the narcissistic, self-indulgent assholes they are and calling on the entire gaming community to unite in their disgust of and opposition to them and everything they do and stand for. I want to see the big front page banner on multiple sites which says something like “Not in our name. We unite to say stop. Stop now and let us play.”

A couple of thousand at most were inconvenienced (ironically, because a largely ignored feature was removed in an attempt to thwart their own larcenous activities), so tens of millions must be punished and a company employing many thousands around the world must be brought to its knees – and all because they want to continue their mostly illegal and largely immoral activities without challenge or scrutiny. This was deliberately timed to disrupt the Portal 2 launch on PS3 and the concomitant Steam integration with PSN which, if is allowed to work by these self-appointed arbiters of what is right and wrong, will bring many benefits and features to PS3 owners.

Go fuck yourself Geohot, and go fuck yourself all apologists for him and his kind.