Thursday, April 28, 2011

It only does identity theft

April 26, 2011

A day that will live in infamy.

The day the proverbial turd careened through the proverbial fan.

Well f*** indeed

Since Sony announced on Tuesday that personal information had been compromised, the internet has been abuzz with activity. People are pissed. People are worried about identity theft. People are worried about credit card info getting out. Am I any of the above right now? Maybe, but I want to take this time to give my view on the situation.



Alright, here we go.

Am I pissed about this?
Not really. Sure, PSN being down is a bit of an inconvenience, but my PS3 is back at home, and on top of that, I have a huge backlog of games to go through, spanning across several console generations. Probably the worst thing about this is that I had to cancel my card and now have to wait a week for a new one, but I didn't really plan on buying anything big in the next week anyways.

What was that about credit card info?
As of right now, Sony said that everyone's credit card info wasn't touched, and credit card companies are confirming no sign of fraud occurring. I, along with many others, chose to do it as a precaution, but Sony said themselves that everyone's CC info was encrypted.

Do I think Sony is to blame for this?
Eh, partially. I'm sure they could have done better with their security, but hindsight is always 20/20. I say the blame lies mostly with the hacker(s) that did this. Right now they have the personal information of over 70 million people, and they can do whatever they damn well please with it. I just want them caught before anything bad happens.

Unfortunately, the are people (read: idiots) out there that don't see it the way I do, and want Sony strung up for it. Apparently they don't realize that there is no security system out there that is unhackable. The same thing can (and has) happen(ed) to any bank, credit card company, online store, etc. No security system is safe, just safer. There is even already a class-action lawsuit filed against Sony "on behalf of the users of PSN" in California. 

Really now? Did I miss the memo or something? Where do I go to opt out of this stupidity?

Answer this for me. If someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff, are you going to go after the guy that broke into your house, or the people that provided the security system for your house?

That's what I thought.

Let's not forget the people demanding compensation for this. Now, I can see the people that play DCU Online wanting compensation since they pay a subscription for an online only game, but everyone else needs to just shut up. PSN is a free service, you don't need to be compensated for anything. The same goes for Playstation Plus subscribers (which I am one). You're not paying for better online, you're paying for free stuff and discounts, all of which are available for at least a full month. The service has only been down a week, so you're not missing anything and have no need to be compensated. Now if the service is down for a month, then you would have a right to be compensated, but as of right now, you don't need anything.

More than likely, Sony will offer something as compensation for this ordeal (perhaps a game, or some movies) as a way to get some good PR (lord knows they need some more than anything right now), but that's about it. And to top this whole situation off, there are Xbox trolls EVERYWHERE, but we all know how I feel about fanboyism.

Anyways, that was my take/rant on this. Now I want to know how YOU feel about this whole debacle. Feel free to sound off in the comments!

It's been a very busy few weeks, but I'm back!

11 comments:

  1. I personally cannot support a company that would rather sue you for modifying the console you bought, than take proper security precautions.

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  2. dude, i agree with you ONE HUNDRED PERCENT

    following you

    AMAZING post man.

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  3. i agree... its some CRAZY stuff going on atm about ps3 n sony :/

    anyways following

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  4. Sony seriously needs to work on their security.

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  5. That's why I stick to Microsoft.
    followed.

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  6. That commercial was convincing, haha. I wonder if there will be a price drop thanks to all this.

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  7. I love how Sony loves DRM, but stores customer data in plain text. Irony? I'm not sure, people always say other people use that word wrong.

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  8. Reading your blog title made me feel like eating bacon... damn you! Cool article too.

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  9. Good post. I definitely agree that anything /can/ be hacked, however there are many very simple steps one can take that will keep that from happening, such as actually hashing user data, and salting the hash.

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  10. I don't have a PS3, but if I had one, boy I would be so maaad.

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  11. Thankfully psn is going to be up soon again

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