Sony Compromised, Again 452
Konsalik writes "The hacker group LulzSec on Thursday posted information it took from Sony Entertainment and Sony BMG on its site, called the LulzBoat. Lulz Security said it broke into servers that run SonyPictures.com. The information includes about a million usernames and passwords of customers in the US, the Netherlands and Belgium and is available for download and posted on the group's site."
I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I certainly wouldn't hold Sony to a promise that was extorted from them.
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I don't see where the extortion comes from, unless someone involved in any of the hacking actually said they had to apologize. I think what the GP was suggesting would be if Sony, on their own, came out and apologized for being so negligent. Of course that will never happen.
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think what the GP was suggesting would be if Sony, on their own, came out and apologized for being so negligent. Of course that will never happen.
It wouldn't be enough. At this point, I would want Howard Stringer fired (not allowed to resign, but actually fired) before I would consider buying Sony again.
And this from someone who at present has:
1 Sony HD TV
1 Sony high-end Receiver
1 Sony low-end Receiver/DVD combo
1 Sony BD player
1 Sony LocationFree
3 Sony Laptops
1 Sony PDA
1 Sony PSP
1 Sony CD Walkman
and lots of less expensive Sony stuff.
This revenue stream has now stopped, and yes, it will take Stringer's head on a platter before I would consider Sony again, or stop telling friends and family to avoid Sony like the plague. Else, they;re not taking this seriously, and then I will reciprocate that and not take Sony seriously.
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1 Sony CD Walkman and lots of less expensive Sony stuff.
Wait... what's less expensive than a Sony CD Walkman? A broken Sony CD walkman? A Sony minidisc player? A year's subscription to PSN?
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it explains a lot about the present culture of the world, especially USA and the the rest of the western world. Someone posted it already in another discussion, but.. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w] Zeitgeist: Moving Forward.
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Oh, they may have accidentally released your e-mail address
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:4, Informative)
>>>what has Sony really done that warrants this kind of behavior? Are they dumping toxic chemicals? Causing global warming? Killing babies?
Nothing that extreme, but they are still violating individual rights:
- Selling PS3s with "other OS" capability, and then turning it off. AKA bait-and-switch aka false advertising. Also illegal in Europe (where customers can demand refunds)
- Installing software from Music CD that killed customer's computers (made them unbootable)
- Bricked PS3s that were modded to play emulators (like SNES or Atari-Stella)
- Sued people for Millions of dollars, because they downloaded 5 songs.
- Prosecuted a man who posted how to open-up your PS3 and mod it to play HD DVDs (and other stuff)
- Used extradition to remove a customer from Europe to US, so they could sentence the customer to 20 years for hacking his console.
NOW do you understand why /.'rs hate Sony?
And why we boycott them?
Educate yourself about these corporations, and the evils they commit, rather than just blindly buying everything.
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>>>In all honestly, Sony hasn't done anything to me personally that warrants a boycott
"First they came for the [CD Buyers with rootkits] but I didn't care, because it wasn't affecting me.
"Then they came for the [Linux PS3 Owners] but I didn't care, because it wasn't affecting me.
"Next they came for the [PSN customers by losing their credit information in public] but I didn't care, because it wasn't affecting me....."
Then they came for me by turning-off my PS3 because I played a downloaded CD-R on i
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hypocrisy - look it up.
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah so you guys (similar_name and TheCount22) take issue with him not caring about something that didn't affect him personally - yet you were okay and did not take issue with the hundreds of /. users who DID NOT CARE about the millions of PSN users and were jubilantly cheering the PSN hack - precisely because they were not affected. And wanted too much for Sony to fail, even if that was the expense of millions of people.
Hypocrisy - look it up.
There's no hypocrisy there because it's not really injustice. More generally, not everything unfortunate is an instance of injustice. Not everything preventable is an instance of injustice.
Corporations are like the political status quo. It exists the way that it is until people are actually prepared to do things differently. Sony can conduct its business practices because customers continue to reward it with money. By making sure there are no financial repercussions attached to undesirable business practices, those customers are at least as responsible for the corporate culture at Sony as its management team. You could even argue that management is merely giving the customers what they want.
The only reason why Sony has millions of customers who worry about this hack is because they continued to patronize Sony so long as Sony's faults didn't personally make them suffer. Finally, Sony's faults make them suffer. Now some of them start to get the idea that it's not so easy to overlook when it happens to them personally. They may start to think that other complaints they have heard suddenly have merit. Cause, meet Effect.
It's too bad the mainstream level of awareness is so thick-headed; it is not sharp and agile and independent. It requires some kind of charismatic leader to honestly explain these things; the people who could pull that off make more money by doing the opposite. Masses of people take too long to figure out that what they're supporting is not acting in their interests. It's a shame they often insist on learning this the hard way after ignoring many warning signs.
Here's the part that even those with the very best of intentions may not understand: as crazy as it is, they are choosing this and it is not my place to tell them how they should choose or what lesson they should need to learn. They are getting what they are choosing and that's why there is no injustice. If that is to change, they would need less insulation between their decisions and the consequences they experience, including less misguided sympathy.
They are not victims because victims don't get to choose. What they're really missing is a sense of personal responsibility and with it, an understanding of cause and effect that doesn't come from pointing fingers or playing blame games.
Whether or not some Slashdotter's personal feelings include delight in the notion of Sony failing is a petty concern. It can distract you from a deeper appreciation of the issue.
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a very similar argument to the one Bin Laden used to (partly) justify the 9/11 attacks, and other attacks on civilians. It goes something like this : because America is a democracy, its citizens have a direct responsibility for the actions their government takes, and attacks on civilians are justified as retaliation for years of American imperialism and belligerence.
It's true that the US government has acted aggressively towards Muslim countries, and that its policies in many parts of the Muslim world are viewed as neo-colonist. It's also true that US citizens elect their government officials. It does not, however, justify terrorist attacks, and the people that have been killed or injured in these attacks are certainly victims, for the simple reason that the mass murder of civilians can NEVER be justified, for any reason. I think we can all agree on this ?
So Sony has acted in ways which are anti-consumer, and this for years without most of their customers knowing or caring. Now Sony gets hacked and millions of their customer's details are stolen and exposed, and this is somehow the customers' fault for having chosen Sony ? Sony's customers are simply victims caught in the crossfire of two opposing, and equally immoral groups.
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It does not, however, justify terrorist attacks, and the people that have been killed or injured in these attacks are certainly victims, for the simple reason that the mass murder of civilians can NEVER be justified, for any reason. I think we can all agree on this ?
Who is "we"? I can agree that I wouldn't do it. Do I think it's unjustified? Our lifestyle kills people. It is based on murder. Even when it isn't, it's based on manslaughter. This is all utterly hypocritical while I sit here at my big fat dual-monitor desktop in my warm, well-lit home, but I think it's pretty clear that we in the western world are killers by abstraction. We permit it to continue, and indeed, when it starts to slip we scream bloody murder and clamor for more. And we get more... murder.
So Sony has acted in ways which are anti-consumer, and this for years without most of their customers knowing or caring. Now Sony gets hacked and millions of their customer's details are stolen and exposed, and this is somehow the customers' fault for having chosen Sony ?
You k
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The hackers will be punished. Severely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:4, Insightful)
But it would still be a nice gesture on their part, dicks that they are.
It still would not change my unwillingness to ever purchase another Sony product, though. I cannot say that I am not experiencing some measure of schadenfreude at Sony's misfortune.
It is wrong of course, what Lulzboat is doing. Comedic, but wrong. Karmacly satisfying, but wrong. I would discourage them in the strongest terms from continuing to kick the shit out of one of the biggest transnational corporations in the world and making said transnational corporations look like a bunch of arrogant, incompetent nincompoops. So knock it off misters, or somebody's gonna cry. Don't make me get up.
Comedic? (Score:5, Interesting)
Posting people's emails and passwords?
It's not comedic. These people are stealing user info and posting it and you say Sony looks like arrogant nincompoops?
Uh-huh.
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Thank you, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe how many people here are defending the action of LulzSec (not the hack, the posting of info, utterly and completely indefensible).
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Sony company culture of indifference won't change (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony company culture of indifference won't change over a few hacks. It may have made them look stupid (and that's got to hurt their ego) but ultimately the data being lost doesn't contain those of their officers, and frankly I don't think Sony gives a flying f_ck what happens to their customers (as demonstrated by rootkit) or their rights (demonstrated by repeatedly removing features from products and lied about it despite being caught lying.)
Re:Sony company culture of indifference won't chan (Score:5, Insightful)
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In many ways, the MPAA has lost. We have to keep in mind what they were really trying to hold on to, the same old way of doing things. They have lost that battle, have been forced to change and are slowly doing so. It isn't that Kazaa or Napster or any one thing caused it, nor that it was some kind of unified (or righteous) movement. It was a bunch of factors mixed together. Their rigidity and shortsightedness being the largest culprit.
Basically, the MPAA has been forced into a change they should have been
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Are you kidding? The MPAA has lost. The RIAA has lost. They're gonna kick a little more on the way down, but that ship has sailed.
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Re:Sony company culture of indifference won't chan (Score:5, Insightful)
The hackers don't give a flying fuck about the customers either by releasing all their personal information on the Internet.
If they really cared about the customers, they would have released the information to a trusted 3rd party to verify instead of to the public. They decided not to do that because they knew releasing it to the public would cause a much greater financial loss to Sony at the expense of its customers. The Hackers have no moral high ground here.
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You know, either way I'm okay with the results. I haven't been a Sony customer for years. I won't buy anything with a Sony label on it. If it takes some "hard lessons" for everyone else to stop being a Sony customer, then that's what will have to happen. I had to learn it hard too -- expensively. Laptops, Clie' and more. I'm just done with them and their amazingly well-timed breaking after the warranty expires.
Sony isn't going to voluntarily rehabilitate itself. They will have to lose customers befor
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This is currently getting coverage on the front page of the BBC News website - both the domestic and international front pages - ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ [bbc.co.uk] and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/ [bbc.co.uk] respectively). Coverage doesn't get much more mainstream than this.
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Why would they believe Sony?
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Because stuff like this is always spun as the innocent corporation vs the evil hackers...most television and online news sources wont even mention the plain text passwords, lack of security updates, etc....it will just be presented as sony did nothing wrong and the bad guys keep trying to keep you from being able to play your playstation.
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That sets an unwanted precedence. Same reason governments don't negotiate with terrorists (or at least not in public)
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Same reason governments don't negotiate with terrorists (or at least not in public)
"That's a bingo!" (Not to mention funding some "terrorists".) Sony is no stranger to that game either, having previously offered a plum job [inquisitr.com] to a hacker, who, as it happens, promptly turned them down because of their treatment of a fellow hacker.
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the point of the hack is just to embarass Sony, they don't need to post customer information on their website. That is potentially hurting real people who are not responsible for Sony's activities. And no, paying for a Sony product does not make you responsible for their activities, particularly when it's you, the customer, who generally gets screwed by such activities.
That's like exposing a wife beater by publishing the names and addresses of all his past wives.
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Strictly speaking in a free market sense, paying for Sony products does make you partially responsible. Why, you ask? Because the invisible hand that supposedly corrects poor behavior in corporations is supposed to be the swath of customers who will willfully boycott products in response. Continuing to purchase the corporation's products serves only to reinforce any behavior the it may be involved in.
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Which still does not confer responsibility. Buying a Sony product should not be taken as an endorsement of everything they do any more than boycotting Sony should send the message that you hate Playstation 3 exclusives (you certainly won't be playing them). Sony is a big company with a lot of activities, and not all of them are objectionable.
If we're really going to fall back on the invisible hand, then the conclusion is not that consumers are responsible for evil, but rather that Sony does more good than
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:4, Informative)
Sony is a big company with a lot of activities, and not all of them are objectionable.
Given their poor hardware quality, rootkits [wikipedia.org], data breaches [consumerist.com], exploding batteries [softpedia.com], inventing fake movie critics [bbc.co.uk], removing advertised features [slashdot.org], obnoxious viral marketing [youtube.com], spying on environmental activists [googleusercontent.com], being seen as one of the two worst companies in America [consumerist.com], and whatever else I couldn't think of off the top of my head, I'd say "most" rather than "not all".
Re:I wonder if the hackers would stop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget about shoulds and look at reality. I'm talking about responsibility and how it works.
For example, I think that the water should be dry, and when I step into it, I am not responsible for getting wet on the account of my "should" thinking. Does it work like that in reality? No, it does not.
Ask yourself: can customer behavior patterns influence the direction of Sony as a corporation? For example, can a boycott influence Sony's attitude at the executive levels? I think the answer is that a real boycott does have such an ability. So to the extent customers have the ability to influence corporate behaviors, the customers become responsible for exercising that ability with due diligence.
At the same time, does Sony need to wait to get boycotted in order to improve their behavior? Of course not. What does this mean? It means Sony holds a primary proximate responsibility for their own behaviors. Sony executives have more influence over what Sony does than do all the Sony customers put together. At the same time, the amount of influence the Sony customers have is not zero.
So this is a correct and balanced way to understand responsibility. Responsibility is always commensurate with the power you have to influence something. The more power, the more responsibility you have. And our or your power can get as low as epsilon, but never absolute 0. So we always have some responsibility for everything, however tiny it may be.
So it's not "all like this" or "all like that." The reality is somewhere between what you're talking about and what your opponent is talking about. I would say Sony has about 70% responsibility to govern its own behaviors in a moral way and all the customers put together have about 30%, roughly. You can even see it as a 50/50 split, but you have to remember that the customer side of the 50 is shared out among all the customers, while the Sony side is concentrated in the hands of the very few powerful executives.
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Well those customers are now less likely to buy or use Sony products again.
Most will go back but with each attack Sony will lose customers.
As for responsible disclosers there is no such thing. If you think your the only one who has comprised data then you are a fool. For all you know this is the 5th such attack and since it is the first to disclose it they are responsible. Companies will cover up any such breach as long as it isn't disclosed.
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"With friends like these..." (Score:2)
...if sony came out and apologized for being asshats and promising to never do it again.
I wonder if the Slashdot poster will ever learn how deeply the masses have come to hate and fear the hacker - that they don't care about his motives or his causes - that they aren't making any fine distinctions between white hat and black hat.
They are on the same side as Sony in this.
It is the masses who make the Revolution. If the geek wants to know who will be first for the chop, he only has to look in the mirror.
People are just blind... (Score:5, Insightful)
Groan...
Certainly Sony has some major responsibility here...
But when will people stop trusting the Intertubes security implicitly and just blindly dumping all their personal info into various "secure" web sites and Internet connected systems?
People are just blind...
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An easy way would be to use different passwords.
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And even if Sony itself don't do this, other sites do. This is a fundamental flaw with that approach.
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Like, say my security answer being: 8a1b3fb14ba5c80be1bf03606f225fec?
Why use your own personal information for that? Just use a hash of something, or use simply a key-value pair that you keep written down and stored in a secure place(and is unique to each site)? Sure, it'd be open to a physical security break, but 99.999% of the attackers involved do not have physical access to your computer or safe.
Do they have a choice? (Score:5, Insightful)
In most cases people don't really have much choice.
You go to register to do something, and marketing department demands that registration form has a mandatory City, Address, Zip, blah blah, whatever their data appetite demands (and probably with data validation too, so doing New York, Blah Street, won't work).
Sure, some people will stop right there. But if "free" thing you gain access to by filling out registration form seems compelling enough, people will fill in the address.
And only a few of them will be clever enough to give some other (easily remembered, in case of site's trickery) address.
That data will live in archive forever, because marketing will never ever allow deleting anything.
Until it gets stolen (heck, probably afterwards too, but there will be a marketing blurb about being very secure, tested daily for hacker intrusions and stuff like that, wash, rinse, repeat)
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In most cases people don't really have much choice.
Nonsense.
There are very few (if any) random web sites that validate your name against known data, except perhaps credit card transactions.
Sure, many sites validate real zip codes (though I have never seen street level validation - except CC transactions), but to say people *HAVE* to spill all their personal info is just ignorent.
And, this doesn't even address the issue of saving your private personal documents and images "in the cloud" ... totally unnecessary and unwise.
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What does any of this have to do with Sony?
People signed in to use the service, entered in their credit card in order to buy things, used their real info because not only is it honest (and not fraud, which you seem to be recommending--how moral of you!) and easier to remember, but necessary, as you admit, when you use a credit card.
I'm unaware of any Sony service which is commonly used to store private documents in the cloud.
You are raving.
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What is this "phone book" of which you speak?
Another archaic thing like paper cheques, sliding windows, telefax machines, pagers and cassette tapes that are only seen in the home of the brave and land of the free?
Re:People are just blind... (Score:4, Insightful)
With an attitude like that, I assume you don't buy much stuff online.
At this stage, we should be able to trust internet security for major corporations to protect our data. What happens if PayPal gets hacked? "When will people stop trusting the intertubes security implicitly"?
I think its a rather reasonable expectations to expect a company like Sony to protect its user information.
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I think its a rather reasonable expectations to expect a company like Sony to protect its user information.
Recent history seems to disagree.
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That's the problem. It should be a reasonable expectations to expect any large company like that to have adequate security measured protecting customer data. The fact that they haven't should be a big issue with them specifically. I dunno how you can say people are blind for trusting them - or any other major company - in the first place though.
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I think its a rather reasonable expectations to expect a company like Sony to protect its user information.
Recent history seems to disagree.
Which "recent history"? The one where ONE such company got targeted by the most notorious hackers on the web? Or the thousands of other companies in "recent history" where no such breach has occurred?
Historically speaking, this sort of data tends to be quite safe, just not without risk. But, then again, a life without risk is impossible, and trying too much to live such a life is essentially a waste of a perfectly good life.
I'd MUCH rather have my credit card information potentially at risk, but have the co
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Reasonable yes.
Realistic? Not so much.
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But when will people stop trusting the Intertubes security implicitly and just blindly dumping all their personal info into various "secure" web sites and Internet connected systems?
The problem is, in this day you have little choice. Yes you can pick and choose the sites you think are likely to be secure (despite everything, before the PSN incident I would have guessed Sony's servers would be secure...) but just about anything can get hacked (RSA got hacked... wouldn't have guessed that one either).
I don't think people implicitly trust anything .. it's just that the only other choice is to restrict ourselves to services which don't require personal info .. a category which is getting s
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But when will people stop trusting the Intertubes security implicitly and just blindly dumping all their personal info into various "secure" web sites and Internet connected systems?
When companies will stop requiring the data to gain access. In the PSN case for example you have to give name and address, even so that is completly unneeded for operating the free part of the service. It will even go so far as to do a bit of error checking on the data, so you can't just enter random stuff as address, it has to be a valid one. And once there faking the information actually becomes work, it is no longer a case of just not entering it and thus most people will provide real data.
The way to get
People are just gullible (Score:2)
People are just gullible. Just because there's a perceived responsibility does not equate to acting responsible.
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Groan...
Certainly Sony has some major responsibility here...
But when will people stop trusting the Intertubes security implicitly and just blindly dumping all their personal info into various "secure" web sites and Internet connected systems?
People are just blind...
Blind? That implies they could have looked into Sony's security and made an informed and rational decision as to the quality of their security.
It's not that people are stupid or blind or anything else. There's this thing called "trust". It's at the very heart of society. It's wholly unfeasible to expect people to be able to verify for themselves the quality and security of everything they do in the world. You can't check the farm where you get your lettuce, you can't test every electronic component for haza
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I don't think past behavior was blindness in any way, but rather the reasonable expectations of paying customers. I think it is reasonable to assume that large companies will put at least a small amount of effort into securing their users' data, and that any breech wouldn't result in the immediate compromise of that data.
On the other hand, I do hope this will serve to change those who made the assumption in such a way that they will start to think about the consequences of their choices. People weren't forc
What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But they aren't crimes against a faceless corporation in this instance. This is a crime against thousands of individual humans who just had their credentials stolen and published.
You mean kind of like when you commit a crime against a faceless corporation, thousands of individual humans who work for it have their job threatened? Those people might have a harder time finding a new employer than the customers of Sony would have a hard time finding another vendor for a Blu-Ray player. I have less sympathy for the customers than I do for the employees, and I only have so much for them. But I do have SOME, because I live in a capitalist society too, and I need money to buy stuff myself.
Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:4, Insightful)
When they expose the personal details of millions of innocent customers? Jesus, use your fucking brain
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Sony continues to be a target because Sony refuses to learn its lesson. And make no mistake, that lesson is about the consequences of abusing your customers, not about network security.
Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:4, Informative)
Sony continues to be a target because Sony refuses to learn its lesson. And make no mistake, that lesson is about the consequences of abusing your customers, not about network security.
And what lesson is that? There are legitimate, legal, recourses is Sony did anything wrong. Shit, they didn't even do something that even 1/10th of 1% of their users even knew about, let alone had any expectation of ever using.
Seriously, walk up to anyone on the street, ask if them they have a PS3, then if so, ask them if they either:
A. Knew was "Other OS" was.
B. Ever used it, or had plans to.
If it was something Sony needed to "learn a lesson" over, it would have resulted in loss of market share. All this really is is a bunch of juvenile criminals who think they have the right to do whatever they want. I can only imagine how sad their lives must truly be to think this as some kind of moral crusade.
Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:5, Insightful)
So..... If your car manufacturer (this is /. after all) removed the tow point on your car when you had it in for service, without giving you a choice, it would be fine with you? After all, only a tiny fraction of drivers would know about it, and even fewer use it...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum [wikipedia.org] for why your argument is bullshit.
Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. A logical fallacy is a logical fallacy. Any user who purchased a PS3 with the expectation that "other os" would be available has cause for grievance. Now, I don't really think that's the only reason this is happening. I was pissed this time around until it occurred to me that, damn, there are suddenly repercussions for leveraging your development folks past sane tolerances. No longer is it just okay to abandon security because it isn't a bullet point on a brochure. Way more important than running yellow dog from my living room television. IMHO
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[emphasis added]
The tow bars I've seen end in quite a small area which means it will provide quite large pressure (and hence destructive force) when the vehicle is used to reverse into, say, a plate glass window - based on your argument I would now expect every tow bar to be removed on
Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to either condemn nor endorse LulzSec's actions, but WRT:
There are legitimate, legal, recourses is Sony did anything wrong.
"Illegal" and "Wrong" are completely orthogonal concepts.
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First, they came for the second save port and took it away, and I did not say anything, because I did not use ht second save port.
Then they came for the Super Audio CD and took it away, and I did not speak up, because I didn't play SACDs.
Then they came and took the PS2 hardware, and again I did not say anything, because the few PS2 games I have play under emulation.
Then they took away Other OS, and I looked the other way, because I do not know Linux and have never played any of the free games.
Then they took
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So, some have taken it upon themselves to extract some justice, as none will be seen in the legal channels. Yes, it's vigilante justice and should be denounced.
Interes
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If it is truly a violation of the law, I'm all for punishing them.
So your argument is that you are illiterate and ignorant? Why not read the law yourself and form an opinion?
However, that has yet to be shown so don't run an argument that assumes this.
Why not? Are you going to argue that OJ didn't do it? Are you going to argue that because Ken Lay was acquitted (or some other legal finding to the same effect) that he didn't commit fraud? Your stupid argument is that because nobody was convicted of killing Nicole, that it must have been a suicide.
And sadly, yes it will lead to justifications for taking away our freedoms. It is a pattern that is all too common.
They don't need real justification. They have the next set of unconstitutional laws written and rea
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So your argument is that you are illiterate and ignorant? Why not read the law yourself and form an opinion?
Yeah, that's real mature, start immediately with personal attacks. Unless you are a judge, and have decided the case, with the full set of facts, I'll just have to stick to what I said (and even if you are, well you're not impressing me with your level of reasoning). If you want to actually debate me, at least try to keep it civil.
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If you want to actually debate me, at least try to keep it civil.
You've stated that you aren't open for debate. Since you've put that rule out there, then there's no point in being civil. Unless you want to actually debate whether Sony did or did not break the law with their actions in removing OtherOS, you have stated that you have made up your mind on that and no amount of facts could ever sway you.
But go on, tell me who you think killed Nicole. Or tell me if you think that Kenneth Lay committed fraud. Whether someone took an illegal action is irrelevant to whethe
Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:5, Interesting)
Case in point - I've been pro open source, anti IP laws, anti harsh pirating / copying fines for a very long time. I'm pretty liberal and I don't like big corporations. But this shit just pisses me off. They don't like Sony so they fuck over the services that millions of paying customers are using and expose all their personal details? What a pack of pricks. That ain't cool, that's fucked up and selfish.
Re: (Score:3)
It depends on why they are doing it thought. I'm glad that this stuff is coming out now, and the hackers being possibly benign, rather than these things being silently exploited by more nefarious groups/individuals. It makes me feel better that Sony lose face and tighten its security than risk anything further.
Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:4, Insightful)
This industry is actively trying to undermine democracy, destroy individual property rights and trampel everyday civil liberties.
The people who give money to Sony and other RIAA/MPAA groups are part of the problem. They shouldn't be targeted, but any harms they derive from being customers of Sony are their own damn fault.
Look, if the mafia sets up shop in your neighborhood but you choose to work with them, don't complain if you get hurt when the rest of the community fights back.
Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Annoying.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't mind, its better than whats on tv AND its real life drama. I'm watching a 7 hour dvd set on WW2 and its amazing how people went out and died for freedom and kill tyranny and at the end their great/great grand children now have to live with corporate tyranny taking over the world.
Sounds like a Honey Pot for computer viruses (Score:4, Insightful)
SSDD security: (Score:2)
Same Sony. Different Day.
Massive political excuse for a crack down on... (Score:2)
Much like Lulzsec's PBS hack, this will hurt their cause more than it helps...
My concern is that the actions of these hackers will incite a response from governments around the world that will limit internet freedom for the rest of us...
With the breach in Lockheed, Google, and (maybe) a senator also happening this week. And with accusations this last week that the Chinese are out to get American secrets, high-profile hacks on major international companies, and the Pentagon declaring hacking an 'act of war'
How many... (Score:2)
How many of the Sony accounts with @gmail.com addresses in this release use the same password everywhere they go? A lot of people are going to get their Gmail accounts compromised here.
If I was sure that I wouldn't get stomped on for being an evil hacker, I'd write a script to notify the future victims. Oh well.
Line of criminal thought (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been said that criminals try to rationalize their crimes often times by thinking that they are just playing by the rules of life, even if its not the rules of society. An example would be a car thief who finds a car unlocked in downtown New York. They might steal the vehicle and rationalize it as a sort of "finders keepers", where if they didn't steal it, someone else would come along and steal it instead. "If I don't, someone else will, so I might as well benefit". You might say that is a ridiculous assertion to make, but if you found a $50 laying in the parking lot, you would probably pick it up and keep it thinking that someone else would take it if you didn't, and any hope of the original owner finding their missing $50 is a lost cause.
So when someone does virtual breaking and entering because the virtual back door was virtually unlocked, you have to ask what line of thought is crossing their minds. When my neighbor's door is unlocked, should I enter it and steal their TV because I think someone else is bound to do it instead?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It has been said that criminals try to rationalize their crimes often times by thinking that they are just playing by the rules of life, even if its not the rules of society. An example would be a car thief who finds a car unlocked in downtown New York. They might steal the vehicle and rationalize it as a sort of "finders keepers", where if they didn't steal it, someone else would come along and steal it instead. "If I don't, someone else will, so I might as well benefit". You might say that is a ridiculous assertion to make, but if you found a $50 laying in the parking lot, you would probably pick it up and keep it thinking that someone else would take it if you didn't, and any hope of the original owner finding their missing $50 is a lost cause.
So when someone does virtual breaking and entering because the virtual back door was virtually unlocked, you have to ask what line of thought is crossing their minds. When my neighbor's door is unlocked, should I enter it and steal their TV because I think someone else is bound to do it instead?
While I don't condemn what these guys are doing. I have to admit it does make me smile every time Sony gets hacked. A bit like seeing a bully failing a math exam.
Am I alone... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If it's the same bugs/holes, why would you start from scratch when you only have to fix a single flaw?
What they need to do is severely audit heir entire web code, as well as either pay for people who know how to do the above and pay for people to maintain their systems (since one of the break ins was because of an old apache)
If you ask me they have been having their code written, and their hardware managed by the lowest bidder, and as they saying goes, you get what you pay for
Re: (Score:3)
Well if Sony is a beached whale, does that mean some genius is going to break out the dynamite and blow it up in a few days? I think that the rain of putrid guts, entrails and rotting flesh falling all over the globe will be fun had by all.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The money quote (Score:4, Insightful)
How is that a money quote?
Or do you mean showing the stupidity of the person asking the question?
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Am I the only person who finds it sad that Sony is letting itself be victimized by so called "script kiddies"? or should it only be news when someone who actually knows what they're doing does it?
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lulz is a corruption of L-O-L, LOLOLOL!
Here I said it, with my 3-digit Slashdot ID. What now?
Re: (Score:3)
Now...we dance!