Gearbox Head Blasts "Evil" PSN Hackers

[Baresark]

I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.

Is it criminal? Absolutely. But "terrorism" seems a bit much.

This part of the post was not required and is rather "Kotaku-esque." This bit of news didn't require your two cents.

Thanks for your input, but we exist as news writers specifically to inject our two cents into matters.

No offense John, but you are incorrect. A news writer reports new to people, it's not supposed to be with a slant or an agenda.

PS. If you read my last post, I agree with you anyway on this.

PPS. I appreciate how you respond to quotes from your article, most writers just put it out there and then pretend like it never happened, no matter what anyone says.

 

[John Funk]

I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.

Is it criminal? Absolutely. But "terrorism" seems a bit much.

This part of the post was not required and is rather "Kotaku-esque." This bit of news didn't require your two cents.

Thanks for your input, but we exist as news writers specifically to inject our two cents into matters.

No offense John, but you are incorrect. A news writer reports new to people, it's not supposed to be with a slant or an agenda.

PS. If you read my last post, I agree with you anyway on this.

PPS. I appreciate how you respond to quotes from your article, most writers just put it out there and then pretend like it never happened, no matter what anyone says.

The Escapist's editorial policy has always been to inform and to entertain, and to contribute our own knowledge and expertise - and yes, opinions - onto a story. Whether that means cracking jokes, analyzing news and what it could mean, or editorializing a bit at the end (after the information has been reported), or whatever, it's up to us.

 

[William Dickbringer]

Cyber terrorists? we better get the cyber police on this case
O.T. Yeah I agree with what this guy says and I feel sorry for the people affected by this

 

[Baresark]

I'm not entirely sure I agree with calling it cyber-terrorism, to be honest. That devalues the very real threat of real-world terrorism, and it's hard to compare not being able to play videogames online for a few weeks to fearing for your very life - even if publishers and developers have seen some fiscal troubles.

Is it criminal? Absolutely. But "terrorism" seems a bit much.

This part of the post was not required and is rather "Kotaku-esque." This bit of news didn't require your two cents.

Thanks for your input, but we exist as news writers specifically to inject our two cents into matters.

No offense John, but you are incorrect. A news writer reports new to people, it's not supposed to be with a slant or an agenda.

PS. If you read my last post, I agree with you anyway on this.

PPS. I appreciate how you respond to quotes from your article, most writers just put it out there and then pretend like it never happened, no matter what anyone says.

The Escapist's editorial policy has always been to inform and to entertain, and to contribute our own knowledge and expertise - and yes, opinions - onto a story. Whether that means cracking jokes, analyzing news and what it could mean, or editorializing a bit at the end (after the information has been reported), or whatever, it's up to us.

I can appreciate that. You did wait till the end to add your bit.

 

[B.U.C.K]

I feel bad for Sony, But from the reports I'v read they could have taken better precautions to prevent this from happening, Still. Sorry for all those PSN user out there, Hopefully it well get better in time.

 

[RoyalWelsh]

I agree with everything Randy Pitchford says. We need to help Sony during this, not make life even more difficult.

 

[unwesen]

I'd agree completely, if it weren't for the fact that someone at Sony failed "Security 101". You just don't store plain text passwords, which - according to what they've emailed me, namely that my password might have been stolen - they must have done.

 

[Madman123456]

"terror" is something that terrorists strike into us. Wether they directly want to or not; but if the biggest thing someone does is to strike terror, he's technically a terrorist. *If* millions of people had their money stolen, this wouldn't affect our little World still not as much as the news that someone took down PSN, a big global Network that was supposed to be heavily protected.

So these People are terrorists. Since the whole thing happened on the Internet, they are cyber-terrorists.
Perfectly fitting.

About sony needing our hugs: If i let anyone into a building that i'm supposed to protect without doing everything in my power to stop this, my ass and consequently the rest of me will be fired. There would be Police around trying to find out what exactly happenend and if i really did everything in my power to stop the intruder. And if i don't cooperate fully, i will pay a fine or go to jail.

Same thing should happen to sony.

 

[Mouse_Crouse]

No disrespect meant here, because you guys do a good job finding interesting news related to the world of entertainment we all love. But honestly I can't see this. News writers exist to input their opinion into news stories? Am I missing something here? Was news not meant to inform of the issues, and let the people decide? I'm not calling yellow journalism or anything harsh here... but this just strikes me as odd.

Edit: I tried to quote here... but it just copied the text without actually quoting... not sure what happened.

 

[Fursnake]

I don't blame Sony for getting hacked, I blame the asshole hackers who did it. But I am not going to give Sony a hug...

 

[Ninjamedic]

Terrorism?

noun

1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

I love how people think the definition for terrorism is open, though it has had a very real definition for a long time now. To assume it has an open ended meaning is to celebrate ignorance in language.

It's NOT Cyber-terrorism. tt hasn't endangered lives or left people in a state of utter fear.

PS. Not putting private information on the web isn't fear, by most accounts, it's just cautious and smart.

I'm not criticizing you, but I still would consider potential Identity Theft en masse to be a bit threatening, particularly If it could affect 50 million people. You don't always need to inflict direct attacks on people in order to cause terrorism. And given the large amount of paranoid news reports (both online and on TV) in the past few weeks, if the aim was terrorism, it could be considered a success.

But I agree that it is more Cyber-Crime than Cyber-Terrorism.

 

[Whoracle]

[stuff about banks]

I think you may be mixing up banks (as in corporations) and bank buildings or whatever the word for it is (as in "a store").

And for banks as corporations, the comparison is absolutely true.
In both cases the corp promises to keep something safe for you (data | money). In case of an break-in you lose superiority over the goods stored (ID theft | money theft). And the average bank operating on the same level as Sony has a lot more customers than PSN has users.

So, you're basically saying that robbing 10 million users of their PSN accounts is worse than robbing 10 million people of all their money, safe that which they carry on their person?

 

[Baresark]

Terrorism?

noun

1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

I love how people think the definition for terrorism is open, though it has had a very real definition for a long time now. To assume it has an open ended meaning is to celebrate ignorance in language.

It's NOT Cyber-terrorism. tt hasn't endangered lives or left people in a state of utter fear.

PS. Not putting private information on the web isn't fear, by most accounts, it's just cautious and smart.

I'm not criticizing you, but I still would consider potential Identity Theft en masse to be a bit threatening, particularly If it could affect 50 million people. You don't always need to inflict direct attacks on people in order to cause terrorism. And given the large amount of paranoid news reports (both online and on TV) in the past few weeks, if the aim was terrorism, it could be considered a success.

But I agree that it is more Cyber-Crime than Cyber-Terrorism.

I don't think identity theft, en masse or not, could be a terrorist act. A terrorist act loses it's ability to terrorize when it just seems random and no one takes credit or mentions a reason as to why they did it. Theft isn't terrorism.

I'm not being argumentative, but I noticed you made the word "threat" bold in the first definition. In the context of the definition I listed, it's a threat for the purpose of intimidation or coercion. I still think this needs a purpose besides it's a large amount of not so personal, personal information that is stolen. If you walk past a parking garage, then 5 minutes later someone gets shot there, you don't know it was dangerous unless someone tells you what happened.

Hmmm, I don't know if that last bit makes sense.... I am rather tired. I'm sure I'll kick myself next time I read it.

 

[Ninjamedic]

snip

Given the context of the incident (the ongoing Other OS War) it could be seen as threatening for the purpose of coercion.
But as before, I agree with your arguement, it feels more like plain Crime as opposed to Terrorism. But if anyone sees it as Cyber-Terrorism, you can see from where they are basing that assumption.

 

[John Funk]

So, putting the financial well being of millions of consumers at tremendous risk isn't an act of terrorism? You're joking, right?

No, it's crime. If someone broke into, say, Bank of America and stole money from millions of accounts, would you call it terrorism? No, it's theft - on a huge scale, yes, but it's still not terrorism. Terrorism is means to an end; from what we can tell this attack was the means and end itself.

It would be like terrorism if, say, they kept breaking in and stealing bits and pieces of user data - a few thousand here, a few thousand there - in an intentional campaign to break the public trust with Sony and drive customers away from PSN lest their data be compromised. That would be cyber-terrorism. This is just cyber-theft.

 

[Angry_squirrel]

How is his unprecedented? Are hackers new all of a sudden? If you are online with whatever piece of plastic hackers are a risk. Always have been, always will be. Sony doesn't get hugs for allowing it to happen. Sony gets chastized for not being 1 step ahead of them like they should be. You don't give a cookie to the security guard who slept through the robbery do you? Both (Sony and hackers) are wrong for different reasons and both deserve to be punished.

This.

 

[9Darksoul6]

1. That is NOT terrorism. To call such crimes "terrorism" is, among other bad things, an insult to real victims of terrorism.

2. Sony caused this by pissing off the hacker community; you simply don't do that; ever. As far as I know - as a reminder of this attack being directed to Sony, and Sony only - the XBL service is still running.

3. It's also their fault if their "crack-proof" security system was, in fact, completely stupid and an absolute failure (google it).

I'm not saying, by any means, the hackers aren't the bad guys here... but I'm not giving Sony my support either.

 

[Jumplion]

I've been saying this practically since the whole ordeal started.

I say we back off, let Sony, the FBI, Homeland Security, and various other organizations find the bastards who did this, let them rip various new ones upon them, and then if we still feel like it we can get on Sony's case. It's all well and good to blame Sony for their fuck up, but when all of our information is still out there, I would think that the first priority would be to find the bastards who stole that information in the first place.

 

[Johnson McGee]

As someone who may have been exposed to identity theft and credit fraud as part of this attack, I wholeheartedly agree that this is terrorism. It makes people afraid to do anything online for fear of having their identity stolen.

This kind of attack happened because of three things: hacking is (relatively) easy, it's hard to capture the perpetrators and the penalties for being caught are usually small. If this problem is to be addressed, there needs action on all three of these issues but only one of them is in Sony's domain.

2. Sony caused this by pissing off the hacker community; you simply don't do that; ever. As far as I know - as a reminder of this attack being directed to Sony, and Sony only - the XBL service is still running.

Inviting or provoking crime is dumb, sure, but so is blaming the victim. For example, do women deserve to be raped for dressing provocatively? At this point the so called hacker community is more comparable to a gang that attacks any perceived disrespect with completely disproportionate response. As a result, millions of innocent and unrelated users had their information exploited for profit.

 

[mjc0961]

Sony will get my support when I get my e-mail telling me how to sign up for that identity theft protection they promised. Until we all get those, I think it is the time for pointing the hate cannon at Sony. Is pointing out that yes, we all hate those bastards that did this and hope they get caught going to actually help catch them? No. But is letting Sony know that we want what was promised or we'll take our business elsewhere going to put pressure on them to make good on their word? Yep. Not to mention the huge backlash they'll get if they announce outright that they changed their minds or something.