Greg Tito said:
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I'm not sure that kind of rape-logic holds up, but LulzSec does have a point. Sony is a big company, with lots of interchangable parts, but you think database security would be at the top of every divisions to-do list right about now.
Source: LulzSecurity [http://lulzsecurity.com/releases/]
Thanks to [user]ckeymel[/user] for the awesome-est tip in the world!
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Well, I think this is all connected to the "Other OS" thing. See Sony claimed they were removing the "Other OS" option for the protection of the users because of this backdoor it presented through their security. In reality they were basically going further than most DRM schemes, basically punishing legitimate users for a few. Where a DRM scheme might annoy you by putting some crippleware on your computer, Sony was basically robbing from you. They took something you paid for, even if you didn't use, and didn't give you any say in the matter or restitution for it. Their big defense was pretty much "you don't own your consoles, the TOS says so, if you don't like it take it up with our lawyers". Given that your typical console user can't go toe to toe with Sony, especially when they, like most businesses, pay off expert lawyers in areas like this just enough to create a "conflict of interests" so even if a rich person with an objection DID want to go after them the odds of them fighting it properly and winning are minimal due to having to use more of a generalist lawyer against what is going to be a team of specialists who are on staff to do nothing but argue that kind of point.
At any rate, the point being made here seems to be that Sony doesn't really have any security in place that is strong enough for someone to need something like a back door. The point here is that they are continually feeding Sony's lies back to them, as they conduct exactly the kind of hacker attack that their theft was allegedly to prevent. Sony screwed over enough people, where it's not surprising it's not being let go. I'm mad even though I didn't use the feature (and I'm not quite ADHD afflicted enough to forget what they did because I can't login to PSN for a couple of weeks). If I'm angry enough to post multiple times a day about it instead of babbling about games or comics or whatever, just imagine how the kids of geeks that run around and install Linux on everything might be... and those kinds of techies are pretty much the guys a security dependant company is stupid to tick off.
As I've said before, I think Sony could end this very simply, all it has to do is publically apologize, restore the other OS functionality, and concede that people own the products they pay for. Now I understand why a massive Godzilla-like corperation doesn't want to do those things, and what is at stake, but really that's pretty much what is going to end this.
Also while I'm responding to an article more directly than normal, I do have one "tin foil hat" theory that I had been toying with. I remember hearing how the US military bought tons of PS-3 systems so they could network them together as cheap computers, something which requires the "Other OS" option as they were doing it. I don't know if this doesn't apply to them, or if they were given a way out, but I have been wondering if perhaps the reason why nobody can catch these hackers is because it's a faction of the US goverment who just pretty much told their IS guys they could make Sony miserable due to the loss of all that hardware. Unlikely for a lot of reasons... real tin foil hat territory, but I do find the thought amusing on a few levels since it would explain so much of this. I am going to laugh if it turns out to be like half a dozen bored server techs in the basement of the Pentagon who were told "go for it, as long as it doesn't interfere with your other work".
