Sony is performing the old salt-in-the-wound trick by informing Bloomberg that the PSN/Quoricity outage should last another 22 days with an expected return date of May 31. This came from an interview with a Sony spokesman in a Bloomberg interview. Security is the key here. Sony is adopting new techniques and practices to beef up its online services and apparently that takes some time. → Read More
Sony has released a brief update on its security situation, assuring people that their passwords were indeed hashed and are likely inaccessible. They also note, and this is important, they will not be contacting anyone and asking for card number, social security number, or other such information. If anyone calls or emails you (and they might), it’s not Sony. Stay safe out there, kids! More info on the PSN breach here. → Read More
As the initial hysteria (mostly justified) surrounding the Sony PSN breach subsides, more measured estimates of the damage are appearing, but more serious questions are becoming relevant. It’s still too early to be sure what the extent of the damage is, but the early and sensational estimates (propagated before Sony announced relevant numbers) seem to be giving way to a more complex, nuanced look at the damage. A few people have claimed suspicious activity on their accounts so far, but there doesn’t seem to be any systematic fraud going on – on the other hand, it isn’t easy to immediately leverage 10-15 million credit cards.
Sony announced that it will be reestablishing access to “some” PSN and Qriocity services this week, with a focus on access to account details, online play, and access to purchased media. Other services should be online within a month. As far as restitution, Sony is offering a month of Playstation Plus and Qriocity Unlimited for free, plus a free PSN download, currently unspecified.
That would likely be enough to compound for an ordinary extended outage, but this was more than a glitch. Sony will likely get rougher handling from an investigation of their security practices than from frustrated customers. → Read More
Ever heard of Dropship? It’s an open-source project that “enables arbitrary, anonymous transfers of files between Dropbox accounts.” Dropbox hopes you haven’t; they tried to squelch it this week, and even accidentally reported that it was subject to a DMCA takedown notice, with predictably futile results. I’m mostly sympathetic: I’m a huge fan of their service, Dropship was a clear violation of their terms, and for obvious reasons they don’t want to turn into an anonymous peer-to-peer file-sharing service. Unfortunately, they accidentally built a system which enabled just that.
How about Sony’s PlayStation Network? Of course you have. It was so thoroughly hacked this week that Sony had to shut it down indefinitely. Did you also know that Sony’s PS3 firmware is effectively wide open, because they made a hilariously stupid security mistake? Did you know that that’s probably how PSN got hacked, and that it raised the spectre of the hacker(s) taking over every connected PlayStation 3 in the world and turning them into by far the biggest botnet in history? That probably wasn’t what Sony had in mind, but they accidentally built a system which enabled just that. → Read More
The PSN debacle is continually evolving as the extent of the damage is made clear, though it should be noted that we’re still in the early stages and a lot of what’s out there is guesswork and hearsay. The good news is that the FBI is on the case, and a number of more local authorities are taking action as well. The bad news is that the hackers may in fact have the credit card numbers and, despite Sony’s claims, the CV2 codes as well. → Read More
This information was in the link I put earlier, but just so it’s clear: Sony states that all credit card information in their breached database was indeed encrypted, though the “personal data” wasn’t. What does that mean? → Read More
There’s just no way around it. Sony really screwed up. And not just in the way they consistently have in the past. I mean big time. The outage that started last week and was finally addressed yesterday is worse than anyone expected, and naturally, someone has already sued. The lawsuit alleges that Sony was both remiss in its security responsibilities and its duty to inform its customers of the problem. I think it’s got legs. → Read More
Although the chatter around the games industry indicates that E3 will bring a new console from Nintendo — and its rumored features are getting a little ridiculous. But what of the Xbox 360 and PS3? Is it time for them to get a refresh? Not quite, says one insider. → Read More
Things are going great for Sony. It settled that icky business with GeoHot, and now it’s flying high on the sales of its PS3 and accessories. The Move, which came out last September, has now sold 8 million units as of April 3. Compare this to Microsoft’s Kinect, which sold a cool 10 million units as of early March. → Read More
Attention! Valve has announced exactly how Portal 2‘s Steam features will work on the PS3. PS3 gamers can look forward to cross-platform (with the PC) matchmaking and gameplay, real-time chat, Steam achievements, and access to the Steam Cloud for game saves. → Read More
Sony and GeoHot have officially settled their differences. A notice on the PlayStation Blog notes that Sony Computer Entertainment America and George Hotz have reached a settlement in the case. No monetary terms were mentioned. → Read More
A congratulations are in order for Sony. Thanks to the company’s dogged pursuit of the likes of GeoHot and Graf_Chokolo (and, apparently, anyone who has seen jailbreak-related information), Anonymous has said that it will “experience [its] wrath.” Probably not a good time to be Sony, no. → Read More
Supercomputers are expensive to make no matter how you look at it. But if you use a whole bunch of PS3s, you can save over 10x the cost compared to this guy. The Condor project is a supercomputer made up of 1,716 PS3s for the Air Force’s image processing tasks and is considered one of the top forty fastest computers in the world. Its big task involves monitoring 15 square miles 24/7, but not in the way you think. → Read More
It’s only a matter of time till Sony shuts these guys down, so better write about this quick. It’s called the Cobra USB, and presumably it has nothing to do with Santino Morella’s finishing move. Actually, no, I know it has nothing to do with Sanitno, for it’s a USB dongle that unlocks a few handy features, including region free Blu-ray playback and the ability to play DVD ISOs right from the PS3′s hard drive. → Read More
Is George “GeoHot” Hotz in South America right now? Yes. Is he a fugitive running from the law? No, despite the convenience of such a story. The man is merely on vacation. Is that a crime? → Read More
This is really more of a “just ‘cuz” Kinect hack than one of those practical ones we see occasionally. Yes, hacker Shantanu Goel has rigged up his Kinect to work with its greatest enemy, the PS3. Where is your Move now?! → Read More
In the US, Playstation Home is rather mundane. Other than additions like voice chat and in-network game launching, it has been the same since its 2008 launch. That’s about to change according to statements made at this year’s GDC by Masami Kando, head of the Home project at Sony. → Read More
Gamasutra had a good interview with Sony’s head of R&D, Dr. Richard Marks — it’s well worth the read. They talk about how he got his start in high school at a game shop his pop owned playing loads of old school games. He then moved on to study aerospace engineering in college where he found his love for robotics. Something he says is very similar to video gaming. → Read More
The “epic fail” of PS3 security discovered by hackers in January and pried open further by Geohot (who is now being sued) may be fixed with the latest patch to the PS3. This is the natural way of things, of course. → Read More
Sony has won their case against LG. The more than 300,000 PS3′s that were seized will be returned to Sony. Also, all future shipments into Europe will continue without any issues. → Read More
