CAN WE TRUST SONY AND THE PLAYSTATION NETWORK?

          In the past two months a war has been waged against the PlayStation Network by outside intruders aka hackers. This leads back a few months to George “GeoHot” Hotz a well-known hacker configuring the PS3 system to function outside of Sony’s terms of usage. In this particular case George Hotz made this technique he developed available to the public. The reconfiguration that George Hotz implemented allowed the PS3 system to play pirated games, which infuriated Sony. This turn of events lead to Sony filing a law suit against George that began a long drawn out court battle and battle in the court of public opinion.

            Shortly after the lawsuit was publicized a lose band group of hackers by the name of Anonymous ordered Sony to deviate from their planned lawsuit and cease the case against their fellow hacker GeoHot. When Sony didn’t comply Anonymous attacked the PlayStation Network servers using denial of service attacks a popular hacking tactic, which caused outlandish lag during online gameplay. Anonymous took credit publicly for these initial attacks but later stated that they would no longer attack Sony’s server for fear of hurting the gamers (paying video game customers).

            April 2011 was the month of the big PlayStation Network (PSN) outage. In mid April Sony shut down the PSN, which includes online game play, the PSN Store, Netflix, and Qriocity music service. Sony proclaimed an outside intrusion breach the security of the PSN, therefore prompting them to shutdown the system totally. Eventually Sony provided a press release stating that PS3 user identity as well as credit card information could have possibly been compromised. Sony has reconfigured the PSN to handle any additional attacks and Sony added new security features. As of today’s post the PSN has still not been restored and Sony is at this moment testing the system for security strength.

            As a hardcore gamer, I feel like a kid in between the bully and the bullied student. We the gamers have had no control in this on-going battle between Sony and Anonymous. The Easter Holiday weekend was a lost weekend as far as the gaming community is concerned and being without online co-op or multiplayer is a sad occurrence for any gamer. A few days without online access is no death but over 2 weeks without online gaming access feels as if my prized possession has been brutally compromised and deflated. Lets all hope the PSN is restored soon.

Outside Sources:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34550/Hackers_Say_Anonymous_Likely_Responsible_For_Sony_Attacks.php

http://blog.us.playstation.com/