Kazuo Hirai - SONY PS3 PSN Relaunch Announcement

[Caine]

They say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but it's hard to imagine SONY profiting from the publicity they've been getting the last couple of years. Each step they take seems to be a bigger screwup than the last.

 

[AquaAnalogue]

Heheheheee. I should not find this as entertaining as I do.

Keep them coming. Keep them coming until Sony is forced into bankruptcy! Hopefully the same thing will happen to the other transgressors as well! The people who have lost their identities and/or accounts will be praised as brave martyrs (unless they bought a Sony product after all this mayhem, in which case shame on them!).


I pray to God that years from now, the only memory of the long-dead Sony Computer Entertainment will be an example to the software/hardware monopolies-- This is what happens when you fsck with hackers and homebrewers (pirates too, might as well not beat about the bush) who just want to do their own thing.


They could also get their act together, of course... keep making great products (because they do, for the most part), and support the open-source and homebrew community. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure they've already picked their side in this war. No matter. Out with the old, in with the new; a new era of open-source, ultra-powerful machines is born. We will soon look back and proclaim: Sony is dead! Microsoft is dead. Apple is dead. Pandora is very much alive, and nothing of value was lost.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Heheheheee. I should not find this as entertaining as I do.

Isn't karma great? Remember that time when they sued you?

 

[Nintendo]

They say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but it's hard to imagine SONY profiting from the publicity they've been getting the last couple of years. Each step they take seems to be a bigger screwup than the last.

Hopefully, billions will be lost this year.

 

[Cameleon]

I'm sorry, but am I the only one taking no pleasure in light of recent events? I personally feel inconvenienced, not by Sony, by the self-important, basement dwelling dicks who hacked PSN. Now that PSN is restored I'd like to see it left alone, I like using my online functionality. I cannot and will not condemn Sony in this case, they are not the ones at fault.


PSN was hacked and they took it offline until they felt confident that it was secure enough to bring back online. As for the 'sensitive' information, I've given the same information to Amazon, eBay and a dozen other online retailers. Do I fret about it being used against my will, no, I know that if something out of the ordinary happens my bank will step in and freeze the transaction until I give it the go ahead. I am not afraid of ID theft, mainly because I've got very little of value worth stealing, also because I know that as long as I have the correct information in order and I am doing everything above board I will be fine.


Anyway back on topic I'm glad that PSN has relaunched and the 4 free games that I've been given, the 30 days of PS+ and 30 days of Music Unlimited have sweetened the deal.


My question is, if these hackers could take down PSN for the best part of a month, for little more than shits and giggles, what makes OPT think that they are any safer? There wouldn't be the same media attention but hackers will hack anything right? What if the motivation for these guys is simple (as I believe) "Those guys are making more money than me, that's not fair. I'm entitled to...I want..."? What makes any company safe?


My suggestion to Craig, ED et al is that they do not treat this is a point and laugh exercise but a chance to look at their own security systems and review where needed. I think what has happened to Sony is a warning to all companies that they are just as easily taken down, and should be treated as such and learned from.

 

[Nintendo]

The hackers are the good guys.

 

[Cameleon]

The hackers are the good guys.

Yes, because it's the good guys that inconvenience millions of gamers. All for an increased sense of self worth. Maybe they could try something totally off the wall, like getting jobs and not pretending that they are the frontline of freedom. They are not. They are parasites and I hope they all get exactly what is coming to them. My view...these guys are terrorists. They hacked a system with the sole intent of causing panic, terrorists, and I hope that they are punished as such. So as far as I'm concerned not the 'good' guys, they are the self-important asswipes that the world would be better without.

 

[Batou456]

Much better than locking down the entire thing.

Daily Tech indicates they locked it back down. The H hasn't commented yet, with their latest being the Japanese government actually stepped in and told them they weren't re-enabling the Japanese network, because the security system is not actually online yet.

I cannot and will not condemn Sony in this case, they are not the ones at fault.

They are fully culpable. They actively provoked a fight while not, and still not, taking their defenses seriously.

Does that make Anonymous and the follow up group nailing to them wall justified? No, but if you go out picking a fight and you bring one down on yourself, you are fully responsible for having done so. That you picked a fight you couldn't win is irrelevant, unless you consider gross incompetence any kind of serious defense.


You otherwise seem to have a very naive understanding of what Identity Theft entails.

What makes any company safe?

Using RHEL is a big step in the right direction. Good permission handling, safety measures against exploits, and generally staying on top of things helps a lot. There is also a world of difference between simply being forced off the net by a Denial of Service attack and actually getting cracked.

The implications of the various reports are that Sony effectively left it's door wide open by not following through with the basic security best practices, and simply not thinking things through with this latest issue.

 

[Asiyura]

Sony is at fault :


- they took away the hackers playground known as OtherOS on the PS3.


- they didn't have a serious security system (5 years old software on a server = lots of known security holes)


The crackers are at fault too, of course, nothing obligated them to hack and steal the informations.


Identity theft is far more dangerous than you think. Far more dangerous than a simple credit card number theft.


Some people had to fight during more than 15 years to prove they were the "real person".

 

[Nintendo]

Yes, because it's the good guys that inconvenience millions of gamers. All for an increased sense of self worth. Maybe they could try something totally off the wall, like getting jobs and not pretending that they are the frontline of freedom. They are not. They are parasites and I hope they all get exactly what is coming to them. My view...these guys are terrorists. They hacked a system with the sole intent of causing panic, terrorists, and I hope that they are punished as such. So as far as I'm concerned not the 'good' guys, they are the self-important asswipes that the world would be better without.

I think you're on the wrong website. Most of us here hate locked systems.


Try going here.

 

[Cameleon]

Yes, because it's the good guys that inconvenience millions of gamers. All for an increased sense of self worth. Maybe they could try something totally off the wall, like getting jobs and not pretending that they are the frontline of freedom. They are not. They are parasites and I hope they all get exactly what is coming to them. My view...these guys are terrorists. They hacked a system with the sole intent of causing panic, terrorists, and I hope that they are punished as such. So as far as I'm concerned not the 'good' guys, they are the self-important asswipes that the world would be better without.

I think you're on the wrong website. Most of us here hate locked systems.


Try going here.

Tbh, I don't give a shit if you hate locked systems. Doesn't mean I have to. I enjoy the use of the Pandora, and the development opportunities it provides. FFS I run Linux on most of my computers, use open source alternatives when I can but I also buy devices for a very specific reason. I bought my 360, PS3 and Wii for entertainment, not development. I could not care less if any of them had a locked system. I seem to be a rare breed, an independent developer who prefers the use of Open Source but will tolerate a closed system if the device is fit for purpose (which in my case the PS3 still is). I also hate the term homebrew (in the wider development community it seems to have become synonymous with piracy and 'backup' loaders). If the hackers were the good guys they would be doing something more noble than destroying systems other people work hard to create and maintain.

 

[Jourdy288]

The hackers are the good guys.

Yes, because it's the good guys that inconvenience millions of gamers. All for an increased sense of self worth. Maybe they could try something totally off the wall, like getting jobs and not pretending that they are the frontline of freedom. They are not. They are parasites and I hope they all get exactly what is coming to them. My view...these guys are terrorists. They hacked a system with the sole intent of causing panic, terrorists, and I hope that they are punished as such. So as far as I'm concerned not the 'good' guys, they are the self-important asswipes that the world would be better without.

...Anonymous? They stopped their PSN attacks when they realized they were inconveniencing the wrong people.


You're thinking of the crackers who did this... Well the world would be mostly better without them.


As for hackers, amigo, I wouldn't mess with them. You're sitting with them.

 

[Asiyura]

Damn, we were trying to be serious and Sony came and f****ed up the whole discussion.


Sony, you should learn to shut the f*** up sometimes.


Even more when you don't have anything else than ad hominem attacks.


Cameleon, I see your point and I probably share it, since I own quite a few closed systems and enjoy them.


(I even have to shoulder a lot of scorn because my main computer is an Apple and use osX on it…)


The problem here, isn't the PS3, it's how Sony managed the console and the PSN.

 

[Batou456]

Damn, we were trying to be serious and Sony came and f****ed up the whole discussion.
Sony, you should learn to shut the f*** up sometimes.


Even more when you don't have anything else than ad hominem attacks.

Sony/Nintendo, the board member, has made no adhominem attacks in this thread. At best there is an adhominem derail, although forcing that into that category is a stretch. I suppose you could class it a "poisoning the well" attempt, but for it to accomplish that pretty much demands others want to do the same particularly as Sony, the board member, is rarely particularly serious.

The above, by you, on the other hand can be classed in such terms easily enough.

Cameleon, I see your point and I probably share it, since I own quite a few closed systems and enjoy them.
(I even have to shoulder a lot of scorn because my main computer is an Apple and use osX on it…)

You aren't exactly guiltless in bring scorn down on yourself regarding proprietary system habits, by your own actions regardless of the actual systems of choice either. Usually this involves you trying to heap scorn on open hardware alternatives, based on complete utter nonsense that only has the legitimacy of being semi-common propaganda.

The problem here, isn't the PS3, it's how Sony managed the console and the PSN.

No, the problem is that they made this big dramatic deal out of the original incident, had serious image backlash as a result, and basically declared war on the internet and have re-enabled their services while failing to demonstrate they've actually addressed the security issues hence the response of the Japanese government.

This wasn't some scenario where the great Fortress Sony was compromised through no fault of their own. They provoked an attack and didn't maintain their defenses meaning they realistically were little more use then a sign saying "please don't enter." They are fully responsible for maintaining their defenses, the security of the information of their customers, and for going out and picking fights. Something the Japanese government rightly believes they have failed to do and hence has bared them from re-enabling their network in Japan until this issue is addressed.


Any speculation requiring the threat of hacker organizations to magically cease to exist ultimately lies in the realm of fairy tales. They do exist, are reasonably well organized, and those facts aren't a particularly new concept.

 

[AquaAnalogue]

Throughout this rant, "Sony" will refer to Sony Computer Entertainment. It is directed toward anyone who sides with said Sony Computer Entertainment in this battle.

Spoiler

I see we have a fanboy in our midst. Kidding, kidding.


Seriously, though, cameleon-- are you listening to what you're saying? Condemning "homebrew" as an excuse for piracy; hating on hackers; dude, you are in the midst of a community that has been built around the idea of open-source.


Open-source software and commercial software cannot co-exist in equilibrium. This has been my long-held prediction. A paradigm shift is imminent; already the best products in the world are becoming open and the closed ones are failing slowly. We have based our digital economy on sales of replications of electronic data which have no real intrinsic value, and it is now collapsing under our feet. Take a look at the panic the RIAA, MPAA, and other digital media corporations like Sony are in. Why? Because they sell fake products. A piece of code is not worth 70 dollars per licence, and people are waking up to this.


I cannot believe you are siding with Sony on this one. The OtherOS feature was a selling point for many, and Sony decided that withdrawing support for a minority of customers was better than truly addressing the "problem" (aka, "Oh no, people aren't buying our fake products; they're pirating them and/or making their own!"). They have consistently shown no interest in their userbase. Scrambling to put PSN back up before they were even ready is yet another example of this. The only thing you care about is that PSN is up again and, thank God Sony, you can once again play your goddamn Giant Enemy Crab: Massive Damage Online. This is more serious than attacking a weak point. This is much more serious than Lidge Lacer. We are in the midst of a revolutionary war, and you are picking the wrong side.


Wake the fuck up man, this is ridiculous! Don't you see what people can do with an open system? Don't you see how futile closed systems are? Sure the games have some of the best eye-candy modern science can produce, but is it really worth selling your soul for it? Aren't you sick of paying 70 dollars for one game? I've long thought that the best release system would be a "distributed bounty" system, where someone decides how much they want for the labour of coding the game, and when the bounty is reached by separate contributors worldwide, the game is released to the world, open-source with the art under a Creative Commons licence. That would be a good reform to the idea of commercial software. I'd embrace something like that. But the current system SUCKS! They know it sucks, and they will defend it to the end, because it makes them the most money.


The fact that you don't want to develop on the PS3/Wii/360 does not mean that others cannot. That's such a logical fallacy it doesn't even deserve a response. Just because you don't prefer to do something does not automatically validate your argument that others don't deserve their basic human rights to hack, crack, modify and/or destroy any piece of hardware that they own and have paid for. You are watching the software/hardware industry turn into Nineteen Eighty-Four, and you are perfectly contented with it!





As for the crackers which took down PSN, they are heroes. They are breaking the law-- so what? Did the forefathers of the United States of America not break the "law" when they declared independence from the oppression and tyranny of the British Empire (no hard feelings to our friends across the pond-- your no-good ancestors are all dead now)? These hackers put their neck on the line and many of them will probably be caught... but eventually people like them are going to run Sony into the ground. I would join their ranks but I have a future family to provide for, so I can't afford to land myself in jail.

tl;dr-- if you honestly side with Sony in this fight then you don't deserve that Pandora you have in your hands; you're a disgrace to the open-source community and all it stands for.


EDIT: My 151st post here. Too bad I don't have any Bacardi to celebrate.

 

[Cameleon]

Throughout this rant, "Sony" will refer to Sony Computer Entertainment. It is directed toward anyone who sides with said Sony Computer Entertainment in this battle.


<Big long rant about how I'm an asshole for making my own choices>


tl;dr-- if you honestly side with Sony in this fight then you don't deserve that Pandora you have in your hands; you're a disgrace to the open-source community and all it stands for.


EDIT: My 151st post here. Too bad I don't have any Bacardi to celebrate.

Yes the problem was that people were pirating games. But what everyone seems to forget is that these games cost money to make. These hard working developers have bills to pay and families to feed. It's a great idea to have a world where everything is free but thats all it is, an idea. I do not agree with piracy, what gives someone the right to say "Well someone worked hard on that and deems that the service provided, in this case entertainment, is worthy of payment. Fuck it. I want it for free, so I'm taking it." <- To me that is the asshole's view.


I do see what people can do with an open system, and I appreciate that, but once again it comes back to the real world. People whose job it is to write software for the company that employs them. The company simply MUST make money in order to keep the people working there. So the software gets a price attached to it, and if you appreciate the long hours, the late nights, the missed dates/dinners/anniversaries, etc you will be willing to pay that price and say "Yes, I support these very talented and creative people, and I want them to keep doing what they do!". Thats why I buy games, not for Sony, not for Microsoft and not for Nintendo. It's for the developers, the guys that are busting their asses working 80 hour weeks and having Mountain Dew and Quavers for dinner. I know cos I'm doing the same.


On a side note, when did everything become a basic human right? Do the starving millions in Africa get money from charities so they can do some coding? No. Tinkering with some peice of hardware is not a fucking basic human right, it is a privilege. Something that arrogant Westerners (myself included) have forgotten. As for the cavalier approach to the law, try going and shooting someone, see how little the law matters then. What is the vendetta against people wanting to be successful and make money? is it jealousy? What is with the compulsion and need to destroy? And finally as for deserving a Pandora, no one deserves a luxury item, it's the nature of the beast. I don't see myself as a disgrace to the open source community, I'm a realist. If I see worth in something, damn right I'm going to lay down my hard earned money for it and I will enjoy it's use. I'm not going to sit around and complain that closed systems exist and that not everything is open. If I see fit to use closed systems I will. I am not, and will not, be ashamed of my views. I will defend them to the death. Simply because they are my views, and I have a right to have them and to vocalise them. That is a basic human right.

 

[Jourdy288]

I simply would like to ask you something:


Why are we so hardwired to love something for being open? Something that we can slap money down for and make ours? Machinery that we aren't renting?

 

[ZXDunny]

Yes, because it's the good guys that inconvenience millions of gamers. All for an increased sense of self worth.

Anonymous attacked Sony because they felt that something had to be done to curtail Sony's awful treatment of its customers. It should be noted however that the criminals that stole all the customer data did not do it for an "increased sense of self-worth", they did it to make a shitload of money selling that info. You seem to be missing that important fact. These "hackers" as you call them do have well paying jobs - they break into companies and steal identity data. And it pays well because companies like Sony don't care about their users enough to even try to stop them.

Maybe they could try something totally off the wall, like getting jobs and not pretending that they are the frontline of freedom. They are not. They are parasites and I hope they all get exactly what is coming to them. My view...these guys are terrorists. They hacked a system with the sole intent of causing panic, terrorists, and I hope that they are punished as such. So as far as I'm concerned not the 'good' guys, they are the self-important asswipes that the world would be better without.

That all depends on your perspective. To you the anonymous group may be terrorists, but to a staggering portion of the online community they seem to be freedom-fighters. Unfortunately, all you see is that your games are no longer playable and commence with the throwing of the toys out of your pram rather than seeing that this was a desperate move by a society that has been continually dumped on by Sony for much of the past 20 years.


What was that you were saying about rights versus privilege? Sounds an awful lot like you seem to think you're somehow entitled to having a system that works... and the only reason you do not is because Sony didn't think you were important enough to protect.

I also hate the term homebrew (in the wider development community it seems to have become synonymous with piracy and 'backup' loaders).

I think you'll find that the term has only become associated with piracy because the only way to run your own software on devices you own is to break the copy protection that is built-in. Things like NDS flashcarts and PSP custom firmwares are necessary to run homebrew, but they have the unfortunate side-effect of enabling piracy while they do it. Had Nintendo or Sony implemented something like XNA on the 360, they might have seen a lot less piracy than they currently do, but they're more interested in restricting what you do with their hardware (because they can charge you for everything you want to do with it) than they are in enabling people to experiment and create what they want to create.


Isn't it a truly weird world when Microsoft comes out on top of all this?


D.

 

[Cameleon]

I simply would like to ask you something:


Why are we so hardwired to love something for being open? Something that we can slap money down for and make ours? Machinery that we aren't renting?

Because it is your choice. For each of my consoles, the agreement with the selling party is that you own the hardware. You CAN do what you want with it. The problem I am having is that no one is seemingly noting that my purchases are indeed my choice. I bought my consoles for entertainment, not for work. If I want to develop for something, I get hold of something that suits my development needs. Usually it is open, like my GP2X, like my Pandora sometimes not, my Windows PC and UDK/Unity. I buy things for the what I need/want them for, not because someone online said that Sony are bad, or Microsoft are evil. I feel that the statement AquaAnalogue's comment about me being a disgrace to the community is unwarranted. I aim to release open software for an open platform, isn't that enough? If not then sorry, tough luck but I've got a living to make. My bills don't pay themselves, and if I choose to develop closed software for closed systems for a price then that is what I will do. I love making games and I am aiming to have a successful career in doing so, developing for open platforms only goes so far. It's the closed systems that will allow me to make the money needed to hire more staff and make the game I WANT to make, not the games I NEED to make.

 

[Asiyura]

[…]
You aren't exactly guiltless in bring scorn down on yourself regarding proprietary system habits, by your own actions regardless of the actual systems of choice either. Usually this involves you trying to heap scorn on open hardware alternatives, based on complete utter nonsense that only has the legitimacy of being semi-common propaganda.

Hmm, if I bring scorn on open hardware, when please?


I bought a Pandora, I gave some (small) money to make an opensource SoC…


You should stop thinking that, because I'm using an Apple computer and enjoying it, I'm completely brainwashed, please.

No, the problem is that they made this big dramatic deal out of the original incident, had serious image backlash as a result, and basically declared war on the internet and have re-enabled their services while failing to demonstrate they've actually addressed the security issues hence the response of the Japanese government.


This wasn't some scenario where the great Fortress Sony was compromised through no fault of their own. They provoked an attack and didn't maintain their defenses meaning they realistically were little more use then a sign saying "please don't enter." They are fully responsible for maintaining their defenses, the security of the information of their customers, and for going out and picking fights. Something the Japanese government rightly believes they have failed to do and hence has bared them from re-enabling their network in Japan until this issue is addressed.


Any speculation requiring the threat of hacker organizations to magically cease to exist ultimately lies in the realm of fairy tales. They do exist, are reasonably well organized, and those facts aren't a particularly new concept.

You know, you're only rephrasing and deepening what others and I told, they didn't managed the PSN/PS3/ latest events like they should have :

Sony is at fault :


- they took away the hackers playground known as OtherOS on the PS3.


- they didn't have a serious security system (5 years old software on a server = lots of known security holes)


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