Free-download PS3 firmware behind PSN downtime?

@ supertom221 pirates create balance?? Lot of crap!

@Andy9Beans Interesting. I didn't go online since the day I hacked my PS3, 3 months ago, yet I broke the Terms of Agreement, which, fairly enough, I supposely agreed to when making a PSN account, not that I was given any choice, when it's pretty obvious no one reads that longass crap, and companies like SONY abuse it. So, I haven't been online, never made any sort of contact with the PS3 servers for the last 3 months, and yet i'm one of those responsible for the outage? Interesting indeed. May I have a more detailed as to why i'm the cause of it, if you may? :)

@Gliave While I do find the idea of Hacking as a religion rather amusing, I have to say your an idiot if you think this, really. Sorry if it offends you. If you would know hackers, you'd realize They are not urban legends, nor some super nerds. They are people like you and me. They mostly do it for the fun and satisfaction of beating SONY, and learn in the process. Kakaroto, the guy who created one of the CFWs, says himself, that he loves his PS3 and SONY and has over hundreds of PS3/2/X games, so yes, he does buy what he owns. He does it because it makes the PS3 much more capable. Look at how the iPhone Jailbreak made it 10x times better! Would you say that was bad too?? Pirates are Pirates, they will always be pirates, and quite frankly, they are needed. they create balance. If everyone would buy the games, the prices would sky-rocket, since costumers would have no choice but to pay full price for the game they so desire. Now, what I do HATE greatly, are cheaters. Cheating on SP is fine, if it makes you have more fun, like in GTA games, but not in MP. It just shows how weak and pathetic one can be, cheating his way just to win others and harm them. The massive hacks unleashed on Black Ops' online PS3 community are the one thing I hate the most about the scene. I'm not saying hackers are good people. not at all. Hackers are not evil, and they certaintly aren't good. they do it for their own satisfaction, not to please or harm others. No Grey Warden ritual here, very simple :)

@Garudyne989 Exactly! That's why sony should stop wasting their time trying to make PSN hack-proof and just give us our online back. Surely they've made enough improvements to the security by now. They're just stopping us from playing online while they make futile attempts at making PSN hack-proof.

Interesting theory... however I still don't quite understand it. IF I was a hacker... which I am not... and I will never be... I don't see what the pros would be to hack a free service; you're just screwing people over! Personally, hacking a pay service like XBL would probably get a hacker more benfits, but goshdarn this is an absolutely law-breaking crisis going on here... one for the ages LOL.

[quote="strawberry9"]@Hvac0120 Pretty boring to have an xbox with no online service... I certainly would never do it[/quote] I play a lot of single-player games. Sure I get online and it's fun when I do, but most of my time gaming is offline. Before Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 most people didn't play online. A lot of people pirating games are upgrading from those systems. It's not going to disappoint them very much to be kicked offline. Especially when they may have 60+ games copied to DVD or to the HDD on the system. Not as many people are so hung from the balls of XBL as you might think. You get your gaming fulfillment from online competition and cooperation. Pirates get their kicks simply from having access to every game the Xbox 360 has to offer and more. And those who get away with connecting pirated consoles get to enjoy XBL benefits for however long they can stay undetected.

@aFatDog Now Microsoft is warning their players about someone trying to "phish" information out of peoples accounts on Xbox Live. Seems everyone's in the fail zone these days. Everytime you try to improve security, hackers will always find a way past it. There's no stopping it.

@linkdude Yes, and then spending weeks building another fancy lock, having lock experts analyse the situation and how the lock was broken into in the first place, and not allowing anyone to use the house while they repeatedly release useless statements averting the questions the people who use the house actually want answered. Pretend sony are the house owners, and we're the ones renting it (even though PSN is free,lol) No matter what kind of lock you put on it, if someone REALLY wants to rob you, they'll find another way. I'd rather get into my house as soon as possible rather than waste time trying to postpone another unlikely but inevitable robbery... Sorry for the oversized analogy, lol

@supertom221 Don't play thick mate, I don't care what you call yourself you are one of those who are breaking the T&C's and by extension one of the people responsible for the PSN outage and loss of billing info. Now run along.

@aFatDog are you retarded? why wouldn't all the blame be placed on the hackers? if they hadnt hacked the PSN in the first place then all this wouldnt've happened. its like if a robber breaks into your house and then tells you, well its your fault for having a crappy lock.

BETTER YET JUST MAKE PS+ THE NEW SYSTEM FOR EVERYONE. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I dont give a crap. I'm not paying 60$ a year to play online for a syste I already bought. I'm playing my PC games until the PSN is back up, then back onto zombies. PS: Sony, If you gave Everyone Playstion + for a month, it'd be all good in my eyes. ^o^

@Garudyne989 I'm not saying it's only sony's fault... I'm saying that all the blame can't be placed on the hackers. I'm not trying to side with the hackers, but sony is also in the fail zone as far as i'm concerned. After a week of vague info and downtime, all they've managed to confirm is that personal info has indeed been compromised? That's ridiculous. Not to mention that they're only now giving us a time which services will be returned by, and that's "within a week", yet another vague piece of info. Sony's service to their customers as of now is appalling to say the least, and I can see this story being repeated in fanboy wars for years to come, lol.

@Garudyne989 I meant to say that to someone else i messed up by typing your name. I meant to say that to aFatDog. Sorry

@supertom221: *chuckles and shakes head wearily*....What's next Superstorm? You'll throw the old holy book of Hacker-ism at us, and tell us it's a righteous ritual which every holy hacker out there must undergo, and from which he / she returns enlightened?.. And let me guess, Neo himself shall dawn u, with the irrefutable knowledge itself?! *baptizes joy stick*..... Hahhahhooo...Come on man, don't ever try to sprinkle poop with gold, coz that just makes it exaggerated poop... Hackers, Crackers, Mackers, Slackers are bottom feeding, and that's that..

@aFatDog Why are you puting all the blame on Sony? The thing is that if the security wasn't good enough, and if no one else was causing problems for them, then they wouldn't have HAD to completely remake their security. It isn't only Sony's fault. Period.

@supertom221 - why yes... yes i am perturbed.

@luciferbelmont I am confused as to whatyou are saying, kinda. I get your drift but that's not necessarilly what I was saying, whatever it is you are saying.

Haha, sorry. Just noticed how many ppl caught up on the Biometrics talk.....That was just a figure of speech folks ;-) Though i wouldn't mind it at all *lifts pet cat to the scanner* open wiiiiiide!

Plus, if there's anything to be learned from Blizzard it's how they handled compromised accounts. They didn't shut it down, they took gradual and focused action, and now you have Battlenet and such.

@Double_Wide: Well, if you take it that literally man then obviously it's not practical. My point simply was, toughen this sucka up as much as you can, and us PS3 fans will gladly follow. I just don't get how such a breach can take place. Only can think of 2 things: 1) Someone or a group of someones are big enough or commissioned by folks big enough to do this. Or 2) Sony has a sucky online security system. Moreover, wotever the case might be. I started thinkin: Even with this compromise, why did they bring the network down? Wot good would that do if ur CC details are compromised? I'd simply keep it running if i were SONY, and kept it on the down low while hiring an investigative party to monitor the network while those hackers are at it. Additionally, simply post up on the PSN home page, that users need to be careful, that's all. But this, what justifies this unless they've lost big time already? Regardless of how much, can't be worse than shutting off millions of customers from their own network. What's going on peeoooplez?? Plus gathering the culprits' biodata isn't exactly a solution, because it's the ones that aren't caught that the problem, and freeloaders sprout faster than fungi on steaming fresh crap.

@Taegre A DDOS is something small they can Admit too, but you think Anonymous is stupid enough to admit a LOIC attack on damaging the servers and Stealing account information (which has been confirmed by sony now). This has turned into something serious. And Anonymous claim that there for the little guy has been BS since there existence. They enjoy doing this type of stuff Anonymous is terrorism on the net. If this was DDOS attack again then yeah i would agree with you that they would want the attention. But i think the last thing they want right now is to admit they did something highly illegal and get caught.

When will some people realize that we live in a capitalist world and in order to get something you must make a sacrifice of your resources.

@lowkey254 U MAD BRO?

@gobbo00 : Yes its much cheaper than it was but that hasn't been for long. It would be a bad move to do something to hike the price back up that mostly benefits Sony and not the consumer. Adding biometrics to the PS3 would mostly be in the best interest of Sony. If they were to raise the price of the console, let it be for something high in consumer demand like the PS2 backward compatiblity.

@Double_Wide "The production value for a PS3 is already high (thus the already high price)" No it's quite (very) cheap (old 5+) when you consider you can get a higher spec laptop, for around the same price (a little more). And the laptop will be marked up (alot more) for a high profit margin.

@Hvac0120 Pretty boring to have an xbox with no online service... I certainly would never do it

@fredyellowone: DDoS attacks, the only viable method Anonymous can use while remaining anonymous (hah, see what I did there?), would only slow PSN down. It couldn't cause error 80710A06. Had you actually researched what that error meant, you'd know that. Don't be biased and look at the opposing argument for once, y'know, instead of firmly believing that all hackers steal, pirate, rob and cheat. Hackers are the people that brought you Cydia and Rock to the iPhone. They're the people who allow dual-OS on a Macintosh, create homebrew and mods for games we know and love -- not to mention every WoW addon, indie repack/mod or skin. Very few and far in-between are the pirates.

@Gliave : Don't you think adding biometrical identity verification is a bit extreme? The production value for a PS3 is already high (thus the already high price), why do something to make it even more expensive? Plus, that totally violates users privacy. None of what you're implying is practical because for one, a federal database of everyone's biological identification doesn't even exist. Only those with a criminal record would be in "The System". Now, if those who were caught were required to submit their biological data and made to verify their identity every time they logged on...now you're on to something. It would make people think twice before or after they think about doing something illegal with a Sony product.

@fredyellowone not if I change the lock :P Hackers are not criminals. They don't do it for the little man either. They do it for knowledge, and spread it to others. Wouldn't it be a waste to keep it to yourself? You think Anonymous gives a crap about backfire?! What makes you think Anonymous is even a group?! Anonymous, as it's name precedes, is Anonymous. It's one, it's everyone, it's no one. Anonymous didn't say it didn't do it, AnonOps did. It could be that a single Anon or a small group of them did this out of their own will. How do all the hackers are to blame for this?

@Andy9Beans You truly are a fanboy that believes everything people tell him if you think i'm a hacker. You don't even know what a hacker is. let me instruct you a little: Hacker- One with great knowledge of Computer programming and engineering that likes to create and invade devices and other gadgets for the sake of knowledge, knowing what things are made of, or just the plain challenge in it. Cracker- Someone who cracks the security of a software or hardware, mostly for harmless reasons, but with harming consequences. Pirate- One Who gets his hands on software not freely licensed for free. Cheater- One who use the skill of a Cracker to harm others. How does this outage have anything to do with CFW users?? I haven't been online for like 3 months, ever since I installed the firmware, Like most others haven't. No one really minds either. The recent outage happened as a result of Standalone CRACKERS who decided to take the fight against SONY further. SONY decided to take down PSN, in order to put even more blame and rage by their loyal fanboys on the hackers, who did nothing wrong.

@robx360 No problem! :)

@strawberry9 FYI - When Microsoft detects pirated games on the Xbox 360 it only bans the console from Xbox Live. The system will still work and play the games, you just won't be able to play online, access the marketplace, watch netflix, et cetera. ----------------------------------------------- GeoHot knew that pirated games and PSN hacking were to follow once he released the key with failoverFl0w. They will say what legally needs to be said to protect themselves, but that is the assumption and likely truth. Yes; there are plenty of legal activities that can be done with a hacked PS3. Look at the iPhone jailbreak community. They simply provide apps that give users more options to do more with the device than Apple is willing to allow. For the most part, it is not done for pirating. The same could be said for the PS3... The problem is that gaming is an expensive hobby. Hackers can take advantage of this by creating ways to exploit the system and providing their customers a "better" and cheaper solution. Not all Hackers are bad and the "hacker" term is being blanketed when there are really several different types of hackers. The ones that do it for their own pleasure and gain typically won't mess with getting into personal information. The ones that are in it for the fame and fortune are the ones that mess with the system and don't care about what happens to the millions of people who will be affected by their actions.

@AgentRebecca more likely Kratos badassery in MK9 was too much for PSN to handle, thus it exploded.

@NColdhardt Hotz did not knew the names, or the way this was going to happen, but he did quite know that this WAS going to happen. We are talking about hackers here. What hackers do? They create software to steal, hacks, destroy, rob and cheat. They also do it for the cash, and for the fame associated with it. Hackers don't hack just for the purpose of it. Hackers are not good guys that try to protect us. they don't do it either to help us against the big corporations (ruled, by the way, by people like you and me). Hackers hack for themselves. And what is going to happen if you release the MASTER KEY of a system? Your analogy with a butterfly have nothing to do with it. I have a better one. Imagine i'm putting cyanure in ONE glass in a pub. Yes, i know that someone will drink it and die. And another thing... thant whole REBUG is just a theory that went out of the mind of a writer at PSX. He say himself that this theory is just speculation. Anonymous is still behind this. They deny it at the moment cause the backfire they got last time. but if you know where to search, youll find the the awnsers you seek. One last anology, since you like them : imagine i go at your house and do millions of duplicates of your main door's key. Take those duplicates and post them around the world with your coordinates. Don't you think someone will rob you?

@fredyellowone: So you're telling me that someone who jailbreaks software for a living (for over a year and a half) could predict PSN shutting down because some dude on the other side of the world created a CFW called REBUG? With that logic, we should also blame that butterfly in Costa Rica for that hurricane it caused on the other side of the world.

@NColdhardt "Hotz never knew this was going to happen " HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ignorance, you are killing me. Of course Hotz knew. What do you think? "Hey let's release the master code of the PS3. Nothing bad can happen of it, right?" Don't be that naive.

Something mysterious is going on, all I care for to be honest, is for PSN to come back online, so I can download Reverie and fap to it all day.

@strawberry9 And I suppose that's why, in my current country of residence, everybody under the sun who has an xbox360 uses pirated game discs from Thailand, Malaysia and China? I don't see the systems of the 100 or so people I know here who do that self destructing yet. And though I don't condone this behavior, there is not much I can do about it (before anyone tries to comment).

totally possible!!!.. and it's something Sony would want to divert another reason as why psn is down!!!!

And oh yeah, the only reason MS bent over to all those 'after-market' hackers, is that it knows that that's the best way to spread over the market, even it means taking a couple up the hoo-haa....So yes, SONY enjoys some kind of dignity despite all this crap.

Bring on retinal scans and fingerprint identification peripherals for PSN accounts i say....If those hackers are ballsy enough to make a move on SONY tech this openly and comfortably, then it means SONY needs to buff up on legal and governmental alliances....Those bastids are ruining the best piece of tech on earth, and it is so if they're hacking into it obsessively. No better proof than that.

You all really need to stop hypothesizing and talking about this until it's back up and running and we actually have something concrete to discuss.

@Mondrath you don't make any sense.... microsoft just bans whoever is committing piracy... Sony made an OS system that can't detect when its reading a pirated game, so Sony has no alternative. If you knew what Microsoft did with Hackers, you would understand why this happened to Sony. Microsoft allows anyone to jailbreak their console, as a matter of fact they don't care. But once you begin pirating games, you console basically self destructs.

@lowkey254: Blaming this on Hotz for releasing the keys is like blaming Hitler's mother for the holocaust because she gave birth to Hitler Hotz never knew this was going to happen - no one can predict the future. Also, this is merely a theory of what could have happened to the PSN.

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@Double_Wide I just want to say thank you for your reply. It is nice to read a educated response.

@barry1029 The monkeys didn't attack xbox live because MS are to cowardly to fight for their corporate rights and haven't tried to sue any of the people who contributed or still contribute to piracy on their system. Sony, on the other hand, did the right thing and tried to punish those who decided to assist piracy on their system. This upset the sensibilities of the poor monkeys. After all, How dare anyone support legal activity and denounce illegal ones? These monkeys (hackers to others) think they are above the law. Someone should do something about this.

Well, the only thing that "I" can do for now, is be patient.....(admitedly easier said than done!)

HACKERS FAILED!!!!!!!!!!!!! why? Because i will continue to support Sony. Good riddance, Geo - not - Hot and Anonymous. And run, Forest run... cause the FBI is already after you.