Following statement from PS3 maker, hacker group Anonymous says it will cease efforts to bring down PSN due to impact on consumers.
Over the weekend, it appeared as if Sony had attracted a powerful antagonist. Anonymous, the "hacktivist" group associated with temporarily bringing down high-profile websites such as Amazon.com and Paypal, announced its intention to exact retribution on Sony over what it deemed to be unjustified legal proceedings against George Hotz and others who released a master key for the PlayStation 3.
Shortly after the announcement, users began reporting server instability for the PlayStation Network and site outages for PlayStation.com and the PlayStation Blog. Today, Sony acknowledged these technical issues, indicating that these problems may indeed be due to an attack on its systems.
"We are currently investigating [the network instability], including the possibility of targeted behavior of an outside party," a Sony representative told GameSpot. "If this is indeed caused by such act, we want to once again thank our customers who have borne the brunt of the attack through interrupted service. Our engineers are working to restore and maintain the services, and we appreciate our customers' continued support. "
The good news for PS3 owners is that it appears as if Anonymous will be backing off its hostilities. An update to the loose-knit organization's website claims it would no longer be directing its efforts at bringing down services such as the PlayStation Network.
"Anonymous is not attacking the PSN at this time," the update reads. "Sony's official position is that the PSN is undergoing maintenance. We realize that targeting the PSN is not a good idea. We have therefore temporarily suspended our action, until a method is found that will not severely impact Sony customers."
"Anonymous is on your side, standing up for your rights," the message continues. "We are not aiming to attack customers of Sony. This attack is aimed solely at Sony, and we will try our best to not affect the gamers, as this would defeat the purpose of our actions. If we did inconvenience users, please know that this was not our goal."
The group went on to note that its campaign against Sony will continue "until we are satisfied with the outcome."
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
These socially retarded invertebrates are just doing their patriotic duty?! If this hacker group had anything to do with PSN being shut down for this long they need to be stopped. Doing all of this to make a "statement"? What you, hacker, are stating to me is "I'm selfishly attacking Sony without regard to the consumer and how it will affect them". Screw off nerds.
Poor guys are getting blamed for everything now... im sure they were even responsible for the earthquakes in Japan, just to screw with Sony... Probably Sony really screwed it all by it self, and now its blaming who ever they can... Im sure Bill Gates will now point Anon as responsible for every BlueScreen and Steve Jobs will do the same for every flash content the iPhone wont open... Stop pointing fingers and grow up, deal with it...
so if this group anonymous is attacking sony's online services interrupting my time and paid services (PS+) then i do not agree with them. there ways are vulgar and unresponsive. therefore the online site for them and there devices shall suffer the same fate. >:D anonymous, what ever you do to sony, will always hurt the customer!!!! We are know, We are gods, We never forgive, We never forget, Expect us.
@L10nH3ArT86 Ohyes you got me skippy Im trolling. fact you applied in such a manner to come to their defense shows how little you have in regards to common sense. Point blank anyone, and I mean ANYONE who brings down online servers and claims its for us, how can it be for us if we cant enjoy the online community?
Crap like this "Anonymous" is garbage, plain and simple. It CANT be justified by any means and to actually say they are about "giving our device the ability to do what its supposed to do" is entirely a line of utter BS. These kids are nothing more than a group circle jerking pansies who still reside in their parents basement at the age of 30. grow up "Anonymous" its people like yourselves that ruin online gaming. You say its "for us" yet when you bring down servers and/or websites, your HURTING us and anyone who supports your actions is no better.. morons..
Im sure that half of you guys on here showing your support for Anonymous would be in a completely different point of view if they were attacking Microsoft or your beloved PC's. Kinda sad really that these folks have got nothing better to do with their lives :/
Anonymous is making it very hard to portray hackers (and Hotz in particular) in a sympathetic light. They aren't helping matters one bit. Do they really think their actions are going to make a positive difference? Sony may be in the wrong, but so is Anonymous and as anyone's mother has told them "Two wrongs don't make a right."
I prefer people did not hack their console as I cant trust these people. Too many people hack the system for use against others or piracy. Good for Sony when they catch the people that do that to the system. I will never mod my sytem it's fine the way it is and to the butt hurt people that like to report people for having this beliefe? Get a life.
There is nothing good about hacking. If your caught modding your system then thats your own fault simply dont do it! If sony doesn't want you modding the system then dont do it as you know you will get in trouble for it. *but it's my system blah blah blah* Dont spend the money to mod a sysytem that is a condemned action they do that because more than likely people who mod it typically use it to cheat as well, even if you dont they see the potential use of that.
@penpusher lol sry for the double reply not enough char room ; p if people wonder what compells somebody to hack a system, its not much different to what compells car enthusiasts to modify their purchased products(voiding the warranty ofcoarse) some of us want more customization, look at youtube and look at some of the customized xbox's gamecubes etc... u dont hear nintendo or microsoft suing kids for unlocking the system hell there is a machine from alienware that incorporates an xbox360 into a monstrously powerfull computer price tag of 13K+ ...i only say this to show that there is demand for customizing your consoles. Which is exactly what hotz was doing, he put up his name on the login screen and customized some of the menus big whooop there... once again he is not responsible for what other people do. sony called their system unhackable in the press...uhh...dont go poking the bear or anything sony... this is no justification for lets say hacking and selling pirated games... (which hotz isnt doing) but do you really want to poke and prod the boy/girl geniuses out there in the world, essentially throwing down the gauntlet and challenging them to hack your system...
@penpusher c this is where we split opinions, hotz didnt do anything wrong by modifying a product he bought, and his use of that product didnt get in the way of others enjoyment... end of story for me... if a shop owners sells u a gun and u go kill somebody... the cops wont arrest the shop owner, just the person that used the gun. Hotz CANT and WONT in any sane judicial system be responsible for what others do with his information... he has no control of what other people do with that information, even with the best of intentions. Hotz info can be used for further malice im sure... but i can stab somebody with an ice cream cone in the eye, lifes full of possibilities, Sony cant hold Hotz responsible for what might happen... which is a myriad of events u own the ps3 after you buy it simple, in our society there are alot of rules disclaimers that companies put out etc... people dont even know that some of them are illegal and impede personal rights and wouldnt hold up in court, yet out of ignorance those who dont know obey them and consider them law, its only in landmark cases(which this is not imo) do things like this officially get sorted out. Sony if they win(which they wont) will look like a huge douche, it wont stop/slow their piracy/hacking problems at all, it will just breed smarter and better hackers... apple barked up this tree already, didnt go anywhere, they didnt deter anybody, they didnt win their lawsuit either.
@thebeachguy90 Perhaps you haven't been on PSN long? there were hackers and modders on games LONG before the Jailbreak dongle (which, incidentally, has NOTHING to do with Geohotz) came out. I realize that sony is protecting their software, and I am fine with that but do you see Nintendo or Microsoft suing people for making a hack to their system? No, you don't. they seal the leak, they ban them if they can, and they move on. the fact that sony has just targeted the closest person they can find for this mess is sad. If anyone doesn't believe me look up the jailbreak dongle on google. it has absolutely nothing to do with Hotz. He did make custom firmware for the PS3 AFTER the dongle came out, but his firmware did not allow for piracy just for homebrew apps. A modified version of his firmware was released that enabled Piracy by another party. His ORIGINAL hack, the one that he ran his mouth about way back in January or February of 2010, was supposed to give OtherOS more power, so that, in theory more sophisticated homebrew could be created, perhaps even a media player that recognized file types that were not natively supported by the PS3. A side effect of this was that this *probably* would have given way to emulators and such. Subsequently, Sony removed OOS and this WHOLE shenanigan began... I don't think that hackers should be online, NO. But what they do with their stuff OFFLINE is their busness.
While some of you may think Geohotz's rights are being violated, Sony and PS3 gamers have rights as well. Geohotz has opened the door for hackers and these hackers are ruining the fun for everyone else. It all starts with this man. He is why hackers have made a breakthrough on PS3. This will piss people off and Sony will lose customers and affect their business. No company in the world are just going to sit there and let that happen.Sony are just standing up and protecting their business. And PS3 gamers also have the right to enjoy what they have paid for.. Not how hackers enjoy it. No one likes their fun being ruined. So I'm with Sony all the way here.
Well I find it a little hard to believe that avid customers and supporters of sony would not be somewhat effected negatively with the company they support being sabotage. Sony would also gain the excuse of using sabotage as the reason they would do "this" or "that" at this incident or that apparently because of work From Anonymous. Making room to justifying incidences of below average quality a sony customer may come across that could just be a run of a mill slow down, or slow servers by claiming outside action from this group. Then again maybe I'm just talking out of my A**. I just find it unsettling there is this group acting in the desire to do what they believe is good. Yet the scene that runs through my head is of a pact of gunslingers walking through town and a store clerk like me scared sh*tless worrying what would happen if I'm to disagree and have a different belief than they desire. *Slowly goes back in Old western style Candy shop*
Anonymous is not standing up for my rights. They're standing up for their belief that they are entitled to just have whatever they want. Wait until those 14-year-olds grow up and understand the value of a dollar.
How many game consoles, tv's, vcrs, blue ray, home entertainment centers and more has annymous built - 0. And they feel they have the right to sonys product.
@celiman True enough I'll relent that point in this situation. In any event what he did was with good intentions. Sony removed the ability to use Linux software on their machines, a feature that influenced many in buying a PS3. So when they locked up that feature many people were pissed. What Geohotz or w/e his name is did, was allow people to access that feature again. Sony's being an d*** and trying to blame their inability to properly protect their most important key on Geo and trying to get millions of dollars from a guy who honestly doesn't have them. Furthermore, they're trying to make an example of him. Which obviously isn't going to work because hackers are never just going to give the thing that they're good at. Look at the music business. They spent all that time going after pirates and the only thing they succeeded in doing was giving themselves bad publicity and legal fees. So is technicality allowed to sue as they are? Probably. Should they waste their time? Probably not. The cat's out of the bag and there is nothing they can do to make it the way it was. So like I said, slap a PSN ban on him and keep on moving.
@Lord_Sesshy Well yeah, however, I didn't say what they should be shot "with". For all you know I could've meant hackers should be shot with paintball guns lol or even airsoft...
@davek1979 how can you even argue with what i said, how can Anonymous possibly claim the legal proceeding against George Hotz are unjustified they're just abusing the power they have
@SauhlGood on the assumption that the person who purchased my music didnt distribute the remix I wouldnt mind at all. But the thing is that when hotz made this "master key", as I understand it to be, he also distributed it. Although he didnt make any profit from it and obviously never meant to he has modified someone elses product and distributed the mod and now thousands of people have access to it. As if thats not bad enough this modification also has the added negative of opening the console to such things as pirating which is itself is illegal. I think sony is going for the idea of nipping it in the bud by attacking the creator (failling to keep in mind its a bit late for that now). I do agree that, although I think this law suit justified, it will fail even if sony wins. The damage has been done.
@luciferbelmont Thats nifty, and I use mine for Visual Studio, web development and graphic design... I still have no idea why you are telling us all this. No one said anything about having to use a PC solely as a game machine or that you only use yours in that way. Seriously, just stop posting to me because now its like random thoughts and its just getting creepy. So go make some music or edit some vids, have fun, I really couldn't care less.
@Phatjam98 Let me be more clearer. I use my PC as a workstation for editing videos with Avid, and making music for Reason 4. I do not use it as a gaming platform because I need the memory space. Hence I play vid games on consoles and i prefer consoles for that reason. Maybe in the future, i'll invest on gaming PC but for now i have a job to do.
Geohot claims his intent in developing the jailbreak was to simply allow homebrew software to be installed on PS3's; so that your device will do what you want it to do. But the actual IMPACT (especially in games like MW2)was hackers got a hold of patch data and completely ruined the multiplayer aspect of some games. Again, the INTENT is irrelevant because the IMPACT was that some people did measurable injury (in the legal sense) to innocent users who just wanted their PS3's to get into cheat-free public lobbies. Again, in an effort to provide a small number of users access to let their PS3's "do what they want", they prevented millions of others' machines from "doing what they wanted", which in this case was to enjoy the multiplayer aspect of a couple of great games, as Sony and Activision intended them to be played (MW and MW2). I agree with Anonymous that Sony was not justified in obtaining all the IP addresses of people who watched Geohot's videos, but because of the damage that was done as a result of Geohot's hack I have to cheer for Sony to win this legal battle because too many users' experiences were ruined by douche-bags running hacked lobbies. I didn't buy my PS3 to run some custom software on it, I'm fine with using it in ways that don't violate the EULA. And I respect anyone else's rights to violate the EULA, as long as it doesn't have a negative impact on others' experiences.
I probably wouldn't have cared as much if this hadn't prevented me from getting update data to fix my PS3. Seriously, don't they better things to do?
@Zerabp: Thanks! I do my humble best. @Decessus: Though I'm no lawyer, from what I understand, the DMCA exemption legalizing phone jailbreaking does not apply to video game consoles. The wording is very specifically aimed at "wireless telephone handsets." To my knowledge, there's no exemption that would allow Hotz to break PS3 encryption and then release the master key. His actions clearly facilitate copyright infringement. http://www.copyright.gov/1201/
@penpusher well heres the diff. imagine somebody took your music mr. penpusher purchased it legally, but remixed it and only listened to it himself, didnt sell it, didnt hold events using your music to make a profit with it, in general, didnt profit from it any other way... heres the grey area in the law, that the apples case helped set precedent in... thing is it could really go either way, but sony's legal posturing is not looking good imo...they are using hotz as a lynchpin/stopgap measure, thinking they could censor him or otherwise set an example..
It's good than honest gamers are going to be spared some hardship from these clowns but still that doesn't excuse their actions. They need to be taken down, it isn't about free speech when anyone with a internet connection can indirectly "F" with you for no reason, just because you use a particular service. Maybe I should join up so I can take down Wal-Mart, Myspace or Facebook just because I don't like how they do business..... All of this back and forth is dumb and wasteful, even if they brought down Sony what then and who next?
@ Decessus I guess it's a good thing Sony Doesn't sell it's OS separately and maintains the right to change it however they want including to detect and block your console if it's been modded from using their network which you also do not purchase.
@ maxwell97 I have never seen anyone put the situation that perfectly into context. Good job.
@maxwell97 Quote (if you understand concepts such as rights and freedom, then you understand that Sony has intellectual property rights to the PS3 hardware and software, that the US Constitution gives Congress the power and responsibility to protect Sony's ability to profit from its IP, that this was the purpose of the DMCA, and that Hotz, in helping others circumvent the PS3 security tech, is possibly in violation of the law. More importantly, you should understand that Hotz' actions are the moral equivalent of breaking into a house and stealing nothing, but then leaving the door wide open. A person who does this bears moral responsibility if a thief later comes by and robs the house. Hotz may not have pirated software, but he opened the door for others to do so, and bears moral responsibility for their actions.)EndQuoteIntellectual property rights do not extend to hardware and software that a consumer purchases. At least with regards to modding the hardware and software. This was established by the US Copyright office when Apple tried to prevent people from jailbreaking their iPhones.
"@Vengeful_Angel The problem with your argument is that you believe what Hotz did was wrong and that is why he needs to be held accountable. However, it has not been established yet that what he did was wrong. Based on what I have read of the case, Sony even knows that what he actually did (hacking into the PS3) isn't itself illegal. Sony's entire case is based on Hotz having signed up the the PSN and thus being bound by the terms of service which included provisions about messing with the hardware. However, as of right now, Sony has almost zero proof that Hotz ever had a PSN network. I'm curious, are you opposed to the idea that a person can modify their own property in anyway the wish? (Within reason of course) What exactly do you think Hotz has done wrong that he needs to be held accountable?" Decessus, hacking isn't wrong? Defying guidelines isn't wrong? Opening a gateway into piracy isn't wrong? Times have changed more than I imagined. No, I don't agree with hacking/"jailbreaking", but who's going to enforce it in peoples' home? IGN reports, "SCEA's records show that the same PS3 System was used on March 10, 2010 to create a PSN account under the user name 'blickmanic.' The IP address associated with the registration is located in Glen Rock, New Jersey, where Hotz lives," the document says." The problem with your arguement is that you didn't read enough.
seriously guys, dont mess with Sony and their legion of diehard supporters. If i ever meet any of you anonymous punks in person, i will personally mess u up because I have no hatred for Sony and its PlayStation brand of products and services. Since 1996, I have been a part of something magical with PlayStation, I have seen the rise of gaming through their vision, up from the N64 days, to the downfall of Sega Dreamcast, to the launch of Xbox360, and the emergence of a more casual-shooter friendly, gaming environment that we have today. Yes the industry has it's ups and downs and crazy fads like Guitar Hero, and the wii fad, but don't point the blame at Sony. If anything, that company has allowed my generation to grow up alongside videogaming. They entertained me back when Crash Bandicoot was king, now I'm watching Tron in 3d and rocking it out with Nathan Drake online. It just keeps getting better and better with PlayStation. Don't hate the best in the business. It just makes you look like chumps. I mean they don't even charge for online multiplayer on PSN. What is your beef? Look if you are too cheap to buy a frickin videogame, then stay away from console gaming, and go back to ripping off cheap PC games that suck and will never end up on my beloved PS3 console, it's worked for years that way, and it will cause u alot less legal trouble in the long run. So again, please, don't mess with Sony.
@nickery123 Quote (it seems a weak reason to spend 600 dollars for a launch ps3 really if this was all that you really aimed to do you could have upgraded your own pc. Hackers are responsible for this and the removal of the Other OS in every way. I think your ill placed faith in these hackers will not last long just read some of the smart things people have posted here. Hacking doesn't make you cool, doesn't make you a genius, it makes you an a**hole because you are exploiting the system for your personal gain. I'd like to meet the person who does it for their enjoyment because they'd be somebody with absolutely no life whatsoever. Don't support hackers, it makes you just as bad as them and gives them the false idea that people support and tolerate this stupid c***.)EndQuoteLast year the Air Force completed building a supercomputer that clustered 1,760 PS3's. Why did they do this? Because comparable technology would have cost the Air Force about $10,000 per unit. The entire project cost about 5-10% the cost of building the system with off-the-shelf parts.The Playstation 3 supercomputer also consumes about 10% of the power that a comparable supercomputer consumes. They use the older PS3's because the new versions do not support Linux.http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html
@tyco_ex: if you understand concepts such as rights and freedom, then you understand that Sony has intellectual property rights to the PS3 hardware and software, that the US Constitution gives Congress the power and responsibility to protect Sony's ability to profit from its IP, that this was the purpose of the DMCA, and that Hotz, in helping others circumvent the PS3 security tech, is possibly in violation of the law. More importantly, you should understand that Hotz' actions are the moral equivalent of breaking into a house and stealing nothing, but then leaving the door wide open. A person who does this bears moral responsibility if a thief later comes by and robs the house. Hotz may not have pirated software, but he opened the door for others to do so, and bears moral responsibility for their actions.
Sony have deep pockets and I'm sure they will use them until they "are satisfied with the outcome".
Hacking is for pansies! Why can't they just settle it with a round of Street Fighter? ...thats how real nerds do battle.
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