Anonymous Launches Attack On Sony 347
RedEaredSlider writes "The hacker collective Anonymous has made good on its threat to attack Sony, having launched a distributed denial-of-service attack on Wednesday afternoon. The attack is revenge for the legal action taken against another hacker who modified a PlayStation 3. Sony Computer Entertainment America filed suit against George Hotz, also known as Geohot. Hotz had released a firmware modification that allowed a Sony PlayStation 3 to run other operating systems. Sony had removed that functionality some months before. The suit is still pending."
I approve of these actions. (Score:2, Interesting)
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ha! that never gets old
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Or is it taboo on slashdot to make a xkcd reference without linking to the comic itself?
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Alright, here's how it's going to work. Sony will threaten Slashdot with a lawsuit unless they cough up user IPs. If Slashdot doesn't, then they'll be aiding/abetting/participating in whatever nasty Sony is trying to say has been committed. Sony has a bigger legal budget than Slashdot, so without a technically competent judge (there aren't many), Slashdot loses. Unless they turn over the IP data.
Millions spent in legal defense, or giving up an IP address, which will they choose? As a car analogy, you c
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But my IP address is not really my IP address.
I had no interest in hacking a PS3 until Sony started this attack on Geohot.
Now I've got a nice used PS3 just for that purpose. I struggled with whether or not buying a used console actually put money into Sony's hands, but I got it from a girl on Craig's list who had thrown her unemployed boyfriend out and was selling all his stuff. Fifty bucks.
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I've got a nice used PS3 just for that purpose. I struggled with whether or not buying a used console actually put money into Sony's hands, but I got it from a girl on Craig's list who had thrown her unemployed boyfriend out and was selling all his stuff. Fifty bucks.
You just admitted to knowingly purchasing stolen property (and potential conspiracy). I am not a lawyer.
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They boyfriend ran up her credit cards, so it sounds like she simply repossessed the PS3.
And judging from the looks of her, she has better ways to spend her time than playing Bayonetta. She was pretty fine for a suburban trixie.
I don't approve of the DDoS (Score:5, Insightful)
DDoS accomplishes nothing and makes those who support hacking consoles look like criminals. This is just more ammunition for Sony to use in court.
We need to get a ruling that hacking your own hardware is legal. It's not ever going to happen with these guerilla practices.
Re:I don't approve of the DDoS (Score:4, Insightful)
...and makes those who support hacking consoles look like criminals.
I disagree - to some extent - yes, they do tarnish the image, but I feel the largest amount of tarnishing comes from media ignorance, and ignorance on the part of the non-technical.
Re:I don't approve of the DDoS (Score:4, Funny)
Hmm no Sony, you check yours.
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Behaviour of Sony is not acceptable. People should boycott Sony. DDoS is also an unacceptable practice whose consequences are impossible to predict.
I condamn DDoS, but I am happy that Sony receives a punishment for its acts.
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DDoS is also an unacceptable practice whose consequences are impossible to predict.
Sigh.
The consequences are quite simple: people can't get to the website for a while, either because the traffic isn't getting there or the server just crashes. Eventually it comes back up.
"DDoS" via LOIC - where all the participants are willing (a DDoS via botnet of hijacked computers being something else because the resources to launch it are stolen resources) - is no different than:
- The Retardican/Rea Tardier "virtual marc
Why DDOS? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:Why DDOS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everyone wants a $10 off voucher for some Sony product as compensation for losing an important feature (to some).
The legal system doesn't work when going up against large corporations.
Re:Why DDOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a free market while copyright and patent monopoly laws are distorting it. Face it, the free market won't sort it out, because sony has been rendered largely immune to free market effects by government-granted imaginary property monopolies.
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I'm pretty sure Sony's argument with the PS3 relies on copyright (and more specifically, the DMCA), not patents.
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The difference is that Imaginary Property can't be owned even with force.
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Why not just avoid buying Sony products?
Sheesh! You gonna avoid the iPhone 5 [techtree.com] also?
Just stop it.. Okay? Don't be an idiot.. If you want to boycott Sony, you're gonna have to boycott everything... Maybe even toilet paper. Then you can learn what the left hand is really for..
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Maybe even toilet paper.
I know you were just kidding, but look what google found [gizmodo.com].
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Don't be ridiculous. My TP is made by by Mitsubishi, not Sony. Look for the three diamonds on the label.
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If you want to boycott Sony, you're gonna have to boycott everything
Not really. You can do it one (or a few companies) at a time. Assuming the strategy works, of course. But then again, I think I do a good enough job of giving any of these companies my money.
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Do you know they are teenage vigilantes?
How exactly is this Nazi?
Glad you like sony products and they work for you.
I won't be buying another one after 30 years as a customer of sony.
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Do you know they are teenage vigilantes?
They act like little criminal children. I doubt they are upstanding citizens.
How exactly is this Nazi?
They dont like the way a company behaves due to their own set of morals so they punish that company. This is a small group of people forcing others to their will. Bunch of freakin Nazis. Like the OP said - let the free market decide. If people dont like the company attitude then they will let them know through their purchases.
Re:Why DDOS? (Score:5, Interesting)
They're not Nazis. They're anarchist bullies. Nazis are authoritarian, totalitarian, nationalistic, socially corpratist fanatics interested in eugenics. In other words, exactly not anarchists. SCEA has a lot more in common with Nazism than Anonymous does.
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I don't know if you can really call it "organized." It's more like a mob. Somebody points in a direction and some people follow, but nobody has to and some people don't.
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they're organized which is the exact opposite of anarchy.
Spoken like someone that doesn't know what anarchy is. Anarchy at it's most basic means "Without Ruler". This does not mean that Anarchy is disorganized.
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Well, he doesn't know what Nazism is, either, so I'm not surprised. He probably doesn't understand why the Bolshevik Communists and Nazis hated each other so much, too.
Re:Why DDOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
How exactly is this Nazi?
They dont like the way a company behaves due to their own set of morals so they punish that company. This is a small group of people forcing others to their will. Bunch of freakin Nazis.
Anonymous is acting like a vigilante group, not Nazis. Enacting their revenge on Sony because they believe - and rightly so - that Sony will not be brought to task for their actions by any authority. Not enough people know about Sony's shenanigans to make a difference to their bottom line so Anonymous wants to let Sony know they are not willing to just "take it" or stand idly by as Sony persecutes GeoHot for what he did to his own hardware.
Your definition of 'Nazi' can easily be applied to local police in small communities, political groups on a national scale and even Sony's board of directors (they are punishing GeoHot because they don't like the way he behaved due to their own set of greedy, rat bastard morals). I have extended family that were killed by the Nazis - in their homes, in the war and even some in concentration camps. I must say that I am offended by your casual and ignorant use of the term 'Nazi'.
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Sony can do business as they choose, but why do they have the right to expect the government to enforce that business model with absurd interpretations of copyright law?
Let Sony compete the old fashioned way -- produce a product and sell it to people, whereupon it becomes their property to do with as they will.
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Sony can do anything they choose but once they sell me a piece of hardware, we're done doing business. I can and will do whatever the fuck I want with it. I didn't rent it. I don't care if they tried to put artificial barriers to me taking full advantage of the hardware in software. If I want to uncripple my shit to make the device more useful to me, I'll do it.
Now, should they be able to void my warranty or block me from PSN? Absolutely. THAT is covered by their right on how they can decide how they
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And we're offended by your ideological ignorance and corporatist Stockholm Syndrome, so we're even.
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You don't get it, do you? Sony isn't trying to do business in a free market economy; Sony is trying to change the rules so that actual people's physical property rights are destroyed in order to protect a virtual person's (i.e. a corporation's) virtual property rights (i.e., copyright). Sony is trying to bring about some sort of Bizarro world where individuals aren't allowed to own anything but instead are subjugated by whatever fucked-up rules the Corporate Overlord deigns to attach to the "privilege" of u
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Just because your distant relatives were involved with the German Nazi occupation nobody can use the term in any other way? Take your butthurt ass home and go fuck yourself sideways with a swastika.
Now come on - that's not what I said. Anyone can use the term 'Nazi' anyway they'd like - including pnewhook - because that's what free speech is all about (just like I can voice my offense of the trivialization of the term when someone uses it in a fashion that equates the acts of DDoS'ers to that of, say, a murder - let alone millions of them).
There are several types of governments or regimes that are "anti-capitalist" (as pnewhook later associated with Anonymous' actions) that may not allow the same f
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Just because your distant relatives were involved with the German Nazi occupation nobody can use the term in any other way?
BTW, aunts, uncles and cousins aren't 'distant relatives'. They may have died before I was born but I am old enough that they would have shared a significant portion of my life.
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Isn't there a better way to get back at Sony then DDOSing there web page?
I recommend fire -- and lots of it.
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Bit useless ddosing corporate servers (Score:2)
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But if they did that, wouldn't they need to insert trojans into the Play Station 3s to be real effective. Oh you, you can't hack them anymore. Never mind.
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This is disrupting the PSN service.
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Wouldn't it be far more effective to ddos their psn servers.
they actually did that, I had a hard time trying to login today to play online, so fuck you anonymous cowards
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And disrupt most Anonymous participant's Killzone 3 evening? I think not.
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Wouldn't this inquiry be more effective with a question mark.
That's preposterous! (Score:5, Interesting)
They dare to put offline servers owned by sony???
Don't they understand the concept of private property???
Would they like it if Sony did the same and one day decided to put a rootkit on its cds to make them difficult to copy, or issued a firmware upgrade that disables capabilities which were sold and advertised on its consoles? huh? HUH?
seriously, a boycott is safer and makes more sense. It would need to be extended to the banks that probably own sony, so it boils down to getting new hardware only when sorely needed.
Re:That's preposterous! (Score:5, Insightful)
They dare to put offline servers owned by sony???
Don't they understand the concept of private property???
Sony is preventing people from using a feature on something they own.
The people are preventing Sony from using a feature on something they own.
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*Whoosh*
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issued a firmware upgrade that disables capabilities which were sold and advertised on its consoles? huh? HUH?
Where does this idea come from? It was NEVER advertised by Sony. Sure it got mentioned on Slashdot and other geek outlets, but OtherOS was never mentioned in Sony advertisements.
Also you can always keep OtherOS by not updating your PS3.
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Sure you can keep it.
In exchange for loss of access to the online services and not playing any games released after the firmware was updated.
Major loss of functionality, either way. Also irrelevant to the general right to hack what I own.
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It was advertised at one of the E3 shows in an attempt to differentiate it from the already-released Xbox360 by showing the PS3 is more open.
It wasn't advertised on TV but it was heavily advertised on the Internet, and even Sony's own documentation [playstation.com] makes it appear that Other
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"Slipping right past them"? I'm sure that happens to some people, but even if they hear about it, will they actually care? Some of them even side with Sony.
hacker collective? (Score:2)
More like cracker collective.
Mmm, crackers. Now I just need a wine collective and a cheese collective.
Re:hacker collective? (Score:5, Funny)
Cracker collective? Isn't that like the KKK?
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I was *this* close to spitting my tea all over the keyboard. An that's not a euphemism.
Ironic if (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be sweetly ironic if hacked Play Station 3s were used as part of the attack.
Sony astroturfers out in force (Score:2, Troll)
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Condemn Sony rootkit; condemn anon DDoS -- people with intellectual integrity are astroturfers?
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Sadly, Sony will be able to use this against GeoHot, as in "all those hackers are alike, see?"
"You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike." -Hacker Manifesto
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Or truly ignorant gamers.
It's likely they aren't ignorant, just that they are just gamers. People who aren't affected by or don't care about the actions of Sony. Sure they should care - just like with the otherOS fiasco - but the fact is the vast majority of sony's customers aren't interested and forcing them to take a side on the issue is likely to go against the DDOSers.
If a service i used got DDOS'd as an attack on a company's actions that i didn't have a problem with then i'd be pretty pissed off too. Sure this could have the
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Looks like one of them made their way here!
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It really is nothing like a picket line. You can walk through a picket line and still use the store which is picketed (or the cops will break up the protest). A DDoS is more akin to picketers walking up to a shop, nailing the doors shut and punching anyone in the face that tries to enter the store.
This was not revenge for GeoHotz at all. (Score:5, Interesting)
This move by Anonymous was not an act of revenge directly related to the GeoHotz debacle at all. Everybody assumes the two are directly related, when in fact they are not.
Anonymous has taken measures against Sony because of the clear abuse of the judicial system undertaken by the company which has been bordering on the violation of the rights of US citizens. It is apparent to Anonymous that Sony has overextended their reach, and are getting away with it based on their size, power and financial status. It is a clear exploitation of the legal system by a greedy corporate entity.
While I do not agree with Anonymous' methods, their point still stands, and what they have done is an unfortunate but neccessary eye opener for large companies that think they are above the law when faced with similar circumstances.
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Except that it's drastically different than a sit-in. A sit-in, you can walk up to someone talk to them, learn their story and know who they are and what they do. That is fundamentally what a sit-in's function is: to show the human side of the people affected.
And just as importantly, if you do not agree with the sit-in you are free to walk past it and use the service you're there for. A DDoS, you are not because that store/service has been nailed shut and cannot be reached.
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The only difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is which side they're on.
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This was PRECISELY what I thought, how should it be called? We need to standarize it's use .
I'm not calling for an end of the argument, though. I found it to be an interesting point of view but this was just funny.
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I agree, when the system fails, it really *IS* up to the people to make things happen or stop things from happening when tyranny, corruption and backroom dealing are obvious and blatantly open. The US Govt have become tyrant sockpuppets for the even-more-evil corporate tyrants. Personally I'm sick of it. I'm glad a few folks did SOMETHING even if it just costs Sony a few grand.
As robotic warfare becomes mainstream, armed revolution becomes worthless because we'll be the only ones that actually die in com
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While I do not agree with Anonymous' methods, their point still stands, and what they have done is an unfortunate but neccessary eye opener for large companies that think they are above the law when faced with similar circumstances.
So you're saying that the solution to companies who believe they are above the law is to act like you're above the law yourself?
Yeah. That'll fly.
Fine with me (Score:2)
Terrible company, just terrible.
This hurts GeoHot (Score:3)
I don't own a single Sony branded product and likely never will, but this sad temper-tantrum that so-called Anonymous is throwing is doing nothing to help GeoHot and everything to hurt him. Lets not do anything, like stop buying their products or telling your friends why they shouldn't be buying them. Let's just egg their house instead!
This isn't the kind of people I want on my side during a court case of the this magnitude. DOSS attacks are for the lazy.
If that's all he did... (Score:3)
"Hotz had released a firmware modification that allowed a Sony PlayStation 3 to run other operating systems."
If that's all he did I wonder why Sony is so mad at him. It's not like he leaked their secret or anything. If he did that then I could see Sony breaking out the big legal hammer.
Or perhaps the summary is trying to paint St. George in a better light to inspire some sympathy from those who don't know better.
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If he thought that the "cellphone jailbreaking is OK" decision would protect him, that was a little naive.
You say that like it's a fact [that said ruling won't protect him] - how about we wait for the actual trial?
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If releasing the key -- which is a number derivable from public information -- is a violation of the DMCA, then the DMCA is in violation of the First Amendment.
While I'm not sure I agree with DDoSes... (Score:4, Insightful)
...they're as close to a sit-in as you can get, as far as non-violent but effective protest goes.
Often, illegal things have to be done to right wrongs, especially when the laws are written by those doing the wrongs.
(If the wrongs are severe enough, extremely illegal things may be morally OK, on the other hand. As in, using the second amendment to defend oneself against violations of rights.)
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Again, you can walk past a sit-in to use the store or service you intended if you feel inclined to. You cannot ignore a DDoS in order to access a store or service you intended to. Hence, they are exactly nothing alike whatsoever - and the only people who claim they are alike are just trying to justify what is essentially a destructive action. Sony may be assholes, but Anonymous are bigger ones.
semantics (Score:2)
Hotz=hacker
Anonymous=cracker
Summary shouldn't lump both together as hackers.
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Hotz=hacker
Anonymous=cracker
Summary shouldn't lump both together as hackers.
You have presented assumptive generalization of both Hotz and Anonymous....something about lumping together...
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How much damage? (Score:2)
I'm curious, how much damage does something like turning off PSN for 24 hours do in actual money? They had to hire a security firm so it can't just be a little bit. What variables play a role?
stupid (Score:2)
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people would only believe you if it coincides with a space shuttle launch.
Redirection on the IBtimes page (Score:2)
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Sony has for a long time sold shit. (Score:2)
Back when I wanted to buy a digital camera, I looked at a couple of competing models from Sony, Panasonic, and Canon. All of them were of the "superzoom" type, with ambitiously-specified zoom lenses.
Sony's products were loaded with features -- fancy modes, gadgets, and a shiny, sleek interface. They had the marketing campaign to back them up, too.
But their lenses ... agh. They had *horrible* chromatic aberration, that optical defect that causes different colors to not focus the same way and creates colored
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HB Gary might disagree after getting themselves pants'd then wedgied.
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It is happening. In a comment above someone posted a link to an article about it on The Inquirer and the comments are funny and sad. People are really upset that they can't play their call of duty.
A lot of the comments indicate people are suffering from a severe case of not knowing all the facts. But that shouldn't surprise anyone. They can't see the big picture and understand that their anger should be directed at Sony. I'm not saying DoSing the PSN is the best approach but it would be effective if people
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anonymous press release (Score:2)
Isn't there an anonymous press release like every 10 min? Is anyone implementing this particular one?
It'll be more effective just posting stuff about all their products are radio active now. You could make a youtube video of yourself with a geiger counter showing the radiation. You might post maps about contamination of their warehouses in Japan, conjecturing their supply chain will bring radio active products to the U.S. until 2013.
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Since the HBGary affair, and other things. There are a bunch of disgruntled hackers and an army of script kiddies. This 'campaign' seems to be more to do with the script kiddie side of things.