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)
Why DDOS? (Score:2, Interesting)
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:Why DDOS? (Score:0, Interesting)
Keep quietly assassinating senior sony execs until the company falls apart. Make sure to make the killings look like accidents.
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.
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.
Re:I don't approve of the DDoS (Score:1, Interesting)
DDoS accomplishes nothing and makes those who support hacking consoles look like criminals. This is just more ammunition for Sony to use in court.
No. This is totally irrelevant to the case before the court, unless they can show involvement by the plaintiff. The court does not and cannot legally weigh the "DDoS" occurring against Sony in any way, positive or negative. Courts are only allowed to consider relevant matters such as the law/findings of law, and the facts of the case. Even if the president got on public TV chastizing the PS3 hackers, the court could not consider that.
However... the DDoS is definitely illegal and barbaric. That is not how Justice works in a civilized society.
If you are harmed by Sony's actions, then do the legal thing and take them to court, or organize a boycott, protests, or other legal demonstrations against Sony.
DoS and hack attacks of any sort against Sony's network (without Sony's written permission) are illegal. And Sony should vigorously pursue the criminals performing network attacks against them, regardless of the underlying motivation, the internet will be a better place if the cowardly vigilantes who don't respect the law, justice, or the civil process, are themselves brought to answer for the crimes.