Sony Sued For PlayStation Network Data Breach 404
suraj.sun writes "Like clockwork, the first lawsuit resulting from the security breach of the personal data of more than 75 million Sony PlayStation Network customers has been filed. The suit was filed today on behalf of Kristopher Johns, 36, of Birmingham, Ala., in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Johns accuses Sony of not taking 'reasonable care to protect, encrypt, and secure the private and sensitive data of its users.' He also believes Sony took too long to notify him and other customers that their personal information had been exposed. Because of that, the complaint alleges, Sony did not allow its customers 'to make an informed decision as to whether to change credit card numbers, close the exposed accounts, check their credit reports, or take other mitigating actions.'"
So it begins... (Score:2, Funny)
the great battle of our time...
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A handful of lawyers will get rich. The only thing you might get is some credit monitoring out of it.
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Which would probably be extremely beneficial considering what information got stolen.
He got notified? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, I know how this is going to turn out. There will be a class-action suit in which Sony is fined heavily. But the vast majority of the money will go to some shark lawyer, and the only thing the people affected by this will receive is a free 1-month subscription to PSN+. Actually, I'll be surprised if they even give us that much.
If this DOES go class-action, I will definitely be on the lookout for my notice to opt out. If I see any erroneous charges on my card stemming from this massive amount of incompetence, I want to retain my full legal right to bring my own suit against Sony where they will be required to provide me with credit monitoring and credit fraud protection. I'm sorry, but a boilerplate "we're sorry" and some token gesture are NOT going to cut it here.
Re:He got notified? (Score:5, Funny)
I still have yet to hear a single word out of Sony. Had I not seen the Playstation Blog post, I would have known NOTHING about the severity of this issue until it hit all the major news outlets.
Indeed. On the blog, I noticed some apologist in the comment section trying to defend Sony by saying that it takes a long time to send 77 million emails. Tell that to a spammer, I thought.
Re:He got notified? (Score:5, Informative)
Not the AC, but here was my email
Valued PlayStation(R)Network/Qriocity Customer:
We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011,
certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account
information was compromised in connection with an illegal and
unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this
intrusion, we have:
1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full
and complete investigation into what happened; and
3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our
network infrastructure by rebuilding our system to provide you
with greater protection of your personal information.
We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill
as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and
efficiently as practicable.
Although we are still investigating the details of this incident,
we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following
information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country,
email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login,
and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data,
including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip),
and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may
have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your
dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have
been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit
card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have
provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity,
out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit
card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have
been obtained.
For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email,
telephone and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive
information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email,
asking for your credit card number, social security number or other
personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information,
you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation
Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that
you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation
Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or
accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them as well.
To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we
encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and
to monitor your credit reports. We are providing the following information
for those who wish to consider it:
- U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually
from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report,
visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.
- We have also provided names and contact information for the three major U.S.
credit bureaus below. At no charge, U.S. residents can have these credit bureaus
place a "fraud alert" on your file that alerts creditors to take additional steps
to verify your identity prior to granting credit in your name. This service can
make it more difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however,
that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you,
it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your
identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the others
are notified to place fraud alerts on your file. Should you wish to place a
fraud alert, or should you have any questions regarding your credit report,
please contact any one of the agencies listed below:
Ex
Re:He got notified? (Score:4, Interesting)
Definitely. I'd love to see Sony deal with 77M suits in small-claims court.
At $500 per suit, that would be something like $38B.
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Re:He got notified? (Score:4, Informative)
It *needs* to happen. And happen big. Maybe after Sony files for bankruptcy, investors in other companies will start asking the CIO to ensure security at any cost.
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investors in other companies will start asking the CIO to ensure security at any cost
Really? Any cost? There is no such thing as a completely secure network or computer (that provides a usable amount of capability) and getting to a high level can be very, very expensive. Are you willing to give up e-commerce? The ability to get government services online? Your gmail accounts? (Google, after all, quite publicly got hacked, yet you continue to use them.)
Are you prepared to pay three, four, five, ten times
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Don't want to lose money as an investor? Sell you shares for this shitty corporation. Don't want to lose your job? Don't work for corporate douche-bags with shitty ethics. Shit's simple, huh? ;)
I'd say simplistic, not simple. What does the guy putting together headphones know whether or not the PSN security guys are hashing the passwords? I don't really understand it, and I'm here. With a corporation even a tenth of the size of sony, it's unlikely that every employee and investor to know what liabilities every other employee is or is not opening the company up to and thereby risking their jobs.
It's not like these guys were working for "Child molesting inc," the ethic violations here, if any,
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If you're company is not that big, take a clue from the corporate culture which is usually used to sell a potential employee - "we're sure you'll love it here, as our c
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Maybe it's possible to work in one division of a major corporation and have no idea what the other divisions are doing.
MAYBE it's possible? My friend, you have clearly never worked at even a mid-sized company, let alone a big one.
My previous employer had about 200 employees scattered across three cities. People in my department had never met and had absolutely no idea who various other employees were or what they were doing, let alone having any authority over the choices they made. Now I work for a company that has more employees than there are residents in the city of Madison, Wisconsin. I have no more knowledge of what a
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Thats the risk the investors took. Don't like? Invest in more reputable companies.
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Sony cut corners -- some executive decided NOT to invest in proper security measures
Then sue the executives.
You realize that Sony's _ENTIRE_ gaming division operates at a NET LOSS, right?
Gee, how did I miss that in school?
Sony makes its money in the FINANCIAL SECTOR and subsidizes its gaming business. This lawsuit (even if it's in the billions) will NOT bring Sony down. So some research about the background of the company, before posting BS like this again... Thanks.
I'm not sure how "Sony's gaming division loses money all the time" translates into "Sony's gaming division losing billions more than usual cannot possibly harm the rest of sony."
By the way, relax a little. Why are you that upset about someone being ignorant of the intricacies of Sony's corporate structure?
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I've just received my notice. What took time was the translation/localization to french, probably.
It's still unacceptable, but at least I received it.
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Apparently that doesn't take as long as the U.S. localization and translation into English required for mine, which has still not materialized.
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Heh. Just got the Dutch notification, too. It says data was 'compressed' and more crap like that. Seems they can't even be bothered to get proper translators.
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Dear Mr. Anonymous Coward,
We at Sony are deeply sorry for the worry and risk to your financial security we have caused. We are committed to fix our errors and making financial settlements. Please click on the link below and provide your bank account number so that we may deposit the amount of $11,000.
http://stupidpsnusers.russianmafia.ru/stealyourbankinginfo.php [russianmafia.ru]
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Hello, this is Somy Nigerian ofice. Please provide us with your banking details so you can receive you compensation. Don't beliv other claims we're the reel somy.
E-mail from Sony... (Score:2)
I got this e-mail from Sony [playstation.com] this morning. A little late, perhaps? <sarcasm>
Though here's a question: How many other companies have the backbone to own up quite so readily, instead of trying to cover it up to save face?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend Sony (after all, it seems thay they're finally getting help to make their system more secure, implying that their efforts were not solid enough to start with). But what I am saying is that I generally don't trust businesses to keep secure pe
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Ugghh! (Score:2)
Here's to sinking Sony's battleship (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Here's to sinking Sony's battleship (Score:5, Funny)
Incoming. (Score:2)
46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4
I intend to be elsewhere when the 70 million PSN account holders get a real live geek within their sights.
It is not going to be pretty.
Not to mention the money and firepower backing up those who sell products and services through PSN -
and the banks who finance and service the transactions. They too will be out for blood.
DRM anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
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...dont need to get up off the couch to get their credit card
Doesn't everyone here remember their credit card number anyway? It's 2 phone numbers. I guess if you have multiple credit cards it could be an issue, but doing so must have saved me literally tens of minutes.
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually I just got a notifaction from Sony abou this today.
And According to this http://vgn365.com/2011/04/26/psn-users-reporting-hundred-of-dollars-stolen-from-them/
The CC's are already in the wild.
I know Visa is aware of the issue. They have reissued me a new card based on this information.
So yea it could go somewere
Check your EULA... you probably can't sue (Score:3, Insightful)
Our wonderful, conservative-activist Supreme Court just ruled today that any company may stick a line in their EULA stating that by using their product, you forfeit the right to sue, and must instead use a private arbiter of the corporation's choice. They based this decision on a 90 year old law that was written to cover maritime shipping disputes.
Of course, since most contracts these days state that the corporation has the right to change the terms at any time without notice, this basically means that you can no longer sue a company that you've entered into a contract with.
Still think you have rights? Not as long as a Republican holds office!
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Um, you completely don't understand this. Arbitration is a long-standing method of settling a dispute between parties. It is extremely common in Professional Services engagement agreements, and it is also very common in other service agreements. I'm quite sure almost every agreement you sign for internet, phone, electricity, cable TV, etc also includes arbitration language.
Arbitration is a good thing. It allows small matters to be handled quickly, less expensively, and without mucking up our already c
Re:Check your EULA... you probably can't sue (Score:5, Informative)
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If by "go to the business" you mean the customer was charged $30.22 extra, and the business offered $30.22 credit, and the customer wanted arbitration, and the arbitrator decided on $30.22, then yes, I stand by his statement.
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Arbitration works well between equals, or those who have equal exposure, and in highly technical disputes like proifessional services where a jury of one's peers would be hard to find.
That relationship does not hold for an individual customer against a company that is larger than most nations, and controls vast resources.
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Our wonderful, conservative-activist Supreme Court just ruled today that any company may stick a line in their EULA stating that by using their product, you forfeit the right to sue, and must instead use a private arbiter of the corporation's choice.
Not true, actually. They ruled [npr.org] that customers that have signed a contract with a clause to that effect are bound to it. AFAIK, there is no settled case law saying that a shrinkwrap EULA is equivalent to a valid, signed contract.
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Keep telling yourself that. The Supremes just ruled otherwise, and their opinion is the one that counts.
Are the grounds for this lawsuit even valid? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, something not right here.
PSN is free, so it's hard to imagine how anyone is entitled to any compensation there unless it's through a goodwill gesture by Sony (which they definitely should do).
No proof yet any credit cards have actually been compromised. And before you all get puffy and worked up, literally, NO PROOF of any CC problems that can be linked to the PSN breach have been proven (yet).
There's no way the banks would allow Sony to have access to CC accounts without being regularly audited, never heard of any problems there. So I would think it's safe to assume they've been following safe business practices or else we would have heard something by now.
According to latest reports, Sony reported the possibility of account & CC details being compromised a little over a day after they found out. Difficult to claim that's an egregious length of time given the circumstances.
With all that plus the fact that it's common knowledge that Sony has been repeatedly targeted by hackers and thieves out of revenge for Sony having the audacity to protect their network and customers, this lawsuit is going to have a very difficult time making any headway.
So what is exactly this lawsuit about? Since this originates in the US (the most litigious country in the world) I say it's just more ambulance chasing i.e. business as usual.
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PSN is free. The multi-player game that doesn't work at all if PSN is down isn't.
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On top of that, there is zero liability, generally, for fraudulent credit card transactions, and they didn't have enough data for real identity theft.
Card numbers getting stolen are a pain in the ass, but I've never seen anywhere liable for anything more than once in a while paying for a year of credit monitoring service or something.
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they didn't have enough data for real identity theft
Well, no, they didn't have full DNA samples, photographs of all scars and tattoos and a voiceprint to enable full replication.
I guess it's lucky that they can't do too much damage with name, address, date of birth, security question answers and credit card details.
Care to share yours?
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1) PSN is free, but that doesn't mean anything. The information I've given Sony have been given in the assumption that they would be kept with a modicum of safety. This was obviously not the case. It's even worse if the credit cards have indeed been compromised, in which case monetary compensation is far from being out of the question.
2) Reported a day after, where? I'm sorry, but saying it somewhere on the internet doesn't count. If you don't contact your customers on agreed-upon areas (email is the sole o
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> PSN is free
Playstation Plus isn't.
> NO PROOF of any CC problems that can be linked to the PSN breach
Pretty hard to prove in the best of cases. You could just as easily go the other way and have Sony prove someone else leaked the card. You'd need to track down the source of the fraudulent charges and keep tracking right to the source in both cases.
> no way the banks would allow [...] without being regularly audited
Are you really suggesting that banks audit their corporate customers' software, on a
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Look at the Davidson data breach class action lawsuit [topclassactions.com] for a case extremely similar to this one. There's also the (still pending as far as I can tell) Citizens Financial Bank [chicagobus...erblog.com] breach case. Not following the standards of the industry for securing this sort of data can absolutely lead to a class action settlement, even if there is no hard written security standard.
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Dont class action (Score:2)
Sue the crap out of them and be rich, otherwise you'll just probably end up with free X days the service was down, and your lawyer will be rich instead.
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If you get some money, that's just frosting on the cake.
Re:not taking reasonable care (Score:4, Insightful)
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When I had a convertable, I used to leave it unlocked. This way if they were going to break in, at least I wouldnt need to buy a new top.
Re:not taking reasonable care (Score:5, Funny)
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dammit, i need modpoints. the long weekend made mine expire.
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Smart man. I leave my car unlocked too so the crack-heads can just take the $1.27 from my ashtray and save me the trouble of buying a new car window every time I park out on the street.
Problem here is, it wasn't Sony's $1.27 that was lost. It was my stuff lost, and 77 million other people..... The biggest problem of all is that Sony did not alert their customers in a timely manner. Fuck Sony.
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Nominated for this week's dumbest comment. A closed window is a deterrent. An open window is an invitation.
This is incorrect. This is the same argument used to lull people into a false sense of security that is used to sell "The Club" for auto security. Back in the 90's I had a number of car stereos stolen, very high end equipment, highly prized by crooks. Both were stolen from fully secured vehicles. After the second one, I talked to the installer of the third, who also sold car alarms and other security devices. His advice was to leave the doors unlocked and have insurance. Breaking into a car, or a home
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Good luck getting insurance companies to pay out if you left the car unlocked, though.
It may not be the way that a lot of thieves operate, but you can bet your arse that your insurer won't have a problem denying you a payout if you left your car unlocked.
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He has a point, though: leave the door ajar. It'll save you the cost of replacing a window *and* it saves on shark food for the tank under the trapdoor in the hallway.
What do you mean, you don't have a trapdoored shark tank as part of your alarm system ?
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"For starters, they transmitted CC numbers in plain text over the Internet."
No they didn't.
They transmitted CC numbers over SSL over the internet, and some dipshit reinvented the wheel and "discovered" that he could spoof a cert on his own system and decrypt his own data, then he started claiming the info was sent unencrypted, and people like you read the headlines and started making the same claim everywhere else.
Sony is an absolute shitfuck of a company (to coin a phrase), but you can't claim this one wit
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Thank you Mr. Armchair Expert!
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The problem is that it is never a "well funded crime kingpin" and most often a 15-30 year old or an (ex) employee that noticed some gaping, obvious security flaw. Data breaches like this are rarely the work of huge "cyber gangs" and mostly the work of individuals who noticed some huge flaw that Sony had. The crime kingpins wouldn't bother with something like this because it is a whole lot easier to sell botnets with 3nl@rg3 y0ur p3n15 spam.
Twenty years ago you may have been right, but these days botnets are a multi-million dollar operation, underground black markets sell botnet time just like Amazon sells computer cycles, and cyber-gangs sell credit card numbers for a few dollars a pop. Cracking isn't the sole province of bored kids typing away from their parents' basement anymore; it's an industry, staffed by professionals.
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That was the point wasn't it? Crime kingpins aren't bothering with this stuff because they're too busy expanding their botnets.
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> underground black markets sell botnet time just like Amazon sells computer cycles
One might even go so far as to think Amazon got the idea there.
Re:not taking reasonable care (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure I buy that first part, given that no online service is ever going to be 100% secure.
Reasonable care would imply robustly isolating transaction processing systems and user accessible systems from systems that store primary account numbers such as credit card/bank account numbers from online/public access systems such as the internet, or the playstation network.
Reasonable care would include complying with PCI requirements, relating to auditing, security practices, separation of computer systems by role, and enforcing strong unique access credentials for users and systems.
So that a compromise of the publicly accessible network cannot lead to compromise of the account numbers.
This is highly doable. The only commands/services the PSN/publicly accessible servers need from account servers is a command to "add a new account number" to the database linked to a certain customer, a command to "erase an account number", a command to list privacy-filtered summary to display a 'delete' user interface, and a command "authorize/charge a transaction to account number" (without revealing what the number actually is to the transaction processing server).
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Yes and no. Being an Xbox Live player (hate to say this cause its MS we are talking about) but you can enjoy gaming without the posibility for account Hijacking. The only real problems Live has is people boosting the game.
PS on the otherhad, first off its a free service, 2nd it's continually having Script kiddes hack the game steal accounts. In fact I don't think I have ever met a single PS player that hasnt had their game hacked, messed with, or account stolen.
It seem's lose in the article (because there i
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Being an Xbox Live player (hate to say this cause its MS we are talking about) but you can enjoy gaming without the posibility for account Hijacking.
That's actually not true. XBL support has a notoriously bad track record when it comes to social engineering and giving away your account details to attackers. There were quite a few articles about it a few years back (here's one from a quick search [mtv.com]). I think it's actually more of a threat since a valid credit card is required for XBL Gold accounts.
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Aside from the ethics behind boosting, nothing really. I agree with you on that Sony needs to be pulled into line regarding this. I know so many clueless 15 year olds that habitually steal PS accounts.
PCI isn't even going to come into play here which is quite astonishing. The upset consumer going for the cash grab wont be the issue. It will be Mastercard and Visa.
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Well, storing the passwords in plaintext rather than hashed seems to me like a fundamental breach of any rational standard of care.
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"salting is a bit overrated... If they have access to your machine they know what salt you've done, leaving you vulnerable to brute force attacks."
Sure, but it throws off rainbow tables nicely. Adding a little something into the mix that means any pre-computed list of hashes on the top billion or so obvious alphanumeric passwords is now useless, as we've stuffed in some binary crap. Brute force is now the only option, where before we could potentially break all the passwords using a single pre-executed brut
Transaction servers should be write-only (Score:2, Informative)
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Now his bank and the payment card industry should be the ones taking the strongest stance against Sony; since it's the banks that most immediately bear the cost of fraud (due to policy of $0 liability for unauthorized account use; once the account owner identifies the transactions as fraudulent).
The banks won't lose a cent. They will turn around and charge all of that fraud back to the merchants who accepted the charges.
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Re:They sat on it for a week... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even someone who has your personal information for a few hours can cause havoc in your life, let alone for an entire week.
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This is gross hyperbole. 77million accounts were compromised but that many people didn't have credit card information on there. A generous estimate would be 10% of accounts had CC information saved. Delusions of Grandeur
Attempts to estimate the impact:
Assuming a USD1000 in CC fraud for each CC: 10% x 77 mils x USD1000 = USD7700 - to be supported by either the owners of CC or CC companies;
Assuming a 10 mins per "support call" to change the card: 10% x 77 mils x 10 mins > 160.000 men*days.
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Yeah, so, they'll get a fine to offer affected customers a free downloadable game right? So what, they're just Custopeons.
But if you copy their game first, you're going DOWN terrorist!!
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Also a good idea to not use real names and push credit card companies to develop a system of one-time tokens that are only good for a single buyer-seller relationship ( or even for a single translation ) so that the stolen information has little value.
Re:Good FUCKING Grief... (Score:4, Insightful)
In a country where corporations like Sony effectively own lawmakers, criminal remedies are impossible. Civil cases involving "lawyer whores" are the only recourse allowed (short of vigilantism).
Re:Class Action (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, I don't think you actually read that document. That opinion had absolutely nothing to do with Products or Services, and it doesn't disable class status for lawsuits. It states that an arbitration agreement that disallows class arbitration is allowable. Basically, if you sign away your right to arbitration by class action, that is valid, and you can't later invoke class-wide arbitration.
Lots of misinformation around here sometimes.
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Which means every contract consumers will deal with just had that clause added.
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Not quite.
I just gave the decision a once over and it only states that binding arbitration clauses in agreements can bar class action claims.
You can still sue for tort or other claims that are not the subject of such agreement.
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Unfortunately, yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that one can not seek Class Action status for cases involving Products or Services. See AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION, Slip Opinion No. 09–893 (PDF) [supremecourt.gov]
So that's why Sony waited a week...
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Unfortunately, yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that one can not seek Class Action status for cases involving Products or Services.
See AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION, Slip Opinion No. 09–893 (PDF) [supremecourt.gov]
You think this is a bad thing?!
Hell yes it's a bad thing! When a large corporation can use a shrink-wrap EULA to force you into binding arbitration (read: a "court" they have literally bought and paid for), you will never again see that corporation bother with proper customer service. Remember, according to Sony you don't actually own your PS3; by signing up for the PSN, you are effectively renting that machine from Sony. From here on out, the customer is always wrong: our kangaroo court says so!
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Given that Sony simply imported the data from one "child" company to another I don't expect that the owner of the company matters. It interests me that by closing the service on one company and opening it on another (along with a completely new TOS), would clauses regarding forcing a customer to use arbitration then be rendered void? The EULA is a legal document which supposedly forms a contract between one party and another; by failing to continue to provide service on the original company sony has breac
Not a lick of sense. (Score:2)
Sony seems to have taken over as the current best example of "Evil Large Corporation" in the public eye
It isn't Sony getting its reputation blackened. It is Anonymous, the geek, the cheat, the thief and the hacker, which the public sees as all of one kind.
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Usually I am against the rampant lawsuits over hot coffee and anything else the shills can think of, but this is one I am in favor of.
Sony seems to have taken over as the current best example of "Evil Large Corporation" in the public eye, and deservedly so.
You must be confused, I haven't seen Sony behave in an evil way that is at all dissimilar to the other evil companies (MS, Apple, Nintendo, etc). So why should they be given the title of "best example of ELC".
Apple and Sony both sell devices whose firmware was jailbroken. Both jailbreak methods were made available through significant contributions from George Hotz. One of them brought Hotz to court. Guess Who.
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And your credit card has been used to launder money by buying child porn and the FBI is about to knock on your door and destroy your life.
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Sony as an example of quality?
Are you trolling us?
Sony hardware is just as good quality-wise as the rest; only their prices are quite a bit above.
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Sony hardware is just as good quality-wise as the rest; only their prices are quite a bit above.
These days. Back in the days of the green power button, you could count on Sony to produce a pretty darn good product that was at least as good as any other competitor.
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Of course they wouldn't. This is Sony. They have their own non-ASCII, non-unicode, propitiatory format for storing text.
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That's just retarded, really? Why is Slashdot so full of trolling anti-Sony's? Have you ever been a systems administrator? It takes time and effort to actually detect and then judge the severity of a given attack. One week does not seem like a big deal from -woops we have a big problem- to sending out a formal acknowledgement of the issue. Hell, it would take at LEAST 1 day for a Sony rep to officially write up the disclosure in legally tin foil jargon and probably another for the notice to be translated in