Patterico's Pontifications

5/14/2011

PSA: Rolling Restoration of the Playstation Network in Progress

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 7:32 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Mine might be working for me (I am installing a required system update now) and yours might be, too.  Joystiq has the details, but it’s not in every region yet.  Here is a handy rollout map for United States users.

As this comes back, Playstation needs to mend fences with its customers, but we should also remember that this was the result of criminal misconduct.  I am not certain if Sony did enough to prevent this, but on some level you can never truly do enough to prevent all such attacks.

———–

And in tangentially related news, I went through exactly the same verification procedure with my Gmail as Patrick reported.  I’ll post my thoughts in a comment on that thread.

Update: I spoke too soon.  I updated the firmware, but I still can’t sign in.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

21 Responses to “PSA: Rolling Restoration of the Playstation Network in Progress”

  1. Originally, I gave Sony a lot of slack. They were the victim of a major series of organized crimes with a minor terrorism aspect (we’ll get you if you cross us).

    But this delay was completely unacceptable. The point some have offered that this attitude of ‘you didn’t pay for it anyway’ may have lessened the urgency has occurred to me, though I think Sony actually was rushing as much as possible (they must have lost a fortune with their store shut down).

    I’d like to know more about what they had to change, and why it took so long, but regardless, this delay has been absurd.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  2. btw, they note you can update your firmware before the servers come up in your region. The download servers are different from the PSN servers. That’s also true for game updates.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  3. I’ somewhere in Sony’s Terms of Service it says they aren’t responsible for any of this.

    So we should never criticize them. Just ask people like Beldar.

    Val Hollah (39846a)

  4. That should read:

    I’m sure somewhere in Sony’s Terms of Service it says they aren’t responsible for any of this.

    So we should never criticize them. Just ask people like Beldar.

    Val Hollah (39846a)

  5. Val Holla is a perfect 3 for 3. Cock in every comment.

    JD (395555)

  6. Dustin –
    my husband is big on computer security (it is a large part of his job) and he’s actually impressed with Sony being WILLING to shut down this long and actually fix the problem, instead of the more standard business response of “slap a band-aid on and hope they don’t figure out how to get in again too soon.”

    Sony is doing what they’ve done before– do the smart business choice and hope that their customers are smart enough to accept that doing a real job takes a long time.

    (I must admit, I’m rather impressed with the amount of comp stuff they’re giving in the games– if I didn’t know EQII would be a laggy mad house right now, I’d be there instead of reading blogs!)

    Foxfier (24dddb)

  7. Foxfire, I agree that pulling the network was a good business decision. However, nearly every moment since then they have made the entire affair a complete pooch-screw.

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  8. Foxfier, that’s probably a wiser attitude than I have about it.

    If that’s what Sony’s done… made sure they got it right even though it’s a public relations nightmare, and very costly, then good for them.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  9. I assume Scott’s referring to the slow rate of giving out info.

    There were a lot of claims about the PSN breach that needed to be cleared up. Some were saying credit card numbers weren’t encrypted, or people were offering to sell Sony private data they downloaded. It took Sony a while to explain that wasn’t true.

    PS3 is still a great console, and I’m sure this will be resolved. I think Foxfier’s comparison to a bandaid approach reminds me of why I’m always having to repatch my Microsoft products, and why their products suffer from a lot of viruses and piracy.

    It remains to be seen if Sony really did fundamentally fix the problem.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  10. btw, they are definitely starting to bring it back in some areas. but still not all.

    Aaron Worthing (73a7ea)

  11. It took Sony a while to explain that wasn’t true.

    Well, it wasn’t exactly true for the PSN hack. The SOE hack, it looks like it was…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  12. Well, it wasn’t exactly true for the PSN hack.

    It was completely wrong, actually.
    =

    The SOE hack, it looks like it was…

    Yeah, that’s huge.

    There’s really no way around it. Sony screwed up their security. I’d like to say anyone could get hacked, but this is ridiculous.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  13. They’ve finally (as of tonight) allowed special characters in their EQII password– I’m not sure about any of their other password protected services.

    I nagged Elf for better details, and he says that his never-looked-at-their-internal-workings guess is that a decade ago, they had decent security, and they’ve just been too big to do a real fix on security. (I cut out about fifteen minutes of ‘this is only a guess’ type stuff.)
    Sony has been HUGE for a very long time, and security takes a long time to construct– updating can take even longer.

    Microsoft’s approach is a good example of bandaid, although for a totally different reason– they’re designed to interface with so many things it numbs my mind, while Sony has a much more limited number of programs to balance; OTOH, Sony has a heck of a lot more individual connections to deal with, and Microsoft can limit that greatly on PCs.

    I think of it, assuming Sony did what I believe they did, as moving into a gated community and having decent locks when before you lived in a once-nice place where a lot of the windows are suddenly sprouting bars….

    Foxfier (24dddb)

  14. fyi, its back for real for me and according to that rollout map, pretty much all of north america.

    Aaron Worthing (73a7ea)

  15. I really hope Sony figures out exactly who did this…and publicly releases their names so that they get a taste of their own medicine from all the PS3 gamer/hacker geeks who couldn’t play Black Ops for the last few weeks.

    CliveStaples (92c3a5)

  16. Amen, Clives.

    I hope Sony gives us whatever information they get on who was behind this.

    Unfortunately, some of the hackers who have been on Sony’s case are pretty knowledgeable. I’m not so knowledgeable, and I would know to remotely access a botnet via an unsecured wifi hotspot. It could be pretty tough to pin this on anyone.

    When Sony does ID one of these ‘hacker’ douches, like George Hotz (who enabled piracy and publicized how) they need to go after them as hard as possible. Every single time.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  17. I’m happy to say it’s working well for me. The store isn’t open yet, though. Still, free online gaming and free demos and all that are a nice advantage to the PS3. It’s a shame hackers ruined that for everyone for a little while. A lot of people really enjoy the service.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  18. Dustin

    personally i am hoping that whoever did this will be hacked themselves… and by “hacked” i mean “forced to be a guy’s girlfriend in prison.”

    i will quibble on one thing.

    PSN is not a free service. we paid for it by buying our system. Or your wife did when she bought you yours, you lucky dog. 🙂

    its important to have the right mindset when dealing with sony. they aren’t doing you a favor by putting this network up. they were giving you what you paid for.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  19. PSN is not a free service. we paid for it by buying our system.

    Good point. I do like that it’s rolled into the initial cost, but you’re right. This is what PS3 owners paid for, and Sony isn’t doing me a favor getting things rolling again.

    [fixed the formatting. –Aaron]

    Dustin (c16eca)


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