The Sony PlayStation Network’s massive failure and yakking-up of confidential user data, both personal and (possibly) financial, has been well documented. User names, passwords, email addresses, and other information have definitely been stolen. Financial information such as credit cards? Sony “can’t rule it out”.
Of course they can’t. Stealing data isn’t the same as stealing silverware. It’s easy to tell if the forks and spoons have been swiped – they aren’t there anymore. But data that has been stolen is still there, comfortably ensconced in its rows and tables. It might be possible for Sony to search logs and audit files and compare them with the attack vector (if they can figure it out) and conclude that no unauthorized access took place. But even if they succeeded, who would be silly enough to believe them?
Sony spyware
This isn’t the first time Sony has damaged its customers and tried first to stonewall, then to attempt a fix, then fail to do so. Six years ago, they silently planted rootkits on customers’ computers. As any good spyware distributor would, they convinced their victims that they were running benign software – or, in this case, simply listening to music they had purchased. All Sony’s victim had to do was to play a CD from Sony/BMG on a PC and cha-ching! Spyware was installed that even included phoning home to Sony servers.
Sony initially denied the findings by Mark Russinovich (Microsoft system internals guru), then confessed that it was all part of their Digital Rights Management scheme. Then they released a purported fix that was not made available directly to consumers. The fix, by the way, required installation of an ActiveX control which reported information about the user’s hardware back to Sony! Oh, and sometimes it crashed Windows.
Why would anyone trust Sony ever again? If I were looking to replace/supplement my Wii, I wouldn’t give the PlayStation a second thought. For that matter, I wouldn’t look at a Sony computer either. Who knows what they might tuck away amid the bloatware and other “features”? More DRM spyware?
