Responses to PSN Debacle

This post comes out of a twitter conversation with Ben Kuchera (@BenKuchera), Courtney Stanton (@kirbyBits) and Dennis Scimeca (@DennisScimeca) and myself (@insomniac2846) Since twitter isn't the best form of having a deep dialogue I started this post for long-form responses to the PSN debacle.

victim - : one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent (from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/victim)

Do I think Sony screwed up? Yes. Did they conduct practices that made them a targrt of hackers? Yes. Are there some seemingly big flaws in their security? Definitely. But I've yet to see the press talk about how Sony is still a victim.

Yes, I'll think twice about trusting them with my personal information with them  but there is an entitiy somewhere on the internet that decided to fake credentials and steal information that they know is confidential. There is a hacker that could have been (turns out the card data was encrypted) a couple of keystrokes away from ruining your credit, something that takes a lifetime to build. And the chances that this entity is noble and just doing this to teach Sony a lesson is slim to none.

I could engage in a metaphor about who left what unlocked but I think we're intelligent enough to look at the facts and see that there is a criminal at large. A criminal that isn't a street mugger with ski mask but who's crazy technically competent which in the grand scheme of things can be more dangerous. I'm not saying the press should become detectives and figure out who did this but there's an entire half of this story I don't see getting covered.

I think its easier to put all the blame on Sony becasue 1) they've kept us in the dark 2) we know there were security holes and 3) it's sorry to feel bad for a large corportaion. I think we need someone to point our impotent rage at since we're also victims. And yes as a mega-corporation  Sony shouldn't have been lax about security. And yes there should be a good amount of coverage about what they should have done better and what led up to this. But by the very definition of the term they are also a victim and there's a criminal at large.