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Author Topic: What are you doing?  (Read 592509 times)

mañana

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #950 on: April 27, 2011, 08:38:51 AM »
Prepping for a presentation tomorrow, why did I used to think that being a scientist I wouldn't have to do much public speaking?
Good luck!
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¡Keith!

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #951 on: April 27, 2011, 09:22:00 AM »
They're trashing our rights! they're trashing the flow of data! They're TRASHING! TRASHING! TRASHING!

FLYmeatwad

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #952 on: April 27, 2011, 09:46:08 AM »
Waiting for the leak. Make it happen today!

edgar00

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #953 on: April 27, 2011, 10:47:17 AM »
Tis perfect.

I should be sending it off to you within the next 20 minutes or so. I have to say, I think this is my personal favourite of the 3 articles I've written yet.
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Clovis8

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #954 on: April 27, 2011, 08:08:50 PM »
Melvil is exactly correct on this and Fro is way off base. Of course networks can be secure and this is a huge failing of Sony for which they will rightly pay billions in liability and lawsuits.

FroHam X

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #955 on: April 27, 2011, 08:26:28 PM »
I really don't think I'm way off base. Sony had a responsibility to protect the information of its users. They screwed up. They will likely get sued, and the deserve to get sued. But what pisses me off in all of this is that time and time again internet hackers have gotten into networks everyone would have expected to be secure. There is no doubt in my mind that if a hacker really wanted to he'd be able to get into the Live network as well. What disgusts me is comments all over the net that treat the hackers like they're just doing their jobs, and that it all comes down to Sony. If there weren't assholes trying to hack into these networks there wouldn't be an issue at all. Sony was negligent and needs to take responsibility for that. The person or persons who hacked into the network were criminal and should be put in jail and probably never let out.

And like I've said, there is no such thing as a 100% secure network, certainly not one that is connected to the web. There are always holes and that's why security is always needing to improve. It took four years for hackers to crack Sony's PS3 copy protection, but eventually they did it.

What I know is that I have a PS3, I don't often connect to PSN, but I definitely am upset about Sony's negligence. But I'm more upset at whoever it is that hacked the network, and I'm confident enough in Sony having received this wake up call loud and clear that I will not be too worried about connecting to PSN again once it's back online.
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Clovis8

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #956 on: April 27, 2011, 08:31:39 PM »
We dont yet know if this is a white hate hacker or black hat but either way if I put $1000 in the bank and they leave in on the front sidewalk overnight and it's stolen I blame the bank, not the thief.


Melvil

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #957 on: April 27, 2011, 08:57:44 PM »
There is no doubt in my mind that if a hacker really wanted to he'd be able to get into the Live network as well.

The best proof that this kind of thinking is wrong is that the Live network, like so many others, has not been hacked. The same incentive is there and you can guarantee that it is a massively desirable target.

But if that were true, it kinda hurts the case for Sony more. As I said before, the real crisis of this situation is not that Sony got attacked, but that they didn't sufficiently protect their customer's records. It's super basic security practice that you don't keep that kind of information unencrypted, or passwords unhashed. So if you're assuming that it's impossible to prevent intrusions, you have double reason to follow that practice.

Again, I certainly don't condone the actions of malicious hackers, I'm taking it for granted that they are to be frowned upon. But computer security is something that, unfortunately, is not always taken seriously enough, and when that negligence affects 77 million people, I don't believe they should be given a free pass.

FroHam X

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #958 on: April 27, 2011, 09:13:07 PM »
Well, there is the issue of Sony recently suing hackers. That would make them a more immediate target. In this case though it was clearly Sony's negligence. They left a massive hole that made them more easily exploitable. They also didn't sufficiently encrypt user data (though from the sounds of it credit card information was protected from the attack due to heavy encryption). It's a fudge up no doubt. And I don't give Sony a "free pass", but at this point the damage is done and what's important is that they fix their security, which from the sounds of it they are doing very seriously.

And don't be so naive as to think that Live cannot be brought down. Of course it can, and I wouldn't be surprised if it has suffered intrusions you have not heard about, probably because the holes weren't left as open as Sony's were in this case and vital personal information wasn't stolen.
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smirnoff

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Re: What are you doing?
« Reply #959 on: April 27, 2011, 09:30:03 PM »
It's just like Ed Norton says in Fight Club:

Quote
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

It was a calculated risk on Sony's part. Security costs money. Doing your due diligence costs money. More money than it costs to deal with what they're dealing with right now, so they opted not to do it.

For Microsoft, because it's a paid survice, the calculation presumably came out differently. They have that money to provide security. That's not to say it won't get hacked. But if it happens they'll be able to show they did "everything they could" (which actually means "the bare minimum we could do that a judge would look at and say "that's enough"").

The hackers are an inevitable force of human nature. Exploiting weaknesses the way a wolf exploits the old and weak. The herd is thinned but also made stronger.

That's life.

 

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