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All Articles: ApocalyPS3 2011
Sony “re-building” PSN; back online in two days says anonymous source
Day four of the second PlayStation Network outage of 2011 is here and Sony still doesn’t have very many answers for us.
The latest statement from the company reveals they “are working around the clock to bring them both back online,” but that there’s still no timetable on when the PSN will be operational again. Apparently, part of the reason for the continued downtime is Sony’s desire to protect the PSN from future attacks as they are also “re-building [the] system to further strengthen [the] network infrastructure […] to provide the system with additional security.”
However, PlayStation Universe received an email from “a source with close connections to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe” discussing the latest round of attacks in a little more detail. According to the source, the PSN was hit with a LOIC attack, a specific type of denial-of-service attack that was previously used by Anonymous in their operations against Scientology websites and organizations that disapproved of WikiLeaks. Anonymous has denied responsibility for these attacks and claimed OpSony is over.
PSU’s tipster also gave a timeline for when we might see the PSN back online. He said “Japanese servers may be restored tomorrow while the U.S. and E.U. servers will likely be operational the following day.”
Posted in News, PS3, PSP
Tagged ApocalyPS3 2011
“External intrusion” responsible for PlayStation Network outages
We reported yesterday on the PlayStation Network outages and even speculated that it may have been self-righteous hackers seeing us as collateral damage yet again. It looks like we might be right: a new message, posted last night on the PlayStation Blog, cites an “external intrusion” as the interruption to services on both the PlayStation Network and Qriocity. Sony shut off both services in order to conduct a full investigation, calling us their utmost priority, and asking for our patience.
“Hacktivist” group Anonymous has come out with a statement of their own and announced “For Once We Didn’t Do It.” The group was responsible for the previous PSN outages and promised their next attack on Sony would be much bigger and grander.
But if it’s not Anonymous, then my guess is it’s most likely a copycat. They assured the public that we wouldn’t be in the line of fire anymore. But there’s really no honor among thieves, and that’s all hackers really are. And yes, that reference is to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, because I am super pissed that this weekend’s Hammer-only Lab event and Triple Cash were both postponed due to the outage. Thanks a lot.
Posted in News, PS3, PSP
Tagged ApocalyPS3 2011
PlayStation Network outages have seriously bad timing
The PlayStation Network is down, and some people are really pissed off. Namely, all the people who purchased Mortal Kombat, Portal 2, and SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs and expected to be able to actually play those games online. While the PlayStation Blog says they’re investigating the outage, it also says it might take a full day or two before they fix the problem. Could this be Anonymous striking again, considering us to be collateral damage, taking advantage of crushing online capabilities during a peak time? I sure hope not, because I know that whether or not those kids are ever unmasked, they’re going to Internet hell. It’s a special hell for people who troll on 4chan, prevent people from playing video games (Microsoft timed exclusivity deal writers are on this list), and the people who convinced me Damnation was a good game before it shipped.
Posted in News, PS3, PSP
Tagged ApocalyPS3 2011
Anonymous suspends their campaign against Sony
The “hacktivism” group Anonymous has announced that they’ve suspended their campaign of online warfare against Sony due to the effect their efforts were having on innocent PS3 players. The denial of service attacks perpetrated by Anonymous caused outages on the PlayStation Network and blocked access to Sony-owned websites. These attacks were called off one day after a member of Anonymous referred to gamers as “collateral damage” in their war with Sony.
Anonymous’ statement reads, in part, as follows:
Anonymous is not attacking the PSN at this time. Sony’s official position is that the PSN is undergoing maintenance. We realize that targeting the PSN is not a good idea. We have therefore temporarily suspended our action, until a method is found that will not severely impact Sony customers.
Anonymous is on your side, standing up for your rights. We are not aiming to attack customers of Sony. This attack is aimed solely at Sony, and we will try our best to not affect the gamers, as this would defeat the purpose of our actions. If we did inconvenience users, please know that this was not our goal.
On our side or not, this latest round of statements doesn’t look like it’ll make gamers feel all warm and fuzzy towards Anonymous anytime soon.
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged ApocalyPS3 2011
Anonymous takes responsibility for PSN outages, calls gamers ‘collateral damage’
Is it just me, or are hackers more and more everyday starting to sound like villains from “24”? PlayStation Lifestyle just got a highly coveted chance to talk with the members of Anonymous, the “hacktivist” group currently waging jihad cyber-war against Sony. Although most already figured it out, the group has taken responsibility for the service outages over the PlayStation Network. When confronted with the counter-intuitive nature of their methods, a member stated:
The consumers in this are as one might call, collateral damage. We are very cognizant of the fact that we are not making friends nor allies among the average consumer with our attack. This is unfortunate as a concern should always be, will the very people we seek to support not see what it is we are trying to achieve. In this case, many don’t. There has been a lot of hate spread throughout the internet and over forums that we are being reckless and simply punishing consumers more than Sony.
I think I speak for many PSN users when I say: Really? With all of the efforts being made in retaliation to ongoing lawsuits against members of the hacking community, I can only imagine the judge (or jury if this goes past summary judgment) having a field day when deciding the remedies to grant Sony.
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged ApocalyPS3 2011