PSN Blackout: You Get What You...Pay For

Upstatemax

mutelight wrote: »

If you try to login twice with Netflix, it will sign in the second time.

I can't...

My system just jams up and I can't do anything when I try and log into either system.

I have to turn off my system with the physical hard switch and restart.

I forgot about the PS-Plus that I also pay...

I'm mainly pissed because I got rid of my DVR and Digital cable for Hulu plus and Netflix and now I'm stuck watching them on my laptop if I really want to watch something. Not that fun for my wife and I to huddle up around a 17" screen with crappy sound while a 50" plasma and HT system sits idle upstairs. The HDMI out on my laptop is shot otherwise I would just plug my laptop into my receiver...

I would just like SOME info from Sony about a timeline and threats to personal info.

ysss

kuntasensei wrote: »

It also means that they have a significant number of staff there 24/7 to deal with problems such as PSN is experiencing right now.

PSN is experiencing downtime because they're being DDoS-ed by the scriptkiddies from 4chan due to Sony putting down the banhammer over Geohot for jailbreaking their system.

I'd reckon that the PSN being a free service has no direct relevance to their current downtime. This is not an issue that you can just throw more money/techs/engineers at to solve.

Toxis

Xbox fanboy started a thread without understanding what's really going on. Go figure. Just an excuse to knock the machine that does more and a better job of it. I know 5 people who had Xbox and switched to ps3. Some because RRoD, some from wanting more capabilities etc. Either way, I've never known a ps3'er switch to 360 and say it's a better machine. So while I can't game online right now, it's allowing me to catch up on movies and shows I've been meaning to watch so I couldn't care less. Cracking out some blurays on my multi-capable machine and enjoying my machine...how's watching DVDs on your machine?

ysss

lol toxis.. you got some good points there.

But between my ps3 and my xbox360, I still play more games on the xbox360 (for various reasons unrelated to this thread ).

mutelight

ysss wrote: »

lol toxis.. you got some good points there.

But between my ps3 and my xbox360, I still play more games on the xbox360 (for various reasons unrelated to this thread ).

Same here, I play a far more games on my 360s. I play my PS3 a lot less but the exclusives are nice and the 1080p Netflix is nice as well. However, the PS3 in the living room doesn't even do BD duty anymore since I have a dedicated player.

Demiurge

kuntasensei wrote: »

I'm not getting into the whole fanboy side of this... but I will say that I'm willing to pay for the advantages that Xbox Live has over PSN, primarily because it's a tightly regulated and CLOSED system. That allows them to monitor users, react to complaints, their software lets them jump into games on the fly with people who have received complaints so they can police the system, and they aren't shy about dropping the banhammer on people who are ruining the fun for others. It also means that they have a significant number of staff there 24/7 to deal with problems such as PSN is experiencing right now.

This is the essence of the whole point of this thread right here. Those who post in this section of the forum regularly know as much.

It was never a fan boy thread to begin with. I knew precisely that it would work those people up, though, and I don't care. It always does.

I don't care what system someone games on, either. It doesn't effect me in the least. I bought each one of the next gen consoles and am now down to two. Whatever Sony drops next I'll likely buy as well. The more competitors in this market, the better for the consumers.

The point of this thread is to show that you get what you pay for -- or don't pay for. Many of us have been ripped on for paying for a service to game online. When we explained the reason why is stability, quality of service, and content -- we were laughed at. This thread shows why we said what we said. If you don't like it, too bad.

This thread is one example of many in a series of events that has given PSN users poor quality of service, an unstable network, and even potentially put their financial data at risk.

Those of you affected are mad at this thread, though. That's truly remarkable. I'm the fan boy?

jon s

This is from a PSN developer site....

Ok, I've seen a bunch of speculation of why people think PSN is down, and I thought I should just post what the community knows in comparison to what Sony is telling everyone. The truth is, there was a new CFW (custom firmware) released known as Rebug (http://rebug.me). It essentially turns a retail console into a dev console (not fully, but gives you a lot of the same options that usually dev's only have access to). Anyway, this new CFW was quickly figured out by 3rd parties (not Rebug) to give CFW users access to the PSN network again via the dev networks. With a little manipulation of the URL's through a proxy server you could get your hacked console back online. Not that big of a deal, right? Well, it also turns out that some people over at NGU found out that you could provide fake CC# info and the authenticity of the information was never checked as you were on Sony's private developer PSN network (essentially a network that Sony trusted). What happened next was extreme piracy of PSN content. Sony realizing the issue here shut down the network. Now, before you go freaking out about the latest information posted about Kotaku, no ones personal information was accessible via this hack. Not to say they couldn't get it, but no one is admitting to it being available. Anyway, that's the real reason for the PSN downtime. Sony is now rebuilding all of it's PSN servers to be more secure and (hopefully) make sure the CFW users cannot get online anymore.

Edit #1: To those of you saying that this is speculation, you are correct. But, it is speculation based on a lot of facts and the outcome seems to make the most sense.

•Rebug was released on 3/31/11.

•First guides of how to use the dev network to get back on COD games on 4/3/11.

•Word of NGU users finding a way to pirate PSN content via the dev networks on 4/7/11 (basing this on posts I had to delete on the website. Update: Users have pointed out to me that these posts existed on NGU as of 4/2/11).

•PSN goes down on 4/20/11

Now, you can believe Sony's PR team which has kept you completely in the dark, or you can see the list of events above and come to your own conclusion. Now, this isn't the first time Sony has fought back against the PS3 modders from getting on PSN. A couple of months ago we had a utility called f*ckPSN that changed the necessary header information that was being sent to Sony to allow modified consoles back online. We were able to use it for about a month. Then came the new TOS, the mass e-mail to PS3 customers, and software update 3.56 and 3.60. So, once again, yes this is all speculation, but it is speculation based on previous actions and known facts.

Edit #2: Mathieulh just mentioned that he has been in contact with someone that has official access to the SCE devnet servers and it was posted to them today that only 3.60+ debug firmwares will be allowed on the dev network anymore. All earlier versions will be cut. If you want to retain your access you need to contact Sony and upgrade to 3.60 debug firmware.

Edit #3: Ok, it looks like some various news sites have picked up this story and taken it out of context. Once again, this is all speculation and information gathered from various devs in the PS3 scene. It might very well not be the real reason PSN is down, but as the timeline fits, it's a reasonable explanation. Now, as to Rebug directly allowing this to happen, that's not the case at all. Different CFW's have had access to the dev network the whole time. This is not new news for people in the PS3 scene. It's what people have figured out what to do with the said network that has caused all the recent issues. Saying that Rebug is what did this is like saying a gun manufacturer is responsible for every death that happens with a gun.

Demiurge

ysss wrote: »

PSN is experiencing downtime because they're being DDoS-ed by the scriptkiddies from 4chan due to Sony putting down the banhammer over Geohot for jailbreaking their system.

I'd reckon that the PSN being a free service has no direct relevance to their current downtime. This is not an issue that you can just throw more money/techs/engineers at to solve.

You're wrong.

It has everything to do with the downtime, and their overall **** service. When you have a paying customer, you have an incentive to make sure your network isn't susceptible to a bunch of pock faced teenagers with Hot Pocket stains on their Yu-Gi-Oh! T-Shirts. Can it still happen? Sure. When you don't have a paying customer, though, things get lax, even the response. Sony will spin this to make themselves look good, any good company would do that -- it's damage control. The fact is, their PSN is down and it's down without warning. Their response to gaming outlets like IGN has been deplorable.

The little bozos at 4chan haven't taken down XBL yet, and if they could, they would.

kuntasensei

BTW: We already know for sure that it's not because of a DDoS attack. Sony's rep Patrick Seybold said it was the result of "an external intrusion" and they shut PSN off themselves until they can ensure that PSN is secure again. My point about Xbox Live having 24/7 staff to deal with this stuff remains - PSN is basically the wild west with no sheriff in town.

But lest we forget... Xbox Live went down for 11 days back around Christmas 2007. Sure, they gave everyone a free arcade game as a result, but the point is that no system is immune from a giant clusterf@#k. Fortunately, Microsoft learned from that and have not had an unscheduled outage since. Let's hope Sony learns something from this and PS3 users can game trouble-free in the future.

ysss

Demiurge wrote: »

You're wrong.

It has everything to do with the downtime, and their overall **** service. When you have a paying customer, you have an incentive to make sure your network isn't susceptible to a bunch of pock faced teenagers with Hot Pocket stains on their Yu-Gi-Oh! T-Shirts. Can it still happen? Sure. When you don't have a paying customer, though, things get lax, even the response. Sony will spin this to make themselves look good, any good company would do that -- it's damage control. The fact is, their PSN is down and it's down without warning. Their response to gaming outlets like IGN has been deplorable.

The little bozos at 4chan haven't taken down XBL yet, and if they could, they would.

Just because it's easier (for you) to quantify the ongoing loss of revenue if there's a direct subscription fee, doesn't mean it's the main or even sole reason for the extended downtime.

Sony's lack of PR skill is yet another of Sony's deficiency not directly related to your claim of free PSN being the source of all evil. What, that the lack of subscription fee is the reason they don't have enough money to properly staff their PR dept?

Hate Sony? Go write a long rant at them.
Hate PSN fanboys who Nyah-nyahed you in the past? Go hunt them down and spam their pm inbox.

Demiurge

newrival wrote: »

Anyone who thinks that PSN is free just because there's no monthly service is mistaken. Nothing is free. Overhead, R&D, IT, operations, etc. is all built in. A company like Sony can build PSN costs into a number of different products. $.05 per sony game sold, licencing on products, an extra buck per console, a few bucks on a download, advertizing on the PSN page. Believe that Sony is making it up somewhere.

As the owner of a successful business with many employees, I have an extensive business background, so while I'm no expert on large corporations, I know a thing or two about the economics of business.

The cost of PSN may be built into the cost of their console and other revenue, but that's exactly my point...it's hardly enough to give a quality and secure service. This outage is simply the lengthiest one to date, not the only one. Beyond the outages, the overall experience is about what you'd expect from something you don't have to pay to use -- hence the thread.

To use a round number, $50 x 1,000,000 users = $50,000,000 per year in revenue. If Sony was bringing in $50 million per year in sales revenue for their PSN service, much of that money would cover costs associated with their service, and that service would likely be top notch.

I'm not arguing that because you pay for a service that the service is going to be great, but a truly free service is always going to suck unless the company is making up the costs associated with it elsewhere.

Sony is not making enough profit (if any) to make the PSN anything more than piece of garbage it is.

Demiurge

ysss wrote: »

Just because it's easier (for you) to quantify the ongoing loss of revenue if there's a direct subscription fee, doesn't mean it's the main or even sole reason for the extended downtime.

Sony's lack of PR skill is yet another of Sony's deficiency not directly related to your claim of free PSN being the source of all evil. What, that the lack of subscription fee is the reason they don't have enough money to properly staff their PR dept?

Hate Sony? Go write a long rant at them.
Hate PSN fanboys who Nyah-nyahed you in the past? Go hunt them down and spam their pm inbox.

If you have revenue from paying customers, you're going to ensure that your infrastructure and security measures are up to date and monitored properly unless you want pissed off customers and eventually no customers at all.

With Sony's free service, the backlash may still be there with people crying about how they can't play Call of Duty, but what can the consumer do to hurt them? You've already shelled out for their console, so their wallets aren't getting thinner on this particular venture. Perhaps it means you won't buy the next one they release. There's certainly recourse, but the hell you could raise if you threatened to cut off their revenue stream would yield results.

No, the lack of a fee for the PSN is the reason they're having these problems and offering a very poor quality service overall as well as a lame response. If Sony was charging, this still could have happened. This thread isn't a result of a single event. It's about the entire PSN experience.

They made a big mistake in not charging for this service. In fact, with the Blu-Ray being as successful as it's been, and the PS3 still being a great Blu-Ray player, I'd argue that had they not so badly bungled the online experience which has become a huge part of the gaming community, we'd be talking about what a failure the XBox 360 was on the whole, what with all of the hardware problems they had out of the gate.

I play single player games all the time, but I also spend a lot of time playing games with friends online. The experience on XBL has never disappointed me.

In the end, I'm glad Sony screwed up and I'm glad Microsoft had the problems they had. It means both of these companies will stay in the game and will be competing against Nintendo when the new next gen consoles are released.

Thanks for your suggestion, but as long as it's on topic, I think I'll post threads where I want to.

kuntasensei

Ouch to Keiko's post... and to all the PSN users. Like I said, no system is immune to the occasional clusterf#%k, but it definitely sucks when your personal info get out into the wild. You have my sympathies.

jbooker82

Nice Try Backing Out.

Demiurge wrote: »

It was never a fan boy thread to begin with. I knew precisely that it would work those people up, though, and I don't care.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fanboy

Urban Dictionary wrote: »

Fanboy

1.A person who is completely loyal to a game or company reguardless of if they suck or not.
2. A pathetic insult often used by fanboys themselves to try and put down people who don't like whatever it is they like.
3. See fool or SEGA.
"If you don't worship SEGA and send them all your money and pay $500 for the copy of Panzer Dragon I'm selling on ebay then your obviously a Sony fanboy even though I've never heard you mention a single thing about Sony the entire five minutes I've known you." Said the SEGA Fanboy.

"Yeah but the SNES didn't have Blast Processing" Said the Sega fanboy.

PhantomOG

Call me crazy, but I'm betting even if Sony had a nominal fee for online service, they would have still been susceptible to whatever has happened to cause this outage/intrusion... Sony has had the pay-for "plus" service for quite some time now. Has the simple act of "paying" for this service had any effect on the security? Obviously not.

If Sony had been charging all users 1 penny a year for access to PSN? Could this have happened? Yep.

If Sony had been charging all users 1 dollar a year for access to PSN? Could this have happened? Absolutely....

so answer this,
If Sony had been charging all users 50 dollars a year for access to PSN, would they be completely immune to all forms of outage/hacking and release of private information?

Fongolio

I can't believe that you (Demi) are still pounding on the X-Box 360 online gaming is better because you have to pay extra for it logic. You don't think that from it's inception the PS3 network people didn't think that if it was a poor service people would go elsewhere for online console gaming? To say that Sony doesn't care about it as much as Microsoft because Microsoft make people pay on an ongoing basis says that you don't understand business as much as you think you do. Sony's network matters to them every bit as much as MS's does to their people. The proof is that they did take it down until it can be working even better than before. The not having to pay for online stuff is the primary reason I bought Sony and the service has been just fine until this incident. I bought my son a 360 for Christmas several years ago when the HD format wars were still on. I had to pay extra for the HD-DVD player and extra for online gaming. On top of that, they had their silly different levels of service crap. With PS3 I got built in Blu-ray free online pretty much everything, regular real updates including 3D blu-ray, SACD capability, and a way better multi-media server. Now I'm not a "fanboy" of any console. In fact I prefer PC gaming to anything still but the PS3 offered way better value and to me at least, much more real functionality. The fact that Sony has taken the network down until it's fixed proper tells me they care just as much as any other console's people. But if you think that you are getting better service just because you pay for it, and have the need to start a thread that really just says "na na na na boo boo" My toy is better than yours because I paid more for it, well, we live in a free society so all the power to you. I have some really nice Monster Cables for sale if you're interested.

AsSiMiLaTeD

This whole thread is retarded and quite honestly I'm shocked that Demi would post it in the first place, seems like a very odd dumb thread coming from an otherwise seemingly very intelligent person, quite out of character it seems.

kuntasensei

Ouch, Sony.
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2011/04/26/richard-blumenthal-sends-letter-sony-over-psn-data-theft

Demiurge

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

This whole thread is retarded and quite honestly I'm shocked that Demi would post it in the first place, seems like a very odd dumb thread coming from an otherwise seemingly very intelligent person, quite out of character it seems.

Really, what's retarded about it, smart guy?

Demiurge

PhantomOG wrote: »

Call me crazy, but I'm betting even if Sony had a nominal fee for online service, they would have still been susceptible to whatever has happened to cause this outage/intrusion... Sony has had the pay-for "plus" service for quite some time now. Has the simple act of "paying" for this service had any effect on the security? Obviously not.

If Sony had been charging all users 1 penny a year for access to PSN? Could this have happened? Yep.

If Sony had been charging all users 1 dollar a year for access to PSN? Could this have happened? Absolutely....

so answer this,
If Sony had been charging all users 50 dollars a year for access to PSN, would they be completely immune to all forms of outage/hacking and release of private information?

This has already been addressed in other posts, but I'll respond again.

Charging for access doesn't mean things like this can't happen. It does mean you're accountable to customers because you're actually being paid to do something.

You're being paid to have stable servers.
You're being paid to provide high quality content.
You're being paid to make sure your customers credit card information isn't compromised.

We can go on and on with the examples. Sony is in business to make money.

When you're not being paid, incentive to put emphasis on these things goes out the window. Sony got paid when you bought their console. While I'd argue they want to sell their next console and not leave a bad taste in the mouths of the customers who bought the PS3, you can see how these things happen when you have no revenue coming in for a HUGE service you're offering.

Since we only have one thing to compare it to, I'll use the example at the risk of a bunch of fan boys getting ****, but this could happen to XBox Live as well. The thing is that in the nearly 6 years it's been on the market, it hasn't. It's gone down once due to internal issues, and when it did, they were on it like stink on ****. They have customers to keep happy.

If people want to believe that the revenue coming in for an identical type of service has nothing to do with that fact, well -- they're wrong.

jbooker82

So you say it has never went down. Then turn arround and say when it did they were on it.

PSN isn't down due to hardware / software problems. Was shut down by hackers.

If you think something cannot happen because you pay for it then your mistaken.

Demiurge

jbooker82 wrote: »

So you say it has never went down. Then turn arround and say when it did they were on it.

PSN isn't down due to hardware / software problems. Was shut down by hackers.

If you think something cannot happen because you pay for it then your mistaken.

No, that isn't what I said. What I said is that XBox Live has never allowed the breach of their security which compromised the financial data of their customers, which is what we're talking about in regard to Sony.

I guess that's no small deal. I can't imagine why anyone would start a thread about a gigantic f-up like this that affects a hell of a lot of people. :rolleyes:

Toxis

Demiurge wrote: »

ha ha PSN down, insert random 360 fanboy comments, ha ha XBL not down, if hackers could they would, more random fanboy comments, wait why aren't more fanboys speaking up like me, **** people are attacking me so I'll retract my comments then lace them with more fanboy comments, Get defensive, super defensive to the point of tearing up, make more fanboy comments and deny any attitude was given, ignore facts, continue fanboy-ness... Stay defensive...

Cliff Notes.

PhantomOG

The argument still doesn't hold water. Regardless of whether people paid to have access to PSN, it was a marketplace hosted by Sony that made Sony money (through sales of games, add-ons, movies, etc). You seriously don't think Sony *won't* be held responsible for this simply because no one paid to log onto PSN?

There are plenty of examples of companies who people paid good money to, who then turned around and F'ed up and breached privacy etc MUCH worse than this. Did the fact that those people were paying for a service mean the breach didn't happen? Obviously not.

You think its completely impossible for ONE single person at MS to screw up and cause a security breach of any kind? Regardless of how much people are paying to access the system, NOTHING is infallible.

Hasn't the PS3 been pretty consistently much higher priced than Xbox for the entire lifetimes of the consoles? Honestly we're simply talking about two companies choosing two different pricing models. Running the servers obviously costs money. Whether the companies choose to re-coup those cost with higher initial prices, higher media prices(add-ons, etc), or higher maintanence prices (subscription fees), it is entirely non-sequitur to take this example of a hacker group going after Sony and saying "See, if Sony had charged for PSN like Xbox, this wouldn't have happened."

Beyond all that, I'm also amazed you would start a finger waving thread like this.... seems completely out of character for you.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Demiurge wrote: »

Really, what's retarded about it, smart guy?

Heh, I think EVERYONE else has already covered that, so I'm not gonna take any more time posting arguments that you'll just evade.

cokewithvanilla

You realize that xbox live has had its share of outages as well, despite the paying customers.

directly paying for something has nothing to do with this. Sony is smart enough to know what a draw this is to customers simply by the usage statistics. They would not play around with an asset like this simply because they aren't collecting your lousy $50.

kuntasensei

I think Demi's point that is being missed is that Sony fanboys have constantly nattered on about Xbox Live costing money when PSN is free, because they don't think you should pay to game online. And in theory, I can agree with that to an extent, mostly because I came into the current gen of consoles from being a PC gamer. But whereas Xbox Live takes that money and has a 24/7 support staff to control issues like this AND has the power of Windows Live ID to protect the financial information, Sony not charging perhaps prevents them from having that closed system and infrastructure to curtail any such attempts. The one time that Live has had issues, it didn't go completely down - there was just an 11 day period where online play was iffy because so many people got on Live over Christmas that they weren't prepared for the traffic. Again, because they charge for the service and have the staff in place, they quickly had things running smooth again and haven't had a problem since.

Contrast that with Sony, who is having to call in an outside security group to help rebuild PSN. Why? Because they don't charge for the service, and clearly don't have the infrastructure to protect their users. This is the direct result of PSN not being a closed and regulated system, which means it is more subject to exploits and hacks.

So while I may not agree with the way Demi has presented it here, I think the overall point is that for once, PS3 owners who have berated Xbox Live finally have their reason why it's worth the $4 a month... Because they not only have the technical staff to deal with issues such as these in-house and quickly, they also have a full-time crew to police the online play (which is why cheaters get banned) and can react so quickly to issues like those we saw in COD: Black Ops on both systems (which took Sony and Treyarch FOREVER to fix).

Regardless, I hate it for PSN users if their credit card info got out. Fanboy arguments aside, no one should have to deal with that crap.

ysss

lol toxis.

I knew Qriocity would be bad for Sony somehow.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I didn't realize that PS3 owners were bashing XBOX people for paying for a membership. If that is the case, then those threads and statements are equally retarted. That doesn't make THIS thread any better, just means those people are morons also....I'm a little shocked to see Demi sink to that level though, if that is in fact the intent of the thread.

FWIW, I never said he was being malicious or mean, just wrong, there's a difference.

Why anybody gives a rats **** about what system someone else plays on or what membership they choose to pay for will always fall out of my realm of understanding.

mrbigbluelight

This is why I stick with SNES and "Donkey Kong Country".