Get Your Game Off

Oh, woe is the PSN and its myriad problems.

So, yeah, this is funny to me.  The PSN has been down going on 2 weeks now, and millions of people the world over can't get their game on.  Because apparently they have no real life friends to invite to their houses or something.

Whatever.  There are all sorts of accusations flying around at Sony right now about how they should have handled the situation, what they need to do as compensation, who needs to be reimbursed, BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I thought Captain Hindsight was just a shitty character from a shitty South Park trilogy.

(not that the show is bad, mind you, but Coon and Friends was ohmyfuckinggod stupid, and went on way too fucking long)

Anyway, yeah, it sucks, but whatever.  I hardly every played games on the PSN because I don't particularly care to play the 9 millionth Call of Dooty re-skin.  Or would it be a Medal of Honor re-skin?  Or a Half-Life re-skin?  Or a Doom re-skin?  Or a Wolfenstein re-skin?

Do you see where I'm going with this?  I don't play games online because I don't particularly care for FPS's.

Anyway, here's where the real problem comes in.  Its not that I can't play Mortal Kombat with the K-stylers; its not that I can't play SUCKOM with self diagnosed ADHD, bi-polar, e-thugs; its not even that I have been waiting for Dungeon Defenders to finally come to the PSN so that I can play the awesome that it is on something bigger and more powerful than my G2; No, the problem is...

MOTHERFUCKERS GOT MY INFO!!

But I don't blame Sony for that, and anyone that is, you are just looking for a god damned hand out.

Where does this start?  Some say it goes back to Sony suing Geohot.  I don't know if this is true, but Anonymous jumped all over Sony for suing him because they felt he needed the indignation because he was restoring a function that Sony removed from PS3's.  He put out a hack to get past a feature that Sony blocked out that allowed people to install Linux on their PS3's.

WHO THE FUCK USES LINUX?!?! WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYONE CARE ABOUT THIS?!?!

The popular notion about why Sony removed this feature was because apparently it allowed people to run bootlegged PS3 games.  Now, honestly, if that is the reason they removed the feature, I am perfectly fine with that.  They want to fight piracy, and that was a way in which piracy was being enacted.  They have every right to disable it.

Geohot didn't stop there though.  He cracked the PS3 again after they put out firmware that disabled the feature, and then he gloated about it.  And Sony had every right to sue him for what he was doing, which was hacking their software, gloating about enabling a feature that enabled pirating, and then having the audacity to go public with it.  As the internet likes to say about girls dressing like whores who get raped:  he was asking for it.

Now, along comes Anonymous, who took down the PSN as a show of retaliation for how aggressively Sony was going after Geohot (who fled the country to escape litigation).

Is it justified?  Eh, not really.  But is it funny?  Fuck yes.

But importantly, the purpose of the Anonymous attack on the PSN was not to hack it:  it was just to fuck with Sony to show them what could potentially be done to them.  The attack on the PSN was not meant to be a security intrusion, it was meant to be a show of support for Geohot by way of causing damage to Sony's income.  No PSN, no PSN sales.  An effective strategy, but unnoticeable in the long run.  What wasn't bought that day will just be bought another day.

It's like people the organize "gas strikes."  Get off your high horses, you fucking hippies.  Everyone needs gas, and not buying gas for one day wont do a god damn thing.  All those people will just fill up their tanks the next morning on their way to work.

So, a lot of people in Anonymous (probably the more malicious, newer, or overzealous members) probably felt the same way about this, and took it upon themselves to make another attack.  This is a common theory anyway.

Is it possible?  Sure.  Is it likely?  Doubtful.  Anonymous has a long standing credibility for being highly organized and united.  Which is what makes them effective as the entity they are.

There is another rumor floating around that someone else released a hack that allowed people to enter the developer's area of the PSN, and allowed them to use dummy credit card accounts to pump large amounts of funds into their accounts and purchase tons of content and get content that wasn't supposed to be available yet.  Is this possible?  Yeah, sure, but it doesnt explain the next part.

Here's where shit gets real for everyone, myself included.

It was revealed Monday that user information was stolen from the PSN hack, and then I think Wednesday it was said that some users' credit card information may have been stolen.

Oh shit.

So, I don't think a hack that allowed access to a developer's account would allow anyone to gather such information.  This sounds like a straight up malicious intrusion done from someone or group of someones with a lot of skill, or someone who wanted to show off after being given a little bit of knowledge from someone much more skilled than themselves.

I think it would be really funny if it was Geohot giving one last "fuck you" to Sony.  Immature, but funny.

All the same, now there is the FBI, Homeland Security, CIA, all kinds of motherfuckers on the case.  Class-action lawsuits left and right.  The whole shebang.  All claiming Sony just kinda sat back and let it happen.

They are all taking different stances on what they are doing.  Some want Sony to reveal what was stolen, others are suing for Sony not being forthcoming, and others are just their to help.

But none of this is more important than finding out Barack Obama is an American.  Thanks for clearing that up, Trump.  Why don't you use your resources and figure this whole PSN shit out?