But to conclude....this is just another reason why PC gaming is the best

Except hackers flood to PC games, network manipulation is easy there, and client side code can be altered to reload faster etc, very easily. Even small things, were people hack and give themselves a map with everyone on it.

Also while the mouse may be superior to the thumbstick, the thumbstick is definetly superior to WASD.

And I lol at these hackers taking PSN down, like that is an accomplishment and a half. (I wonder what sony will do to apologize, I know microsoft gave out free live for a month to people who complained cuz their live went down for 24 hours or w/e)

The Anonymous hacking group already claimed responsibility for the attack...and they are fans of the jailbreak world.
But to conclude....this is just another reason why PC gaming is the best

Anonymous didn't claim responsibility for the attack....they actually claimed the complete opposite. This is actually from their channel on YouTube and I found an article from them saying the same thing.

The current downtime for PSN is the second of its kind this month, with the Anonymous group of online crusaders claiming responsibility for the first. Sony now intends to keep both PSN and its Qriocity music streaming service offline until it can pinpoint the vulnerability that has been exploited and put a stop to it.

EDIT: Sony doesn't even know it private information was stolen...yet

lthough we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

Sony has a little trouble with its online security, and now Microsoft is issuing warnings about people running "phishing" scams over Xbox Live.

I don't see how this proves in any way that PC > all consoles. Phishing scams occur on PCs as well, probably a lot more frequently.

Like clockwork, the first lawsuit resulting from the security breach of the personal data of more than 75 million Sony PlayStation Network customers has been filed.

The suit was filed today on behalf of Kristopher Johns, 36, of Birmingham, Ala., in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Johns accuses Sony of not taking "reasonable care to protect, encrypt, and secure the private and sensitive data of its users."

He also believes Sony took too long to notify him and other customers that their personal information had been exposed. Because of that, the complaint alleges, Sony did not allow its customers "to make an informed decision as to whether to change credit card numbers, close the exposed accounts, check their credit reports, or take other mitigating actions."

The lawsuit is asking for monetary compensation and free credit card monitoring, and is seeking class action status.

Merchant gets CC# from user
Merchant sends CC# to credit card company, requesting an ID
Credit card company registers merchant in a databse, assigning a unique ID (unique to both the merchant and the credit card number, and indistinguishable from the credit card number, ie a random number assigned to the account for that merchant)
Merchant recieves a unique ID
Merchant deletes CC# and stores unique ID

Why don't credit card companies provide a payment method like PayPal does, where the credit card # is never actually visible to the merchant

Amailer's idea combined with mine is what I was suggesting. The merchant never views the credit card number, yet has an ID that combined with your permission, and their merchant ID, may be used for recurring purchases, it looses almost none of the convience, allows for recurring payments, a merchant who gets hacked or something can easily cancel their whole database of IDs, making those all useless to whoever took them, and even if the person took them, they would need to be the merchant to use them (since all of the credit card transactions are all handled by one server anyways, the credit card company could even store the server name, so transactions not from that server make the merchant's ID lock until they can figure out what happened)

But seriously, Playstation needs to send out a message to all PS3's (put the server back up for an update or somethign), to say "CANCEL YOUR CREDIT CARD NOW"

Their server is in turmoil and being rebuilt right now...and most ppl aren't going on their PS3s until PSN comes back online next weekend....sending out such an update would send out outrage across the community for false hope that PSN is back online....and keep in mind that what I posted above is just a rumour....

I've heard that they have sent out emails regarding this, however I have yet to receive 1.

valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011,
certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account
information was compromised in connection with an illegal and
unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this
intrusion, we have:

1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;

2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a
full and complete investigation into what happened; and

3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our
network infrastructure by rebuilding our system to provide you
with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill
as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly
and efficiently as practicable.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident,
we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following
information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province,
zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation
Network/Qriocity password, login, password security answers, and handle/PSN
online ID. It is also possible that your profile data may have been obtained,
including purchase history and billing address (city, state/province, zip
or postal code). If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent,
the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained.
While there is no evidence that credit card data was taken at this time,
we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card
data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution
we are advising that your credit card number (excluding security code) and
expiration date may also have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email,
telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive
information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email,
asking for your credit card number, social security, tax identification
or similar number or other personally identifiable information. If you
are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the
entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are
fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your
password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity
user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we
strongly recommend that you change them as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss,
we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements
and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports.

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of
this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working
around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as
possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will
continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to
protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and
secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority.
Please contact us at 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment

In many places it maybe law that a company has to inform there customers about a potenial leak of personal information as soon as possible. Sony maybe facing serveral potential lawsuits by waiting as long as they have allready.

As many as 10 million credit card numbers may have been exposed, though Sony says it has no proof that any actually have been compromised, and claims that it's received no reports of credit card fraud thus far. It is, however, working with the FBI to investigate the hack.

I'm guessing one of the following:

A free PlayStation Mini that was slated to become free anyways
Free PS Plus membership for a month (maybe year?)
An Apology (maybe with something else?)

We're hearing that Sony's "goodwill gesture" may not be an incredibly significant one -- affected users can expect a free 30-day subscription to PlayStation Plus and a free software download of some sort, while Qriocity customers will get an extra 30 days of service on the house.

3:07 JST: One asked about compensation for the personal data leakage, in terms of credit card charge refunds, free software and the like, and Kaz insisted that the gifts are not compensation for the leak -- Sony is not presently compensating customers for the data leak because it doesn't have any evidence of credit card fraud, and Kaz says if Sony gets such reports it will deal with them on a case-by-case basis.

investigators found a file on one of the servers named "Anonymous" with the words "We are Legion" inside it.

In the words of Steven Colbert, Anonymous is a giant hornet nest, and Sony decided to stick its penis in it.

It's a good question of whether anon did it. I believe that they are innocent. Well they're not innocent, but that they are not the ones to blame here lol

cowards who hide behind an anonymous name

anon that are respected, humourous, and have this unspoken code of conduct

Wait I thought the network was turned off, how was it hacked?

thanks big bear, is it up yet though?

Sony has weathered far worse before and will again. Remember that time they used music CDs to install a rootkit on their customers computers, secretly and without permission? Of course not, it's been forgotten.