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Hackers deny involvement in PlayStation Network outage

April 22, 2011 1:00 PM
Dean Takahashi
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Sony’s PlayStation Network is still down today in its second day of a massive outage. So far, Sony hasn’t offered an update about when the online entertainment network, with more than 70 million registered users, will be back online.

Users trying to log into the system are getting a message that says “an error” has occurred. Yesterday, Sony warned that it may take a day or more to bring the network back up. Since then, the company hasn’t offered an update, but it will offer updates on its blog.

Sony offered no explanation for the network outage, prompting some to wonder if it was related to Amazon.com’s crash of its cloud computing infrastructure, EC 2, which has also been down since yesterday. Sony had also updated its PlayStation Home virtual world for gamers with a version 1.5 update. And others wondered if hackers, who had been angry about Sony’s prosecution of hacker George “GeoHot” Hotz, had found a way to “jailbreak” Sony’s PS 3 so that users could download unauthorized or pirated software. Sony sued him for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

But that case has been settled. And Anonymous, the hacker group that had attack Sony sites earlier, said it was not behind the shutdown. In fact, Anonymous said “Sony is incompetent.” Still, an observer of the IRC forum used by members of Anonymous speculated that the attackers likely behind this current Sony outage appear to have learned their methods from Anonymous’ activities of two weeks ago.

The network shutdown isn’t just frustrating to users. Sony has a full spectrum of entertainment on PSN, with movies, TV shows, downloadable games, and original shows too.

A Sony representative didn’t immediately have a comment on the matter.

We’re also waiting to hear back about how Sony plans on compensating paying members. While the PlayStation Network is a free service, PSN Plus is a subscription available to PSN users for $50 a year for early access to games and exclusive content.

Update 11:55 a.m. PT: Anonymous appears to be denying participation in any attack on PSN. A representative of the group posted an editorial to a news aggregation site saying they had no time to devise a new strategy against Sony and “entirely lost interest.”

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20056503-260.html#ixzz1KHRU52iY

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  • http://www.geekgirlsonline.com Athena Hollow

    Actually Anonymous said “Sony is INcompetent” :) Not “competent”

  • http://profiles.google.com/dapallox1 Nick Petty

    Yet another article that doesn't research everything enough. The only problem I'm seeing here is that you are another person that makes “jailbreaking” look like it SHOULD be illegal. By saying, “…“jailbreak” Sony’s PS 3 so that users could download unauthorized or pirated software.”, you make people think that jailbreaking in general is bad. It's not. “jailbreaking” shouldn't be illegal for any device you own. It can be used for developers who don't have millions of dollars to pay for licenses from sony to create games or apps. Or even for the community to help better the over all firmware. Yes, it is used for illegally downloading pirated software, and better protection methods should be put in place to help prevent that in general. Sorry to go off on a rant, but I just don't want people to get the wrong idea.

  • http://venturebeat.com deantak

    thanks athena. typos are me. nick: you make a very large assumption the size of a bus there.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3BXCL2KKO5JVTH52MRUAWOWT4U Chris

    How in the world can such a massive system just be brought down like that? Was it running on Windows? :P

  • KestralKudesao

    If Anonymous is really behind this, What happened to what they fight for? They say they exist to protect the freedom's of the common people. Ive seen roomers of this attack being comited by a copy cat or some one trying to use Anonymous's methods, and personaly, I believe that it could be just that, a copycat. I cant see a group such as that putting so much work into their name and then just lashing out at sony in such a way to effect the people they claim to fight for. while I do not personaly agree with their methods, Im inclined to believe Anonymous when they say they were not behind The mass PSN shutdown. I could very well be wrong, but does a move like this really make sence? Anonymous has appeared to me as a well calculated group. Some things about this attack just dont add up…know what im sayin? But still in the end, I just want PSN back online.

  • http://mtimweaver.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/sun-tzu-and-the-attack-on-sonys-ps-network/ Sun Tzu and the attack on Sony’s PS Network « Tim Weaver's Blog

    [...] that the PS Network inexplicably went belly up on 21 April 2011. All eyes were on Anonymous, which denied being responsible for (this) outage, and Sony tried to downplay the incident, which wasn’t believed. Sony [...]

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