NewNews - PSN Users' info gets compromised (Reactions)

Source: Gamasutra

If you're a Playstation 3 player who has a PSN account, you're more than likely to have heard about Sony's announcement that user information has been compromised by an outside source.  It's been a week since the Playstation Network went down in speculation of the "anonymous" hacker group's involvement.  They have denied responsibility to the incident and have since not been heard of.  Whoever has committed this heinous act on the PSN servers has succeeded in preventing 70 million users from accessing multiplayer capabilities, locked players out of DRM ridden games, extract personal information such as name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID as written by Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications for Sony Computer Entertainment America as well as the harrowing fact that the hacker might have access to the credit cards of all those users.  Sony has urged users to keep an eye out on suspicious transactions on their cards as well as changing their passwords to anything linked to the PSN.  I'm trying not to get too worried about the situation myself since I never made any purchases on the PSN and the most information that was registered should be just an email, password, and security question.  I do worry about losing my account though since it's connected to things like levels in online games (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, MAG, etc.).

What was most alarming about this news was the reaction from the readers in all the articles I visited today.  It's not surprising to see fanboys flame Sony in their predicament when their loyalty is with Microsoft in X-Box 360 or PC gamers with Steam accounts, but to read all the atrocities of people blaming exclusively Sony and how the company has no concern over their customers while other companies are like saints that protect their users really astounded me.  It wasn't Sony that gave out all those personal information, the hacker was the one that broke in and took it.  I really doubt Sony wanted that to happen at all.  The most common reason for this distress is that users believe that their commitment and money is being put into the services with the insurance that their personal information is protected.  Isn't that the common goal for all companies?  Even if Sony really was after the money of their user base, they wouldn't want anything happening to their customers (because that's where all the money comes from!).  Some examples people pointed out were Xbox Live, Steam, Amazon, and eBay.  If one were to type up security breaches to ANY of these companies on google, they will find articles of Xbox Live accounts being compromised by hackers the same way back in 2007.  The same with the other companies: Steam accounts that are worth over $300-$500 are stolen, credit card numbers and identity theft befalls users of eBay and Amazon, and other company like Blizzard falls victim to these incidents (I have a friend who got his account hacked into 3 times because of his high level WoW characters.  He gave up and made a new account).  The problem here isn't just the companies, but the hackers breaking into the accounts of those companies.  No company wants their faithful customers to become a victim to identity theft or information compromise, and so they will always do their best to protect them.  Right now, Sony has been breached and they're doing their best to prevent any further problems by asking their customers to take extra precaution.  Yes, it did take them a week to tell us, but how do we know they didn't know until just very recently?  We as humans need to find someone or something to blame when something goes wrong to fill that void of uncertainty, but we need to have reason and be rational about our actions and judgment.  I would probably be furious at Sony too for allowing such an incident to occur had I actually put any of my personal information and credit card number on the PSN, but it happened and we all need to take care of our own matters rather than just pointing fingers.

There is much more I can rant on about and counter-argue many of the complaints on the comment section of all those articles, but I think it's more useful to take note of some actions we can all do to protect ourselves.
-Change any passwords linked to PSN such as Netflix
-Change the password to your PSN account when the server is back up
-Monitor your bank account for any suspicious activity
-Cancel your card if you feel uneasy that there might be someone out there that has your credit card number
-Wait patiently for the Playstation Network to be back up.  It's better to have a secure network with a hack-free server running than starting it up again with a chance of another hacker breaking in.
-If you want to make another purchase on PSN in the future, go buy a pre-paid card at Game Stop or a local electronics store to avoid using your credit card number and personal information.  Yes, it sucks having those extra few dollars just hanging in the account like that, but it's better than having $100-$10,000 taken out of your bank account by some random guy holding your credit card number

It's possible that the hacker is not after anyone's money or personal information at all, but rather an attempt to destroy the faith and customer base of Sony by implementing heavy doubts on the company's ability to protect its customers (remember the lady that put a finger in the chili at Wendy's and tried to sue them for money?  It ruined Wendy's franchise and took forever for them to recover).  There's also a chance that the news of this compromise may not be as bad as it seems since the media has been known to blow things out of proportion and get a reaction from their readers (it's working if that's the case.  I've never seen so many comments on an article in one day).

In terms of the modding community and those who want to "hack" in pursuit of science, technology and experimentation, I fully support such interests when it's not hurting or damaging any person or entity.  Running Linux and other OS on a system?  That's cool.  But the main concern that Sony had with the recent actions by the "anonymous" group was that it was a gateway to piracy of their software, even if the group had no intention of doing so themselves.  Piracy is a serious issue that's hurting the industry a lot, and so we must try to support those companies when we can (even if it means waiting for a game to drop down to $20 before buying it).  I sincerely hope that no one is affected by this predicament and continue to use the services provided by Sony as well as hoping that Sony has learned from this incident and tighten up their security by 100 times over (I really don't want to lose my account, let's hope for the best).

Sources:
-Engadget: Sony provides PSN update, confirms a 'compromise of personal information'
-Gamasutra: PlayStation Network Accounts Compromised, Personal Information Stolen
-Joystiq: Sony says PSN 'intrusion' compromised personal info; hopes to have 'some services' back 'within a week'
-Kotaku: Sony Comes Clean: PlayStation Network Hackers Have Stolen Personal Data
-CNBC: Sony: PlayStation Breach Involves 70 Million Subscribers (There's no mercy even in the comments on CNBC).