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Anonymous Declares War on the Sony PlayStation Network for SOPA Support

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This was just released from a Sony Fan-site. Hopefully this is an idle threat because we’re tired of the PSN going down…

Anonymous To “Destroy” Sony’s Online Network for SOPA Support

With Sony’s online service hacked and brought down earlier in the year by internet activists Anonymous, gamers everywhere suffered from the downtime of the PlayStation Network and its subsequent hack. Unfortunately, if you thought that it was all over, then you’d sadly be wrong – Anonymous seems to have declared war on Sony, again.

Hello, SONY.
We are Anonymous.

It has come to the attention of the Anonymous activist community that you have chosen to stand by the Stop Online Piracy Act. This act will halt online businesses and restrict access to many sites for many users. Supporting SOPA is like trying to throw an entire company from off a bridge. Your support to the act is a signed death warrant to SONY Company and Associates. Therefore, yet again, we have decided to destroy your network. We will dismantle your phantom from the internet. Prepare to be extinguished. Justice will be swift, and it will be for the people, whether some like it or not. Sony, you have been warned.

To those doubting our powers. We’ve infiltrated the servers of Bank of America, The United States Department of Defense, The United Nations, and Lockheed Martin. In one day.

For their approval to SOPA, we have also declared that our fury be brought upon the following persons. Justin Bieber. Lady Gaga. Kim Kardashian. and Taylor Swift.

Operation Blackout, engaged.
Operation Mayhem, engaged.
Operation LulzXmas, engaged.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.

Supporters of SOPA, you should’ve expected us.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is the highly controversial bill that, if passed, would give the US government and copyright holders powers to block access to “rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods”. But SOPA has received growing criticism by free speech activists and tech companies like Google and Facebook due to the vague terminology of the bill, which could mean sites like YouTube (or even PSLS) could be blocked for having copyrighted material submitted by users rather than the actual site owners.

With Sony being one of the largest publishers and producers of films, music and games, piracy has severely impacted their profits, and have a vested interest in SOPA being passed. While it’s fair to protest SOPA and any company that supports it, Anonymous’ actions earlier this year showed that the group is willing to let normal consumers suffer from their attacks.

It’s important to note that Anonymous have no central leadership, and this video seems to be the only declaration of war against Sony so far, so it’s hard to tell just how many Anonymous ‘members’ are actually behind the new attack.

Via: http://playstationlifestyle.net/2011/12/29/anonymous-to-destroy-sonys-online-network-for-sopa-support/

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While we don’t support SOPA ourselves, we do understand the importance of anti-piracy measures. As stated above, no one knows just how many people are behind this, but it screams “look at me, we need attention” on behalf of Anonymous. This ridiculousness needs to be stopped, and by stopped I mean Anonymous stopped.

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PlayStation Network Back Online, No Word From Sony

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As of 6:20PM CST, we can confirm that our PS3’s are working as expected on the PlayStation Network.  All DRM/DLC, trophies and saved data is present and accounted for.  We first got word of this from Izmeiah Brown, our Lead Designer, when it broke on Gizmodo.  Still no official word from Sony, but that’s typical and to be expected.  This ability to login, however, does not mean that it won’t happen again.  Scary how they can push an update like this and shut almost 40 million systems down without no one really noticing, isn’t it.

This is a use at your own risk deal since there has been no official word from Sony yet.  We’ll let you know as soon as they start making apologies.

== UPDATE ==

Sony releases the following statement on their blog:

We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PS3 units other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. Having the internal clock date change from February 29 to March 1 (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally.

If the time displayed on the XMB is still incorrect, users are able to adjust time settings manually or via the internet. If we have new information, we will update you through the PlayStation.Blog or PlayStation.com.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

And that’s that.  They “apologize”, but fail to state exactly what they’re going to do for breaking the trust of all of the gamers WORLDWIDE.  Sure the PSN is free, but come on; The trade off is quite obvious at this point – monitoring.  We should be able to play Single Player games like Heavy Rain regardless if the PSN is online or not.  We should also be able to use our games that we downloaded without being told we stole it (basically what the error message implied).  These are the things that they should be focusing on and making Next-Gen actually Next-Gen. 

As one comment we read earlier today, you could pop in a Nintendo cartridge, and BAM you were playing the game.  Why doesn’t this work the same way today for the PS3?  And what about the people without access to the Internet?  Are they still affected?  We’ll never know because they’re completely out of touch with the rest of the living world.  Trust us, if this happens again, we’re going to make sure they answer these questions that all gamers of the PS3 deserve.

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PlayStation Users Advised to Not Use Their PS3

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A recent update from Sony PlayStation Blog stated that PlayStation users are advised to NOT use their PS3’s due to the wide-spread issue with the PlayStation Network. Here’s the direct post that they made:

As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:

  • The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
  • When the user tries to sign in to the PlayStation Network, the following
    message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been
    signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.
  • When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears
    on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install
    trophies. Please exit your game.”
  • When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the
    Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date
    and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”
  • Users are not able to play back certain rental video downloaded from the
    PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.

As mentioned above, please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologize for any inconvenience caused.

As we thought, this is the PS3 Y2K bug indeed. Let’s hope this is resolved before FFXIII comes out.

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