new: 1 million Sony users hacked

[Luminis]

You're "falling back" because that's the intellectually LAZY thing to do. It's easier to agree with the cognoscenti than to form your own opinion. I don't know of you're familiar with this, being from Germany, but there's a group here in the United States called Birthers, whom of which claim that our current president was not born in this country. Why do they believe that? Because it's easier to go along with a mob mentality and be part of a movement, than it is to accept the truth, even when the evidence is clear

Yeah, I heard of those. Question is, why would I need to repeat such an analogy after someone? I don't because it's that easily to come up with that I could guarantee at least a dozen of people could come up with it indidualy.

I'm not "taking Sony's word" for it, but I'm sure as hell not taking some guy on the internet that I wouldn't know from Adam's word. And I just rattled off numerous companies that were hacked into.

I guess you're completely missing the mark here. The reason I'm so baffled about this is because they were hacked twice in an incredibly short period of time. Not within years, but within weeks! Get that now?
There's a German saying that would translate to something like "making a mistake once is okay, making a mistake twice is one time too often". That's it.
Oh, and take a look at Google: A hundred G-Mail accounts compromised versus a million customer's data, for example. Oh, and this didn't happen twice in the last three months, did it?

The only reason why you're paying such close attention to this one, is because you think it's "special because it's video games". Just because it falls outside your field(s) of interest, doesn't mean it hasn't happened in the past

Uh, no, it's not special because it's video games. I'm just baffled that people are defending Sony like that.

No, but you certainly are ready to say that Sony may have, but asking "who committed the bigger crime". If that's not an indictment I don't know what is.

I don't even get your problem with that; from what I can see, the following happened: Sony got hacked twice in a very short period of time (shorter than anything you came up with) and a crapton of data was compromised. The hackers claimed it was both times, which, incidently, checks out with it being done twice that fast. That's why I'm willing to believe them, the events that took place seem to indicate that that's actually true and so, yeah, I'm accusing Sony of what I would consider a crime.

Well at least you're treating them like everyone else.

I just like to take precautions, even if a company has never been hacked. Not only by holding my informations back, but a bit of other stuff as well. To me, a certain amount of distrust is just natural, that's all.
And should stuff like that happen to Xbox Live, you can bet your rear that I'll be staying clear of that service as well.

My point is that you are laying blame on Sony and throwing them under the bus, when you've more than likely thrown YOURSELF under the bus, and repeatedly so. Your data is exposed EVERY DAY. Whether it's from hackers, or a con man who rummages through your trash. So unless you want to be some paranoid nutcase and live in a cave somewhere, you're never going to be as safe as you'd like to believe, and that's not entirely Sony's doing.

Again, you're missing the point. I'm respnsible for my own data. Of one person. But, when you're company that deals with the data of millions of people, there's a certain due diligence, isn't there? Whether I've cimpromised my data or not, isn't there a slight difference when a company does the same for a million of people?
Or, to stick with the bus: If you've been run over by a bus on your own account, it's then okay for me to throw you under it again?

You asked for it.

http://www.dailytech.com/Gmail+Accounts+Hacked+Google+Suspects+Chinese+Involvement+/article21799.htm

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/

Twice in a year and four months. Yeah, that's close, but the difference here (to me) is the amount of data compromised, the fact that the first attack was aimed mostly at the company's source code and nowhere near the same amount of data was compromised.

And not just Google, but the Central Intelligence Agency!

First in 1996

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9609/23/hackers.update/

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6961254.ece

Twice in 13 years. Do I spot a difference there?

And American Express...

http://news.cnet.com/AmEx,-Discover-forced-to-replace-cards-over-security-breach/2100-1017_3-235818.html

...and again in 2005.

http://news.cnet.com/Credit-card-breach-exposes-40-million-accounts/2100-1029_3-5751886.html

Twice in five years. Again, a difference, in my opinion.

and MasterCard

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/mastercard-deemed-unsafe-_n_794164.html

And take a look at this piece from Forbes.com

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/31/visa-mastercard-security-technology-security-visa.html

Twice in one and a half year's time, we're getting closer again.

To quote from that Forbes articles:
"So in a hearing Tuesday, the House of Representative's Committee on Homeland Security took aim at a more accessible target: credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard, which are responsible for creating and enforcing the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards that failed to prevent those breaches."
That's exactly my point. Of course the blame isn't entirely on Sony, but it sure as hell has to take some of it. And, appearently, I'm not the only one thinking a company has to be pretty darn cautious when dealing with their customer's information.
And, if Visa and MasterCard have getting some flak for their security breaches, why the hell shouldn't Sony?!

Here's the thing though; if you reward someone for their wrongdoings, aren't you just encouraging that behavior? There's a bizarre mindset amongst this set, it seems its okay if you want to prove a point. Well why should I have to suffer if you're that much of a megalomaniac that you want stroke your ego?

Uh, what? Do you think hackers hack because they want to be recognized by a big corporation and that that's the sole reason they're doing it?
I'd say hackers started hacking long before companies started hring hackers, because otherwise, there wouldn't have been any hackers to hire in the first place.
And, whether someone wrongdoings are 'rewarded' or not, if it helps to increase a companies security in the long run, why the hell wouldn't you do it?
Furthermore, if we're being precise, they're not rewarded for their wrongdoings, their rewarded for thr knowledge, which doesn't have to stem from criminal actions.

Since their goal was too "embarrass" Sony, what would be more "embarrassing"? Certainly the latter. And seeing how they haven't drawn much attention outside of the "geek" and video game community, I wouldn't even say that they've made that big of a splash.

Dunno about the US, but the German mass media is already reporting the incident. And it certainly made a bigger splash than the breach Google suffered. Way bigger. For two reasons: "A million" is quite a bit bigger than "a few hundred" and everybody and their mother is still remembering the breach Sony suffered not long ago.

Edit:
To abreviate things a bit:

My reasons for not believing that Sony incorporated decent security measures: 1) the hackers claiming so, twice. 2) Sony getting hacked, twice, within a very short period of time.

So, what are the indicators or, better yet, evidence, that makes you say they did?

Did Sony even disclaim that the data was kept in plain text?