Lagumbay.com Reflections on Love, Rage, and Fear

Courtesy of Cee Lo Green:

“I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough…”

Let’s step back for a minute here and recall this wonderful gem from last year: from the playstation blog:

“The next system software update for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) system will be released on April 1, 2010 (JST), and will disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update.”

With that, Sony took away my ability to run Linux on the PS3.  Granted, I didn’t run Linux on my PS3 — I had a 40Gig version which didn’t have enough space to house all the installs and saved games I wanted let alone the space I’d have liked to devote to running a copy of Ubuntu.  It was one of the expensive gaming console’s actual selling points: it was Linux-friendly, and I thought that was cool.

As quoted from that blog post from last year, the option to install Linux  was stripped from the gaming console in the name of security.  Although I was upset that the company took away features from a product I had already bought, I thought hey, if I wanted to “securely” play online, I needed the firmware upgrade.  I patched and went on my merry way fragging and platforming as I had always done.

Fast forward to present time.  A week after news of the Playstation Network service being disrupted broke out, I receive a note from Sony saying that

“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, 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 you 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.”

To recap, Sony crippled the Playstation 3 in order to secure it, insinuating that I can’t be trusted to install and run another OS on my hardware.  Sony then miserably fails to secure my personal information stored seemingly unencrypted in their databases from identity thieves.  [4/28/11 -- Sony notes today that some of the data was indeed encrypted]  With the intrusion cleanup, the network has also been down for some time now with no set date for getting back online.  I guess the PS3 doesn’t do everything after all.

Sing it, Cee Lo.