PSA: Sony's Welcome Back package expires Sunday

PSA: Sony's Welcome Back package expires Sunday: "

You know that amazing glow you feel for a few weeks after getting back with an ex who screwed you over horribly? Yeah. That's about to end.



Sony's Welcome Back program ends tomorrow, July 3, taking all your dreams of free content, a white picket fence and an abuse-free relationship with it. Sony is offering free games, virtual items from PlayStation Home and 30 days of PlayStation Plus for jilted users to choose from. If you've been procrastinating, redeem your free content through the Welcome Back tab on your PS3 and, if you have any questions, hit up the PlayStation Blog. But whatever you decide, don't ever forget to put the toilet seat down again.



[Thanks, skyline9734!]

PSA: Sony's Welcome Back package expires Sunday originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Suddenly Sued

Sony Suddenly Sued: "
While GamerGaia has already brought to your attention the many layoffs done by the Playstation Network, there has now been an actual complaint filed against the PSN because Sony allegedly 'sought to cut its costs at the expense of its customers...'


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Sony withheld full disclosure concerning data breach

Sony withheld full disclosure concerning data breach: "
Government report finds Sony downplayed size of compromised data in April press release and May news conference.

Gamers all over the world have no doubt been keeping track of the recent breach of information the PlayStation Network experienced earlier this year. Back in April, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. officially announced that some personal information had been compromised. Kyodo News, however, has revealed that documents sourced by Japan's official Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has found documentation showing Sony was aware of the scope of the data breach earlier than it had originally acknowledged.

Sony confirmed in the government document that 'a fairly large amount of data' was compromised.

According to the document, Sony confirmed on April 25 (U.S time) that a 'fairly large amount of data' was compromised in an illegal intrusion into its systems. The company was unable to determine specifically what kind of personal user information was leaked. SCE president Kazuo Hirai said in a news conference in May 1 that the company learned of the possibility of the breach on April 26, contradicting what Sony said in the aforementioned document.

Additional notes on the document stated that on April 25, Sony was concerned that disclosing information while assessing the breach would unnecessarily create confusion among users. A Sony spokesperson said that '[they] hadn't figured out [at the time] what kind of data had been leaked. If only passwords and IDs [were breached], they cannot be considered personal information, and so we didn't want to bewilder our customers.'

Recently, Sony confirmed that the last remaining PlayStation Network services were restored. Some of the hackers allegedly responsible for the outage were also apprehended.



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Spain apprehends alleged PSN hackers - Report

Spain apprehends alleged PSN hackers - Report: "
[UPDATE] Wall Street Journal reports three men caught in connection with PSN denial-of-service attack, not the theft of users' personal data.



In April, hackers broke into Sony's online network, gaining access to the personal information and passwords of some 77 million PSN and Qriosity accounts. The attacks were believed to have been conducted by Anonymous, a decentralized group of hackers who it turns out might not be as unknown as their name suggests.

The hackers might not have been as anonymous as previously thought.

According to the New York Times, Spanish police today confirmed that they apprehended three men in connection with the Sony security breach. The police believe they were involved not only with the attacks on Sony, but with other strikes against government websites the world over, and characterized the trio as the local heads of Anonymous.


The three men--all in their early 30s--were apprehended in Almeria, Barcelona, and Valencia, and released pending formal charges. According to the paper, the expected charges will be forming an illegal association to attack public and corporate websites, with each facing a prison sentence of up to three years.


The PSN outage first began on April 20, when Sony brought down the service ostensibly for just a few days. It wasn't until mid-May that the gaming company began restoring PSN functionality.


On June 1, Sony restored service to the PlayStation Store, giving gamers the chance to once again engage in digital commerce through the online platform, with full restoration achieved earlier this week. Sony has also begun offering a selection of free games and other perks for affected PS3 and PSP users to make up for the outage. According to a financial report by Sony, the attack is expected to cost the company more than $171 million.


[UPDATE]: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Anonymous trio was not arrested in connection with the personal data theft that brought PSN services down for a month. The paper cites the head of the Spanish police's high-tech crimes division as saying the three were picked up for their role in denial-of-service attacks on Sony servers.


In early April, Anonymous first made Sony a public target of its activities and disrupted the company's PlayStation websites and PSN for a couple days. However, Anonymous called for an end to such activities, saying they were hurting consumers instead of the actual target, Sony.

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Get Your Free PSN Welcome Back Games Now

Get Your Free PSN Welcome Back Games Now: "




The PlayStation Store returned earlier this week and the second wave of new content is coming later today. The welcome back program, however, is now live and users can pick out their free PlayStation 3 and/or PlayStation Portable games to download. To qualify, you simply need to have had a PSN account prior to the service being taken down on April 20.

Sony's Kaz Hirai announced the initiative at the beginning of May. European PSN members were soon after said to be getting free games to make up for the downtime, and we later learned that those in North America would get their choice of two free games for both PS3 and PSP (if they owned both systems) from a list of select games.


PS3 owners can choose two of the following: Dead Nation, Infamous, LittleBigPlanet, Super Stardust HD (pictured above), and Wipeout HD + Fury. PSP owners get any two of these: LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force, and Killzone Liberation. The downloads are available in the 'Welcome Back' section of the PlayStation Store right now along with a free, 30-day subscription to PlayStation Plus. (Existing subscribers will get 60 days for free automatically added onto their accounts.) This content will be available through July 3. The Plus subscription will begin whenever you sign up, so it looks as if everyone will get early access to the Uncharted 3 beta that begins later this month.
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PSN to undergo maintenance today

PSN to undergo maintenance today: "


Before PSN returns in full force this week, we must relinquish our ability to play online games one more time. The UK PlayStation site reports that the service will be down for maintenance from 4:30 PM GMT today (12:30 PM EST) until 7:01 AM GMT Thursday (3:01 AM EST). If you do want to keep playing online, though, you'll have to make sure that you're signed in to the service before they pull the plug today.



Sony hasn't announced anything for other regions, but if there's one thing we feel safe about assuming, it's a PSN outage. And if it results in renewed PlayStation Store functionality, we are prepared to sit one more day out.

PSN to undergo maintenance today originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PSN Returns, Gears 3, & A New Batman Game - IGN Daily Fix, 5.16.11

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Sony Blocked From Restarting PlayStation Network in Japan

Sony Blocked From Restarting PlayStation Network in Japan: "

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With only a few reported issues involving the password reset system, Sony started rolling out their phased restoration of limited PlayStation Network services this weekend to North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East. Conspicuously missing from the list is Sony's own home turf: Japan.


According to a report by Nikkei, Japanese authorities are blocking Sony from bringing PSN online in their domestic territory until the company can demonstrate that certain new security measures have been met; specifically, the report points out two key areas mentioned by Kazushige Nobutani, the director of the Media and Content Industry department at the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry.
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SOE announces free month, rewards for players affected by downtime

SOE announces free month, rewards for players affected by downtime: "

Despite initial assurances, Sony Online Entertainment eventually confirmed that yes, it did misplace some of your user data recently, and the company feels really, really sorry about that. It can't actually get the data back, of course (that's not how it works), but SOE says it will do its best to make it up to customers with free stuff, as announced on its blog today.



All SOE players will get 30 days of free game time in every game they're subscribed to, in addition to extra play time for every day the servers are down (they've been down since May 2 already). There are also plenty of rewards lined up per game, including special gear and items in DC Universe Online and Star Wars Galaxies plus some special Double XP events in Everquest and Vanguard.



Lifetime subscribers will get another load of in-game currency in addition to all of the other rewards, and Station Access subscribers will get an extra 500 Station Cash. And don't forget about Sony's plan to also offer affected users free identity protection for a year through Debix.

SOE announces free month, rewards for players affected by downtime originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 14 May 2011 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon Server Involved In Sony PSN Network Outage

Amazon Server Involved In Sony PSN Network Outage: "

The Sony PlayStation Network outage is turning out to have more twists and turns than Heavy Rain, and now it appears that some of Amazon.com's hardware ma ...

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Sony Online Entertainment Games Return

Sony Online Entertainment Games Return: "

If you've been waiting to get back into Free Realms or DC Universe Online on the PC, we've got good news. Sony Online Entertainment has announced that 'restoration of its game services will begin today' after the hacker attack that stole user information. This will be a 'phased restoration,' so not everything will be back at once...
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PlayStation Network, SOE being 'phased' back online

PlayStation Network, SOE being 'phased' back online: "
BREAKING NEWS: After three weeks, Sony announces the PlayStation 3's online service is being restored; Sony Online Entertainment also coming back.

Earlier this week, Sony promised it would 'fully' restore the PlayStation Network by the end of the month. Today, the company took the first step in that process, announcing that the PSN will be brought back online today as part of a 'phased' return. Sony Online Entertainment, Sony's massively multiplayer service, will also be coming back as part of the process.

The PlayStation Network is coming back today.

'The restoration of the services across the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Middle East are beginning, and consumers will be able to enjoy some of the online functionality provided by both the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services,' the company announced in a statement. 'Phased restoration in Japan and other Asian countries and regions will be announced in due course.' The first phase of the restoration includes online gameplay and chat functionality, but the PlayStation Store will remain offline for now. Third-party services such as Netflix, Vudu, and Hulu will also be back online.


Kaz Hirai, deputy vice president of Sony Corp., also apologized about the prolonged outage. 'I'd like to send my sincere regret for the inconvenience this incident has caused you, and want to thank you all for the kind patience you've shown as we worked through the restoration process. I can't thank you enough for your patience and support during this time. We know even the most loyal customers have been frustrated by this process and are anxious to use their Sony products and services again. We are taking aggressive action at all levels to address the concerns that were raised by this incident, and are making consumer data protection a full-time, company wide commitment.'


Sony also said that it had implemented new security measures as part of the PSN overhaul. As part of the process, the company has implemented a new firmware update (v3.61) which requires users to change their passwords.


Today's announcement comes over three weeks after the PSN first went offline on the evening of April 20. The following Tuesday, the company confirmed there had been a data breach, but it said some PSN services would be up within a week. Then, on April 30, the company announced it would give PSN users free content to make up for the outage and promised the network would be back online within the following week.


Last Wednesday, the company submitted a detailed timeline of the attack to the US Congress--the day before a cybersecurity expert claimed Sony knew the PSN's security software was outdated. The day after, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer offered an apology for the prolonged delay, and the company unveiled a free identity-theft protection program with $1 million worth of insurance for each customer.



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PlayStation Notwork: Any Fraud Reports?

PlayStation Notwork: Any Fraud Reports?: "

Hey, guys... remember the PlayStation Network? That was pretty awesome, wasn't it? I'm not bringing up the once-functioning network to rub internet-salt i ...

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Sony Denies Claims Their Servers Were Outdated, Lacking Firewalls

Sony Denies Claims Their Servers Were Outdated, Lacking Firewalls: "

Sony has denied claims that their servers were running outdated software and that they lacked firewalls. The rumors were presented during a Congressional heari ...

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PSN Might Not "Fully" Be Back Until May 31 - Report

PSN Might Not "Fully" Be Back Until May 31 - Report: "






We're approaching three weeks of downtime for the PlayStation Network with still no hard date for when we can expect a return. It might still be a while until things are completely back to normal, according to a new report.

Shigenori Yoshida, a spokesman for Sony in Japan, told Bloomberg the plan is to have the service fully up by May 31. That's three weeks away from now and would bring the total downtime up to 41 days, as PSN was taken down by Sony on April 20 in response to an attack that led to users' personal data being stolen.


Keep in mind he referred to PSN being fully back, so it's entirely possible that certain components -- such as online gaming and the PlayStation Store -- will be back up before then. May 31 may also be a worst case scenario for when Sony expects to have service fully resumed by; it's not necessarily the date we can expect to begin playing games online again. That's been clarified over on the European PlayStation forums where it's noted, 'Regarding the aim of the full restoration of PSN services by the 31st May: Restoration of Online Gamplay [sic] is the FIRST phase of the plan to restore the PSN.'
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Stolen PSN data published to web; Sony removes 2500 'names and partial addresses'

Stolen PSN data published to web; Sony removes 2500 'names and partial addresses': "

A report from Reuters' Tokyo branch reveals that the data lifted from PlayStation Network over two weeks ago had made its way from your life to Sony's servers into hacker's hands and finally, from there, onto an unnamed website. 'Sony said on Saturday it had removed from the Internet the names and partial addresses of 2,500 sweepstakes contestants that had been stolen by hackers and posted on a website,' Reuters reports.



Before you fret, let's detail the data a bit: It was from customers who entered a 2001 sweepstakes (Win a Free Identity Theft!) and did not include sensitive bits like credit card numbers, social security numbers, or passwords. 'The website was out of date and inactive when discovered as part of the continued attacks on Sony,' the beleaguered electronics company said. It's unclear how Sony was able to remove the website as quickly as it evidently did. Late last night, Sony re-adjusted its timeline for reactivating PSN, originally expected to be back online in some form this week, citing the need for further testing.



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PSN restoration delayed

PSN restoration delayed: "
Sony says 'internal testing' of PlayStation Network taking longer than expected due to 'comprehensive system checks' and security verification.

Sony has dashed the hopes of PlayStation Network users who had hoped to use the service over the weekend. In a post on the official PlayStation Blog, Sony Computer Entertainment America's senior director of corporate communications and social media Patrick Seybold announced that restoring the PSN is taking longer than expected.

Don't expect the PSN to be up this weekend.

'As you may know, we've begun the process of restoring the service through internal testing of the new system,' he said. 'We're still working to confirm the security of the network infrastructure, as well as working with a variety of outside entities to confirm with them of the security of the system. Verifying the system security is vital for the process of restoration. Additional comprehensive system checks and testing are still required, and we must complete that process before bringing the systems online.'


Seybold continued, "As you've heard us say, our utmost priorities are the security of the network and ensuring your data is safe. We won't restore the services until we can test the system's strength in these respects. … When we held the press conference in Japan last week, based on what we knew, we expected to have the services online within a week. We were unaware of the extent of the attack on Sony Online Entertainment servers, and we are taking this opportunity to conduct further testing of the incredibly complex system. … We apologize for the delay and inconvenience of this network outage."


Seybold's comments came the day after Sony announced it was performing 'final testing' before the system went back online. That same day, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer offered an apology for the prolonged delay, and the company unveiled a free identity theft protection program with $1 million worth of insurance for each customer.


Unfortunately, today's announcement comes over two weeks after the PSN first went offline on the evening of April 20. The following Tuesday, he company confirmed there had been a data breach, but that some PSN services would be up within a week. Then on April 30, the company announced it would give PSN users with free content, and promised the network would be back online within the following week. Finally, this past Wednesday, the company submitted a detailed timeline of the attack to the US congress--the day before a cybersecurity expert claimed Sony knew the PSN's security software was outdated.


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Sony Giving I.D. Theft Insurance to PSN Users

Sony Giving I.D. Theft Insurance to PSN Users: "

Another day… and still no PSN.

With Sony’s investigation into the cyber attack that took down PlayStation Network still ongoing, the electronics giant has revealed some details about the “Welcome Back” package that all PSN users will soon be receiving. Among Sony’s gifts to woo you back to PSN: $1 million in identity theft insurance for one year. Free.



The Welcome Back package is also said to include a free month of PSN Plus to all users, at least one free game download from the PSN Store, and extensions on current subscriptions to make up for gamers’ lost play time.

But the insurance thing is undoubtedly the gift that’s raising the most eyebrows among gamers. The year-long insurance policy comes via a deal between Sony and AllClear ID, a company that offers both free and premium (paid-for) identity theft insurance. The very notion that every single use of PSN will get a free insurance policy that could extend all the way up to a cool million — should a user find themselves the victim of identity theft during that free year — is pretty staggering. I can’t even imagine what this deal must be costing Sony, even with a presumed “special deal” discount of some kind.

Sony says that over the next few days, PSN users will be receiving emails instructing them on how to take advantage of this policy, and they’ll have until June 18th to redeem this free gift. Only U.S. gamers will benefit from this deal with AllClear, but similar deals are currently being negotiated for users from other countries.

PSN is expected to be restored sometime in the next few days, after more than two weeks of nonexistence.

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Sony President Issues Apology Letter

Sony President Issues Apology Letter: "

Howard Stringer, the president of Sony USA, has posted an apology letter on Sony's website, and while the letter doesn't offer any more info on the attacks or ...

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