By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Seihyouken on 29 April 2011
Edit Thread
Darth Tigris said:
Seihyouken said:
Darth Tigris said:

Overall risk to consumers is FAR greater for this than RRoD.  Possibly replacing a sub-$400 console vs having your identity possibly stolen shouldn't even be a discussion.

Seriously, its a shame how even something like this turns into a fanboy war here.  The weight of this shouldn't be anymore minimized NOW than the weight of RRoD back then.  Both are horrible and neither paints the respective companies in a good light.  Most importantly, both affect customers in a bad way.  

So don't be offended if people jump all over this incident.  It's well deserved.

Well when people such as yourself go around blowing things out of proportion suggesting that it's possible identity theft could be a direct result of the intrusion it's no surprise that people freak out. A name, address, and telephone number don't make an identity. That's facebook biography crap. The only danger people are of having their identities stolen are if they are phished through their mail/phone and tricked into supplying their entire social security number. Needless to say anybody stupid enough to fall for that has no right holding Sony liable. The much more real worry, though equally unlikely problem, is credit card fraud. There's nothing to suggest that the encripted credit card and debit card numbers supplied to Sony had been compromised though Sony can't acertain for certain that they hadn't. Basically there is a 50% chance that not a single person's credit card number was stolen and based on the fact that there don't appear to be a string of reports suggesting that they were, I'm betting they weren't compromised.
But just for argument's sake let's say that credit card information was leaked. I'm not sure about other countries but in America people are protected against fraud on their credit cards and for 30 days after recieving their financial report on debit cards. So even in the unlikely worse case scenerio, it would take a grossly neglegent person to even stand to lose any actual money.

It's crazy how people are making a mountain out of a anthill. Comparing this to the losses Microsoft incurred from the RRoD defect is also silly. That problem cost Microsoft over a billion dollars. Even with the lost revenue from the week without PSN, this situation almost certainly won't cost Sony even a tenth of that.

Ok, I'm just going to say this one thing and then I'll leave you be:  minimizing the potential of this breach of customer information is a sign that you value Sony's reputation more than customers.  Your other posts also show that you are a strong Sony loyalist.  The reality that you cannot step away from that persona and recognize the reality of how dangerous this situation COULD end up being devalues any argument that you put forth.

Just like RRoD, who cares how it affects Microsoft or Sony.  They're multibillion dollar corporations that can take care of themselves.  I'm talking about how it affects CUSTOMERS, who are completely innocent victims, ESPECIALLY in this case.  As someone that knows multiple people that have been affected seriously by credit card information being stolen, it ain't pretty.  Most importantly, as relating to the subject of this thread, it sure is a lot worse than having to replace a console ...

I don't claim not to have bias. Sony is my favorite game developer and system manufacturer. However I don't believe there is anyone who doesn't have bias. It's just a matter of whether you give more weight to your bias than you do to the facts. Nothing I said was untrue. If it seems like I'm minimizing the potential ramifications of the breach then it's probably because so many more people are (falsely) distorting the seriousness of the issue towards the other end of the spectrum. Take a look around. VGChartz is reporting the "possiblity" of the breach costing Sony $24.5 billion based on a completely unrelated estimate of the average loss a company eats per account leak from a security breach institute multiplied by the number of PSN accounts. Then if you bother to go to the institute's website and use their data breach risk calculator and imput all the information regarding Sony's scenario, the institute estimates the actual cost for Sony to be less than $20 million.

$24.5 Billion vs. Less than $20 Million. That's how badly this breach is being blown out of porportion. And comparing to to the RRoD issue or suggesting that this is going to directly lead to a mass of identity thefts isn't helping. I'm not suggesting that Sony shares no part in the blame. The fact remains that this is their system and their security should have been tight enough to prevent this and it wasn't. But the amount of FUD going around regarding this is ridiculous. It needs to be put in perspective.