No, of course you blame the hackers because in this example the bank refuses to give you back money which was stolen because they are 'still in a civil and criminal suit against the hackers'.

I would blame both, especially if the hackers dumped the mean to do the hack and the info they got. Which is what is going on here when any of the systems get hacked.

SONY is still culpible for having suck security, but so is MS and nintendo. 

SONY screwed up, the hackers are still assholes.

Your second paragraph is completely right. Also the fact that people do not have the right to distribute the methods of hacking said systems.

You know full well I am not talking about thing like parking a car on a sidewalk. I mean if I buy a car and it breaks down I can use whatever parts I want regardless of manufacturer.

If SONY wins a ruling like this you could have it where if you own a Ford it will only work with Ford parts. This can happen simply because cars are becoming more and more computerized.

If SONY wins a ruling like this you could have it where you buy an HP PC and can only use HP parts or maybe have to read a list of "Approved Manufacturers". 

"Sweet! New NVidia card it, i'm getting it!"

Not according to HP your not. Install it and be lucky if it works. Then return it to the store minus the 15% restocking fee.

Like that new case for your PC? I do, let me put that on my PC.

Oh shit, HP doesn't like it. Time to pay the consequences.

So yeah, go ahead and think companies like SONY come before your consumer rights. I on the other hand will have none of it. 

I bought my PS3. I own my PS3. SONY does not own it. I can do what I want with what I own.

If not, then I should be getting them free of charge from SONY.

You may say I am going overboard with these examples or think they will never happen, but remember, there was a time when people said it would never be possible to get sued for protecting your own family against a thief who broke into your home.

Strange things happen, but it is people like us who allow shit to get that out of hand.

He stole and distributed intellectual property imo.

Modding hardware per se is not necessarily an offense. Selling/buying the means to do so is illegal. Using the mod to use pirated software is illegal.

Id actually be happy with a completely open system run on open source software. Though that would also _require_ console software to switch over to the PC model where software often 'phones' home and uses authentication keys to validate their authenticity for network usage. And even then you get very shitty multiplayer experiences with bots and hacks all over the bloody place.

What im happy with and whats _legal_ are not necessarily the same thing. You can argue for your utopia all you want, doesn't make it especially legal.

Man, I appreciate your passion about this, I really do, but couple things:

• I never said I thought Sony coud do whatever they want...in fact I allude to the fact that they COULD impede our freedom if allowed to go unchecked in my original post.  Believe me I am NOT a blind corporate backer.  I complete understand that Multi-billion dollar companies are not altruistic regardless of the name on the outside of the building.
• I think we agree on a lot of things, the only thing we disagree on, is that there is some absolute answer.  I agree consumer rights need to be protected.  I agree that, within reason you should be able to do what you want to with crap you buy.  I just don't think that hacking a system, which allows others to use that knowledge to ruin the online experience for a ton of other folk, is a great example of "personal freedom".

Take a second and read what I first wrote (way back 2 pages ago or whatever, haha, sorry).  Is it REALLY that different from your feeling?

2) 

Right I haven't been following this situation.  Can someone summarise the problem?

Is the PS3 and PSN unusually vulnerable in this hack?  Has Sony unwittingly left a gaping hole in their security which could compromise the whole network?  Is this any worse than the 360 situation?  If not then what is all the fuss about?... just patch and wait then patch again... no?

Right I haven't been following this situation.  Can someone summarise the problem?

Is the PS3 and PSN unusually vulnerable in this hack?  Has Sony unwittingly left a gaping hole in their security which could compromise the whole network?  Is this any worse than the 360 situation?  If not then what is all the fuss about?... just patch and wait then patch again... no?

How does Microsoft's security or claimed lack thereof negatively effect users in a comparable way? The same applies to Nintendo since the majority of the effects are localised to particular Wii's for homebrew or piracy. You can't easily go out and buy an Xbox 360 which is hackable to nearly the same extent because it is restricted to specific older models which haven't been updated. You can buy any PS3 you want and gain the same priveledge Sony has, you can even write software which will work on any PS3 ever created. So this is definately not comparable.

When you say Sony screwed up, you have it partially wrong. They screwed up in proportion to the size of the titans in SOTC. Getting the most important 100 lines of security code wrong and having other security assumptions compound the problem further is extremely problematic. The hackers being assholes doesn't really matter because what is done is done. What you think of what they did doesn't really matter. For better or worse the PS3 is becoming an open system which comes with benefits and problems. PC = PS3 in many respects now.

Which IP?

XMB? 

So we never technically own the PS3?

If so and they wish to go this route I would have no issues if they didn't charge us hundreds of dollars to get something we don't own.