well thats assuptions you're making first off yes there are several skills that can be used for harm that is hard to trace ( the shits and giggles thing doesn't really have anything to do with this if )  - for example people who have experience in administering drugs, people with certain technical skills etc

"peopl ein Sony should be very aware of how hacker culture works" really? i understand why but honestly can either of us say with certainty that that is the case with any of the networks we use?

"Incompetence, on several layers, bit them in the ass." i can't confirm that any of the things i've read or heard are true but if they are yes absolutely... but honestly im quite sure that had they had far more protection the result would have been the same but it would probably have taken longer to achieve ( does that excuse negligence, no ) the hackers seemed to have been extremely determined to have sony pay in some way

The purpose has a lot to do with it, because that means that once they have even the smallest reason to do something, they do it.

I am not really sure what you are driving at with the rest.

and my point at the end of the day has always been that it is very hard to anticipate someone's intentions in any situation, for example, in this situation i thought it more likely that in retaliation they may have worked harder on creating new custom firmware or that they may have extended to jailbreaking other devices... i never figured they would go after the network... sony probably had that assuption too as one of the agreements met from the case was that neither geohot or his associates were to mess with further sony products 

um what you posted has less to do with what i was originally reffering to than my last post, that is, how sony or any entity can be aware of whatever actions may offend another entity and what the offended entity may do to get back. I likened this to instead of hacking the skill in question being carpentry, furthermore i said let the assuption be made that like with the geohot case that the carpenter is a friend of the offended person ( not to say that the hackers are friends with geohot but that they view him favourably in this context ).

I never went into sony's security methods or whatever because obviously thats irrelevant because regardless at this point we know ( or at least its been speculated ) that they were inadequate.

And as was the case with geohot's case i said that the friend of the offended person ( according to what you're saying ) uses their skill to get even and ( again according to what you said ) the victim should be aware of the attack.

What you just posted shows that you're making the assuption that the behavior and organisation of hackers is common knowledge ( which it maybe but until a few weeks ago i personally didn't know much about anon but now i know much more ) 

It is... among people who know shit about technology anyway.  If it wasn't common knowledge for Sony... Sony is unbelievably incompetant.

That would be like a Bank claiming ignorance of how bank robbers work.

so you're telling me before the network went down and before anon declared their attack you knew the network would be brought down specifically? that is to say you knew the exact measures they would take to attack sony? and there was no doubt in your mind that maybe they could have attacked via a different route like uploading new forms of firmware or finding some other way to mess with the hardware or software?... bear in mind i'm not saying an attack wasn't expected im saying that the exact type of attack couldn't possibly have been known before hand

so you're telling me before the network went down and before anon declared their attack you knew the network would be brought down specifically? that is to say you knew the exact measures they would take to attack sony? and there was no doubt in your mind that maybe they could have attacked via a different route like uploading new forms of firmware or finding some other way to mess with the hardware or software?... bear in mind i'm not saying an attack wasn't expected im saying that the exact type of attack couldn't possibly have been known before hand

@ o_0.Q

What happened to Sony was predictable, they sue lots of guys that discuss about the PS3 hacking (not the one for the back up player / usb loader, but the ones that do it for homebrew, not piracy) sure they should have prepare for shitstorm because you have the right to do what you want for the hardware your purchase, so it gives some incentive to hackers to mess with Sony and got some justification for it.

If sony only goes against the pirate, not the hackers they would have much less trouble.