If you honestly believe that this hacking was done to 'get even and to raise awareness of their cause' then there is nothing I have to say to you. This is not meant in a spiteful way, it is just that your perspective of this situation is so coloured by your positive feelings for Sony as to make dialogue impossible.

You're confusing anon and Lulsec.  Lulsec does it for the lulz, anon claims to be striving for your human rights.

ok then what was it done for? i'm open to your opinion

I am also on this boat. I am curious to know what the "great knowledgeable one" has to say about this. Bottom line is that as a consumer who is enjoying the service I find it really annoying. I am not a keyboard cowboy and I will say straight out that meeting an anon or lulsec member will make me happy to cause physical harm. As a matter of fact here is my address 48-46 47th st, woodside ny, apt 3E, feel free if you are anon or lulsec because I am aching for some instant gratification. *disclaimer I apologize if I went overboard mods, if you feel the need to omit anything then do so.

well... no response i guess it must be...

OK, I'll give it a go

So, the hackers involved in this see it as a person's right to do what they want with things they purchased. Lets not complicate this by going into some of the things that Geohotz enabled people to do (piracy for example). Lets keep it to 'Sony disabled OtherOS, and then Geohotz reenabled it' This is infact the order it happened in, your claim that " [linux was removed] because geohot tried to undermine the security of the console through linux which of course sony didn't want to allow and as a result it was removed" is simply not true, as far as I can tell. Look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS#History for details.

There was then a class action lawsuit against Sony, saying that removing OtherOS was "unfair and deceptive" and a "breach of good faith".

So obviously some people in this world (myself included) believe that removing OtherOS, without even attempting to compensate the users was immoral. Imagine if Nintendo made a mandatory update for the 3DS that turned off the 3D effect permanently, you are taking away a feature that was advertised when people purchased the console.

Of course, on the other hand, one can argue that by removing OtherOS, Sony made it harder to hack the PS3 (although they also made people want to hack it more) and thus they protected their users from people being able to cheat in games, and from the loss of 3rd party support that can accompany the system being pirated.

I hope you can thus recognise that for some people, the first of those is more significant than the 2nd, even if you don't agree?

Then, we have the hackers counter measures. The theory behind them is that if they can financially hurt Sony with their hacking, then the next time Sony (or any other company) is in a similar situation, they will choose to leave the feature in, instead of removing it and consequently being hacked.

Again, can you recognise that this is a legitimate belief to have? Even if you do not personally hold that belief.

The hackers then decided that taking down the PSN was a good way to financially damage Sony, through the effort they would have to go to to secure the network, the cost of providing credit card monitoring for their customers, the cost of the apology gift they would give their users and the cost of lost sales of online heavy games.

Then it is just a matter of working out if the cost to Sony's customers is greater than or less than the benefit that this action will give to consumers in the long term. You (and me) have both decided that the cost of the hacking (inconvenience for users) was greater than the benefit of the hacking (convinces companies to act in a different way in the future), but that is not to say that no-one can honestly believe that the benefit is better than the cost.

The hackers were trying to do good. They do this at great personal risk or imprisonment or fines, they do this despite the hate sent their way, they do this with no personal glory, because if they ever tell anyone that it was them they get thrown in jail. They do this to try to help me, and they do it to try to help you.

Call their feelings misplaced, call them a bull, trying to help someone find a particular piece of china in a china shop.

But do NOT call them selfish.

@Marks

Anonymous and Lulzsec are not synonymous. Anonymous is a ideology while Lulzsec is a organization. The ideology is about advancing, and protecting liberties. Lulzsec is about humiliating others for shits and giggles. This isn't really a matter of opinion either. Lulzsec has said that they are all about the lulz.

Speaking to the Anonymous attacks on Sony. They were denial of service attacks. Which is the internet equivalent of a non violent protest. People were just mildly inconvenienced. They wanted to draw public attention to the issue. It was just a way to get the point across. Once people were at least made aware of their point of view they stopped. It was all rather civilized actually. Protesters around the world inconvenience people all the time, but in the end after a little waiting you can get on by.

Lulzsec on the other hand is far more militant, and it is probably the case that they have no agenda. Beyond causing grief for the sake of causing grief. They are basically attacking companies at random now. They are getting off on their notoriety, and the body count they are making.

Anyway the source did a good job of pointing out it was an ideology, and you shouldn't hold a grudge against the vast majority, because of a vicious minority that may have come out of the ranks. Christianity, Islam, and other religious groups are ideologies, and they have vicious minorities. Would it be fair to apply hate for the worst of the lot against the group as a whole. We are all part of larger groups.

"some people in this world (myself included) believe that removing OtherOS, without even attempting to compensate the users was immoral"

you have to realise however that the update was not forced upon users... users had to willingly update their systems and if they didn't they had to accept that they could no longer access sony's online network or games which required newer versions of sony's software and while i agree that to some level that this is unjust you must realise that its sony's software and network while you own the hardware...

"the first of those is more significant than the 2nd"

yes i can definitely agree that people may have valued linux more than the network and were completely in support of the hackers' actions

"The hackers then decided that taking down the PSN was a good way to financially damage Sony"

personally i don't really see how this was a smart method... because what it will lead to in the end is sony and other companies looking to lock down their system to a greater extent and to the possible exclusion of future features for their hardware to avoid situations like these happening again... you really believe that sony will ever add in a bonus feature like linux again? anons efforts certainly aren't an incentive to do so

the other thing to consider with your cost idea is that there are hardly any threats to a console greater than piracy i mean when you think on it thats the main purpose of the console for the company - to sell games theres no way sony was just going to allow that to happen regardless

"they do this despite the hate sent their way"

imo they deserve every single bit of it what have the results of the hack been? : a month of psn lost to customers, the possibility that sony will exclude features like linux in the future, etc

i understand that your views are different but anon's actions imo have been nothing but negative to customers with the exception of the tightening up of psn's security and all the content given away by sony for free

edit : btw "sony didn't want to allow and as a result it was removed" is simply not true, as far as I can tell" this is absolutely wrong he compromised the system and sony responded here are some links you may want to check out

http://mastercookiez.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/geohot-hack-propered-expl0it-for-all-ps3-firmwares/ ( this is when the exploit was first released and sony was unaware )

http://gamercrave.com/ps3-hacker-geohot-on-lost-linux-support-im-sorry/2349/ ( this is of course when sony realised and announced they were removing the feature )

the exploit was released by geohot between january and february of 2010 sony announced the features removal in april

I am not debating that the net effect of the hacks was a negative one, I am saying that the hackers tried to have a positive effect and failed.

Those guys need to shut up