SonyPictures.com hacked, personal information and passwords compromised • Hacker News Board

Re: SonyPictures.com hacked, personal information and passwords compromised

#161

Post by afterburner » Fri, Jun 03, 2011, 4:00 PM UTC

mtw wrote: post #32

henrikschroder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_Ame...

so why isn't there anything done against Apple? Apple's lawyers are on the back of anyone who makes white iPhone cases, jailbreakers, etc.

Apple actually treads carefully with the jailbreak thing. It's cat and mouse security and patching games, not suing people, and since the government ruling that allows jailbreaking (for now), they haven't even said they are fighting jailbreakers (which they used to, at least for PR purposes to please developers).

Re: SonyPictures.com hacked, personal information and passwords compromised

#162

Post by 9999 » Fri, Jun 03, 2011, 4:57 PM UTC

elehack wrote: post #116

9999 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using Stallman's definition of cracker, "people who break computer security" http://stallman.org/cgi-bin/showpage.cgi?path=/archives/arch... That's exactly what George Hotz does. He breaks security. iPhone security, PS3 security, etc. He's not a hacker according to the RMS definition, the pg definition, or probably most of the classical definitions. He may fit the current journalist's definition of "hacker" which…

However, he primarily breaks security on devices he purchased , so that he and others can repurpose them for their own needs and desires. That is a very "hacker" thing to do. "I have this device. Can I make it do something useful?" If he were primarily breaking security on other people's computer systems, then the distinction would likely be merited.

The "making it do something useful" part is the hack. Breaking the security to do that thing is a crack.

Re: SonyPictures.com hacked, personal information and passwords compromised

#163

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Jun 03, 2011, 6:03 PM UTC

bluedanieru wrote: post #127

nitrogen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in case you really don't know, the various branches of Sony have demonstrated technological contempt for [their] customers for years. I'll omit their insistence on promoting their own products over other standards and general push for increased DRM, such as Minidisc/ATRAC, Blu-ray, etc. and focus on their actual attacks. It started with the CD root kit fiasco, in which music CDs distributed by Sony infected Wind…

Misguided?

I say misguided because it's highly unlikely the attacks will have the desired outcome. I heard the most recent hack mentioned on the local NPR broadcast of BBC radio, and all they said was that Sony was attacked again. I'm not aware of any mainstream media saying why.

The only effect seems to be people portraying hackers negatively in general, and at best, questioning why Sony was so vulnerable. The root motivation I described above seems to get no mention.

Re: SonyPictures.com hacked, personal information and passwords compromised

#164

Post by praeclarum » Fri, Jun 03, 2011, 9:34 PM UTC

JackWebbHeller wrote: post #51

praeclarum wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I didn't notice until you mentioned that. It is nicely written, and apostrophe use seems all right. :-) Not sure if I buy the "as a kid would write" bit, but it is surprising to see this. Maybe the hacker just took 10 mins and proofread his own text?

Or maybe we shouldn't stereotype, and assume these people - like you and I - can use proper grammar without even having to spend 10 minutes proofreading?

Speak for yourself, I have to proofread and edit everything I write! :-)

Re: SonyPictures.com hacked, personal information and passwords compromised

#165

Post by bigiain » Sat, Jun 04, 2011, 7:36 AM UTC

VMG wrote: post #148

bigiain wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that deleting it will do much good. Most web apps for performance reasons don't actually do a delete against the database, rather mark a record as deleted and perhaps run a batch job later to clean deleted records from the database. If you've got access to the database via SQL injection, you'll have access to all those "deleted" records as well. Even of you go through the website and update each field wi…

Remember, these people make websites vulnerable to SQL injections in the year 2011. They might not have the best backup strategies.

Heh - yeah maybe... I was imagining a shared hosting cpanel account with a bunch of dated backup.tgz files sitting in the home directory which only ever get removed when the webhost complains about disk space usage...