Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am I misinterpreting your comment? You said, the hackers "lowered people's trust in massive corporations [...] which is not good in any respect." It seems pretty clear to me that Sony is most decidedly not deserving of consumer's trust - and without these public disclosures, we would have never known that. Certainly - as I learned in the Gawker security breach - it sucks to have your login details broadcasted to the…
No, they might not be deserving of customers trust but that doesn't mean that throwing egg on their face is helping the situation any. If the hackers were doing it for the good of the community then it's counter productive. They should have informed Sony of the issue. They are kids who do not understand what effect the situation has on the economic climate. Also, defacing the other music sites does nothing more than…
But not throwing egg on their face was helping less. As long as security bugs are mostly invisible they don't get fixed.
> They should have informed Sony of the issue.
If Sony needed to be told to lock their doors it's only because they didn't care. (At least in 2011. It might have been different in 1997...)
> It's not helping the market and its not helping consumers?
In the end, it helps the market and the consumers. If companies get away with broken security that penalizes, by comparison, other companies who spend more to develop a secure product, or who produce a less ambitious product because they know it's all that can be done securely.
Customers win because they get a more realistic view of what they're buying.
> You and I both know that they should not be storing stuff plain text or with some bad security practice and we understand what it takes to make it right but to the common person they are instantly put off all places where they have to put card details. The overall perception of the web is stepping back 15 years in the eyes of the general consumer, soon people will be afraid to put their details anywhere.
As they should be. You can see how well protected everything isn't.
> I agree completely with what you are saying but that's from my point of view, I'm thinking general consumer confidence.
Confidence through ignorance doesn't seem like a gift.