LK Blog: Has Sony stepped up it's legal aggression in a post hack world?

On the 4th of April, 2011, Sony Corporation made a dangerous enemy.
They gave out this message, which, with all its melodrama, probably made the intern at Sony who read it laugh himself hoarse before disregarding the warning.

I know I wouldn't take these mask wearing goons seriously.

16 days later, Sony found itself in the biggest media hack scandal shit storm of the decade.

Aforementioned intern, and Sony collectively also.

On the 26th of April, Sony put it's hands in the air and admited a booboo.

A big booboo.

77 million booboos to be exact.

77 million names, addresses, email addresses, birth dates, PlayStation Network/Qriocity passwords and logins, handle/PSN online ID, profile data, purchase history and possibly credit cards, were, er, 'misplaced'.

So who was responsible for this massive security breach? And why?

(It wasn't Gordon Brown's fault, for once)

Find out after the jump.

Sony pointed the finger at Anonymous.

Sony claimed that they had found a file dropped on the hacked server entitled 'We are Legion', Anonymous' rather hammy catchphrase.

Anonymous pointed the finger right back at Sony, claiming that the group's intentions were purely political and were uninvolved in the theft of credit card information.

"Whoever did perform the credit card theft did so contrary to the 'modus operandi' and intentions of Anonymous. Public support is not gained by stealing credit card info and personal identities, we are trying to fight criminal activities by corporations and governments, not steal credit cards." - Extract from letter to Sony.

The PlayStation Network was down for a total
of 40 days in the UK as Sony scrabbled to
rebuild stronger servers.

Anonymous, self proclaimed internet vigilante 'hactivism' group, Denial of Service attack (DDoS) could have been used as cover for a malicious hacker to ferret in undetected and fill his pockets with confidential goodies.

So what were the group's motives?

In January 2010, George Hotz hacked the Playstation 3. A few months later, he released his method to YouTube, telling others how to do it too.
Was it a crime showing others how to install homebrew software and custom OSs to their own PS3s?

Had to be included I'm afraid. Source

Sony thought so, and took 'GeoHot' to court on the 11th of January 2011 for jailbreaking and reverse engineering the Playstation.
They eventually reached a settlement, that prohibited Hotz from doing anymore hacking, in April.
Sony also managed to win legal control over the IP addresses of everyone who visited geohot.com or Hotz's YouTube videos.

Anonymous HQ caught wind of this.
And so it began.

Fast forward a few months. On the 16th of September, Sony released an update for the PS3 that users had to accept to continue using the Playstation's online services.
Buried deep within the updated terms and conditions agreement, Sony hid this little gem;

ANY DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEEDINGS, WHETHER IN ARBITRATION OR COURT, WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION OR AS A NAMED OR UNNAMED MEMBER IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, REPRESENTATIVE OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY ~~GENERAL~~LEGALACTION, UNLESS BOTH YOU AND THE SONY ENTITY WITH WHICH YOU HAVE A DISPUTE SPECIFICALLY AGREE TO DO SO IN WRITING FOLLOWING INITIATION OF THE ARBITRATION.