Poor Sony....
Ravenkallen
Posts: 1,057
Wow, if having the PSN down for a month(And still continuing for certain features) hasn't hurt Sony, this sure as heck will. The hackers apparently got in pretty easy and had access to unencrypted data, which included address, numbers, email... Why is Sony such a target? Maybe Microsoft is behind all this:)
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/229308/lulzsec_hacks_sonypicturescom_1_million_accounts_exposed.html
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/229308/lulzsec_hacks_sonypicturescom_1_million_accounts_exposed.html
Comments
Another involved the AIBO robot dog. When they first came out there was no details on the internals. One user (AIBOPET ??) started tinkering with the robot and was able to start documenting the internals and make it do some new features. Sony tried to stop it but after feeling the heat from angry AIBO owners finally backed off a bit.
One of the more recent ones involved the PS3 systems. The early versions were not only PS2 compatible but could also run Linux. Sony later came out with a firmware upgrade that disabled the use of Linux on the system. So, people that were using them for Linux were upset since they could no longer use the system the way they wanted and Sony didn't care. When a few people unlocked their systems so they could run Linux again (which was an original feature that Sony pulled) Sony seemed to pursue them ruthlessly. I'm sure that didn't sit well with PS3 owners which was probably one of the triggers that made Sony a target.
Have to agree 100% with this sentiment. I think the entire Sony management needs a slap to the back of the head to get their attention and make them smarten up.
there memStick is a re haked SD card ( dude SD won the war . Give up on MS . its dead ) . there TVs are over priced .
Sorry but they get every thing they deserve .
Peter
Hewlett-Packard is foremost. These days, one might as well buy Asus as they are making most of the good OEM computers in the Western world. HP is trying to do its own thing, but doesn't have the option to sell OEM.
Sony is part of what we are seeing as a cultural trend in Japanese technological savvy. There appears to be an overall decline as the country is aging and great companies are living on past glories. It seems anything negative is not handled in an informative way with a high degree to sensitivity to damage control.
My first PDA was a Sony that cost about $500USD. I loved it as it was feature rich and very sensual design. It included an OS for Korean, Japanese, Chinese and English input. I immediately purchase another $300USD in applications. But that affair was short lived. It slipped off a table about 30 days after I purchased it and the screen cracked. That was when I learned that it was made ONLY for the USA market and since I bought it 'under-the-table' in Taiwan, they would not repair it UNLESS I filed a law suit in a US small claims court and went all the way back to the USA to get the repair done.
Mind you that this was a PDA with Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and English for an OS and input and output - not an English only product. I decided to buy one because all the MDs at the local university hospital were using them.
I tried to get it repaired locally by a Sony repair station and they flatly refused to touch it. So I threw the darn thing at a concrete wall in Song repair shop when the manager and customers looked on and have switched to Palm.
I'll never by another 'big ticket' Sony product again. Their stuff can be extremely appealing to buy, but an absolute nightmare to service.
I still like Toshiba, but I am getting very wary about anything Japanese from the customer service side.
I had a Sony CD player that had a rechargeable battery. I thought I heard some distortion so I bought a service contract for $30. I took advantage of the contract and the repair place rejected the unit in the mail so I returned the CD player to the store and I got my money back for the service contract. The other issue was that you couldn't hear the music on an old Sony CD player when you fast forwarded so I bought a CD player from Technics which was a lot better.
When a company doesn't respect the customer (I had a service contract) and they don't honor it, I stop buying from them. The fact they didn't protect customers in the first place is another reason to jump ship.
It was also just in the news that Best Buy and other companies were collecting customer information and someone just happened to get their hands on it. I just decided that if companies want a relationship with me, they don't need my information because it is just usary.
That Sony PDA was bought at what I thought was a good store in rather large and established computer mall here. But after I dropped the device and needed repair, I found my retail outlet had gone broke and already closed shop. I only had Sony to turn to.
From what I do gather, the US government was partially involved as they apparently made Sony promise to only export to the USA due to what was considered advanced technology at that time.
But obviously there was a 'grey market' in Asia where this particular PDA was booming as it was the first to provide a solid Asian languages input system. My impression was that Sony made a promise to the US government and then turned a blind eye to where boxes of product were really going.
I purchased it for use with Chinese/English dictionary - Pleco Dictionary - and that is what I still use my Palm Zire72 for. It has traveled with me to China, Japan, Korea, and Thailand and I wouldn't travel without it for language reference as it travels in my shirt pocket for immediate use. Beiks Dictionary sells a huge library of language dictionaries for PDAs for less than $100 USD.
Palm has had its ups and downs as a company (and is even owned now by HP), but their PDAs have been very solid for international service and repair. But when it dies, I just may go to an Apple product.
In the case of Sony it is rather sad. Although I avoid Sony products now there was a time they were my preferred choice for electronics and computer products.
Let me guess it was a" Clei" SP? that ran Palm OS . Yea I ALLMOST got one the year the first
Ipod came out with FIREWIRE ! WHOOAAA FAST !!! . this is pre USB 2,0 days .
so I got the Ipod and had it for 4 years till its batt died . Me I used the Visor Neo ( smokey black one ) as it had a Slot to CF adpter that let me have a HUGE 128 M of space on it VS int of 8 megs ( those were the days LOLs ) now I own a pam Centro and I LOVE IT .
I hope too that HP does palm well and keeps that candle alive .
as for sony . Everyone and there mom had a "handy cam " . but here was my Beef
it was a 8.4V charger and a SONY PLUG * so when my moms vac chewed up the plug I had to Dish out $80 for a charger . .
I tossed the sony and got me a canon XL1 . . no longer do I need to kiss a companys butt to get a part . canon has had NO prolelm with me fixing my own stuff . ( mind that they so remind you on the phone you wil be voiding your warrinty ) like i care .... I had that XL1 till 2007 or so ..
see I can under stand Apple being a Mean old hag with parts and service as they are apple . \\
Il be up front I am a bit of a fan boy ) but I expect apple to be snobby . its apple .
but Esp on the viao's Sony has acted like apple with one off chargers . one off this and that .
no 2 sony laptops are the same or share parts form my point of view .
and like apple to a extent they over price ( relivive to the PC not mac market) there computers .
Sony invents sticker names like 3D ths and Vega that ans up sells it like its gold .
(I Il be up front my dad knows the CEO of Viseo )
Viseo does 90% of sony quality and suff with far less up sell .
Visio is huge pain in Sony's side .
its a TV Oh Heck only a few Compansy make the panals . LD samsung Sonly and one other . a the same with the CPUs in the TVs . its a Off the shelf TexInstruments VGA / HDMI / NTSC to LVDS chip . and whhopty doo the sony has a extra chip for its color stuff .
Not impressed .
they LIE to the consumer . and I feel they should have Lost all of there biussness after the root kit scandal.
sony is Sue happy .
gamers WILL hack and crack . its in there blood .
you release a devices Expect it to be a Server or be a tablet in a day or too .
as you can see I have no love for sony ...
About the only interesting thing Sony has done in the past 15 or so years was to release a video camera that could be switched to IR mode and record people as if they were not wearing any clothes.
Of course, I have to wonder if that was another of their 'covert' marketing ploys.
Now that you've heard about Sony's true character how about changing the thread title to something more appropriate?
May I suggest "Sony SUCKS" or "WHY WE SHOULD BOYCOTT SONY".
I am sure you or someone else can come up with a better suggestion. I am not so good at this kind of thing.
I understand. I am still more than a bit irritated about the amount of work they caused me with their copy protection root kit and as a result have not bought a single Sony product since. I spent several days trying to remove the root kit and spy/adware it permitted to load on my system. In the end I had to format my hard drive and reinstall all my software.
I feel you should at least change it from "Poor Sony" though. They are only getting what they deserve (if even that) for the arrogant, careless, and devious way they do business.
Nintendo was a victim of an attack but they said the attacker didn't get anything.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20068890-245/hackers-target-sony-nintendo-and-fbi-partner-web-site/
I think the lesson to be learned is not to leave anything on the web that is of value so use sites that are encrypted and have a more serious security policy.
I agree the hackers are the bad guys in this case, and am not condoning what they have done, however what they have done is a direct result of Sony's arrogance and lack of concern and respect for their customers. Sony should have taken the necessary steps to ensure the security of their customers data and privacy. They should be embarrassed and they should be held legally responsible for the consequence of their actions, but this is highly unlikely to happen. How do I, or thousands of others who had their computers compromised by Sony's root kit prove that in a court of law? How do we prove that our personal information Sony should have protected was used to our detriment. Sony has the resources to fight, delay, and obfuscate, any legitimate claims I might have well beyond the point where I am dead and buried.
As I said, they deserve to be embarrassed, and they deserve to be punished. The only way I have of doing so is to encourage people to boycott them.
PS - Ravenkallen, I don't expect you to boycott Sony. Your experience has been different from mine and I respect that. You are free to patronize whatever company you wish. I will not deal with Sony or any company that behaves in a similar manner, as I am sure several others on this forum will do, unless they admit their mistakes and make the necessary changes to avoid such mistakes in the future.
Your list of companies that you will buy from or deal with must be very small. You may or may not be aware, but just about every major company in existence has behaved similarly badly at one time or another. You just haven't experienced it or read about it yet.
The reality is that often times the only thing they are truly guilty of is ignorance, or withholding information. It's not like Sony intended for the rootkit stuff to go down like it did. They licensed the technology from another company as a form of copy protection, it went badly. There have been other instances by other companies of similar things.
Another thing to be aware of is that Sony is actually many different companies, with different CEOs and so on. Often with different policies and practices. Yes, there is a parent Sony Corp. in Japan, but it's not as simple a structure as you might think.
At SOE, where I work, we have nothing to do with making TVs or consumer electronics, nor do we have anything to do with the music business or the movie and TV show business.
Anyway... enjoy your day.
Quite the opposite! My list of companies I deal with is fairly large, while the list of companies I avoid (if at all possible) is pretty small. Sony is at the top of that list because they installed a ROOT KIT (every hackers wet dream to access someones computer) on MY PC without asking my permission. To me this is the equivalent of someone breaking in to a house and placing hidden cameras and microphones to monitor activities. I only see one of two possibilities for this action. One is that the folks making this decision were really really stupid and had no idea what the software they were buying was, or two, that they purchased it with every intention of monitoring the PC's the software was installed on. Neither excuse encourages me to trust Sony again.
I am not so naive. I know that profit comes before ethics for a lot of companies, and while they might not lie and cheat outright they will stretch and bend them as much as they feel they can get away with. Companies that treat their customers as well as Parallax does are few and far between.
To a certain extent I agree with this. Had Sony released this information as soon as they were aware of it instead of trying to cover it up I might have been inclined to see it as a mistake. Had they then offered a fix to remove their software I would most definitely have done so.
Being an employee of a Sony company I can understand your desire to defend them. What surprises me is how many others do so as well. While I regret that so many people have had their personal information fall into the hands of hackers, somehow hearing that Sony has been hacked seems like poetic justice. After all, that is what they did to our computers.
All this may be true, nevertheless it is the responsibility of the upper management to set the guidelines of ethical and acceptable behavior, and installing software, harmless or not, on someones computer without their permission or knowledge is not acceptable to me.
Did you know that Apple tried to get patents on the mouse when it was common knowledge that the Xerox Research Center had built mice years before?
As you say, at the end of the day companies are all alike. I have said all I have to say on this topic so this will be my last comment on this thread.
Others have sinned. I strongly suspect that someone in the legal department gets the ear of the CEO and convinces him/her that something is 'perfectly legal', but in fact is not prudent customer relations.
1. Hewlett-Packard used to clearly support Linux with drivers for its printers and scanner and clearly provided data about which products are Linux friendly. But those days appear gone. And so is my loyalty.
2. Seagate sold me a 500Gbyte USB hard disk that had its own software and Seagate claims is NOT A SALE of hardware, but they merely issued me a license to use the hard disk on their terms. Why would I have paid for this product if I didn't get to own it is beyond me. I was caught in the dilemma of having always bought Seagate - Now I buy Western Digital.
Of course, this software ONLY supported M$ file systems and I run Ubuntu Linux as a dual boot. I considered returning the device, but decided 'No'. I just re-formated the hard disk and partitioned as I saw fit. Seagate can come an get it in Taiwan for license violation, but I doubt they ever will. I don't buy licenses for hardware use, I buy hardware and do with it as I please.
I'm sure there are other excellent examples of poor customer relations when an outfit forgets that they depend on the customer rather than vise-versa.
How times have changed.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp35.htm
No, but that also didn't stop HBGary getting destroyed when the real target was HBGaryFederal. That's the point, you carry the targeted brand name, you're the target.
These people are still so deep inside Sony's network they'll never get them out. How many breaches have Sony had now? 17 or so methinks:
http://attrition.org/security/rants/sony_aka_sownage.html
They're not done, expect more.
it just takes and runs, CUPS is happy .
is this a with in a year issue ?
canon and lexmark flat out refuse to play nice with tux . and canon too . so who else do i use . Epsion ?
Peter