An article on the Financial times suggested Anonymous’ involvement to the PSN hack. Anonymous responds to that article.
Anonymous released a new press release stating that the article was false and it was not them. They lay several reasons why the article is inaccurate.
Anonymous still deny any official involvements to the PSN hacks. As of right now, investigations are still ongoing on who is responsible. The PSN is still offline as a result.
Here is the full press release from Anonymous:
Yesterday, an article appeared in Financial Times, alleging Anonymous’ involvement in the data and identity theft of some hundred million users of Sony’s Playstation Network and Sony Online Entertainment. This crime is now being investigated by the Homeland Security Agency (HSA), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and other legal entities.
…Here, Anonymous wishes to lay out our case against these allegations and false assumptions:
First, let us consider a different article by Menn published on the Financial Times website and entitled “Hackers Warned of Arrest” [2]…. Confident in his assertion, he attempted to sell this and other pieces of so-called “intelligence” about the nature of Anonymous to the U.S. FBI.
His information, however, was incorrect… it was not until 2008 that Anonymous became a true display of “power in numbers”. Organised protests against the “Church” of Scientology were staged in over 140 cities around the world, forever associating the Guy Fawkes mask and the right to protest with the movement.
Second, just like Anonymous, John Doe and Joe Bloggs are placeholders, rather than proper names, and are available for free use without repercussions…
Barr and Menn did not pause to protect the integrity of their professions, but instead made clearly misinformed assumptions, and accordingly published a factually incorrect article…
Third, in the primary article, Menn claims that a “member” of Anonymous, Kayla, made comments as an apparent admission of guilt from the “leaders”. Kayla reportedly said, “If you say you are Anonymous, and do something as Anonymous, then Anonymous did it”. This statement is inherently weak; an equivalent statement would be that “I confess to being human. Humans performed the attack”. Andy Greenburg at Forbes [3] got it right.
Finally, Menn’s reference to “technical details” [1] regarding a vulnerability in Sony’s network without revealing actual content isn’t useful. Until the forensics reports are released we don’t know which exploit was used…
Menn’s anonymous source claims that “a few ops disappeared” …During the PSN downtime, Anonymous closed #opsony and put “sony” on the automatic kick list as ‘profanity’ last week.
Is all of this attention on Anonymous acting as a distraction from other problems, and overhyping the nature of the DDoS attacks? Sony’s recurring issues are beyond providing free game credits:
Sony has been accused of false billing, especially in the repairs department: customers who provided credit card details for an MMORPG are charged $150 for repairs to PS3s that they don’t own; repairs are double billed and then referred to retailers; equipment is charged $150 multiple times (2-4) for repairs that aren’t performed. [7 and Further Reading]
…
Outraged about the blatant coverup and shameful misdeeds, other internet hacker groups will apparently proceed with attacks [9] over Sony’s mishandling of the matter…Apparently Sony will have to learn the hard way that corporate malfeasance will not go unpunished. When the dust settles Sony may have more to fear from a massive class action lawsuit by their user base than the brief actions of the Global Hacker Nerd Brigade, Anonymous… Let THE GAMEs begin. :>
