SONY Speaks Before Congress on PSN Hack

When the U.S. House of Representatives first asked Sony to come before congress to explain their recent hacking issues and outage, Sony declined with an 8-page letter from Kazuo Hirai, chairman of the board of directors from Sony Computer Entertainment of America, explaining the events of the hack and outage, and expressing it's side of the story.

Now, Tim Schaff, president of Sony Network Entertainment, will stand and testify before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Tuesday. The subcommittee, headed by Representative Mary Bono Mack, is looking forward to the information and testimony as they prepare  to produce and introduce "comprehensive data protection legislation" within in the next few weeks.

Can I ask why?

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the anger and frustration at the situation of the Sony hack. But, honestly...I'm trying to understand why, suddenly, hacking is such a big deal to congress(please note...I have a slightly sardonic tone at the end of that sentence). I'm not only a Playstation Network member, I'm also a member of Sony Online Entertainment, both of which were subject to hacking. I've been inconvenienced, my family and I have had to take our precautions with our finances...but I'm not angry with Sony. Honestly, I side with Sony.

This hack affected millions world-wide, and, honestly, I've seen more people P-Oed and complaining about how they couldn't play online more than the fact that their information was compromised. However, gamer immaturity isn't what I'm really focusing on. What I'm focusing on is why, after Sony has taken their precautions, made it up to their customers, and are very much co-operating with the government in dealing with this, is it such an issue to get them to show themselves in front of congress, using up congress time and taxpayers dollars, just to say things that they've already typed in detail to congress, in person? Why is Sony singled out in this?

Time for a "Did You Know?" moment:

So far this year there has been 236 data breaches in the United States, 62 of which have been security hacks. Among these hacks have been WordPress on April  14th(affecting 18 million, but thankfully no financial information), iTunes on April 1st(Unknown amount of people effected, hackers obtained credit card information and change billing addresses, then make fraudulent purchases resulting in sometimes hundreds of dollars of fraudulent charges. Apple has YET to comment on this.), Best Buy on May 6th(the second hack this year since they were involved in the Epsilon Breach)...then there was the March 20th breach of student loan company Education Credit Management Corp. that affected 3.3 million people nationwide. OH, and let's not forget the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development on May 17th. Yes, a GOVERNMENT office was hacked. In fact, there have been 34 government data breaches so far this year, 7 of which were the result of hacking. Even the government isn't immune.

Why all this data crunching? Because out of all of these breaches...how many of them have been brought before congress to explain themselves? How many of them are offering to pay for a year of identity protection? How many are dealing with this type of situation on top of dealing with a nation-wide tragedy like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami?

My point to this is that no company is really 100% safe...and honestly it's up to the clients of these companies to take their own precautions instead of laying around thinking the big companies are going to do everything for them. Digital security is just like any technology...we take technology and constantly try to work with it, make it better...well...hacks are pretty much just the same; when more is done with technology, hackers strive to be able to take it apart and figure out how it works...and with that, sometimes, how to exploit it. With new security measures and such, it just ends up being a new goal for a hacker to want to reach.

Sony was a victim of circumstance in this. I'm not saying they were wholly innocent, or that extra precautions shouldn't have been taken...but honestly it would have been the same had the hackers targeted Microsoft or Nintendo. I believe Sony was targeted because of how widespread the Playstation 3 is. The Xbox 360 isn't quite as popular in other countries, such as Japan, like the Playstation 3 is...and I'm not speaking as some Sony purist, so calm down Xbox fans...just speaking from the numbers here.

I honestly feel that a congress meeting to address this is unneeded...and honestly, with the situation of net neutrality and the internet blacklist bill, I'm almost afraid of what the types of security precautions could entail for users of not just the Playstation Network and like services, but for the internet itself. We're already limited enough as is with all these new data caps!

So, in closing, I guess I'm just trying to say give Sony a break. They're seriously trying. The Network is back, we're playing games and having fun on a great system. Put the blame on these no-life hackers and let's support Sony.

I love my Playstations(my PS2 still gets a fair amount of use) and I can't wait for what Sony has planned next for us. Let's keep rooting them on so we can actually see that come to fruition.

If you're curious about other data breaches in the US, check out this site, which is where I found most of my data. It lists most of the reported data breaches in the United States dating back to 2005.

Also check out these articles on Kotaku that explain the contents of Hirai's 8-page letter to Congress, and security expert Bruce Shneier's take on the Sony hack.