Sony Faces $1Billion Lawsuit

A Toronto firm named McPhadden Samac Tuovi has filed a proposed class action against Sony “for the breach of privacy.” The lawsuit claims damages in excess of $1 billion, which, if won, would see Sony paying the costs of credit monitoring services and fraud insurance coverage for two years.

[rabidpancakeburglar]

"which, if won"
I think that's they crucial bit of this. They won't win especially for that ungodly sum of money

[Warprincess116]

If they didn't care, PSN would still be online today. The hackers only stole BASIC INFORMATION. So she needs to get a life and a job.

[AAACE5]

Class action, usually involves a large group of people. So if there are, then they have a possibility of winning...(no pun intended).

Info was stolen! Bank accounts were accessed! Sony has even said they still aren't sure what was accessed!

This isn't the end though, as I see more lawsuits coming because everyone is looking to sue for anything!

[AndrewRyan]

Sony could have prevented this but they left all account information in text format which is a huge mistake. Unfortunately everyone who signs up for PSN agrees to the terms that they can not sue sony if sony loses their information and credit cards, it's in there, deep, but it's still there.

I am pissed at Sony for not protecting my information well, and I am pissed at the hackers for taking that information. But I can't do anything about it so instead of doing something about it I am playing games because nothing can be done.

[dasteru]

@AndrewRyan, A TOS doesn't quite work that way. When a company stores peoples personal information, it is required by law to protect that info, allowing to to be leaked is a violation of federal law. A TOS is only for extending or making known of currently existing rights. It doesn't magically change or nullify federal law. In this case it wont protect them.

@anyone laughing about the suit ammount. you have to remember this is a "class action" suit, which means it applies to anyone and everyone who was effected by the leak, not just an individual person looking for a quick buck. there are 77m accounts on psn. at $1b that only works out to about $13 per person. It may sound like alot, but in this type of case, with so many people effected, it is possible for them to win.

[4Sh0w]

dasteru, you are correct for the most part, except:
"it applies to anyone and everyone who was effected by the leak"

Well not exactly, this would only apply for Canadiens since laws almost always are specific to each country, except of course some international laws formed by mutal treaties.

Also some Class Action Lawsuits require anyone affected to "join" the lawsuit/case by signing a petition or some type of legal document to receive any money that might be due upon a verdict in their favor.

[sikbeta]

IF it's proven that Sony took the necessary measures protecting their network and the breach happened regardless, there is simply no point to sue...

[Troll-without-Bridge]

Class action suits wont do anything this time because the data that was leaked was faked to begin with. There is not 77 million accounts, there's about 40M real accounts and only 10 of those had vital information in it. So unless all those 10 millions were in canada... no case.

[HolyOrangeCows]

Considering the info released, you may as well sue the phonebook company for $1 billion.

"When was the last time you saw a phonebook showing peoples credit card information?"
News flash!
The credit card info from PSN was encrypted. Only 900/25,000+ cards from a SOE hack were leaked, and the lawsuit isn't about THAT attack.

[dasteru]

@sikbeta, Agreed, and that is exactly the part that will need to be proven in the case.

[dasteru]

@holyOrangeCows, When was the last time you saw a phonebook showing peoples credit card information? Even sony themselves haven't been able to find out for sure what info was leaked so how do you seem to know that it was just names and addresses?
There is already one guy online claiming to have had over $12k taken from his bank account and has shown photo evidence of the withdrawl from his bank statement, If that can be proven then i think its a little more severe than you make it out to be. Hopefully sony will be able to gather all the info as to what was actually taken and we will find out soon. but for now there isn't really any way for us to know for sure.

[RememberThe357]

dasteru
According to Sony only 900 of those cards were active.

http://n4g.com/news/756120/...

Covering the losses of 900 people will be far less than 1 billion dollars.

And issues of fraud are constant there are bound to be people who will see fraud on their accounts in this time and it have nothing to do with the PSN breach. One or two people claiming to have been victims of fraud does not make Sony liable for their loss. There are many ways that people can get your information, some guy with a bank statement of a withdrawal does not mean the card information didn't come from somewhere else.

I have my card number stolen a few months back and I never received any notice that any company I do business with had gotten breached. So you never really know.

[hay]

Lol, according to this class action they claim 101m users' data were leaked. ( http://insurance-technology... )
Holy f*cking hell :D Pure moronism.

[MaxXAttaxX]

People just looking for an opportunity to get rich quick
Sony not only apologizes, but compensates all PSN members AND develops a much stronger security system for their network (which should answer her issue)

That's basic information that you can get anywhere.
She suffered no damages. So what the hell?

[KarrBOMB]

@Warprincess
Sony admitted that to date, their still not 100% sure what was compromised. So did you read somewhere on the Interwebz that only basic info was taken or just come to that conclusion all by yourself? I think you should probably take your own advice, because for everyone that has their own credit information on PSN and not mom and dads, it sucks and can cause problems far down the road.

[Dmarc]

I WANT 100 TRILLION MILLION BILLION !!!

[DragonKnight]

This suit will go nowhere, and I'm a little ashamed that a woman living in my city would be stupid enough to try this. I think I should look for her and talk some sense into her for what I thought were very obvious reasons.

Sony can't be held accountable for a hack. And all they need to do is show their security measures and this case will be thrown out. The credit card information on PSN was encrypted, there aren't 101m PSN users, and information such as names, addresses, and phone numbers are all public domain and readily available at your finger tips.

Of any possible cards that did have info taken from them, they all came from SOE which is a separate division and thus would have to be part of an entirely different lawsuit, which again would be thrown out once the security measures were shown.

I really can't believe how many people actually refuse to read and still believe that credit card numbers were stolen and fraud is rampant all due to PSN being hacked. All the official information should show you that this issue is not as large as the media and the haters have blown it up to be.

[Perkel]

@ DragonKnight

Sory but you are wrong. Data wasn't encrypted it was plain text !

Also they stored credit card info on their servers.

In this era firms are using only checkums and because of that people can't steal your information and that is why you password will be resseted after you forgot it.

All above is like being a CEO of Bank and not locking your safe.

As of stealing information about us. Even if you have Facebook profile it doesn't nulify your right to protect your information.

Also you fail to grasp a bigger picture in therms of information brokering.

There are a lot of firms who sell your information. even if it is information about 40 mln of us it's a looooooooottt of money to them.

Sony is binded by LAW to protect your information if they want to store it.

[tehpees3]

Doesn't it say in Sony's terms and conditions they aren't responsible for any data lost? I can't see a win here.

[nickjkl]

i have a question perkel can you prove to me that the credit card information was in plain text

if not i expect you to shutup immediately and cease all discussion on the matter

[DragonKnight]

@Perkel: You're wrong, Sony's official statement stated that CC info was encrypted. That means that the hackers would have seen X's where the CC number was and the security number was never stored.

If you're talking about info such as addresses and phone numbers, again that's public domain. Plus, have you ever heard of SSL? It transfers plain text information over a secure connection and it's something EVERY online service that deals with such information uses. So sorry, you're completely wrong and spreading misinformation.

Sony did protect our information, problem is that a hacker found a way around that protection using a worm to bypass firewalls. Sony can't protect against every contingency, no one can. That's the risks of having your information online. Sony followed the law by encrypting the sensitive information that could cause people to be victims of identity theft and fraud. Your address is not something that can do that, so get your panties out of a knot and use your eyes to read the REAL information and not the hate propaganda you obviously have been.

[The_KELRaTH]

My bank contacted me by letter today to report they had inadvertently sent confirmation details of a new ISA savings account I just opened to someone else.

It went on to apologise and put £30 into my account as a goodwill gesture.... I feel I'm 999,999,970 short!

[frostypants]

@AAACE5
NO, bank accounts were NOT accessed. Not due to Sony, anyway. Obviously a handful of people out of 77,000,000 had fraudulent charges on their accounts. Out of that many people, they would have regardless of PSN. There's no evidence that is was BECAUSE of PSN.

[frostypants]

@AndrewRyan
"Sony could have prevented this but they left all account information in text format which is a huge mistake."

No they did not. CC numbers were encoded. And FYI, virtually all companies store customer info as plain text. Stop listening to bloggers who don't know what they're talking about.

[catguykyou]

Ignoring the fact that they did a horrible job of encrypting our information (which was just stored as plain text), I would say the people who were hurt the most were the developers/ other companies who have titles that rely on PSN and or sell software through Sony's store on PSN. They have been making 0 money this entire time. This is seriously going to hurt Sony's reputation with these developers. I know everyone here thinks the only games that matters are the ones Sony makes themselves, but this isn't the case. This was not done professionally or handled well at all. I'm not talking from a customer stand point. I'm talking about from a company to company standpoint.

I'm surprised they haven't been sued by other companies.

[Kleptic]

There simply isn't enough information to go on yet, so most of this is speculation...and a TON of people in this thread are simply throwing around false shit because they clearly didn't read ANY of the article related to what was stolen...

I'm not sure of canada's class action laws...they ARE different than here (which is why the california class action suit was immediately thrown out, as there are new laws that protect tech companies in situations like this)...So i'm not commenting on whether or not this is a legitimate suit...

But in the US at least...Sony is legally obligated to do 2 things:

1.) they have to reimburse paid subscribers for time lost, at a minimum...which is why all this 'welcome back' stuff is coming to light...They are avoiding suits and problems associated with money they have been paid for a service that was temporarily not available...

2.) they have to prove to a court (if court cases do come to this) that the malicious attack was beyond their control, and that they DID have the proper security measures required for a database of this measure...which, despite what fanboys keep throwing around, they did...

a court will see that...Sony has stated numerous times, and the chat logs of apparent hackers (that may or may not be involved with the theft we are talking about) confirmed that the credit card data table was completely encrypted...the basic information was in plain text, as well as user passwords...that IS bad, but it was also behind some fairly significant security measures in the first place, all of which would hold in court...

Sony didn't have your credit cards in plain text just sitting out in the open for anyone to grab...so STOP saying that...You can blame sony all you want, but the reality is that ANY database is vulnerable to an attack like this...and any court is going to see that...I'm not protecting Sony in any way, I didn't have a card in there in the first place for reasons like this...but people need to understand there is a large difference between what Sony legally is required to do, and what they ethically should do...people are skewing those things together...

[Thugbot187]

Sony, isn't free to make cost that cause other people and companies money. If credit cards have been stolen or bank account information from Debit cards. That's a big deal the bank has to investigate, not only that its a hassle for the person. If someone hijacks your identity from the information here and opens up tons of credit cards. You will spend a lot of time trying to get that stuff removed and prove it wasn't you. No only that it could affect your ability to get a job as credit scores are now part of getting the hiring process. I guess kids don't understand why this is a big deal and can try to argue.

While Sony my have done what it could have done to protect people, it still happened under there watch. Generally in a case like this the amount paid out will be lowered if the people bring the suit win, on top of that some sum will be sent to all PSN members affected.

[Oner]

Perkel you are misinformed & DragonKnight is correct ~

"One other point to clarify is from this weekend’s press conference. While the passwords that were stored were not “encrypted,” they were transformed using a cryptographic hash function. There is a difference between these two types of security measures which is why we said the passwords had not been encrypted. But I want to be very clear that the passwords were not stored in our database in cleartext form. For a description of the difference between encryption and hashing, follow this link."

Source ~ http://blog.us.playstation....

[ComboBreaker]

The judge will throw this one out too,
just like the other one.

[Misterhbk]

LMAO! One Billion? Really?

I think even the judge would laugh at that amount

[Shadow Flare]

Especially since there's been no proven case of fraud linked with the psn hack yet

[dasteru]

@Shadow Flare, It wouldn't be fraud, but it could potentially be a breach of trust, If they can prove that sony failed to properly secure their network or encrypt the personal data.

[kneon]

It is Canada so ridiculous lawsuits usually don't go as far as they would in the US.

[TheDivine]

Idnt think you realize what a class action lawsuit is. There is a good chance they will win because sony knew hackers had the keys to get in and didnt protect the info instead they blocked pirated games. 1 billion is not a crazy amount for a class action lawsuit against a huge corporation, ive seen class action lawsuits win 6 billion before. You sue for EVERY ps3 owner and with the negative press and recent leaks other places this is something governments will be harsh on..

[ICYUNV]

I mean as PSN users does it really make sense to bring on a lawsuit, whos truly going to benefit from the suit, not us whats $13 dollars...the lawyer will, he or she would retire off this suit. Its just pointless to sue sony, when we (U.S. citizens) as a card holders are not required to repay nor are we responsible for fraud charges under federal law. So please dont fall into this BS suit it pointless when we will not get anything out of it.

[Darkfocus]

their asking for sony to cover the cost of credit monitoring services and fraud insurance coverage for two years....they set the target high because judges always award whats asked for or lower. They never(well almost anyway) award higher than what the lawsuit was for...

[KarrBOMB]

This is not traffic court, it's a class action suit dealing with a multi national, multi billion dollar company.

[RedDragan]

This is a bit of a joke. A company that exists to monitor and track credit fraud is suing a company that is victim of a credit hack?

So, what is the point of this company even existing?

[zeddy]

and where would the money go? i bet those assholes dont even own a ps3!

[chaos-lockheart]

Or they could be the hackers them selves

[KarrBOMB]

@Zeddy

You wouldn't have happened to of played Socom back in the day would you?

[egidem]

When will this whole mess stop?!?

This woman sues Sony. Why?

Because of the loss of her personal information. Why?

Because the PSN was hacked and some information was leaked. Why?

Because some angry pissed-off hackers decided to declare war on Sony. Why?

Because Sony sent them a message by suing GeoHotz. Why?

Because he decided to be himself (arrogant) and hack the PS3 to expose some private info regarding the console, while at the same time claiming that he didn't see this as opening the floodgates of piracy. Why?

Because he was being a douche by taking other hackers' credit and claiming he did this. Why?

Because he is apparently "fighting" for freedom of information. Why?

Because he thought that it's similar to his iPhone case. Just because he bought the device, he can tinker and publish its inner findings. Why?

Mainly because he claims that by hacking this machine, he was just trying to bring back the ability to install Linux on the PS3. Why?

Because he missed this feature, and Sony had it removed. Why?

Because allegedly, maintaining this feature was costing Sony money. This could also be because of Hotz's attempt in earlier 2009 to tinker with the PS3's innards via a Linux exploit.

So we can conclude that this entire shitstorm started with him.

When will this mess end...

[insomnium2]

I just love your reply here. Bubbles up for well said.

[Armyntt]

I agree but if this were to cost Sony a billion dollars than hindsight being 20/20. They should have left him alone. It cost hotz stress,time and money but it didnt cost him the stress,time and headache Sony is going through now. Lets say Sony left him alone and his jailbreak went worldwide would it have cost Sony a billion dollars? Probably not. All Sony got from takin his ass to court was their own RROD fiasco.

[egidem]

@ Armyntt

Are you SURE??

So let's play it by your rules.

You go back in time, where hotz released the authentication and signing keys for the PS3.

He technically violated a law, so you "somehow" prevent Sony from suing him. (I don't see how you'd stop this, but hey, suppose you do!)

So now people can finally bring back Linux to the PS3. (YAY! How exciting /s.)

At the same time, hackers and pirates GOT HOLD of these keys. They are sitting on their goldmine. Surely they are not going to sit there and say "No, we are not going to pirate these games...It's illegal!" ?

Ok, so now you have changed this timeline. Hackers have been invited to the PS3 hacking. It's okay now to tinker with the console and just write about any piece of code and it will run. This means that now they can put their creativity to good and of course bad use.

Methods on how to hack the PS3 would radically improve (as they did with the PSP).

Remember, you have changed the timeline. PSN doesn't get hacked. People would be secure, but there could be an even greater attack that could have been worse. Hackers would not have learned their lesson.

As bad as others think it was, Sony had to sue him. He did something that violated their terms of agreement, and they simply weren't going to take it without a fight, knowing the amount of damage his arrogance was going to cause.

I ask again,

Are you SURE??

[Armyntt]

Like I said before I agree with you. But BUT would it cost Sony billions? Not to mention even with all this I doubt the hackers and pirating community are finished.

[H8GRIP]

Lawsuit - Dont you be messing with the funds for the ps3 exclusives or il kick ur @%$#... ;)

[morkendo]

a BILLION DOLLARS???? nah!!! whose asking for it HACKERS??? kiss that dream good by.

[showtimefolks]

i just hope psn is back up soon completely
and we can all move on sony has already said sorry and announced free stuff for fans

end of the day is they can make their service even more secure that's all i care about

gamers unite

[darkride66]

Well, if they can prove Sony was negligent when it came to securing personal information and they think they've got a case - I guess it's their right. Personally, I don't think Sony necessarily did anything wrong. It's kinda like "My bank got robbed. This wouldn't have happened if they had a small army of ninjas outside, with trained German Shepard's"

I mean, they'll have to convince the court that Sony did something wrong or that their security was inadequate. Over the years we've seen everyone from Ebay to TD Ameritrade, from 7-11 to T.J. Maxx/Marshalls and HomeSense fall victim to hackers losing almost 200 million credit card numbers, addresses and scores of other personal information on their customers.

Hacking is a crime, just as robbing a bank. Of course we expect care to be taken with our personal information, but let's face it...if there is something worth stealing, someone will always figure out a way how. It would be nice if there was a security system that was 100% hackproof, but let's be realistic here.

In the next few months as more details come out, it'll be interesting to see if Sony's security was indeed lax, or if they're simply another corporate victim.

[JokesOnYou]

I hate to say it, but karma is a beeatch. It wasnt too long ago when the usual haters/n4g sony fanboys used to hate on every 360 exclusive with talk about pirating games from torrent sites and hacked 360s. Theyre all still here some usual suspects some with a new account but their stinch is still the same, protect and defend sony at all cost. Oh but that was when the mighty ps3 was falsely perceived to be un-hackable which was always primarily due to hackers not targeting ps3 because of its otherOS/linux support. This gen all the sonyfanboy hate keeps coming back to bite them in the azz, lol NOW hackers are public ememy #1, karma.

[rezzah]

Every system has it's time. When the PS3 came out it received all the hate in the world, and now you see biased reviews from well known game journalists.

Its not karma, its just life. You add the points you choose to see to come to a conclusion of karma.

[sak500]

@JOY

Yes these same sony investors on n4g were laughing at the hackers threat and posted tons of article about 1 guy sit in one store.

ANd how they supported Sony's taking geohotz to court and were still not tired of posting news about it everytime. NOw they dont want to hear about any news of the repurcussions coming out of the stolen information.

Sony is lucky to have blind loyals who even when get screwed still blindly support the corporation. Who has lied, cheated and hidden news not only about the recent events but even before ps2 was launched.

[mastiffchild]

No, no JOY. Most PS3 owners own a PC or a 360 too-in my experience-or another online gaming option and, again, as most people are RIGHT thinking and not thieves(or the enablers of or lovers of said thieves)then they NEVER celebrated piracy on ANY platform. JOY-you talk as if every PS3 gamer deserves this for somehow supporting piracy on the 360 and I just refuse to believe ,many PSfanboys ever did what you suggest. EVERY system has a few idiot supporters(no more at Sony than MS in my view and a fanboy is a fanboy regardless of what console he worships/platform he wanks over)who give us all a bad name as gamers but, seriously, this has little to do with Karma and I only wish MS had been able to catch and take to court whoever was at the root of their hacking and piracy(which follows EVERY single time making Geohot's defence possibly the most arrogant or naive in the history of justice)and SUE them.

Neither Sony nor MS nor any console provider is at fault for hackers being supported by the greedy, out of line idiots only to happy to support and hide the hackers because they're cheap gits, the enemies of gaming and enjioy stealing people's work and IP for themselves to play free.

What makes me laugh about Geohot and the supposedly hacked PS3 is that they needed someone to actually let slip(or was it stolen/left in a nbar with more future iPhone designs by someone oddly working for Sony and Apple-or Snapple I guess)the front door key to the system. Without that occurrence(and a VERY non IT event) the PS3 and PSN may well have not been hacked or jailbroken even now. As it was also fairly recent I'd suggest sony did pretty well up until circumstances and greed left them in their current mess-though none of it directly THEIR fault. there's NO karma at work here and no karma at work on the 360 where stolen games(that's all piracy means)are concerned.

There's fanboy hate on every side but, thankfully, I just don't see there being the amount you seem to and definitely don't see how karma can be involved when the vast ,majority of gamers on EVERY system BUY THEIR games and would only ever feel empathy and sympathy for fellow gamers suffering at the hands of hackers by having info stolen or systems down. I didn't EVER want the 360 hacked and pirated and have NEVER had a prated game for any of my 360s OR will ever for my PS3s , PC and Wii. I don't DESDRVE it either even if a few people were idiots and celebrated before it was wise(and it's NEVER wise to support a company as you would your sports teams, is it?)and they felt their system's were safest. don't go to their level JOY-why would you want to?

[JokesOnYou]

No, no mastiff just hit the search function on n4g and you will find tons of threads like the small sample readily available below vvvvvvv -where there are MANY sony loyalists all but praising anything related to 360 hacks and piracy, sure most don't come right out and say it but theres definitely a tone to their statements which suggest its either OK, funny how quickly certain 360 security measures are broken, some even post links to other torrent sites etc but most notably there is NO HEAVY OUTCRY OR PITCHFORKS DIRECTED AT HACKERS OR THE HACKING COMMUNITY in general, like we see ONLY NOW, in fact many of the links post tutorials and links right here on n4g to "educate" members on how many of these hacks can be done. And no mastiff of course not ALL ps3 fans especially outside of n4g deserve this "karma" as I put it but I'm of course speaking directly to the cult n4g sony loyalists and if you're going to sit there with a straight face and pretend that over the last few years regarding this subject on n4g in particular that its just been a "few" random sonyfanboys promoting, celebrating or showing alot of in-difference to piracy on the 360 then we really can't have any further intelligent conversation on the matter. I'll add for the vast majority of normal sony fans around the world this is unfortunate, but I'll stand by my belief that for 90% of the sony loyalists who visit n4g daily this is most definitely KARMA.

http://n4g.com/news/584619/...
http://n4g.com/news/554911/...
http://n4g.com/news/219738/...
http://n4g.com/news/413174/...
http://n4g.com/news/216331/...
http://n4g.com/news/646831/...
http://n4g.com/news/250830/...
http://n4g.com/news/38179/h...

Reminds me a bit of the whole BS notion that sony loyalists only hate on 360 so much on this site because ps3 was bashed (unfairly) when it was launched, conveniently sony faithful forget all the brand taunting and iferiority claims made by both sony and their fanbase during the year before ps3 launched, "ps3 will outsell 360 in 6 months", "ps3 launch games will be so much better than 360", "360 won't be around in another 5yrs", and blah, blah, blah. yep, Karma.

[SephireX]

I guess its live by the sue, die by the sue? Disagree and I'll sue your ass!

[shadowknight203]

I just gotta say, i accidentally ready all of those replies above me without realizing how much I had read..and I gotta say omg!..it took me 20 minutes just to read all that...stupid me, stupid me lmao

[rajman]

lol at $1 Billion...now everyone else will try the same amount

[Menech]

Screw that am trying for 15 billion, what's the point of being realistic.

$1 Billion certainly ain't, in fact ama try for 150 billion see how far I get.

[chaos-lockheart]

I'm sure Sony has more then that

[StbI990]

How about claim the whole sony account instead?...rich rich rich

[f789790]

Well it's a class action meaning it represents all users. It also means the lawyers get a major cut if won which is why they ask for such a stupid amount in the first place.

[TeCh77]

1 billion/70 million is a little over 14 bucks a person. lol

Not sure of the "official" number of accounts, and obviously some people have multiples.

[sikbeta]

$14 a person, BUT they have to pay those lawyers, so lets say $0.14 a person lol

[cliffbo]

@f789790

i am a user and they do not represent me.
they can only represent users who actually take part in the class action so anyone saying they are representing all users is just plain lying.

[madara0sama]

That's it! I'm suing for 1 Trillion! No one else copy me!

[StbI990]

Gotta go with a gazillion xDxD

[badz149]

^^^
that's not even a real value. but lawsuit always do ridiculous stuff..try it, gazilion might work lol!

[fedexas]

...1 billion dollars.

Wow...seriously, just wow.

[Mr Tretton]

Next.

[BubbleSniper]

Tretton got it right

one of many court battle SONY has to fight atm

an it wont be the last...

people so hungry for money.. dont blamem with gas prices soaring and in effect causin food an other goods to soar as well.....

[Flashwave_UK]

Hahahahah

[RedBullGT]

$1 Billion? Really? That is just ridiculous.

[Raven_Nomad]

1 BILLION DOLLARS!

[Spawn-KING]

LOl ill claim 2 Billion then,LOL ..

[ct03]

You don't understand the concept of a proposed class action lawsuit, do you?

[MRMagoo123]

do you?

[death2smoochie]

Total Tom Foolery. $1 billion? Hell why not $100 Billion?

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Lawsuits are one thing, but $1 Billion? Please for all that is holy, throw this ridiculous claim out the window with the law firm and persons filing it.
Expect to see MANY more of these type of lawsuits filed over the next few months.

[units]

1 billion sounds about right

[B1663r]

One hundred million accounts hacked, that is only $10 per class member. I would think they would want at least $15 each.

[sikbeta]

100m accounts? you sure? I thought it was like 77m accounts and don't forget

77m accounts =/= 77m users

most people have multiple accounts (with Fake data) to access different stores, EU+US+JP+HK and so on...

[fedexas]

...Wrong. But keep trying though.

[nskrishna2]

It's 77 million accounts brotha...
And 10 million active CCs....do the math...

[kikizoo]

stupid and desperated much ?

i'm talking about stupid trolls without games to play, jumping on every ridiculous articles where they can sing "ps3 is doomed"..

since 2006 the same mistake, and they always loose : games, graphics, exclusives, movies, free online, bluray, consoles and software sold, motion controler, etc not a single victory, poor sad loosers, only happy with a bad ps3 game review, or psn down (only 2 weeks in five years : free) :)

[rezzah]

1 bubble looks about right.

1 billion and she hasn't lost a dime? Does she eve know the various ways in order to prevent her money from being stolen? Most likely not since she's quickly angered into suing.

The more options you have the more likely to are to think logically rather than to have your emotions guide your actions.

[Nac]

LEAVE SONY ALLOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNEEE! !

[badz149]

@Nac
you're doing it wrong! get in a blanket with a video cam. say the exact sentence, record it and post it online...then people might be interested :-)

[th3_d3an]

im just waiting to see when they find the people responsible how many people go after them and bash them you know the fu@cktards responsible for this! this same intensisty and hatred you people are showing to sony keep it and you better show it and more towards them or your idiots period

[demonddel]

i hope im n that lawsuit i can use the money

[NotoriousWarrior]

LOL Who the FU** gave these guys to represent all PSN users in a lawsuit. WTF I wanna sue them for not asking my permission and using me to win their case.

Pathetic attempt, Sony took every precaution to protect information it's not like they gave it to them.

And this case can never be won simply because if they do people will get hackers to hack big companies like MS, Apple and such companies just so they can sue them and make billions off it.

[outwar6010]

did they take every precaution to protect the end user? did it really take them a week to realise peoples information was compromised if so what did they close down the whole network?

[dragon82]

They hired an outside security firm to conduct an ivestigation into the severity of the attack. How long do you think that takes?? I swear some people refuse to think logically sometimes.

[th3_d3an]

toronto? really the nhl playoffs are going on i thought everything else shut down in canada for that!

[Raptura]

Not when the Leafs aren't in the playoffs.

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[cgoodno]

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I've seen hundreds of issues with credit card details being taken by hackers or via fraudulent means. And yet, this one is getting the most backlash I've seen, ever, on the topic at hand.

This isn't me saying "leave Sony alone" but we're reaching a point of ridiculousness here on how a single company is being taken to extreme lengths to account for something that they more than likely aren't negligent on. Heck, there was a massive internal leak of CC data at American Express that was extremely negligent (hey, who needs internal controls or to install HDD encryption software?) where millions of CC data was stolen and sold... and nothing happened other than finding and taking the person involved to court.

Anyway, wonder how this will end. This will definitely go towards setting some precedence on the liability of companies regardless of negligence or not if it goes to court.

[4Sh0w]

cgoodno, No
A quick googles search reveals tons of lawsuits concerning breach of privacy related to CC's, just a few I found in a few minutes below, the thing is we just don't follow many CC violation cases outside of gaming, Citibank and many others went through months of congressional hearings on the matter, but again why would the avg n4g user care?

http://www.pcmag.com/articl...
http://classactionlawsuitsi...
http://www.ucan.org/money_p...
http://www.uslaw.com/lawsui...
http://www.thompsonhine.com...

I like many here believe the hackers are responsible for this whole mess, but unfortunately in the eyes of the law sony is facing a seperate basic question in this lawsuit, which is "Did they have adequate security in place to safeguard users personal info from theft? (and may also face questions about their response) Again, courts understand that anything can be "hacked" but laws are in place to ensure huge corporations take appropriate measures to at least provide a "significant" level of security, NOBODY here is privy to the details to make that determination, so we should all just stop making assumptions and wait for hopefully a favorable descision for Sony by the court.

[cgoodno]

Yes, but I'm talking about the number and the level that this has gone with Sony. How many governments are getting involved and lawsuits do we have just in two weeks?

I said "most backlash" not "any backlash".

Most of those other lawsuits occur months after the breach was even found out. This, two weeks and we're already at Australia, U.S., UK demanding answers and at least two notable lawsuits before the analysis by the government officials who are helping Sony at the moment have settled on Sony being negligent in this situation at all.

[4Sh0w]

cgoodno, you of all people know that n4g tends to over analyze the reality of whats going on outside of this site. For instance most of the folks I talk to regularly at work don't know anything besides psn is down because of trouble from "some hacker", some of my more casual gaming friends who own a ps3 didn't even know it was down, some 360 owners asked me if it happen to 360 too? Im not saying its that way in all cases but I wager the majority of gamers and media as a whole isn't talking about psn outage regularly like its all over the news on n4g lol, but n4g often regurgitates the same info over and over again with every gaming site offering their own take on whatever the latest "OMG" headline is this is not new. I regularly check regular and sports news to stay update with whats going on outside of work and so far I saw the psn outage a few times over the last several days but nothing close to any unfair reporting of the situation towards Sony. Also remember unlike other institutions like retailers for example that use CC info, Sony has a online network that provides entertainment to millions daily, as you and I both know GAMERS can be the biggest crybabies of any consumer base by far, really theres no comparison, I mean there are car enthusiasts/fanboys/avg joe buyers and even when theres a re-call people don't overdramatize it for days on end and those are problems that can be potentially life threatening, sigh GAMERS are their own worst enemies sometimes, very impatient -so as the saying goes "The squeaky wheel gets the oil first" and of course governments are quick to try "prove" they are on top of any situation where potentially millions of citizens personal/financial info may have been stolen. Good PR for re-election.

[xX-PEIN-Xx]

Its amazing how no one in the media are condemning the people who hacked the network.

[George Sears]

Nobody cares about that. People wouldn't blame/sue a Walmart clerk for being negligent on not putting a "Wet floor, do not walk" sign yet some random person falls and brakes a leg. That person won't waste there time suing an employee, they'll go ahead and sue the conglomerate head on.

That's just how it is. Even if they find said people PSN/SOE users won't sue the hackers nor care that they were the ones who started this whole incident.

[dragon82]

There is a whole lot of fanboyism involved in this situation that helps keep all the focus on Sony. The situation will be a lot different if Microsoft ends up getting hit too. Then it will go from a "Sony" problem to a "Indusrty" problem.

[rezzah]

It is easier to focus on a single identity that being Sony, however we still do not know if Sony had adequate means to prevent people from hacking them. If their defense system is not lacking then it is likely to be seen as a industry problem.

Until then this will be seen only as a Sony issue.

[Darkfocus]

you leave something of yours with a friend that friend leaves it on a table at the foodcourt and it gets stolen while their away. who are you mad at your friend or some nameless faceless identity?

[xX-PEIN-Xx]

that analogy doesn't work. You have no proof Sony's security wasn't adequate.

[Cardenjs]

If Sony physically gave away the information, I can see them winning the lawsuit for the full 1 Billion, but Sony was hacked and therefor liable?

Plus if its in the contract then the case will be thrown out, im sick of everyone not reading LAW BINDING contracts and claiming they didnt know what they were reading, since you have to press a button called "Agree" before going to the next page.

Ignorance is no excuse to wastes the courts time and our taxpayer money.

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

Terms of Service aren't law binding.

[Cardenjs]

It it wasn't treated like a contract, that would be true.

[ThatCanadianGuy]

The Canadian Media is truly sickening me about this subject.So much mis-information being tossed around, you couldn't begin to imagine.Every time they have some poor shmuck talking about how his/her information was taken..how deeply affected his life is about this, emotionally damaging and paranoid of data theft they are.

Worst part of it is, the only info that was stolen can be easily taken from any one of these dumb social-whores facebook pages

[lowcarb]

How can anybody possibly try and get that much money with a straight face lol. I mean if the company says screw you I could see an attempt but come on folks.

[outwar6010]

“It appears to me that Sony focuses more on protecting its games than its PlayStation users.”
how very true

[madjedi]

Sony is protecting it's ass, like any intelligent company would do, just like ms and nintendo would, you would the same when the sh^t hits the fan and your ass is the target. You want 100% protection from situations like this cancel all your credit cards and never get online.

So when an actual credit cards security specialist/security specialist, give us some real explanations here, about enough security.

Can all the arm chair security experts on n4g stfu about not having enough security. If the credit card companies themselves still get hacked and have data stolen, how can sony or ms ever make their networks hack proof.

Sony is rebuilding it's network, obviously better than before, what else do you people really need?

[rezzah]

outwar6010

whats your reply to madjedi?

I'm interested to see what you have to say. Also expand on why you believe that quote to be true.

[outwar6010]

what the hell are you on about? my debit card info is on amazon, ebay, xbl and steam and it has been secure no breaches or anything but i have if something happened i think that the aforementioned places would have the decency to inform me within atleast 24 hours of them knowing my shit may have been compromised not the pathetic week or so that sony took.
ps as im out of bubbles if youd like to continue this convo bubble me up ;)

[etowntwo]

Its a class action lawsuit ....
If divided among the 24 or the 70 million psn users, plus the lawyers ...

One billion sounds about right.

Oh the irony... rrod costs MS about a billion too

[Jonah_Reese]

This is a different Lawsuit I think this is for one and the Lawfirm that is representing them. I could be wrong the Article didn't detail any other Plaintiffs.

[Louis_Guzman]

When I look at your avatar, all I'm thinking about is an ass action lawsuit.

[etowntwo]

LMAO! !!

[zeal0us]

ridiculous good luck buddy, by good luck i mean no way in hell