On Saturday we posted a few theories as to why the PSN was offline and one story seems to be gaining ground. Modders have discovered that they could access the Sony dev networks using a custom firmware called REBUG and a lovely man called ‘Chesh’ who is an admin on a PS3 hacking/modding site has posted further information.
According to Chesh, the Sony dev network is a bit lax when it comes to checking details – to be specific, credit card numbers. Modders who were on the dev networks were able to type any card number they liked in to the PS Store and it was not checked. As a result they went a bit mad and downloaded everything they could.
Chesh says ‘no one’s personal information was accessible via this hack’ which seems logical – all our credit card details are on the public PSN, not the dev network. Chesh also posted the following,
Mathieulh just mentioned that he has been in contact with someone that has official access to the SCE devnet servers and it was posted to them today that only 3.60+ debug firmwares will be allowed on the dev network anymore. All earlier versions will be cut. If you want to retain your access you need to contact Sony and upgrade to 3.60 debug firmware.
So are modders to blame for the PSN downtime? Possibly. If they are, then the question is why have Sony shut down the entire PSN rather than just the dev network?
Source: Reddit
jayjay119
Is it still down? I hadn’t noticed, the joys os single player eh!
3shirts
I can’t believe how easily people are just accepting it or even defending Sony who ‘had no choice’ in the face of hacking.
I maintain servers for a company that supports just 60 people yet I would have to be certain of MAJOR losses before I even shut down a server, never mind keeping it offline for 5 days. There are a lot of other ways to secure a system without completely taking it down.
jason1971
i think there would be alot more that 60 people using cfw thats why sony shut it down
3shirts
You are missing my point.
The network for which I’m responsible is tiny compared to PSN but the impact of downtime would still be considered extremely significant. A lot of questions would be asked of me as to why other measures couldn’t have been implemented which would have reduced the impact to our (small groups of) users.
The fact that SCE have caused such mammoth disruption to us, their customers, AND with very minimal explanation is just not good enough
Gamoc
Downloading everything from PSN for free illegally isn’t a big enough problem for you? Really? How is that not major losses?
3shirts
Well firstly, it’s only going to be a small group of users doing this amounting to a very small loss compared to the losses the downtime would produce.
Secondly. It’s not just a question of ‘leave them to steal it all or shut the whole thing down’. Why not disable all card transactions while the problem is resolved? Why not disable the dev network? This is the issue for me. Complete outage is very extreme.
Spence1115
I agree, I don’t think it’s as simple as this, as that could have been resolved temporarily very easily whilst a permanent fix was implemented.
fattyuk
Get over it mate, it’s only 6 days offline!
3shirts
*sigh*
It’s not like I’m dribbling in a corner hugging my PS3 here. I’m discussing the matter.
gordon_strange
I’m sorry but when you refer to this chap as ‘lovely’ , you are being sarcastic right?
bunimomike
“Lovely man” was italicised so I’m going with yes. I hope so, at least! :-)
gordon_strange
cheers. i read it via the iphone version , without glasses on.
mind you, the italics may have been emphasising how lovely he is!
Seventy2
Nice to see that IGN have stayed as un-biased as usual. Their giant ‘YES’ / ‘NO’ articles only make me appreciate just how intelligent the lifeforms are at TSA.
Awayze
I posted in a reply to cc_star in one of his theories that it would be “rebug” PSN.
Rebug PSN btw is online and its allowing hacked consoles to play with each other, it came back online a day after PSN went of the world.
anonymus212
This is not likely to be true. If this was the reason for the downtime, then, surely sony could shutdown ONLY the dev network and keep up the public network in which the modders could not steal funds.
iAvernus
I don’t mind a few days offline, but it’s getting to be a bit annoying now tbh.I bought SOCOM for MP as much as the SP experience, and now no MP. I have way too much fun with my friends online.
cartman_101
Fuck this shit i just want psn to be back up!!!!!!!!
Roynaldo
lol. Comment of the week. Say it how you see it. Respect.
bone_hard81
to my belief we can gobble on as hard as we like,for the less inforstructed metamusols..playstaion have not to be blamed.tis us the infury, him who take from the master without ask shall be punished.him who modifys the master creation we all get punished!! in plain english we who know of people whom mod there ps3 or try ourselves via hcking for better speeds or backup mods should all congradulate ourselves for being so clever.we so clever we al helped hackers kil our network.i hope the master does nt punish us all when he get better i fear master very angry.i will not cry i be strong for master.but look on the goodside its taken them this long to crack it,was it an inside job or xbox/wii getting back for loss revenue