Rumor: Hackers selling PSN credit card list

Sony recently revealed that credit cards were encrypted in the PlayStation Network data breach, but didn't rule out the possibility that hackers had obtained card information. Now the New York Times reports that hackers are claiming to have a database with 2.2 million PSN users' credit card numbers, and they're offering it up for sale.
Kevin Stevens, a senior threat researcher at Trend Micro, noticed the discussions in various hacker forums, where he says they were offering to sell the list for more than $100,000. Researchers confirmed that the discussions are taking place, but there's no way to confirm if they really have the database.
Stevens also heard from one forum member that the hackers offered to sell the data back to Sony, but didn't receive a response. "To my knowledge, there is no truth to the report that Sony was offered the opportunity to purchase the list," said Sony corporate communications director Patrick Seybold, who also reiterated that the data was encrypted.
"Sony is saying the credit cards were encrypted, but we are hearing that the hackers made it into the main database, which would have given them access to everything, including credit card numbers," said iSec Partners consultant Mathew Solnik. He also points out that the hackers on forums knew details about the servers, which could indicate direct knowledge.
Finally, the NYT notes that the San Diego office of the FBI is helping Sony in the investigation of the incident, but declined to comment.

Sony says Trophies, friends lists are safe

The PlayStation Network is still down, but Sony is reassuring fans in the off-time with answers to some pressing questions. The company issued its first Q&A round-up on Wednesday, and late yesterday released a second round of answers that deal mostly with games.
First, any Trophies you earned in single-player games while PSN was offline will be synced once the service goes live again, so you can keep plugging away confident that your progress will show. Your friends lists and download history will remain in tact as well, and PlayStation Plus cloud saves will be retrievable once Sony puts the servers back up.
The Q&A also reveals that Sony is working on some form of goodwill gesture to fans, saying it is "currently evaluating ways to show appreciation for your extraordinary patience." Players of PlayStation 3 MMOs like DC Universe Online and Free Realms will get a little extra for their troubles; the blog reveals they're working on a "make good" plan for those games, as well as hosting special events once PSN is restored.

Stunning Street Fighter Art

PSN Hack Could Cost Sony $24 Billion

Analysts across the industry have started estimating the potential cost of the recent PSN security breach. Micheal Pachter told Shacknews that in the week that PSN has been down, Sony has lost at least $10 million in revenue and $3 million in profits.
Those direct losses are likely the least of Sony's woes though. Indirect losses from the lack of consumer trust and confidence in the system will likely cost much more. Legal compensation is another potential cost. The Ponemon Institute speaking to Forbes placed the average cost of a criminal data breach at $318 for each record lost. At 77 million registered users, that makes for a hefty sum of just under $24.5 billion, and that doesn't take into account any costs associated with regaining consumer trust.
Hulu has already offered a free week of service in response to the downtime to subscribers, and Kotaku says that Sony has a range of special events and compensations planned this weekend for DC Universe Online and Free Realms. Who knows what Sony will need to do for compensation to gain consumer trust in the coming months.
And of course there's the expense of making sure that this doesn't happen again such as security investigation costs as well as rebuilding the network. Sony has asked developers to install a new SDK with advanced security features during the downtime to keep history from repeating itself.
This is a seriously expensive mistake for Sony, as is seen by the 5.2% drop in Sony's stock price since the breach.

L.A Noire Sucks

L.A Noire is Rockstar's latest game coming in just a few more weeks on Xbox 360 and PS3 much to the delight of gamers the world over. But there's something strangely odd and compelling about Team Bondi's efforts which we're going to look at in a bit of detail here. We're going to categorically state that L.A. Noire truly sucks... but perhaps not in the way you're thinking.

We got some hands on time with the game this week for the first time, in the comfort of Rockstar's London Studios and although we had a number of preconceived ideas already rolling about our minds, the session provided us some interesting feelings that we've not really encountered before in a video game. Sure, games like Heavy Rain have pushed the levels of interaction in new and fresh directions , and the point and click CSI games have really tested the grey matter, but L.A. Noire does something entirely different and really, it does suck.

Before the knives are embedded into our backs, and our own murders become the scenes of gruesome investigations, let's explain shall we.

L.A. Noire sucks, it's like a 1940s hoover without the noise and the perpetual back ache from rocking back and forward on dusty carpets and mite ridden cloths. Just a mere few minutes of playing the demo level we started to like Cole Phelps (the game's lead character), his animations, the no nonsense talking and the interactions with those around him. He's likeable because of what he stands for, and although we cared not of his war veteran past, we were very much interested in how he was going to tackle the next hour of gameplay.

The scene of the crime in the demo was horrific, although perhaps not as visually over the top as you might have seen in other games which offer a more comical slant on death and destruction. The sombre music, the background sounds of the city, the frowning faces of your colleagues, the sighs of disgust reaching out around the closed building walls, who had witnessed what had happened, and if only could speak. It's interesting that a simple scene, a dead body, cut up, discarded like it was nothing, a life of an innocent wasted could facilitate such emotion so soon. Why would anyone do this, surely murder is murder - you kill and be done with it - but what sick bastard plays with the carcass once life has departed from it? Who carves writing into the flesh, leaves messages for the investigators, toys with the emotions, and says, "come on then, catch me if you can".

Instantly L.A. Noire sucks you in to this underlying mindset that you're very much the investigator, you're there not to tear around the 40s streets in authentic looking vehicles, hanging out the window shooting up gangsters. No. You've got a job to do and with that in mind, you become the detective. It's not a first person game, and so you're very much looking at another individual, but as the game sucks you in further, you're left begging to see how events unfold, and the beauty is, it's in your hands, under your control.

There's a real slow pace to the game which goes against what you might be expecting, but in the most suitable way is the embodiment of what investigations are all about, especially as the killer isn't caught red handed and you're left looking at the pieces to try and make sense of it. What really adds to the tension and the robust nature of the game's mechanics is the fact that there are no fancy tools at your disposal, no CCTV footage to ponder, no UV lights to spot blood, no computer databases to search through; and it's this visceral level of crime fighting that ultimately is the game's biggest asset. It's because of this raw nature that L.A Noire sucks you in. You're looking at stuff with the eyes of a detective, more so than any other game, you start evaluating the evidence, thinking more about what you've seen, making sense of what it means, what clues it gives.

L.A. Noire sucks in the gamer, in a way that is refreshing, to the extent where the mystery of the blanks become a distinct requirement destined to be filled in. It's a game which sucks to the point where, you won't be content taking a break and waiting, you'll want to see it through, you'll stop at nothing until there's some resolution. The game builds up the drama, the tension, the hatred for the criminal, sucks you in, then eschews time itself and leaves you at the precipice of finality. There's a number of games that offer a "one last go" factor, but L.A. Noire provides similar motives, but in a unique way that can only be described as a gripping hand pulling you into its world, placing you into a chair, tightening the knots around bounding ropes, and clasping both hands around your neck for a murderous kill, yet at the same time keeping you well alive to fathom and escape the clever puzzles it presents to you. L.A Noire truly does suck, but for all the right reasons. Perhaps take some time off work come May 20th, because that chair is not going to be easy to escape from.

PlayStation Users Sticking With Sony Despite PSN Crisis

PlayStation Network will probably be down for several more days as Sony works to rebuild the network and make it much more secure. Despite this major breach and the fact that users' information was stolen, many PS3 owners appear to be surprisingly supportive and loyal. IndustryGamers polled its readers over the last 24 hours (see below), and as of this writing, out of 1,700+ votes, a third of you said you won't be changing your habits while nearly 30% said that you'd simply be sure to use PSN cards instead of credit on Sony's network from now on.
A fairly small number of you (13%) said you were permanently soured on Sony and the PSN experience and would be switching to other gaming platforms, while over 18% of you appeared willing to give Sony another chance if the company makes the effort to offer some free games or other make-goods.
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told us yesterday that he doesn't see PS3 sales being impacted at all by the PSN breach.

Sony Sued for Data Breach

Like clockwork, the first lawsuit resulting from the security breach of the personal data of more than 75 million Sony PlayStation Network customers has been filed.
The suit was filed today on behalf of Kristopher Johns, 36, of Birmingham, Ala., in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Johns accuses Sony of not taking "reasonable care to protect, encrypt, and secure the private and sensitive data of its users."
He also believes Sony took too long to notify him and other customers that their personal information had been exposed. Because of that, the complaint alleges, Sony did not allow its customers "to make an informed decision as to whether to change credit card numbers, close the exposed accounts, check their credit reports, or take other mitigating actions."
The lawsuit is asking for monetary compensation and free credit card monitoring, and is seeking class action status.
Yesterday, Sony warned customers of its PlayStation Network and Qriocity service that their personal information--including customer names, addresses, e-mail addresses, birthdays, PlayStation Network and Qriocity passwords, and user names, as well as online user handles--was obtained illegally by an "unauthorized person" between April 17 and 19. The company says there is "no evidence" that credit card information was compromised, but it can't be sure yet.
In the aftermath of the breach Sony has temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity, contracted with an outside security firm to investigate the intrusion on its network, and started to rebuild its system and security.
Johns' complaint echoes the concerns of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat. Blumenthal yesterday wrote a letter to Jack Tretton, president and chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, saying he was troubled that the company had not notified customers sooner about the breach. He also called for Sony to provide affected customers with financial data security services, including free access to credit reporting services for two years to protect against identity theft.G

Hulu Plus Members Credited for Lost PS3 Access

One of the effects of the PlayStation Network downtime that began a week ago is Hulu Plus being inaccessible on PlayStation 3. As a premium service that users have to pay for, it's perhaps a bigger loss than being unable to play games online. To make up for the lost time, Hulu is offering a $2.00 credit to Plus users on their next month's bill.
Given that Hulu Plus can still be accessed on other devices, it's rather generous of the company to offer anything at all, even if $2 isn't an enormous deal. (It works out to being about one quarter of the monthly fee, which is $7.99.) An email has been dispatched to affected members with a link that needs to be visited in order to obtain the free credit. Hulu also notes that no account information related to its service was leaked as a part of the "external intrusion" on the PlayStation Network.
Sony meanwhile has yet to reveal what -- if anything -- it will do for affected customers. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal wants Sony to offer two years of credit reporting services for free along with "sufficient insurance to protect them from the possible financial consequences of identity theft." It seems like a given that PlayStation Plus members will have their memberships extended for free, but beyond that it's anyone's guess what the average user will get. As noted yesterday, an FAQ posted about the breach said the "correct course of action" will be decided upon once PSN is back up and running. "Some services" are expected to be online "within a week."

Extreme Gaming Equipments

Sony online Service is Unavailable

Sony's online services for the PlayStation 3 have been unavailable for nearly a week, leaving gamers unable to play online or purchase games and films from the PS3's online store.

Many people assumed that online activists Anonymous were responsible when the PlayStation Network (PSN) went offline last Wednesday, as the group had declared action against Sony earlier this month. Anonymous chose to attack Sony as retribution for a lawsuit against George Hotz, a hacker who last year cracked the PS3's security and enabled the use of unofficial software on the console, but backed down when they realised the attacks were affecting ordinary users. The group now denies any involvement in the current PSN outage, stating "for once we didn't do it".

So if Anonymous isn't attacking PSN, what's causing the outage? Sony has only released a few details on its official blog, stating on Friday that an "external intrusion" had forced them to switch off the service and following up on Saturday with a promise to re-build and strengthen the system.

One suggestion, put forward on Reddit by a moderator of PlayStation hacking site PSX-Scene.com who goes by the name chesh420, suggests that Sony has taken its servers offline to prevent "extreme piracy of PSN content".

He claims that a piece of unofficial firmware, known as Rebug, allows users to gain access to the private PlayStation developer network. This also allows users to purchase games and other content for free using fake credit card numbers, since Sony doesn't check the authenticity of the numbers on the private network. He suggests Sony has shut down the PSN servers to secure them against this exploit.

These claims have not been verified, but New Scientist has seen instructions on PlayStation hacking forums for using the Rebug firmware to download free content, suggesting that the exploit is indeed possible.

Sony's lack of details on the cause of the outage has also lead to speculation that attackers may have gained access to users' credit card details. Sony spokesman Satoshi Fukuoka told PC World that the company hadn't yet determined whether such details have been compromised.

Dell brings Remote Capabilities to Workstations

Dell on Tuesday announced a desktop workstation that acts like a server from which remote client PCs can exploit graphics processing capabilities.

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The Precision R5500 workstation renders and delivers pixels to client PCs over a network, said Don Maynard, senior product manager for Dell's Precision tower and rack workstations. Graphics can be delivered in 2D or 3D formats to Dell's FX100 thin client using the PC-over-IP (Internet Protocol) remote graphics protocol, or to standard desktops and laptops with VMware's View software.
The new feature extends the processing power of workstations to more computing resources in organizations, Maynard said. The remote access technology could reduce the need to deploy multiple workstations, while centralizing engineering and graphics applications in one location.
The workstation is targeted at organizations involved in design projects or content creation, Maynard said. The workstation can also be relevant in vertical industries such as mining and health care.
Dell already offers servers with graphics processors, but the workstation has specific features that make it more relevant to client PCs, Maynard said. The workstation runs client operating systems such as Windows 7, which support engineering applications such as AutoCAD. The workstation also has the ability to provide more dedicated graphics processing power for such applications.
The quality of images delivered remotely depends on the complexity of graphics and bandwidth, Maynard said. There could be some latency if the graphics are complex, or if a PC is far away from the workstation.
Beyond remote access capabilities, the Precision R5500 is also a high-end desktop designed to run complex scientific and graphics applications. The dual-socket workstation runs on Intel's Xeon processors, and can accommodate up to 12 CPU cores. The desktop supports up to 192GB of RAM and has multiple storage slots. The desktop is offered with optional Nvidia graphics cards.
The R5500 is priced starting at US$2,551 and will be available in the U.S. and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) on May 3. It will become available in Asia-Pacific and Japan on May 10.
Dell also announced new Precision laptop workstations that are desktop alternatives. The DM4600 and DM6600 include 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch screens, respectively, and run on Intel's latest Core i5 and i7 processors.
The laptops support up to 32GB of RAM, and 750GB of hard drive or up to 256GB of solid-state drive storage. They will be available with optional graphics cards from Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia. They also will come with multiple USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, and multiple monitors can be connected through display ports.
The M4600 starts at $1,678 , while the M6600 starts at $2,158. The laptops will become available worldwide on May 10.

Top Ten Comic Books that need to Convert in Video Games

Turning a comic book into a video game is a delicate art form. Video games based on comic books have the potential to be horrible, as proven by Superman 64 and pretty much every Hulk game ever made. However, when handled with care, these games can be the mega hits of the gaming world. Batman: Arkham Asylum is a great example of a comic book video game done right.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of comic books out there that have never been converted to video game form, but here's a list of the ten we think have the most potential.

10. Star Wars: Droids

I admit that there are probably enough Star Wars games in the world. But come on, why do R2D2 and C3P0 not have their own game yet? The Star Wars: Droids cartoon of long ago and various Droids comic book series have proven that these two droids have their own interesting stories to tell. And R2D2 has a ton of cool gadgetry tucked away inside his metal body. He can hack computers, lay down oil slicks, set things on fire, and even fly. Artoo definitely has a lot of potential as a video game star. I guess this makes C3P0 the Tails of the duo: he just follows along and worries, and you'll most likely enjoy mercilessly leading him into spike pits and pools of molten lava.

9. Tales from the Crypt

With so many video game franchises drawing influences from classic tales of horror, I've often wondered why there is no Tales from the Crypt video game. The Tales from the Crypt comics of the 1950s have become cult classics, and they even made a fairly successful transition to television in the 80s and 90s.

I imagine Tales from the Crypt: The Video Game as a cross between the early Resident Evil games and the 2D Castelvania games, only with ridiculously over-the-top boss fights and a wicked sense of humor. But your character would most likely die a twisted, ironic little death even after you beat the game.

8. Bone

OK. So five or six years ago, there was already a game based off Jeff Smith's beloved Bone series. But it wasn't very good, and certainly failed to live up to the high expectations set by the graphic novel masterpiece. It's time to rectify this.

The Bone comics already include an incredibly rich cast of characters and a storyline that's both simple and epic at the same time. Those who read this series were introduced to a highly-detailed world full of memorable denizens, like the Great Red Dragon and the Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures. Everything about the Bone series just screams RPG to me, although it would take a team of brilliant writers to make it work properly. In fact, it would probably require Jeff Smith himself to spearhead the writing team.

7. The Spirit

The Spirit was one of the first true masterpieces of the comic book medium. It featured an ex-detective vigilante in a Beagle Boys mask who hides out beneath his supposed grave. Originating in the 1940s, the Spirit comics were influenced by the Noir style of crime films of its time period. Of course, as a game The Spirit would have to function as a crime drama, focusing more on crime-solving than action. Yet there's still plenty of room for stealth and combat situations to arise in the midst of all that crime-solving.

6. Sandman

The Sandman's Morpheus is a tortured soul suffering for his sins and seeking redemption, much like Red Dead Redemption's John Marston. He could be cast in a Fable-like game that allows players to make choices about whether to try to redeem this guy or just send him down a whirlwind path of chaos. With all of this taking place inside the Dreaming, the possibilities for weird encounters with fascinating people and creatures are nearly endless.

And yes, of course we're speaking of the Neil Gaiman version of Sandman, not the Marvel Comics version.

5. Green Arrow

With the Green Lantern and Green Hornet films both out this year, it's time to fully cash in on this obsession with the color green. The Green Arrow needs his own video game.

The Green Arrow is a lot like Batman, yet he dresses like Robin Hood, is obsessed with liberal politics, and has an impressive arsenal of truly awesome arrow types. For example, his ammo types include exploding arrows, tear gas arrows, and grappling arrows.

Just imagine a game similar to Arkham Asylum, only the combat would be much more focused on ranged skills rather than melee attacks. The Green Arrow might even give Batman a run for his money.

4. The Boys

Who watches the Watchmen? "The Boys" do. These guys are CIA agents who specialize in "taking care of" superheroes. And by "taking care of" I definitely mean "assassinating." How has no one made this into a video game yet?

This screams "M rating."

3. Tank Girl

Tank Girl is probably most well-known for the terrible film that came out back in 1995. I bet that's why she never got to star in her own video game. But there is some serious potential here. Imagine a first-person shooter with a cartoony visual style (along the lines of Team Fortress 2 only more stylized), but set in a dystopian Australia and filled with raunchy humor and 1980s punk rock. Tank Girl could be the female answer to Duke Nukem.

And did I mention she drives a tank?

2. Deadpool

Deadpool has starred in quite a few video games already. He was a playable character in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and also showed up briefly in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Most recently, he scored a place on the roster of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. His erratic behavior in MvC3, which includes shouting hysterically into the camera and beating people with his own health bar, has already made him wildly popular among the gaming crowd. Isn't it about time that he gets his own video game? It would do his ego a world of good.

1. V for Vendetta

Strangely, when the film version of V for Vendetta came out, there was no video game counterpart. That was probably a good thing back then, since games based of movies don't tend to be very good. But now I think it's time to bring V to our gaming consoles.

This could make a fantastic open-world super combo of Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed. Sow the seeds of anarchy throughout the streets of an alternate version of England, blowing things up, taking out police, and assassinating pretty much the entire government.

One question though: would players step into the shoes of psychotic V or the manipulated Evey Hammond? Both scenarios could have interesting results, but the option to choose between the two, each with wildy different storylines, could make this a true masterpiece.

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs

When the original SOCOM: US Navy SEALs came out, it was an interesting concept. The game was as meticulous as it was methodical, and instead of rushing in guns blazing—which would assuredly get you killed in a very Counter-Strike style manner (read: quickly), you had to plan your every move, switching between members of your covert ops team in order to strike with the best laid plans.

If you played it right, which admittedly wasn't all that easy because of the AI's tendency to disobey orders or give away positions, a seasoned strategist could take down a whole map of enemies in a just a few minutes. Naturally the developers have had to cut away from that slower, Rainbow Six-like approach over the past several years, in order to stay current with market trends. Real life accounts of war, which often detail days of unyielding boredom, punctuated by moments of intense panic, fear, and violence when one's life may actually be in danger, are so far from the norm of what's expected in our "realistic" depictions of it in video games that the original SOCOM would never hold the attention of gamers who have been raised to expect an explosion or a gun battle going off every few minutes. So it is that SOCOM 4 manages to—quite easily, in fact—lose itself in an already overcrowded market.

To put it lightly, SOCOM 4 is a mess. It's obviously trying to be Call of Duty, which is understandable because every military-minded game has to be if they want to stay commercially relevant. But in doing so, SOCOM 4 just feels like a rehash of a game you've already played a hundred times before, and it doesn't even handling rehashing well. As it is, the game is still a tactical shooter, albeit one that's not up to date with modern game standards. It has the basic shell of a cover shooter, though you can't always blind fire or slide into cover with ease. You still have two "teams" of two people each that you can direct and lead, or order to concentrate fire on a particular enemy, but they still don't listen to you half the time. Stealth and planning are no longer an option (except in non-combat missions), meaning you have to send out very basic tactical orders on the fly with no real way to effectively pre-plan an assault. Even if you could lay it all out in advance, it wouldn't really matter, since you have to end up unrealistically playing commando anyway. At least that's what regenerating health is for, right

I'd be willing to accept these changes to the series formula more if the game's AI and related-programming weren't so woefully inept. Your two teams, blue and gold, specialize in mid-to-short range assault and mid-long range sniping and covert ops, respectively. The distinction is nice, since you can in theory, say, send blue to a flanking position on the battlefield while target units directly by tapping the "issue gold orders" button when your reticle is on an enemy. However, blue won't get there half the time (or they just disappear) and if you're a few pixels off target, you'll send the seemingly armor-light gold marching straight to their doom by mistake, since target and directing a team to a particular location is handled with one button each. Other times you'll tell your team to flank either side of a battlefield, only to have the AI baffled as to what you mean.