Report: Sony subpoenaed by New York Attorney General

by Griffin McElroy on May 5th 2011 2:50PM

According to a report published by Bloomberg, an anonymous source have revealed the latest entity to whom Sony Corp. must answer regarding last month's PlayStation Network security breach: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The source says Schneiderman has subpoenaed Sony to gather information about the breach, specifically regarding Sony's six-day delay in telling PSN users about the exposure.

The reported request sounds a heck of a lot like the inquiry filed by the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, which a Sony representative has already responded to. We suggest they save time with a quick copy/paste, and then get back to making it so we can play Portal 2 online again. Papa's got an itch for science.

Source: Bloomberg

Tags: attorney-general, new-york, playstation, ps3, psp, sony, sony-corp, subpoena

Reader Comments (119)

Something about a federalist society makes all these redundant lawsuits seem dumb. Will there be 50 lawsuits for each state?

@FriedConsole

Would you prefer 77 million +?

@mmmfishtacos Wow. Just.. wow. That's a new one.
Let's compare big corporations to rape victims.

I salute you, sir.

@mmmfishtacos

Yeah but a rape victim doesn't tell the rapist my name and where I live, Sony got caught with their pants down and I'd prefer if they didn't pull mine down too

@Frozen Radiator It's not new, and Im not the first to do it. Surely wont be the last. But really, how is this helping us? Great sony get's sued, you might get enough to buy a burger and fries off the dollar menu, but guys like these line their election funds. Sony can't handle 50 1 billion dollar law suites. It's getting way out of hand.

@mmmfishtacos

"But really, how is this helping us?"

By ensuring that every other company that holds personal information the way that Sony does (Microsoft, Valve, etc) sees what Sony faces and beefs up their own security rather than seeing Sony get off easy and them realizing they can slack off too.

Besides, a subpoena doesn't equal a lawsuit or even guarantee there will be any kind of penalties. Both the government and the state of New York are checking to make sure that laws weren't violated by Sony, which is especially important because state and Federal laws may differ. But nope, let's let Sony walk away if crimes were committed because "we feel bad".

@FriedConsole

And every country?

@(Unverified) So the hackers get a slap on the wrist and Sony takes the blame? Don't you think this is embarrassing enough? No let burn them on a steak for everyone to see. Destroy their company and the players that have enjoyed their systems for the past 20 years. Yeah thats much better, let everyone suffer.

@mmmfishtacos

Steak is good though

@mmmfishtacos

There's evidence that there was willful negligence on the part of Sony in keeping their network secure, possibly in violation of some laws. Nope, let's not investigate to see if that's true because we wanna play Little Big Planet.

@mmmfishtacos

for me it all comes down to being a decent human being. Why is it everyone is always ready to kick someone when they are down? It's not like sony makes a habit out of this sort of thing. they messed up. would you rather they shutter PSN forever because they got sued 100 times and just decided to not deal with it, or would you rather they rebuild it stronger?

I guess I'll just be glad that people don't sue me every time I mess up at work. I know I've made stupid mistakes that have cost other people money and I've never been sued or fired.

@eat it

You're a "decent human being" when you let a poor parent with kids get a bottle of milk without paying. You're not a decent human being when you let a multinational corporation off the hook when their problem, regardless of how accidental it is, screwed millions of customers and maybe committed a crime.

Remember, people. A subpoena is NOT a lawsuit. A subpoena is merely the government -investigating- to see if laws were broken or not.

@oOWallaceOo

maybe the lesson to be learned here is that, in order to avoid getting our pants pulled down to our ankles, we shouldn't save our credit card information to things like psn or xbl. personally, i think from now on i'm going to go the prepaid card way.

what in the... alittle late arn't they ?

I just wanna play Portal 2 with my friend :(

@Jay Z

Now I don't mean to inspire flame war but it's funny how the Sony finally got a game with exclusive features from a third party and their network gets hit and it taken offline. It could not have been easy for Valve to trumpet these features last month..

@Evin Sony*

@Jay Z. I'll never get to pwn anyone in MK with Noob Saibot.

@Evin

I'd be even so bold as to say it's......suspicious.
A strong partnership between Steam and Sony could prove to be a dominating force in the industry. Nintendo and Microsoft would both benefit from that never getting a chance to be successful. Not pointing fingers, just stating fact.

@Dizazter
No. Just no.

I honestly believe the six-day delay was incompetence rather than malice, especially considering that Sony still didn't have their info straight 12 days after the fact, much less six.

What the AG should be focusing on is that Sony was made aware of the security holes in their servers, and chose not to spend the time or money to address them:

http://consumerist.com/2011/05/security-expert-sony-knew-its-software-was-obsolete-months-before-psn-breach.html

For people saying, "This attack could have happened to anybody," the answer is no. No reputable major software company leaves unpatched Apache web servers with access to their internal systems sitting without firewall protection on the Internet.

@copa

Well, actually as expressed by that article, apparently they do...

@copa

That wasn't really confirmed. That man got his info from forum post that were months old before any of this took place. Way to be that guy though.

@BigEgo007

"That man" is Gene Spafford.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Spafford

The events he is describing are months old, because it was openly discusses among security researchers months ago that Sony was running unpatched servers.

@copa Damn you're dumb.

@copa

He got his info from a forum. A forum dude.

@BigEgo007

You can try all you like to imply that Gene Spafford is a rumor-mongering idiot, but he is in agreement with Sony here.

Sony themselves have stated that their servers were hit through a "known vulnerability":

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/PSN-Hack-Exploit-Data-Theft-Credit-Cards,news-11050.html

That means they were running an unpatched server.

@copa

Yes, because the only "known vulnerabilities" in the history of the internet are unpatched servers and lack of firewalls. There's zero possibility that sony could have been talking about some other issue.

Until Mr. Spafford offers up a link to this information on this open forum, shows visual evidence that this issue was reported directly to Sony and not just slapped up on a forum post somewhere and offers undeniable proof of how these posters got their information, his testimony is hearsay, and that floats about as far as a lead balloon with me.

Yes, because what we totally want is for Sony to waste its time answering the capricious demands of me-too politicians doing this only to get the approval of their constituents for a reelection, instead of letting Sony just fix the damn network so everyone can go back to normal.

When the Titanic is sinking you get people on the lifeboats, you don't stop the captain in his tracks and demand answers as to why they hit the iceberg. How 'bout these silly requests wait until AFTER the problem is solved, hmm Uncle Sam?

@PointlessPuppies

Your logic must have been hit by an iceberg. Do you guys not understand that more than one person works at Sony? What part of this is hard to grasp, exactly?

@A Sandwich
And who do you think has the know-how to answer in detail (as per the demands of these politicos) what the issues were? Here's a hint: Not PR people.

Get your head out of your ass. You do nothing but blast Sony at every one of these articles.

@PointlessPuppies

How is it blasting Sony to assume that they have more than one intelligent person capable of answering questions? It's not a one or the other type proposition and it's amazingly ignorant to assume that these two tasks are mutually exclusive.

@A Sandwich
You completely ignored my reply to you, then.

@PointlessPuppies

I think you're swinging at air. Nobody who replied to you is blasting Sony...

@PointlessPuppies

Ignored your reply? So you DO think that the only dude capable of answering security questions is the sole hope for restoring PSN access? That's just ... wow. You need to go outside, man. This whole thing is messing with your brain.

Yes Sony is a model of efficiency like no other.

All the Network labor is now done by a single Australian man.

Seriously tho where were you people with your "they shouldn't be wasting money on litigation they should be securing their networks" when they were throwing money and lawyers at GeoHot?

You certainly seemed to think that they were more than capable of doing both then? Whats changed exactly now that the shoe is on the other foot?

@PointlessPuppies

I think you give the legal system too much credit.

If Sony is still dealing with these issues by the time this lawsuit finally makes any movement then they have much bigger problems.

Besides, it's not like it'll take these guys more than a few minutes to answer some questions about this stuff to the lawyers that are handling it. They're so knee deep in it already trying to fix it that I doubt they'll even have to figure anything else out.

You remind me of the people that say stuff like "maybe if Ocho Cinco spent less time preparing his endzone celebrations and more time practicing he'd have won a Super Bowl by now" as if the 35 seconds that he spends in front of a mirror the night before somehow affects his football ability.

I need to call Harvey Birdman. He'll get the answers we want to know!

@jonmaz

I hope he got that thing I sent him.

@jonmaz
Ha! Ha! Danglely Bits

At this rate were never going to get PSN >_>

@Faenix
Legal department != tech/maintenance department

@Faenix. Stop it stop it stop it!

Maybe somebody could help me out here, but I was under the impression that Sony informed people of the intrusion on April 22nd, two days after they discovered it on the 20th. Likewise they discovered Personal Data was stolen on the 25h and informed people on the 26th,

Where are people getting 6 days from?

@Phoenix117UK I was wondering the same thing. people keep saying six days but I'm pretty sure I read the same time line and saw one day.

@Phoenix117UK
While they pulled the network down on the 21st, they did not release information about a privacy breach until the 26th. They estimated that the breach occurred between the 17th and the 19th. That's probably where they are getting 6 days. (personally, I'd say 10 days, since I got my warning email on the 27th)

An "anonymous" source? Anon has infiltrated the government!!1!!

@Faceless Troll

I think you secretly like Anonymous..

@Faceless Troll

Awwww, I only came in here to make that joke.

@Wiizer I herd u liek mudkipz.

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Report: Sony subpoenaed by New York Attorney General

Reader Comments (119)

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:53PM FriedConsole said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:56PM Wiizer said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:31PM Frozen Radiator said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:47PM oOWallaceOo said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:49PM mmmfishtacos said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:54PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:56PM Raffi256 said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:10PM mmmfishtacos said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:27PM HybridPara said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:28PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:30PM eat it said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:41PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 5th 2011 5:21PM Liquidfingers said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:54PM HardBoiled2009 said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:56PM Jay Z said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:05PM Evin said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:06PM Evin said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:22PM Mrguy you know that guy said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:34PM Dizazter said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:41PM Special Agent Steve said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:56PM copa said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:59PM Wiizer said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:17PM BigEgo007 said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:33PM copa said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:42PM ZodiacKilla427 said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:19PM BigEgo007 said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:43PM copa said

Posted: May 5th 2011 6:46PM Labreya said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:56PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:05PM A Sandwich said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:10PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:19PM A Sandwich said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:30PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:37PM Colin said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:37PM A Sandwich said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:43PM Scuffles said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:14PM Vcize said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:57PM jonmaz said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:28PM EJ A said

Posted: May 5th 2011 4:08PM Special Agent Bob said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:58PM Faenix said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:15PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:20PM Mrguy you know that guy said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:59PM Phoenix117UK said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:17PM DVDSandwich said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:23PM Peffse said

Posted: May 5th 2011 2:59PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:08PM Wiizer said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:16PM Labreya said

Posted: May 5th 2011 3:17PM Faceless Troll said

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