It’s now the US government’s turn to question Sony about its online security, which follows the UK government’s scrutiny into the company’s affairs.
In a letter addressed to PlayStation executive deputy Kaz Hirai, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade has prepared a list of questions related to the intrusion; the list can be downloaded from the New York Times here. The letter asks several questions that Sony has not disclosed to the public, such as:
- How many PSN users had a credit card on file
- Why Sony cannot determine if credit card was stolen.
- What are Sony’s plans towards increasing its security in the future.
The Subcommittee’s press release states:
“Given the amount and nature of personal information known to have been taken, the potential harm that could be caused if credit card information was also taken would be quite significant. The Subcommittee on Manufacturing, and Trade has a longstanding interest in consumer privacy, identity theft, and industry efforts to address threats posed by unauthorized access to consumers’ personal information resulting from a data breach.”
The Subcommittee is requiring a reply by no later than May 6, as part of a privacy driven effort “to protect consumer information.”
Meanwhile, Kaz Hirai will be holding a press conference tomorrow from Sony Japan, to address the PlayStation Network hacking crisis.
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I think I just vomited in my mouth a little bit and then almost had that vomit leave my mouth from laughing so hard; also, I really need to do some catching up on Venture Bros.
*God mode: typically a carry over from the days when developers would build tools into their games to facilitate testing and debugging. Nowadays most developers disable access to those tools before shipping a game, but removing them entirely is typically inefficient and may unintentionally break a game.
fun fact: The first movie tie-in Spiderman game for the ps2 had a cheat to actually bring up a panel showing debug information while playing.