Sony attacked again
By Asha

Sony’s Playstation.com is among the most visited 1100 websites in the world.  The gaming site gets most of its traffic from USA following by Japan and UK.  Italy and India make up the remaining top 5 positions.  Due to a sophisticated hacking attack, the Sony Playstation Network had been crippled for more than 3 weeks.  It finally came back online on May 17.

But it seems hackers will not leave Sony alone.  Sony has just announced that they needed to taken down the Playstation Network to fix another security glitch.

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We temporarily took down the PSN and Qriocity password reset page. Contrary to some reports, there was no hack involved. In the process of resetting of passwords there was a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed.

Consumers who haven’t reset their passwords for PSN are still encouraged to do so directly on their PS3. Otherwise, they can continue to do so via the website as soon as we bring that site back up.
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(Techgoss had published the following on May 17, 2011)

Sony Asia Welcome Back?
By Asha

Sony’s Playstation.com is among the most visited 1100 websites in the world.  The gaming site gets most of its traffic from USA following by Japan and UK.  Italy and India make up the remaining top 5 positions.  Due to a sophisticated hacking attack, the Sony Playstation Network had been crippled for more than 3 weeks.

Regular readers of Techgoss are well aware that a large number of our articles are crowd sourced.  People send in tips, story ideas and even articles. Many of our contributors have full times jobs in IT-ITES, and so prefer using a pseudonym.  A Tipster wrote in

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After the hacker attack brought down the Sony PlayStation Network and Qriocity for 3 weeks, they are finally up and running.  Sony wanted to make amends with its gaming customers and has offered a ‘Welcome Back’ appreciation program for North America.

Under this ‘Welcome Back North America’ program, all PlayStation Network customers can select two PS3 games from a list of 5 popular games. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

PSP owners will be eligible to download two PSP games from a list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

Also, a selection of “On Us” rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network customers over one weekend, where Video Service is available. Those titles will be announced soon. And there are as many as 60 days of free subscription.  And few other gifts as well.

There is such a Welcome Back Program for Europe and Latin America as well.

But there is no such announcement for Asia in general and India in particular.  How long before we hear what we will get?  The restoration of the Sony Playstation network was done on the basis of which countries provided the most revenue.  Using the same logic, it may be another 24 hours before we hear what is in the Asia (India) Welcome Back Program.
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(Tipsters, Big thank you for all your tips and photos. Do you have a story to tell? If you need to speak to us in confidence or write for us, email us at techgoss[at]hotmail. Or use the Anonymous Tip form at the top of our website. Anonymity guaranteed. We pay Rs. 700 – Rs. 1000 for 100 – 200 word snippets. Unfortunately, we cannot use any tips which are not backed up by enough facts)