Sony is no longer an electronics company

An interesting take on Sony’s recent activity from the Verge.  It looks almost all electronics are gone from the company and the main focus now is on the PlayStation and entertainment.  A handy chart for the Q4 2014 financials too:

Sony Q4 2014

Sony security problems could take years to fix

Obviously, I’m not the only one thinking that Sony’s security problems are architectural.  Here is a quote from a New York Times article.

“Microsoft used to be the laughing stock of security and now they are now the shining example of good security,” said Mr. Gula. “It’s going to take a while for Sony to fix this, I think this will take years.”

On the other hand, some people are reporting that PlayStation Network is recovering.  Let’s see for how long…

Sony hacked again. Should go open source

Sky reports that Sony got hacked and lost some of its customers data:

Sony has once again been targeted by a group of hackers who claim they gained access to details of one million customers.

By now, I think it is obvious that Sony’s security issues are architectural.  It is not a matter of firewall misconfiguration or missed out input validation check.  That would have been closed and forgotten months ago.  Repeated attacks and extensive downtimes of PlayStation Network indicate that the problems are much deeper and much harder to find and fix.

I think the best option for them now is to go open source.  If they open the protocols they use and server software they have – plenty of people will jump on it and create alternative servers and networks.  All that will be needed after that is a firmware update that would allow gamers to connect to those alternative networks.