Sony implicates Anonymous in hack

Sony’s president Kazuo Hirai says the anonymous hacking group Anonymous was partially responsible for a recent massive hack and data theft. Hirai made the accusation in a letter to the US House’s Committee on Energy and Commerce, which was holding hearings on the issue of network security in light of the recent breaches.

From ZDNet:

“When Sony Online Entertainment discovered this past Sunday afternoon that data from its servers had been stolen, it also discovered that the intruders had planted a file on one of those servers named ‘Anonymous’ with the words ‘We are Legion,” wrote Hirai. “Just weeks before, several Sony companies had been the target of a large-scale, coordinated denial of service attack by the group called Anonymous. The attacks were coordinated against Sony as a protest against Sony for exercising its rights in a civil action in the United States District Court in San Francisco against a hacker.”

Here’s the thing: who IS Anonymous? Well, that’s just it: they’re anonymous. They could be anyone who cares to go by that name. They could be organized or not, politically motivated or prank motivated. That’s probably just how they like it: a nameless force for pranksterism. But one wonders if this is a fad that will fade or will hackers just go on calling themselves Anonymous forever? I mean, I didn’t think people would still be wearing Mohawks to shock society more than 30 years after England’s punk explosion but there you are.