Both PSN and Xbox Live are down

[zerocool84]

I find it kind of humorous in a way. It just shows that the world isn't ready for mandatory online 'gaming' no matter how MS (or anyone) tries to spin it. It's made worse by the fact that it's a paid service.

Just think how this would impact 'you' if this was a 100% cloud service, or everything (single player included) required you to be online to play. It doesn't matter who's at fault, the only people who can fix/prevent it are the owners of said servers. If they aren't up to the task....well that creates a bit of a problem.

Exactly why Microsoft got the backlash when they announced the Xbone was online only no matter what.

 

[Blanky]

It directly affects me, all my ps4 games are digital and if I cannot connect to psn I cannot play a single game I own and that is bullshit. Im pretty pissed off about it, i own these games but because your server is down i cannot play them? Wtf is that shit, i basically paid full price for games that i donot even own

I didn't relize that about ps4/xb1. So if you buy the game and it is fully downloaded it still does a mandatory internet check every time it loads?

 

[digiram]

It directly affects me, all my ps4 games are digital and if I cannot connect to psn I cannot play a single game I own and that is bullshit. Im pretty pissed off about it, i own these games but because your server is down i cannot play them? Wtf is that shit, i basically paid full price for games that i donot even own

Damn, no local sign on at all? I think xbox let me sign on locally, and I was able to do some Child of Light a bit while XBL was down.

 

[Super56K]

I didn't relize that about ps4/xb1. So if you buy the game and it is fully downloaded it still does a mandatory internet check every time it loads?

It does not if your system is set up correctly as primary, though some games are coded in a way that they need to have an internet connection. I think EA's Plants vs Zombies is one. I pretty much only play single player and routinely unplug the ethernet to verify certain games work like they should. That's both disc and digital games. I played GTA V for a good chunk of yesterday.

Steam can honestly be a bit trickier. It's rare I want to go to offline mode unless my internet is already down.

 

[mmntech]

You know, I get why game companies are doing this. They want to maintain total control of their products. However, when the network goes down it's paying customers who get punished. This is my biggest beef with cloud computing, and why the world isn't ready for it yet.

I get that DDoS attacks are very difficult to defend against. The IT industry is going to have to figure something out though. It's not just gaming networks that are vulnerable. If a similar outage happened to say Adobe Creative Cloud, it could cost the economy tens of millions in lost productivity.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Well some things are going cloud that simply shouldn't be. Adobe is one, routers are another, etc etc. It's all buzz word nonsense. Sure moving forward is good, but sometimes you have to stop and consider what IF. Pretending like it's the greatest thing ever and ignoring the reality of the world doesn't fix the issues. I really hate how 'integrated' everything is becoming. It just sets everything up for a bigger failure.

The whole concept that the next Sony console will be all streaming is over the top when you sit and actually consider the state of the internet right now. Companies are pushing everything in a direction where the consumer has zero power. It's almost like speaking with wallets is even pointless anymore. There are so many people out there that eat some of this stuff up like there is no issue. They have a very short sighted vision of things and cannot see beyond the now.

Things like this start to bring things back into perspective, but there are already people making excuses for them.

When a console has issues that only PC's should have, it's time to reconsider if you want to be a game console or a computer. I saw all this coming with the Dreamcast, I was just surprised it took this long to get to this point. I think the DSi was what put the nail in the coffin for consoles. You want online? You want easy access? Want to be able to download your games? Be prepared to be tied to whatever happens and at the whim of the world because you no longer have any control.

When I finally broke down and got a PS3 last year, I was immediately proven right in my theories (and why I avoided last gen). The cons really outweigh the benefits. Somehow people think this is progress. I just see it as an avenue for control of paying customers by limiting their options.
(and yes, this is all in reference to online consoles, firmware updates, cloud etc, etc rather than just a standalone console that does what it does. Play games.

 

[smackababy]

Ugh... This crap is still effecting Xbox Live, regardless of what they claim. I swear, I am seriously debating about devoting my life to finding the moron kids who do this kind of crap and taking a road trip to punch them in the face. It will only take one or two, and they will stop. I still can't log into Destiny, despite being able to play other games.

 

[TheSlamma]

Well some things are going cloud that simply shouldn't be. Adobe is one, routers are another, etc etc. It's all buzz word nonsense. Sure moving forward is good, but sometimes you have to stop and consider what IF. Pretending like it's the greatest thing ever and ignoring the reality of the world doesn't fix the issues. I really hate how 'integrated' everything is becoming. It just sets everything up for a bigger failure.

The whole concept that the next Sony console will be all streaming is over the top when you sit and actually consider the state of the internet right now. Companies are pushing everything in a direction where the consumer has zero power. It's almost like speaking with wallets is even pointless anymore. There are so many people out there that eat some of this stuff up like there is no issue. They have a very short sighted vision of things and cannot see beyond the now.

Things like this start to bring things back into perspective, but there are already people making excuses for them.

When a console has issues that only PC's should have, it's time to reconsider if you want to be a game console or a computer. I saw all this coming with the Dreamcast, I was just surprised it took this long to get to this point. I think the DSi was what put the nail in the coffin for consoles. You want online? You want easy access? Want to be able to download your games? Be prepared to be tied to whatever happens and at the whim of the world because you no longer have any control.

When I finally broke down and got a PS3 last year, I was immediately proven right in my theories (and why I avoided last gen). The cons really outweigh the benefits. Somehow people think this is progress. I just see it as an avenue for control of paying customers by limiting their options.
(and yes, this is all in reference to online consoles, firmware updates, cloud etc, etc rather than just a standalone console that does what it does. Play games.

Yep..security and convenience are like a set of tipping scales.. for the last 10 years people have been pushing the convenience button hard and corporations and government have just been catering.. it's all catching up now. Meanwhile security suffers the entire time.

Credit cards are being hacked constantly, peoples data is getting stolen left and right and DDoS attacks are as easy as downloading a GUI tool, putting in the target and hitting start. Files up in the cloud? I know since this is Anandtech I will get shredded for this but Office 365, and yes the all worshiped Google docs those are soon to get hit also. Why attack an individuals personal computer today when you can have 100 million peoples data all in one hackable location.

Welcome to the "cloud" (as a 22 year IT person god I hate that fvcking term) everyone asked for, all their data all in a handful of easy to target baskets.

 

[Anteaus]

I find it kind of humorous in a way. It just shows that the world isn't ready for mandatory online 'gaming' no matter how MS (or anyone) tries to spin it. It's made worse by the fact that it's a paid service.

Just think how this would impact 'you' if this was a 100% cloud service, or everything (single player included) required you to be online to play. It doesn't matter who's at fault, the only people who can fix/prevent it are the owners of said servers. If they aren't up to the task....well that creates a bit of a problem.

The world will never be ready for anything if you base it purely on hacking potential. Both PSN and XBL are very reliable if they are able to run on their own merits.

You can hardly blame a restaurant for slow service if someone keeps cutting the power to the building. If you scaled up the attack enough, no system can be rendered immune to DDoS . All of this is a less about the future of digital gaming and more about the internet in general.

It is one thing to gain access to secured files due to bad system security. It is a complete other thing to have DDoS pounding at the door. Sony deserves criticism for the initial hack, but neither they nor MS can really be blamed for the buttholes that are hammering the servers with a brute force attack. It's the hacking equivalent of a temper tantrum.

 

[Jodell88]

A quite effective temper tantrum.

 

[Blanky]

You know, I get why game companies are doing this. They want to maintain total control of their products. However, when the network goes down it's paying customers who get punished. This is my biggest beef with cloud computing, and why the world isn't ready for it yet.

I get that DDoS attacks are very difficult to defend against. The IT industry is going to have to figure something out though. It's not just gaming networks that are vulnerable. If a similar outage happened to say Adobe Creative Cloud, it could cost the economy tens of millions in lost productivity.

Or Office 365 or Google Docs. Pick the last week of the year to do it so that people can't close out properly. Would be very disruptive.

I know since this is Anandtech I will get shredded for this but Office 365, and yes the all worshiped Google docs those are soon to get hit also.

As God is my witness I typed the above about 365 and google docs as I was reading along in the thread and before I came to your post, so we're on the same page. Take spreadsheets away from a Finance department for two days and see how happy they are about it.

I don't know enough about hacking to say what degree of blame Sony or MS deserve for being possibly more vulnerable than they should be, but let's say they "should have known better". If one of the world's premier internet companies can be suppressed like this, who can't be? If Sony, a massive tech corporation full of clever people, with a history of being attacked (and thus motivation to mitigate), can still be busted up, who could say their own company is impervious?

 

[smackababy]

The world will never be ready for anything if you base it purely on hacking potential. Both PSN and XBL are very reliable if they are able to run on their own merits.

You can hardly blame a restaurant for slow service if someone keeps cutting the power to the building. If you scaled up the attack enough, no system can be rendered immune to DDoS . All of this is a less about the future of digital gaming and more about the internet in general.

It is one thing to gain access to secured files due to bad system security. It is a complete other thing to have DDoS pounding at the door. Sony deserves criticism for the initial hack, but neither they nor MS can really be blamed for the buttholes that are hammering the servers with a brute force attack. It's the hacking equivalent of a temper tantrum.

This isn't even a hack. It is a bunch of idiots running a script to ping the services over and over. The reality is the end services can't do much to deal with it, due to them having to handle each packet to know if it should be dealt with or not, for the most part. If ISPs would do something about it, it might be better, but that is generally going to impact morons accidentally running the scripts as part of a botnet. And, that one person legitimately trying to do something that involves high amounts of small packet transmissions.

 

[tential]

IMO, it's a good way to raise "awareness" actually. Before, I was fully onboard with an Xbox Live Always Online service.
Cloud Computing could have been used to do some pretty cool things and would have increased the computing power of the Xbox One.

Now?
Now we see just how vulnerable these companies are. It's relatively easy for someone to take down these servers and make them unusable.

I am happy I never hopped on board these services and instead have played games that don't need to be always connected to function.

Sony especially should be in the limelight here for security IT. They've been repeatedly hit, and still haven't found a way to deal with attacks. I wanted a PS4, but held off on it because I didn't trust Sony due to the issues with PSN throughout PS3, the shoddy security and leaked CC info, etc.

Hopefully, this massive bout of DDoS/Hacks will make these companies upgrade their services.

 

[smackababy]

IMO, it's a good way to raise "awareness" actually. Before, I was fully onboard with an Xbox Live Always Online service.
Cloud Computing could have been used to do some pretty cool things and would have increased the computing power of the Xbox One.

Now?
Now we see just how vulnerable these companies are. It's relatively easy for someone to take down these servers and make them unusable.

I am happy I never hopped on board these services and instead have played games that don't need to be always connected to function.

Sony especially should be in the limelight here for security IT. They've been repeatedly hit, and still haven't found a way to deal with attacks. I wanted a PS4, but held off on it because I didn't trust Sony due to the issues with PSN throughout PS3, the shoddy security and leaked CC info, etc.

Hopefully, this massive bout of DDoS/Hacks will make these companies upgrade their services.

Wat? What awareness is being raise? Servers are still able to be flooded if enough kids sent things at them? This isn't a hack. There is no security breach. There are just a bunch of morons running a script to ping the services over and over and they servers can't deal with it.

 

[tential]

Wat? What awareness is being raise? Servers are still able to be flooded if enough kids sent things at them? This isn't a hack. There is no security breach. There are just a bunch of morons running a script to ping the services over and over and they servers can't deal with it.

So you're saying there is no way to protect against a Denial of Service attack?

 

[smackababy]

So you're saying there is no way to protect against a Denial of Service attack?

Not in any real practical way, no. They have distribute their servers over a vast network to help, have ISPs do some blocking on mass traffic (which doesn't do anything, because most of the DDoS comes from botnets, and block those people blocks legitimate users with a virus), or try and manually block each request.

The problem is it generally isn't worth any of the effort. Why build a server capable of handling 500 million users if your peak usage is 50 million? It is just not worth the cost for a little downtime. Now, there are certain infrastructures that will require this type of protections, but you can bet Xbox Live and PSN aren't on that list.

Any outward facing server is vulnerable for a DDoS, as you can only handle so many requests at once.

 

[tential]

So essentially, you're saying Xbox Live and PSN should do nothing to prevent this and that any group of amateur hackers with a little free time on their hand can take down PSN / Xbox Live whenever they feel like it.

Then you should stop complaining that the service is down. Can't do anything to stop it, it'll happen whether it's Lizard Group, Antler Group, Jerk off hour, etc.

 

[smackababy]

So essentially, you're saying Xbox Live and PSN should do nothing to prevent this and that any group of amateur hackers with a little free time on their hand can take down PSN / Xbox Live whenever they feel like it.

Then you should stop complaining that the service is down. Can't do anything to stop it, it'll happen whether it's Lizard Group, Antler Group, Jerk off hour, etc.

What I am saying is, the idiots who continue to say "OMG Sony and MS are so stupid! They can't stop a bunch of basement dwelling script kiddies!" need to shut it, as they don't understand the problem.

And, I am saying, just once, someone should find out who these idiots are led by, go to that person's house, ask their parents if they can come inside, and punch the little idiot in the face. Do that a few times and these moron children will stop. They have no consequences as it is right now; and even the smallest of them will deter these morons.

 

[ImpulsE69]

It's not about it being their fault. It's about the fact that they are the ones pushing these sort of things with this grand vision of control when they can't even control what happens or prevent it. PC world has been dealing with these issues for years, nothing new here and it's much less impactful overall than it is in the console world.

As was stated you wanted all in one do it all consoles, welcome to the PC world.

 

[tential]

What I am saying is, the idiots who continue to say "OMG Sony and MS are so stupid! They can't stop a bunch of basement dwelling script kiddies!" need to shut it, as they don't understand the problem.

And, I am saying, just once, someone should find out who these idiots are led by, go to that person's house, ask their parents if they can come inside, and punch the little idiot in the face. Do that a few times and these moron children will stop. They have no consequences as it is right now; and even the smallest of them will deter these morons.

For attempting to sound mature you sound childish with these types of comments. You think if we found them we would punch them in the face? We'd prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law... that's what you do in a civilized country.

If you claim that these attacks are not able to be prevented, and you signed up for these services knowing full well that this type of downtime was a possibility, then you should stop this childish "I'm going to go find them and punch them in the face!" You paid your money knowing this was a possibility, accept the consequences instead of throwing a temper tantrum reminiscent of a 12 year old child.

 

[lupi]

It directly affects me, all my ps4 games are digital and if I cannot connect to psn I cannot play a single game I own and that is bullshit. Im pretty pissed off about it, i own these games but because your server is down i cannot play them? Wtf is that shit, i basically paid full price for games that i donot even own

every console game of mine except those free with the hardware are played via me inserting a disc. haven't lost a second of play time due to these attacks.

 

[calyco]

PSN back up now, just ordered TWD seasons and it went through

 

[VirtualLarry]

So you're saying there is no way to protect against a Denial of Service attack?

Yes, there is. Distributed networks / peer-to-peer services are far more immune than centralized servers to this sort of thing.

It's much harder for the script kiddies to DDoS 1mil "servers" (peers) on the internet, than one corporations netblock for their servers.

Sadly, "Cloud Computing" is a farce. It's not a true "cloud". If it were, everyone on the internet would be part of running the services. We would have a truly distributed storage and application model. But today's buzzwords are really just a re-named client-server model, not a truely distributed and "Cloud" model.

 

[tential]

Yes, there is. Distributed networks / peer-to-peer services are far more immune than centralized servers to this sort of thing.

It's much harder for the script kiddies to DDoS 1mil "servers" (peers) on the internet, than one corporations netblock for their servers.

Sadly, "Cloud Computing" is a farce. It's not a true "cloud". If it were, everyone on the internet would be part of running the services. We would have a truly distributed storage and application model. But today's buzzwords are really just a re-named client-server model, not a truely distributed and "Cloud" model.

We're talking about viable strategies for Sony and Microsoft specifically when bringing online gaming to the masses and not just generally.

 

[Rage187]

PSN back up now, just ordered TWD seasons and it went through

It still won't let me on.