Geek Revolt
Home / Games / The Flawed Logic Of Anonymous

The Flawed Logic Of Anonymous

By on April 4, 2011

Today the hacker group anonymous took down a few Sony websites. In their eyes this will send a message to Sony—but do they realize who their actions are truly hurting? I don’t think they do, here’s why they have a flawed logic. Keep reading after the break.

Their efforts are only a minor annoyance to Sony; if they wanted to truly protest, why not just throw out their PS3s? Or better yet, burn them all and broadcast it live on the Internet, take that Sony! The answer is simple—they only want to cause trouble. But what they fail (or just don’t care) to realize is, they cause the most trouble for the end-user, not the corporation.

Aren’t they fighting for us, the gamers? Well they’re doing an awful job at it. Pissing off Sony will get them nowhere quick; Sony has already proven that they won’t take threats from hackers. Just ask Geohot how things are working out for him.

Anonymous think they’re freedom fighters, like they’re doing gamers everywhere a favor. When the only thing they’re really doing is working towards their own agenda, which probably includes piracy and other malicious acts.

If they hate what Sony is doing with the PS3, they should just take their gaming dollars elsewhere. When you buy a PS3 you agree to Sony’s terms of use, there’s no way around it. It’s their console; they have the right to do whatever they want with it. Is this a good thing, not necessarily —but it’s the truth.

Also do they realize this isn’t exactly helping Geohot’s case, seriously, if anything this is only giving Sony more ammo to go after him. Look, this is what your arrogance led to, cyber terrorism (I can hear Sony’s team of lawyers now). One thing I will give them is this, they’re smarter than Geohot—they’re anonymous. Although, I wouldn’t be shocked if a few of them are found out.

The bottom-line is these hackers have an extremely flawed logic. I’d actually respect them more if they came out and said, we’re just being dicks, trying to piss gamers off, and contribute to the downfall of the industry thanks to piracy. It’s blunt—but it’s better than hiding behind a false cause.

[box_dark]If you enjoyed what you just read, like Geek Revolt on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.[/box_dark]

I'm DeShaun Zollicoffer, and I approve this message/bio. "26-years-old, Proud Northeast Ohioan, a Gamer Without Loyalties, an Equal Opportunity Offender, Apple Evangelist, Apple Hater, Music Lover, Anime Junkie, Little Monster, Frequent Flyer, Dexter Fanatic, Title Case Addict, and Geek Revolt's Founder and Editorial Director."
Related Items
  • Sonyishomo

    Burning a console would be even less effective. they would have already spent the money on the console so sony would’ve already gotten what they wanted. always being in a game online but not actually playing it would use Sonys servers and piss off other gamers which would cause trouble for the company as well.

    therefore your argument is invalid… and dont insult /b/

    • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

      Maybe burning the consoles wouldn’t help, but I think your suggestion would be equally as ineffective. Sony still has their money :)

  • Wildwolf

    well said, could not agree more.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Khiem-Nguyen/100000184270593 Khiem Nguyen

    Thank you for speaking the truth!

  • http://twitter.com/wishingW3L Elias Ruiz

    You really dumb! The users are the ones that made the corporation cus we are the ones that buy their stuff. So if you really want to deliver a message then there’s no other way than doing so by hurting the consumer… Then the consumer will bitch to Sony and u know the rest of the story.

    And about the Geohotz part, you’re wrong again. Geohotz doesn’t has any power over this anonymous group so this is not gonna affect him in any way.

    You’re calling out Anonymous for their flawed logic but yours is even worse. You even try to link this stuff to piracy even though Geohotz Custom Firmware doesn’t even let’s you play pirated game. You can’t launch any kind of back-up manager from his CFW and this is why Sony can’t do any other thing against him than filling out a civil suit, otherwise Geohot would go to jail for piracy. =/

    You know why all these juridical process of Sony suing Hotz is taking so much time? Cus they have nothing on him so Sony keeps dragging things to make Hotz lose the case in the most dirty of ways. By hurting his pocket. Sony knows that Hotz doesn’t has the money to litigate in court for too long but they never thought that Hotz would get so much money in donations from other pissed users to keep the case alive and now things aren’t going their way. On top of that Sony now has Anonymous messing up their websites andthere are other hacker working on a CFW that will let you update your PS3 normally while still be able to make hombrew and play pirate games.

    And all this started because of the removal of the otherOS. If the PS3 wasn’t hacked early it wasn’t because the PS3 was impenetrable, it was because hackers had no interest in it. And Geohot just wanted to let the otherOS have access to the GPU so the PS3 could be like a fully functional PC with Linux and this wasn’t going to affect the PS3 as a console cus both OS had completely different boot procedures. But Sony removed it cus the Airforce and other companies were using the PS3 to make cheap super computers and computer clusters instead of buying the overpriced products from IBM. They basically admitted in an IGN article that u should read.

    Sony is screwing the consumer and all of you love being screwed it seems.

    • Shadowkillerdragon

      your generalizing way too much here -.-, so you wanna screw the consumers over to get a point out to sony thats retarded.

      You make it sound like the gaming is only what made sony what it is, the fact that Geohot compromised the console with the signing keys allows you to play anything and sign anything making it easy as pie to enable CFW and pirated games -.-

    • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

      “So if you really want to deliver a message then there’s no other way than doing so by hurting the consumer…”

      That actually sounds right to you? That’s like saying the only way to get to someone is by hurting their children. Maybe that’s true, but it’s a dick move and I find it funny that people try so hard to defend such actions.

      • Steven

        Parents don’t have the a single goal, which for corporations would be making money and children don’t help parents reach their goal.  They hurt the customers of Playstation and customers go to another company.  Although, I believe good hackers might be able to slow Sony’s financial transactions, temporarily damage its credit score, or some thing like that.

    • Mace Windex

      Wow bro, your logic is flawed, just as Anonymous’ is…it is clear to anyone who can think critically that you’re wrong, but I won’t bother pointing out the obvious flaws in your case UNLESS you call me out.
      Please don’t post garbage.

  • Codyclarke33

    $20.00 says ignorance is bliss.

    So tell me DESHAUN, is it?

    • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

      Ha-ha, I’ll get back to you on that one.

  • Anon

    “When you buy a PS3 you agree to Sony’s terms of use, there’s no way around it. It’s their console; they have the right to do whatever they want with it. Is this a good thing, not necessarily —but it’s the truth.”

    Wrong.

    You agree to terms on signing into PSN, not on purchasing the hardware. This becomes and remains the property of the purchaser, with any rights that Sony had in it being alienated by its sale. They do not have the right to do with it as they want, and their decision to remove the ‘OtherOS’ function, after basing their initial marketing on the ability of the console to ‘do it all’, is clearly egregious and is being challenged in court.

    • http://www.facebook.com/Link000111 Brandon S. Levasseur

      No matter what you say, it’s illegal to alter the software within the ps3 hardware itself. Copyrights do apply to the software IN the hardware in which the hackers had to ‘dig’ into in order to obtain the console’s master key. That alone is illegal. Also, you’re an idiot for supporting anything in this case. Especially with this DDOS attack showing the true signs of these idiots who need to be jail bound.

      • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

        Good points, I really don’t see how anyone could support this. Even if their claims against Sony were valid, they all become irrelevant the moment they decide to break the law.

  • No thanks

    No, not fighting for gamers – common mistake. They are fighting for civil liberties and consumer rights.

    • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

      The PS3 consumers are gamers, so fighting for gamers rights is basically like fighting for gamers, right?

  • http://twitter.com/JimLenoir James Lenoir

    I couldn’t agree more Deshaun, you nailed it on the head.

    • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

      Thanks!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sean-Colgrave/539959029 Sean Colgrave

    I think this was a perfectly fine piece.

    Technically no, you’re not agreeing to Sony’s T&C when you buy the Playstation but that doesn’t give you the right to do with it as you wish. Consumer rights merely allow you to own it and congratulations, you own it…Take a car for example, if you own a car you can’t for instance drive over the speed limit or on the pavement can you? The consumer right only applies to the object and not the potential of it.

    Although one thing that I can’t seem to get past is the fact that all these hackers or pirates or modders, whatever they want to call themselves, all love Geohotz for bringing back the OtherOS. Do you guys not remember that it was his bragging in the first place that got that function removed?
    Yes Sony did remove it but come on, wouldn’t you? If someone bragged that they had a spare key to your house wouldn’t you change the locks?

    • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

      Yeah, they seem to forget he’s the reason all this is happening anyways. If anything they should be going after him. Shows how backwards they are.

    • Mace Windex

      Well said. What people don’t get is why people think just because you own something doesn’t mean that you can cause harm with it(other cars, a dev’s income), and I know that many cool, legit things can come from cracking an entertainment device’s hardware, but this has been, is, and will be abused by those who don’t want to buy stuff they should pay for.
      I love the car analogy, because sony(da man) releases laws(patches) to stop bad drivers(abusive hackers) from doing things they shouldn’t. If in real life, the cops arrested a street racer (geohot) and put him to trial, people would not give a hoot.
      Newer technology has a different attitude in place towards it, but I think eventually we’ll overcome this.

  • http://www.facebook.com/LiVince Vincent Li

    If they want to hurt sony the corporation, wouldn’t they attack their sales department? Why would they hurt the gamers that just want to play? Why do they attack the employees that are just trying to put food on the table? I really hate the argument of putting linux on the ps3 when THERE WAS ABSOLUTE NOTHING BEING RELEASED FOR IT. These hackers just want attention and bragging rights on how much commotion they can start. I believe these hackers are VERY talented. They should attack the banks and all those involved with white collared crimes. They can be the batman of this era but instead they are attacking civilians and not criminals.

    • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

      I think they’re just bored, but I agree they could be doing something more important with their talents.

  • Deeejauun Moustard

    There are too many trolls on here

    ESPECIALLY THE OP OF THIS ‘NEWS POST’

  • Zdog89

    I am not supporting Anon. I think it is terrible what they did. Just because you disagree with a company does not give them the right to break the law.

    I am a supporter of people like GeoHot.

    All he did was allow the PS3 to run any other OS you wanted. I just do not see the difference between when somebody Root’s there phone and what GeoHot did. Courts have already ruled that it is legal to Root you phone so it is only a matter of time before they do the same with game systems.

    People think all hackers are evil and out to steal. This is untrue. Yes some hackers are bad and all they care about is piracy. It is just ignorant to say all hackers are pirates. You would never say everybody who owns a gun has killed somebody would you?

    • Paulvhiggins

      You do realize that it’s because of Geo Hotz that the PS3 lost Other OS right? 3.21 existed because of Geo Hotz Exploit that allowed PS3 game copies to be played through the Lenox OS… Fail.

      • Zdog89

        You are correct the Other OS was removed because of Geohot’s exploit. Lets look at the reason’s for the exploit though. This was done to allow homebrew’s and backward compatibility. The problem is people take this people use this to pirate games.

        The real issue that needs to be solved here is how do we prevent pirating of games. Which is not a hard thing to do. All you have to do is use PSN to validate the games. This is not a perfect solution though because offline games will still have issues.

  • Wesborlandster

    Why throw out their PS3′s it does nothing on the grand scheme of things? Big wow some guys broke some PS3′s and be forgotten in a week. Your logic is also flawed. If someone wants to get at Sony how would it be best to do it? that’s right hurt the bottom line. Stopping thousands, hundreds of thousands if not millions of gamers from playing their games causes a riot far bigger then people with placards, have you ever thought of that?

    Your logic is also flawed due to the fact most protests disrupt the natural flow of things, if it’s British Airways staff going on strike to protest who suffers DeShaun? That’s right their passengers do as a result and the company loses money some see that as counter-productive, same with the tube trains thousands are stranded and can’t get to work on time. I think you need to look up what happens when most protests happen especially strike action.

    • http://www.geekrevolt.com/ DeShaun Zollicoffer

      You have some good points, I can’t argue with you.

  • GarbleGarbage

    I honestly just think anyone who truly believes they’re fighting the good fight by DDoSing some Sony websites or the websites of their clients, or by harassing innocent employees is an idiot. These people crack me up, their “statement” had me in hysterics for a good for minutes with their “We are Legion” shit.

    I hope they all face suitable retribution, or at least the continuation of their no doubt failing social lives.

  • http://profiles.google.com/tratnik.matej.91 Matej Tratnik

    The only problem that I see here is piracy. When you download a game instead of buying it, you don’t hurt Sony/Activision but you hurt a game designer that is trying to make a living. So. Less people buy games = smaller salary for the guy who develops the games….. so think about it.

  • http://profiles.google.com/tratnik.matej.91 Matej Tratnik

    The only problem that I see here is piracy. When you download a game instead of buying it, you don’t hurt Sony/Activision but you hurt a game designer that is trying to make a living. So. Less people buy games = smaller salary for the guy who develops the games….. so think about it.

  • Anonymous

    I thought this is actually going to be an article about the flawed logic of anonymous, instead it’s just the flawed method of anonymous. What about what they’re fighting for? What are they fighting for? What’s both sides of the argument? Is their logic of “freedom of information” valid when it’s the freedom to trade information that an entire industry depends on to survive? Does this freedom outweigh the implication of robbery?