1) Sony would just accuse them of lying and people (the general public) would just believe Sony over a bunch of anonymous hackers.
2) Change doesn't happen unless people get off their butts. This is a way to motivate that change.
I don't necessarily agree with it, but you're talking as if there is no logic behind this other than recklessness.
I agree that Sony should be taken to task here, but even the simple step of randomizing the password field would be a good idea.
"This is disgraceful and insecure: they were asking for it."
I get it, they have poor security, as a customer, this makes me really angry. But the general tone there is kind of similar to what you get when people accuse rape victims of being complicit in the rape. "She was askin' for it!"
Not when there are hostile state actors who have presumably been enjoying that access for years without publishing it. These guys just told us about it.
Blaming victims for rape is dangerous because it discourages victims from coming forward, and adds to intense feelings of shame and guilt that come with sexual violation. It also tends to come with suggestions that women should restrict their behavior, not seeking to be attractive or acting in 'risky' stereotypically male ways.
Criticizing a cooperation for failing to follow security best practice, and speculating about the effect of outsourcing or technology is completely different. I'd say that as a lot of people here run websites, it's probably a good idea too.
Sony has been targeted for several major intrusions lately and I'm certain they have lost a great deal of money because of it.
Now if hackers want to damage Sony, how about finding a way that doesn't also involve millions of regular people in the process.
I got my one and only Sony product (PS3) because I use it for something. Not because I support Sony in every decision they make, and I definitely think they should do something about that joke for security they have going on.
But why should the user be punished and shat on by some idiot hackers just because he/she decided they wanted a cheap system to play games on, for example?
They could do a million things to hurt Sony financially instead of fucking over millions of end users who aren't connected to the company at all. (I'm counting all the affected users of all the latest Sony attacks, in case someone has a problem with the figures.)
Also, I think they chose to release the stolen data out of ill-will towards Sony rather than it being an attempt to point out security flaws. Because if security flaws where the real issue they attack Sony, then they wouldn't release the info to everyone since that seems quite counter intuitive.
These companies are fucking stupid and the only way to make them change their ways is to kick them in the balls and piss on them while they're down. Otherwise, nothing happens and others who were less kind don't tell them and harvest the data unbeknownst to anybody. How's that for "real issues"? The real issue is the companies fucking suck and it pisses us off when they don't do a goddamn thing when we report it to them.