Sega says hackers stole data of 1.29 million users | Hacker News Reader

Sega says hackers stole data of 1.29 million users

bbc.co.uk

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These data breaches are getting to the point where I am expecting politicians to start getting involved.

These vague assertions comes up in every single thread about hacking.

How would politicans get involved with hacking?

Firewalls? A hacking czar?

I doubt they can do anything besides make a few speeches and most of these hackers are in eastern europe or china.

The most likely way is regulation similar to HIPAA which mandates data controls for sensitive personal information and lays out penalties and procedures for disclosure.

Regulation would be okay... maybe something forbidding the storage of plain-text passwords, special instructions for hashing, a special protocol for (not) storing credit card numbers... Like a security 101...

My concern is that politicians will want to respond to allay the fears of the average person an act rashly and do something that doesn't actually make things more secure and just causes headaches for everyone.

Penalties, Penalties, Penalties. The Canadian privacy commissioner is already pursuing this strategy: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/05/04/technology-da...

Pick up the red phone and call Bruce Schneier.

when there's a problem and you don't know how to fix it, you pass a law

I sincerely hope the public cries to "DO SOMETHINGGG!!!!!11" don't result more aggressive surveillance, control and restrictions on the people and instead result in a set of best practices to follow by companies.

You say that like there isn't already a set of good practices to follow.

He says that like the politicians will do anything that gets them votes, even if it's not in the best interest of Freedom,, or at least the people of their country, but it at least makes them feel better. .. kinda like the pills that silenced pain in The Giver.

While I agree that that will probably happen, the "solutions" politicians would have in mind will almost certainly mean regulation in areas that will make things difficult for most of us.

Sega? I honestly didn't think they were still around.

Hah, that was my reaction, too: "In other news, Sega still exists!"

I hope to hell they're not under the radar because they're working on some crazy Sonic the Hedgehog MMORPG.

Though they don't have their own console, they're a rather large software publisher and developer at this point. Sega has a more than a few of their own popular game franchises, and also still does the arcade hardware/game business.

Lulz has a problem with someone else going after Sega, but thinks its all peachy when they're the ones behind the wheel exposing the faults? Either they are jealous or their intentions aren't to force people to take responsibility for poor security.

Their intentions aren't to force people to take responsibility for poor security, and they never claimed otherwise: http://pastebin.com/HZtH523f

I think that comment of theirs was meant as irony. The Dreamcast is known for its radical fanboy community, so they made a comical reference to that by mentioning the Dreamcast and "aligning" themselves to Sega.

Storing passwords in plaintext should probably be illegal and carry a hefty fine.

Sega was responsible enough to not store passwords in plaintext. The email I received stated:

    We have identified that a subset of SEGA Pass members emails addresses, 
    dates of birth and encrypted passwords were obtained. To stress, 
    none of the passwords obtained were stored in plain text.

Of course, they could still have been hashed inadequately, such as with plain md5.

Hackers?

Cliched argument; but every time I see such a misuse, I get a little sadder.

Unfortunately, we may some day get to the point where the term "Hacker" has wholey lost its roots. This happens to many words in languages over the span of their existence.

Examples of this occurance include let (used to mean something similar to hinder), gay (used to [only] mean happy)

This is getting ridiculous, these guys need to be tracked down, these are no longer lame DoS attacks, this is theft.

Damn kids, they are alike.

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