Anonymous Stops Their Attack On PSN, For The Customer's Sake

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A few days ago, we told you about how the online “hacktivist” group Anonymous was targeting Sony’s websites and the PlayStation Network, their online gaming platform. After a few days of PS3 gamers being unable to log onto PSN and play their games online, Anonymous is suspending their attacks, as they look for ways to get at Sony without affecting their customers.

While Anonymous claims credit for PSN being down, the official line from Sony has been that the service is down for maintenance. Anonymous, which grew to ‘net prominence for their attacks on the Church of Scientology and companies that refused to do business with WikiLeaks, is targeting Sony because of that company’s ongoing legal efforts against “Geohot” and “graf_chokolo”, two modder/hackers who did a lot of work in “jailbreaking” the PlayStation 3.

The breaking point for Anonymous (who claims no leader directs their actions) seems to be the fact that Sony recently subpoenaed the IP addresses of everybody who visited GeoHot’s website, as well as information from YouTube and Twitter accounts belonging to GeoHot.

In an open letter to PS3 users, Anonymous explains that:

Anonymous is on your side, standing up for your rights. We are not aiming to attack customers of Sony. This attack is aimed solely at Sony… [...] If we did inconvenience users, please know that this was not our goal.

Despite them discontinuing the attack on the PlayStation Network, Anonymous vows to continue their attack on the company:

That being said, our campaign against Sony and others that would trample on the idea of free information will continue, until we are satisfied with the outcome.

At press time of this post, Sony has not returned our request for comment.