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  • The Lawbringer: The system is down

    by 
    Mathew McCurley
    Mathew McCurley
    04.29.2011

    Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play? For PlayStation Network users, this past week has been a harrowing one. The security breach and subsequent dismantling of the online network was a huge blow to Sony, which prided itself on being able to provide the service free of charge and expand into sales, downloads, and everything else synonymous with a next-gen online network. This past week's events, however, prove that these networks are fragile and have everyone asking the question, "What is next?" What would happen if World of Warcraft were down for a week -- not due to some prescribed downtime or voluntary upgrades, mind you, but a comprehensive security breach that affected every single member of our online community? From the PlayStation Network incident, we can see the hostile environment that these security breaches foster, from political ramifications to financial consequences and even legal trouble. Shall we muse about the stability of online networks?