Allow me.

No, it's not as bad as. It's the downrightworst case scenario. Everything that can go wrong, either has gone wrong or is at risk of going wrong. Many people are drawing comparisons, most of 'em seem to resort to comparing the Xbox red rings of death to this. Yeah, company wise they suffered and while the consumer did too they were assisted, like free repairs and whatnot. A rather annoying inconvenience.

What we're talking about here is the confirmed and guaranteed leak of your data; Name, address, date of birth, e-mail, password, acount recovery questions, the likes. Then there's the possibility of creditcard details having been compromised as well. It's a double whammy, the first bit basically is an identity thief's wet dream. Second, your actual income's somewhat on the line too now if the creditcard details have been nicked as well.

Ontop of that, there's no online capabilities at the moment. Effectively grinding the entire ordeal to a halt. Combine that with people desperately wanting to delete their creditcard information, addresses, change emails and passwords and whatnot and you got yourself a shit-hit-the-fan-scenario so fucked up, it's roasting Sony, the players, everyone.

Red rings... Christ.

You know the worst part? THERE AREN'T THREE RINGS, THEY'RE THREE LIGHTS MADE UP OF QUADRANTS OF A RING. Sorry, I just had to put that out there. Also, I feel really bad for anyone who trusted Sony with their info. Whole thing fuckin' sucks huge donkey dick.

It's easier to say ring than three sections of a four-segmented halo of lights...

Or you could just say three red lights.

Deep breath, dude.  Deep breath.  It's going to be Okay.  Places of residence are, unfortunately, quite easy to find in your average phone book.  And let's be honest, there's no such thing as a hack-proof network, as this blog so succinctly puts it.  The fact is that this is just part of the digital lifestyle, and part of that means not using the same password for sensitive info (bank accounts) that you do for unimportant things (blogs).  I'm not saying to ignore it, far from it, but there's nothing unique about this here situation.  At all.  Just gotta monitor your credit/debit card statements and bring up issues with the bank as they come.

My brother tried to connect to PSN a day before it hit the news here in AUS, as one would expect he couldn't connect.  If anyone is concerned about their credit card details then they need to cancel the card, still the chances of the hacker(s) using one out of x million is well low i would imagine....still good not to take unnesacary risks with this type of thing.

I never put my credit card info online and I absolutely never play PS3 games online as I have a 360, but this whole event can only be described as a shit show.