As security concerns remain, Japan refuses to restore Sony PSN

By Andrew Couts May 16, 2011

Sony has now restored its PlayStation Network for most users around the world — but not in the company’s home country, Japan. Due to lingering security concerns, the Japanese government has so far refused to allow Sony to turn the PSN back on, reports Dow Jones.

Kazushige Nobutani, an official with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said that the Japanese government was still waiting for Sony to provide addition details about the series of breaches, the first of which occurred on April 19 and resulted in the shutdown of the network on April 20. In total, the two attacks on Sony’s network left roughly 100 million users around the world at risk of identity theft.

“We met with Sony on May 6 and 13, and basically we want two things from them,” Nobutani said in a statement. “The first is preventative measures. As of May 13, Sony was incomplete in exercising measures that they said they will do on the May 1 press conference.” The second pertained to Sony’s plan to convince users that it is now safe to provide credit card and other payment details to the company.

Restoration of the PlayStation Network and Sony’s Qirocity service, both of which were affected by the breach, began late Saturday evening for users in the US and Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. All PlayStation 3 users in those countries or regions must download the v3.61 update and change their passwords in order to reconnect to the PSN.

Sony has also faced government scrutiny in the US, with members of Congress demanding answers to a long list of questions about the massive breaches — possibly the largest in US history — and the resulting data theft. In addition, New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has issued subpoenas to Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sony Network Entertainment and Sony Online Entertainment about the attacks.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…

Gaming

The best Power Armor in Fallout 4 and where to find each set

Fallout 4 key art featuring the power armor suit hung up in an armory.

From the very first Fallout game, the Power Armor has been every wastelander's dream to pilot. This hulking suit of armor can make your normally squishy Vault Dweller nigh unkillable in Fallout 4. But there's more than just one type of Power Armor, and each one has different stats and requirements to wear. Not only that, but some you might find one piece at a time and need to build yourself, while others can be found as a complete set. If you want to make even a Deathclaw think twice about attacking you, only the best Power Armor will do. Here are the best suits in Fallout 4 and where to find them.
Raider Power Armor

This is the only Power Armor in Fallout 4 that even a base-level player can wear right off the bat. While that's great, it does mean it's the weakest option out there. The best stats you can get with it are 500 damage resistance, 250 energy resistance, and 1,050 radiation resistance for a total rating of 1,800. It's great for the early game if you can snag one, but is quickly outclassed by everything else on this list. A guaranteed spawn for this armor is in the cave right beside Skylanes Flight 1665 on your map.
T-45 Power Armor

Gaming

3 great Xbox Game Pass titles you should try this weekend (April 26-28)

The current gen version of Fallout 4.

This has been a pretty busy week for new releases, with the likes of Another Crab’s Treasure, Stellar Blade, Sand Land, and more coming out. Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s video game subscription service, has also had quite a busy week. Three games in particular stand out as must-plays this weekend for those who want to delve a bit further into the service rather than spend money on a new game.

One is an excellent single-player Star Wars game from 2023 that you might have missed because of how busy last year was for big releases. Another is a new real-time strategy game that earned buzz on Steam in the lead-up to its release. Finally, there’s a Bethesda Game Studios classic that just received an Xbox Series X update that you can experience free of charge via Game Pass. If you're looking for a new game to start this weekend, but don't feel like buying something new, give any of these a try.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Computing

Save $400 on this Razer gaming laptop with an RTX 4060

A game playing on the Razer Blade 14 gaming laptop.

For a gaming laptop that will be able to handle the most demanding games, you're going to want a machine that's as powerful as the Razer Blade 14 with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card. It's understandably expensive, but you can currently get it with a $400 discount from Razer that drops its price to an even $2,000 from $2,400 originally. We're not sure how much time is remaining before this offer ends though, so if you want the savings, you're going to have to complete your purchase as soon as you can.

Why you should buy the Razer Blade 14 gaming laptop
The Razer Blade 14 is capable of challenging the best gaming laptops with the help of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card, which offers excellent efficiency and strong ray tracing performance. Combined with the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS processor and 16GB of RAM that's good for gaming, according to our guide on how much RAM do you need, not only will you be able to play the best PC games without any issues, but you'll also be prepared for the upcoming PC games of the next few years.