The PlayStation Network has been hacked

Rather than wait for information from Sony USA or sift through the Twitter rumor mill, I decided to see what Sony Japan had to say about the incident.

“PlayStation Network”の障害が長時間続いており、誠に申し訳ございません。当社では24時間体制でサービスの早期復旧に向けた努力を続けておりますが、当社のネットワークインフラを強化するためにシステムの再構築を行っており時間を要しております。

We sincerely apologize for the long-term outage of the PlayStation Network.  While we are working 24 hours a day to restore functionality at the earliest possible moment, we are also taking this opportunity to strengthen our network infrastructure; this will take some time.

この作業は時間がかかるため多くの皆様にご迷惑をおかけすることになりますが、当社のシステムセキュリティを更に強化するために必要不可欠であると判断いたしました。お客様とパートナー企業の皆様におかれましてはなにとぞご理解をいただき、復旧までにいましばらく時間がかかりますことをご了承くださいますようお願い申しあげます。本件に関する更新情報につきましては、当サイトにてご案内させていただきます。

This operation is taking a long time, and we realize that this is an inconvenience to many of our customers, but in order to improve our system security, it has been deemed necessary.  We ask for the understanding of our customers and partners.  Restoration will take some time; we ask for your understanding.  For updates on this situation, please continue to check this website.

[http://www.jp.playstation.com/psn/state.html]

Perhaps of interest to those involved in social media, 呟く has become the defacto Japanese equivalent for “tweeting” (e.g., to send a message via Twitter).

• 盗 [トウ・ぬすむ] – to steal; to rob
• 聴 [チョウ・きく] – to listen; to inquire
• 器 [キ・うつわ] – device; instrument

I love how (some) Japanese compound words work.  A bug is a device that allows you to steal listening.

(The more experienced among my readers may notice that the character 速 can also be read はやい.)

When に is added to the end of an adjectival noun (形動 [けいどう]) like 速やか, it’s akin to adding -ly to the end of the similar word in English, turning the word into an adverb.  So 速やか (speed) becomes 速やかに (speedily).  I will go over はやい in a little more depth in my next column, as it can be a bit confusing for beginners.

So, what prompted me to write about 速やか today?  Well, I received the following message from Facebook today as I attempted to refresh my profile page:

問題が発生しました。すみやかに解決できるよう作業しておりますので、しばらくしてからもう一度お試しください。

What this boils down to is this: “A problem has occurred.  As we are working to quickly resolve the issue, please wait a while then try again.”

Here’s a vocab list to help you through the sentence.  Please use the above translation to give you a better feel for how the words work together in context.

• 問題 [もんだい] – problem
• 発生しました [はっせい] – has occurred (しました = past tense of します)
• すみやかに – speedily; quickly
• 解決 [かいけつ] – settle; resolve
• できるよう – in such a way as is possible
• 作業しております [さぎょう]  – work; operation
• ので – because of; since
• しばらくしてから – after waiting for a while
• もう一度 [いちど] – one more time
• お試しください [ためし] – please try

Amazonからのメールを装った詐欺メールに注意

SANS Internet Storm Centerによると、amazonからの注文の確認メールを装った詐欺メールが大量に出回っているようである。

その詐欺メールは、amazonからの注文確認メールと似せて作られており、本文の最後に「ORDER INFORMATION」と書かれているリンクがある。このリンクをクリックすると、複雑なJavaScriptやマルウェアが仕組まれたページに繋がっ てしまうというので、ご注意を。

Beware of scam emails made up to look like they are from Amazon

According to the SANS Internet Storm Center, there are a large number of scam emails floating around that have been made up to look like order confirmations from Amazon.

These emails, made to look like order confirmations from Amazon, have the words “ORDER INFORMATION” at the bottom, and contain a link.  If the link is clicked, the user is taken to a page which contains a complex contrivance of JavaScript and malware.  Please use caution.

[http://news.ameba.jp/weblog/2010/03/59608.html]

Vocabulary:

• 装った [よそおった] – to dress up; to pretend; to give the appearance of
• 詐欺メール [さぎ] – fraud; scam; swindle
• 注意 [ちゅうい] – caution; be careful; warning!
• 確認 [かくにん] – confirmation; validation
• 大量に [たいりょう] – large quantity
• 出回っている – to appear on the market; floating around
• 似せて作られており [にせてつくられており] – have been made up to look like
• 本文 [ほんぶん] – text or body of a document or letter
• 最後に [さいご] – at the end
• 書かれている [かかれている] – is written
• 複雑な [ふくざつな] complex; complicated (adjective)
• 仕組まれた [] – contrived; structured
• 繋がって [つながって] – to be connected
• しまう – is a verb that means “to finish” or “to do something completely.”  As this is a fairly interesting construct in and of itself, I will cover it in more depth next time.

As a side note, the Japanese news article is very different from the original English language release: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=8344