After scrolling several pages down in Anonymous' IRC chat, PlayStation LifeStyle's Sebastian Moss realized that Anonymous was seeking him. Cue the sweat beads. Thankfully, the group of hackers who has taken down Mastercard and has halted Sony's website and PlayStation Network, in defense of George Hotz and Graf_Chokolo's mods to the PS3, only wanted to speak with him, with user Takai clearly stating that "He was NOT a target".
Despite being in a private chat room, Takai selected his words carefully throughout the conversation, hinting that perhaps the FBI, Sony, and their hired anti-hacking company Prolexic were monitoring the chat. But though Takai believes Prolexic to be "formidable", he projects that "Prolexic is going down like a two dollar wh*** in a Nevada chicken ranch". In essence, there is more to come:
So far, all Sony has seen from us is poking and prodding. A simple salute to let them know, we’re coming. Make no mistake, what you saw today and thought to be frustration is merely preparation for what’s to come.
Counting us out, would be a mistake... if Sony thinks LOIC is the only trick in our hat… they’re in for a hell of a wake up call. We’re really going all out for this one.
A part of that effort is gathering information on Sony employees, such as "political campaign contributions, floral bouquets, the location of certain key servers in their network". While Takai says that any Sony employee is "considered legitimate targets of the operation", their targets are "primarily limited to those in positions of power and in very few cases their underlings""
If you mean, would we endanger someone's personal safety of that of their family. The answer is no. We've already made it clear in sonyRecon that pranks like bomb threats, or false fire alarms are considered out of bounds. That would impede emergency responders from dealing with actual emergencies and thus endanger people.
As for users of PlayStation Network, however, they are admittedly and unfortunately "collateral damage":
We are very cognisant of the fact that we are not making friends nor allies among the average consumer with our attack. This is unfortunate as a concern should always be, will the very people we seek to support not see what it is we are trying to achieve. In this case, many don’t. There has been a lot of hate spread throughout the internet and over forums that we are being reckless and simply punishing consumers more than Sony.
To the consumers I would say… Before you judge us, take the time to understand us…
Sony needs to learn a lesson about life. You can push people only so far, eventually someone’s going to push back… Sony picks fights with kids whom they know to be incapable of defending themselves. We’re here to say, the defenseless, aren’t alone. Sony will not go trodding through the internet unchecked or unchallenged.
[Source]
