Quote:Anonymous, the notorious hacktivist group originating from the 4chin SUCK imageboard, has set its sights on Sony for alleged abuse, victimisation and privacy violations in the legal action against a group of PS3 hackers.

In an image, posted to the website AnonNews, a member of the group states, "Sony, you have now received the undivided attention of Anonymous. Your recent legal action against our fellow hackers, Geohot and Graf_Chokolo, has not only alarmed us, it has been deemed wholly unforgivable."

George "Geohot" Hotz and the German-born Alexander "graf_chokolo" Egorenkov are two of the hackers who dismantled the PlayStation 3's security architecture and made the information public. This data has made homebrew software, game piracy and cheating in online games a common occurrence on the console.

To fight back, Sony has entered a long and bitter legal campaign against the coders and their associates.

Since January 2011, Hotz has been entangled in a court case with Sony's American division. In February 2011, Sony Europe demanded German police raid Egorenkov's home and seize any equipment related to hacking the PS3. The Japanese gaming titan has also threatened to sue the cheeky coder for a whopping million euros.

Sony has also had varying degrees of success in demanding information from other sites and services in relation to the case. Paypal gave up all the information on Hotz's account and Sony was able to see the IP addresses of everyone who has visited the hacker's website.

The manifesto says that the forthcoming attacks will also be for reasons other than the legal actions against Hotz and Egorenkov. "Your corrupt business practices are indicative of a corporate philosophy that would deny consumers the right to use products they have paid for, and rightfully own, in the manner of their choosing," the poster reads.

"Perhaps you should alert your customers to the fact that they are apparently only renting your products?" it asks. "Anonymous would like to inform you that you have only been 'renting' your web domains."

Which, presumably, is a call to arms for DDoS attacks and other online villainy against Sony. The group, working under the name " Operation Payback" has used similar techniques to bring down websites for the MPAA and RIAA.

For me http://www.us.playstation.com does not load at this time. Does PSN work for anyone? I'm hacked at 3.55 so I can not test.

http://www.jp.playstation.com does work at this time.