One of the the leader of hacking collective Lulzsec, 28-year-old Hector "Sabu" Monsegur, has reportedly been working with the FBI, and has turned in many of his hacking friends to The Man. Lulzsec is known for having attacked the CIA,VISA, and having compromised the PlayStation Network. This seemingly brings the whole "PlayStation Notwork" hacking scandal to an end.

Reportedly, five members of Lulzsec have been arrested in New York, although the exact charges haven't been officially announced.

The story of Sabu's identification and arrest reads like hard-boiled crime fiction. The Feds, desperate to identify the people behind attacks on major financial institutions and gamer networks, kept a close eye on Sabu, but he reportedly always covered his tracks: Masking his IP address behind proxy servers. But apparently Sabu got lazy and logged into IRC once without creating a proxy; that was enough for 5-O to move in.

Armed with Sabu's real name and address, the Feds gathered evidence against him -- the stolen credit card numbers they found were enough to charge him with identity theft-- then, in June, they made their move and knocked on the door of an apartment in a housing project in New York.

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Sony announced that PlayStation Network (PSN) accounts will now be renamed Sony Entertainment Network accounts as of February 7th, coinciding with an update to its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Other than the name change, there does not seem to be any other changes to service, so rest assured PlayStation fans, all is well online for gaming and PSN as a name should still exist.

"It's just a change in the name of the account," said a Sony Spokesperson. "When PSN users log in after the update, they won't experience any changes in the XMB as they know it." They continued, "The goal is one login in for all Sony devices; It helps clarify the unity between PSN and other Sony Entertainment Network services."

• VIDEO: PlayStation Vita System Preview

If anything, the rebranding of accounts is perfectly timed for Sony's U.S. launch of the PlayStation Vita, which is aimed not only at gamers but as a cross-media device that offers music and movies as well. In a statement issued by Sony, the company shared:

This transition is based on Sony’s goal to enhance its unique digital entertainment offering. As a series of these activities Sony started last September, PlayStation Network will be aligned with “Sony Entertainment Network.” This helps us get closer to our goal of establishing a global comprehensive network platform of services across games, movies, music and more, all accessible from one convenient account.

PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita system owners will be the only ones experiencing the update. PlayStation Portable (PSP) owners will not receive an update for these devices at this time. Sony Entertainment Network accounts will also enable access to Sony's Music Unlimited, Video Unlimited and PlayMemories Online (currently called Personal Space).

Worthy of panic? No big deal? What do you think of the name change?

Feel free to follow me on Twitter or if you have something you'd like to share, get in touch via E-mail.

Guys, don't worry, the PlayStation Network will be offline almost all day tomorrow but it's just for standard routine scheduled maintenance. It will be down from approximately 8am until 10pm PST. During the maintenance you won't be able to access the PlayStation Store via your PS3 and PSP,  your PlayStation Network Account Management, or  PlayStation Network Account Registration.

You also won't be able to sign in to the PSN from us.playstation.com, so don't try to! However, if you still want to play games and get trophies you'll be able to. Your profile will be updated once the PSN is back up and running.

In other words, keep slaying dragons in Skyrim and streaking your way through Saints Row. The PSN will be back up before you know it.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Guys, don't worry; the PlayStation Network will be offline almost all day tomorrow, but it's just for standard routine scheduled maintenance. It will be down from approximately 8am until 10pm PST. During the maintenance you won't be able to access the PlayStation Store via your PS3 and PSP,  your PlayStation Network Account Management, or  PlayStation Network Account Registration.

You also won't be able to sign in to the PSN from us.playstation.com, so don't try to! However, if you still want to play games and get trophies you'll be able to. Your profile will be updated once the PSN is back up and running.

In other words, keep slaying dragons in Skyrim and streaking your way through Saints Row. The PSN will be back up before you know it.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Remember a month of so ago, when we brought you news that Sony was adding an arbitration clause to its End User License Agreement? Presumably as a tactic to prevent class-action lawsuits?  Remember how the EULA offered you a chance to opt out of signing away your legal rights by sending Sony a letter? If you're like me, you thought, "I should do that!" and then didn't do it -- finding a stamp and piece of paper is kind of a hassle, and the whole thing is a pain in the ass, right?  It's almost as if Sony didn't create an easy way to opt out through an email or an online form because they count on people being lazy and not doing it. Shocking, I know.

Anyway, lazy gamer, today is your day. A group of fellow travelers and humanitarians have created an organization called "Gamers Opt Out" to provide an easy, no-mail way to not screw yourself out of basic legal protection.  Funded through donations, Gamers Opt Out promises to create the letter you need and send it, at no charge. All you have to do is visit the site and sign up online.

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In news that will send shivers down the spine of everyone who suffered through the great PSN outage of 2011, the PlayStation Network is currently down. This is not scheduled maintenance--something doesn't seem to be working correctly.

The news (like all news these days) comes to us via twitter. A tweet from Sony posted two hours ago reads:

"We're aware that some of you are having issues trying to log into PSN. We're working to resolve the issue, and we'll update you here."

UPDATE: 2:18 PM Reports are coming in from gamers all over the net that the PlayStation Network is back up and live. So get playing! Go! Go!

UPDATE: 12:30 PM PlayStationEU, the European twitter account for PlayStation, has confirmed the problem is being addressed and is expected to be go back up in 2 hours. 

"Current indications are that we'll be restoring PlayStation Network services in approx. two hours. We appreciate your patience."

This morning, it was revealed that Sony had changed its End User License Agreement for the PlayStation Network, adding a mandatory arbitration clause to the contract gamers enter into when they click "accept" after they download an update. Basically, the new clause says that larger disputes between gamers and Sony won't be handled in court, but instead will be decided by an outside agency. While small claims are excluded, class-action lawsuits are not, and class-action suits, like the ones filed over the PlayStation Outage of a few months ago, can be a big problem for companies. Check out the EULA here.

Arbitration is a way of settling legal disputes outside of court, usually through an independent organization. It can be a good option when two same-sized companies have beef, but many regard arbitration as a bad deal for consumers in dispute with corporations.

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According to the Examiner, Sony is updating their user agreement for the PlayStation Network today, September 15, to block them against class action lawsuits. They've also changed their legal entity from Sony Network Entertainment America Inc. (SNEA) to Sony Network Entertainment International LLC (SNEI).

The new agreement leaves "Binding Individual Arbitration" as the only means to solve disputes:

ANY DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEEDINGS, WHETHER IN ARBITRATION OR COURT, WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION OR AS A NAMED OR UNNAMED MEMBER IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, REPRESENTATIVE OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL LEGAL ACTION, UNLESS BOTH YOU AND THE SONY ENTITY WITH WHICH YOU HAVE A DISPUTE SPECIFICALLY AGREE TO DO SO IN WRITING FOLLOWING INITIATION OF THE ARBITRATION.  THIS PROVISION DOES NOT PRECLUDE YOUR PARTICIPATION AS A MEMBER IN A CLASS ACTION FILED ON OR BEFORE AUGUST 20, 2011.

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Sony has hired Philip Reitinger, former director of the US National Cyber Security Center, to head up its security efforts. Remember back in April when the PlayStation Network was down for a long time, and Sony promised they would "try our absolute best to try and make our system as secure as we possibly can?" The company just announced this major step toward that end.

Reitinger's official title will be senior vice president. He'll be based in Washington and will report to Sony general counsel Nicole Seligman.

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If you didn't play Housemaque's 2010 PlayStation Network release Dead Nation then you missed out on something special. It's hardly the first twin-stick zombie shooter ever released, but it's a damn pretty one, and well-put-together too. Those who have been itching for more will get their way soon with the upcoming "Road of Devastation" DLC release.

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The Welcome Back Program, set up by Sony to make up for the PSN outage, has expired. April's PSN outage affected every single PSN user. Sony gave away free PS3 and PSN games, for a limited time, to all users. The program ended this morning.

Did you take advantage of Sony's offer? Or are you a loser like me who kept putting it off and now it's too late?

I'm not organizing a canned food drive for the top executives at Sony quite yet, but recent events -- the earthquakes in Japan, the hacking of the PlayStation Network -- have hit Sony so hard that even the company's top men are feeling the effects. Sony chairman Howard Stringer's pay fell 15 percent last year, and executive deputy president Kazuo Hirai's compensation dropped from 110 million yen in the prior period to "only" 101 million yen (excluding stock options).

Stringer earned 345 million yen ($4.3 million USD) for the year ending March 31; in the same period last year, Stringer earned 408 million yen, according to Sony's filings with the Japanese government.

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Now that the gaming world is settling down a little bit after the 23-day outage of the PlayStation Network a couple months ago, the lawsuits are starting to appear. Get ready for protracted legal kerfuffles, gamers!

A class-action lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in San Diego (specifically, Felix Cortorreal, Jacques Daoud Jr. and Jimmy Cortorreal, on Behalf of Themselves and All Others Similarly Situated v. Sony Corporation Inc. et al, 11-1369) alleges that Sony laid off a number of employees responsible for network security a few weeks before the PlayStation Network went down. Citing a "confidential witness," the action contends that Sony pink-slipped  "a substantial percentage" of its Sony Online Entertainment workforce, including "a number" of employees in its Network Operations Center.

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While it's hardly a surprise, Sony wants you to know that it is very aware of hackers. Very, very aware. The company promises "hyper vigilance" for the PlayStation Network looking forward.

In an interview with Computer and Videogames, Sony Europe's Andrew House said April's hacking attack (hattack) "taught Sony -- and many other companies -- that you have to adopt a stance of hyper vigilance."

"We are genuinely humbled and extremely grateful to those consumers who have continued to put their trust in us," House said. "That's a responsibility we now take even more seriously than we did before. We'll try our absolute best to try and make our system as secure as we possibly can."

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Jack Tretton, CEO and President of Sony Computer Entertainment America, issued a blanket mea culpa to PSN users and publishing partners for the shutdown brought on by the hacking incident. 

Although PSN started to get back online in May it appears it is still not 100% worldwide.