Editor's Note: This article is the opinion of the writer and may not necessarily reflect the opinion of GamingExcellence.

Since the PSN went down well over a week ago, many users of Sony's online feature have been worried their information was leaked in the process.  Rumours have been flying ever since, with Sony neither confirming nor denying whether credit card information has been accessed and stolen along with the hack. Sony have been doing their best to improve on this situation, yet it seems many Sony users are ready to jump ship and toss their PlayStation products out the window because of this mess.  One user on PS3.com is even quoted as saying, "My faith and trust in Sony has gone 100 per cent now . . . I will swap to Xbox or PC from now on." Does an Xbox use an internet connection?  Does a PC have access to an internet connection?  If you have yours set up so it does, and just about everyone has everything they own hooked up to the internet, then how is it any different than using Sony online?  What makes other companies safer?

With that in mind, why is it that so many people are blaming Sony for a breach they could never have prevented?

Not to say Internet security is useless, however, but when you're a hacker, your specialty is knowing the ins and outs of software, exploiting it to the point where you may as well have made the program to begin with.  That's what they do, and they're damn good at it. 

The better the security, the more of a challenge for the hacker; something they doubtless enjoy as they not only must problem-solve, but they must also build on their own abilities and improve on themselves in order to overcome it.  It's the hacker's equivalent to a gamer wanting to beat their last high score, or a jogger wanting to jog their 5km stretch in less time than before.

With that said, if Sony had had a bigger 'wall' between the hacker and their collected database of customer information, the hacker would have seen it as that much more of a challenge and would have worked that much harder to clear that wall.  When a hacker targets you, like water on soil it's only a matter of time before they find the cracks and work their way in deep.

To punish Sony for being a victim of a hacker is like punishing a shop owner for dealing with a fire a pyromaniac started just for kicks.  Would you stop shopping at the store after it has been rebuilt just because they had that fire?  Or would you not only continue to support the shop owner by shopping there, but sympathise with them about how 'pyromaniacs are maniacs!'?

Sony's situation is a "huge deal" simply because millions of users use PSN; if it were someone's personal computer no one would think twice (aside from the owner of said computer).  So before you decide to boycott Sony because they're "now unsafe", consider your iPhone, or your personal computer, your Xbox, or even something as simple as your use of online banking and email, and how they are also accessible by a simple internet connection.  Will you toss those into the trash or boycott those too?  In today's society, I think not.