PS3 Network Hacked

[Allcanadian]

@All

At some stage between the 17th and 19th of April, a hacker gained access to Sony's systems. Sony believes the hacker was able to retrieve the personal information of 77 million PSN accounts, and say it is possible that credit card details were also retrieved.

I thought this was interesting and possibly a sign of things to come that people should be aware of however there may be more to this story than meets the eye. Now let's say we are hackers and we want to make some money, does it sound reasonable that we would steal personal information and try to access credit card details?. Of course it does because most everyone is completely preoccupied with cause and effect and the direct relationship between them. People are so preoccupied that they essentially ignore everything else, every other possibility, which is of course a sign of a lack of understanding. Now again consider the situation what is the easiest way to make large sums of money which would be almost impossible to trace because everyone is looking in the wrong place?
Personally the easiest way would be to divide a sum of money over many accounts which "shorts" shares of Sony stock, the accounts are hacked which in turn questions the credibility of the Sony corporation and the stock price plummets. After a period of time the shares are paid for at a greatly reduced price and the difference is profit because profit can be made on any movement of a stock both up and down.
As many may know attacking the credibility of something or someone is the easiest way to change peoples opinions and it does not require a great deal of intelligence as well  the effects are usually dramatic because people follow a "sheep herd" mentality. This is one reason I think we should always question the motives and integrity of anyone who attacks a persons credibility rather than the validity of their work or actions.
Regards
AC