Senior executives from Sony bowed to the cameras as they said sorry for allowing one of the biggest hacks in history. There are many that would appreciate the Japanese show of humility. 

However there will be many PlayStation network users who wish they had gone all the way and disembowelled themselves while composing a haiku on the briefness of human existence while their friends scatter cherry blossom into the wind.

Kaz Hirai, executive deputy president of Sony Corporation, apologised for the problem yesterday saying it was a "highly sophisticated attack by a skilled intruder." Sony is set to compensate customers who have been locked out of the PlayStation Network following the security breach which caused it to be shut down on April 20. Punters will get compensation in the form of free downloadable content and a free subscription to the PlayStation Plus enhanced online premium service.

This might make the customers happy but credit card companies are expected to lose a fortune in the hack which gave cyber criminals names, addresses, countries, email addresses, birth dates, PSN and Qriocity usernames, passwords and online handles. The technology company said its staff  had been working day and night to restore operations and that it hoped to have some services up and running within a week.

Since the hack the company has added automated software monitoring, enhanced data protection and encryption, new firewalls and a better ability to detect software intrusions.