The highly-public hack is intended to show that GSM is a fundamentally insecure system, and should be dumped altogether in favor of 3G protocols.

FORBES: Updated with a response from the GSM Association below.

But what appears to have happened is a few rogue agents stayed in the system and managed to hack their way to 77 million PSN members personal information, including birthdays, addresses, emails, phone numbers and possibly credit cards.

FORBES: In an Effort to Protect Itself, Sony Fails to Guard its Customers

People who like to hack, for fun or for worse reasons, want to see how robust a system is.

FORBES: Magazine Article