Howard Stringer this week apologised at Sony’s annual general meeting in Tokyo for the hacking attacks that contributed to a 24 per cent fall in its shares in the past three months and a 16 per cent cut in his pay as chief executive. Meanwhile, the culprits have sailed gleefully away.

“It’s time to say bon voyage. Our planned 50-day cruise has expired,” wrote the six-person group of hackers Lulz Security, which has breached websites run by Sony, Citigroup, Nintendo, the Central Intelligence Agency and HBGary Federal, a security company.

It may be prudent to disappear – Ryan Cleary, a 19-year-old with links to LulzSec, has been charged in London with hacking offences, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to track down its US members. LulzSec claims simply to have been having fun. “This is the internet, where we screw each other over for a jolt of satisfaction,” it wrote in an earlier post.