Posts by Highlander 611 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Mar 2007
I think Sony is smart enough to realize that anything electronic can be hacked- sooner or later. So making it tamper proof is potentially an impossible dream. However, making the system tamper evident is far easier, and means that modders can mod away, but Sony can ban their console from PSN is the tampering is detected.
The changes here are not about running remote software to do some nefarious thing. The code n the SPV has always actively checked to detect system compromise. Sony has simply beefed that capability up and made it possible to initiate the SPV remotely in case it has been disabled (which can be done by a custom firmware by simply bouncing the SPE running the SPV code out of isolation mode). That allows the SPV to continue it's role and to respond to appropriately encoded instructions to check the system and return it's status to PSN. Making the console tamper evident, not tamper proof.
And the license includes terms that explicitly forbid the modification of it.
You own the hardware, not the software. If GeoHots had merely fried the motherboard on a dozen PS3s just to fritz the hypervisor, Sony would have done nothing, but since he demonstrated an ability to modify the hypervisor code in memory, Sony had little choice but to act.
This is not about hardware modifications, this is about software, and software is governed by the terms of it's license.
If I as an OS maker determine that my OS's security has been compromised, I will take action to plug that game and prevent further compromise. As the developer and owner of the OS that is not just my right, it's my responsibility. I have a duty of care to make sure that my system remains secure for the protection of my customers. Enhancing the security of an OS to prevent hacking, or detect hacking is by no stretch of the imagination adding a root kit.
Now, for anyone who cares to read, please read this. The CellBE is designed from the ground up to support something called the Secure Processing Vault (SPV). The SPV starts before *anything* else on the system runs. It runs independently of the hypervisor and any OS running on the system. This has been in the Ps3 since before day 1. The code in the SPV is specifically designed to watch the system to detect intrusion. The design of the cell CPU actually assumes that the OS and/or hypervisor would be compromised The concept of the SPV is not to prevent such hacking, but to expose it, to make it evident that the system is compromised.
The only thing that Sony has done with this firmware update, apart from rain on the parade of those wishing to continue stealing games, is beef up the system's ability to detect and expose tampering. this allows PSN to detect consoles that have been hacked. For Sony to live up to it's side of the implicit contract with PSN users, Sony has to do what it can to ensure that hacked consoles do not access PSN.
Really, all this hand wringing and wailing about a rootkit is little more than a temper tantrum. How many people throw a fit if a Cell phone company demands that cellphone handsets that attach to it's network meet it's minimum requirements, such as official firmware? You are attaching a device to a proprietary network, The network operator has every right to demand such compliance. On the PS3 if you seriously fear having your Ps3 made more secure in order to continue using PSN, then you have the option of not installing the latest firmware, and foregoing PSN. In life, there are consequences to actions. Deal with them.
Why would people worry more about running a firmware update from Sony that includes enhancements to it's security system that protects their transactions on PSN instead of a hacked firmware that has been modified by who knows who to do who knows what? You have zero recourse against Mr anonymous haxxor and his latest custom firware, but you definitely have recourse against Sony if they violate your consumer rights.
I'm beginning to think people are lemmings. They'll blindly trust some hacker so they can play video games, but won't trust an organizations who's own self interests prevent them from doing anything to harm consumers.
I'm sure that there was a report about this yesterday here at ElReg. I'm pretty sure I posted comments that almost exactly matched the comments of this leading security dood. I'm by no means an expert on this kind of thing, but a small amount of RESEARCH would have lead your 'journalists' to the same information.
The whitelist would only consist of hash signatures, and Sony has all of those. There can't be that many games that they'd have to include on such a list, so it's doable.
If there is a game update, it will use the new key. the PS3 will only download and execute it if it uses the new key for the signature. So when your older game is patched with the new code, and therefore the new key, your game requires official firmware to work. Of course since you have to connect to PSN to download the patches, you will already be running the real firmware anyway.
Incidentally, when you think about the use of a new signing key. Sony will have gone through a process of re-signing all executables available over PSN, and any re-prints of games, or greatest hits versions will be resigned too. Not a trivial undertaking.
The root key exists only in the internal circuits of the CPU, no where else, except Sony where it's used sparingly to encode very small amounts of code for the SPV (Secure Processing Vault). Remember that the root key is not the same key as the private key. They serve two entirely different purposes.
The private key used to sign a SELF file does not exist in the firmware update either. The signature and authentication of an executable is a two key process. The private key is used to create an authentication signature that is added to the executable file. The PS3 has a public key that can be used together with an appropriate program to authenticate the signature. That means that the PS3 can determine the signature is authentic, without decoding it. The private key is never on the PS3 at all.
The reason the private key was obtained before is that there was a quite inexcusable coding error in the programs that authenticate the signature. That, several different signatures that could be authenticated with the same public key and an extensive analysis of the signature authentication code allows some very clever mathematics to be used to reverse engineer the private key.
This time however, there is no inexcusable coding error, the algorithms have been changed and hardened, and the new private key remains secure.
private/public key encryption allows both encryption and authentication. A public key cannot be used to create a new encrypted message, but i can be used to authenticate that a message received is authentic.
Once firmware 3.56 is installed, there is no easy way back. Firmware 3.55 can install 3.56, but the new private key doesn't exist in the 3.56 update.
If you're updating to 3.56 from a custom firmware, there is a chance that the custom firmware could screw something up and your system will brick. That's why people are better restoring back to an official firmware before upgrading to 3.56.
Also, as the other poster here points out, a console that is banned, is not bricked.
But as soon as they do the hack and release it into the wild, millions of snotty nosed youths jump on it as their chance to have free games. If some hacker group wants to completely hack a console and demonstrate their total mastery of the hack. That's fine. If you're only doing it because it's there, great. Call a press conference. Announce it, prove it. But after that, you're done, you're on to the next mountain, so why not say, give the information to Sony instead of letting the snooty nosed youths of the world steal games with your knowledge?
I also have to wonder, is it really that massive an achievement? It has always been easier to tear down rather than build up. If the 'hackers' are so bloody smart, why are they not working for 6+ figures making something instead of scratching around to destroy something?
And you most definitely do not own the network. Sony owns the network and licenses the software to you under terms and conditions of use that prohibit any kind of hacking or modification of the system software. If you want to take your PS3 and turn it into a Foreman grill, Sony doesn't care. Sony only cares when you start to chip away at the foundations of their system/network security. A compromised PS3 certainly represents a threat to the PSN, so it has to be dealt with.
No where does Sony tell you you can't do something with your hardware, they only set the terms of the software license you agree to for the system, network and game software. Fry your hardware if you like, Sony doesn't care a jot.
The root key is completely unknown and is only used by the SPV code. The private key that was compromised by Fail0verflow is used to sign (authenticate) all SELFs, including firmware updates. The 3.56 firmware effectively retires the old key and requires a new private key. The old private key used to authenticate SELFs was compromised due to an egregious error in coding the authentication routines that allowed the actual private key to be reverse engineered. Without that glaring error in the authentication code, fail0verflow would likely not have been able to determine the private key in use, nor break the chain of trust in the way that they did. That's not to say that it's impossible to do, it's just very difficult.
However by retiring that old private key and firmware 3.56 forwards requiring a new private key is used to sign SELFs, Sony effectively plugs that gap. What no one figured on was the ability to make the firmware require the same new private key for an update. This makes it difficult to downgrade the firmware to a hacked firmware revision, and the requirement for a new private key makes a custom version of 3.56 extremely unlikely for now.
The root key is not the private key often spoken of, nor is it a unique system identifier. It's a hardware key buried inside the CPU that is not readable from the outside and is used to encrypt the code that runs inside the secure processing vault. That program code only exists in an encrypted form and is only ever decrypted inside the SPV. There is no way to force the SPV to dump it's local store or divulge the secrets because any interference with the SPV causes it to reset and clear it's own memory. To say that the root key in the CPU is restricted knowledge is to understate it greatly. This was a fundamental part of the CellBE design made by IBM.
Several sources claim that 3.56 makes the PS3 far more tamper evident and that the PSN authentication process now interrogates the PS3 using encrypted calls. If this is true (which is likely), PS3s without the ability to reply properly to the encrypted challenges will be detectable by the PSN authentication - and ban-able.
Sony changed the private key and fixed the key authentication process. They also blacklisted Home brew and CFW already in existence.
Because of the new private key - used to sign this firmware and all future executables, it's hard to downgrade from 3.56 to an earlier firmware or custom firmware. Without the new private key, it's impossible to sign executables or firmware that will run under 3.56. Sony is also said to have updated the secure processing vault, no one is sure what with. In addition it's said that PSN and PS3 now user a more exacting authentication protocol that makes the PS3 be a lot more tamper evident, so without the new firmware it is increasingly difficult to get on PSN.
3.56 does a lot more than you think. but this has been known for days, and the hacker you mention has since tweeted that he's not looking at 3.56 right now and is concentrating on CFW based on 3.55 and Homebrew software.
Just a thought that popped into my head, but you have to where the heck they pulled 1000s of mega supernode servers from on basically zero notice. Seriously, where and how did their engineers activate so many in such a short time? Provisioning thousands of servers not any network isn't a trivial task.
Then I wondered, why doesn't Skype, with it's wonderful P2P model that generates revenue on Internet capacity paid for by someone else, have a server farm of really big supernodes to handle this kind of thing? And if they do, and this is how they activated 1000's of mega supernodes so quickly, why are they so keen to withdraw them from service as soon as possible?
Then it struck me. Those clever chaps had activated their own botnet of Skype clients and promoted thousands of ordinary customer peers to be mega supernodes. I can't think of any other way they could so quickly provision so many servers on a distributed basis in such a short time. It's no wonder they want to retire as many as possible as quickly as possible, I might be somewhat miffed if my PC and Internet bandwidth were suddenly being eaten alive to serve Skype.
Two suggestions above are strikingly logical. 1) stagger the software releases so that you don't have a high predominance of a single version of your peer server code, just in case, and 2) alter the back-off code so that when a new peer server attempts to join and finds the network is busy it doesn't just hammer the servers into submission, nor do all peers back off for the same time.
Seriously though, where can I get 1000's of supernodes at zero notice?
Now Tony, a derisive swipe comparing Home unfavorably to XBL's cartoonish avatars hardly counts as covering Home.
I continue to be amazed at how pro Microsoft the game coverage at The Register is, considering how the Register is generally cynical when it comes to the wonderful folks at Redmond.
I'm not for a moment suggesting that the Register should suddenly go soft on Sony, but for heaven's sake stop going soft on Microsoft.
A relatively fair and balanced write up, although, I think that the fundamental point of either of these things is the online gaming. And let's face it, with a silver subscription you won't be on XBL, but with PSN, you can play immediately you sign up - for free. Beyond that, everything else are nice to have features, but I do think that too much is made of the apparent worth of some of them, such as cross game chat. If I'm playing NFS HP and some dumb-butt friend firing madly in Call of Duty wants to trash talk in my ear because we're friends, he can sod off.
The usual vague complaints about PSN being too slow - except I can point to dozens of PSN users who say it isn't and dozens more who say XBL is too slow and dozens more who say they're the same. The thing is, that in reality the performance of either network varies rather oddly varies ISP, region, and network configuration. There have been suggestions in the past that some ISPs are intentionally or inadvertently slowing PSN or XBL (or both) through their traffic shaping, this is particularly true of PSN downloads for some reason. But, the truth is that they re as fast as each other, assuming your network is set up right, you're using a wired, not wireless connection and your ISP isn't playing silly buggers with the traffic.
One thing that kind of irked me about the write up was an odd element that apparently hurt the PSN with regard to community. The article suggested that the XBL avatars are somehow superior. I'm not sure in what way that makes community superior. On PSN you have your avatar image and you can voice./text chat as you wish from the XMB. The XBL avatars don't actually have any function beyond the little avatar pictures used by PSN. But to then sideswipe the Home avatars as if the XBL cartoon like avatars are somehow superior was just plain misleading and wrong. If you want to slam PSN about it's lack of cross game voice chat as a thing that detracts from it's community, that's fine. I don't agree, but it's a fair criticism. But the XBL avatars? You're reaching there.
But hey, if you want to mention Home and stack it up as if it's somehow an element of PSN that is included for this comparison, then you really do have to go back and change some scores.
Home really does provide a social/community service for PSN gamers to use - if they wish. You an get a group of friends and chat (up to 8 in voice chat in Home now), you can issue game invites and launch a multi-player game party - if the game supports it. Even if the game doesn't support the multi-player launch, you can still arrange the game, launch the game from within Home and hook up again once you're in the game. The thing is, that Home itself provides some gaming options for a group of friends to indulge in as well as the game launching capability.
The point being that Home has come a hell of a long way in just the last 12 months, It's come light years since it was launched. If you have an open mind, you can see that for yourself, if not, you will confirm your preconceptions. Whatever.
Back to the review, I wouldn't include anything to do with Home in the PSN/XBL comparison because it's a separate environment, and not a core PSN service. But then, I also wouldn't have held out cartoon stick figures as grounds for saying XBL is better than PSN.
Personally, I think that it's a bit of a wash comparing the two. If you exclude actual networking issues and look at the services themselves, the biggest single difference is the cross game voice chat followed by the game invite system. Everything else is either equivalent or down to personal preference. If having cross game voice chat and a slightly superior game invite system is worth $40 to you, that's your business. I don't agree, but to me it doesn't affect the comparison, because it's a paid feature.
PlayStation Plus, the paid portion of what is described as PSN in this review is all about content and pricing of that content. There are precious few 'features' that PlayStation Plus grants - automatic downloads of updates is about it, other than that, Playstation Plus is essentially a paid discount/loyalty program. It's convenient to compare XBL and PSN (including Plus) because their costs are the same, but Gold membership of XBL is a requirement for online play of any kind, that subscription is not a discount plan. Plus is almost purely a paid discount plan, it has no material effect on the operation of PSN or it's features. In that sense I do think that the comparison is a tad skewed. A true comparison of PSN and XBL doesn't include Plus because it doesn't impact the PSN experience.
From that point of view, a more truthful comparison would continue to show PSN as free and not bothered to mention Plus. Personally, I don't believe that you should have to pay to play a game you purchased. If XBL Gold was required for the enhanced features only, and online play was free, then your comparison would - in my opinion - hold more validity.
For me, it's always been a case of PSN is free play, XBL is not. Over the last 4 years PSN has closed the game on XBL in most ways except for the very conspicuous cross game voice chat. apart from that, they are very even with each other.
I love living in a free country where we can look down our noses and sneer at all those dictatorships and totalitarian states where people have to carry their papers everywhere and can only travel if their papers are in order. Yes sir, we'd never have anything like that here...um...er...oh.
Seriously though, isn't this getting a bit on the fecking stupid side of ridiculous? Here we are in this bastion of the free world. Thanks to the Patriot Act and a series of executive orders starting with 'W' and continuing with Obama, we have successfully curtailed our freedom to move, not only outside our country but within it.
If you want to fly anywhere in the US you have to be screened, your papers must be in order, and if you refuse to be screened via the body scanner you better brace yourself for a 'pat' down that if performed by me on another member of the public would be cause for my arrest for sexual assault. Oh, people say that it's only air travel, but you know, it's not, not for long. All it takes is some annoying twit to have a brilliant scheme involving a train or a bus and before you know it, we'll be screened there too.
Oh, but this article shows that the whole sinister secret police thing goes even further. Because now if 'they' are suspicious of you, 'they' can order the TSA to harass you. I mean, what do you call it when people are routinely held and questioned and have their belongings searched even though the officials who are searching don't know what they're looking for or why. Of course the Police actually couldn't perform this kind of deep harassment because they actually have to have grounds to hold you and a search warrant, and of course you are entitled to representation throughout. With the TSA and DHS though, it's a bit of an end run around your rights because as you can tell with the article, there is no attempt to read rights, no attempt to show probable cause for holding the person, or interrogating them, or searching them. It's just a big fishing trip and simple harassment.
People are still not waking up to this, they still defend this BS in the name of security and protecting us against terror. Tell you what though, back when things were still free, and we could fly without enduring a body cavity search or the near equivalent people would have told you that you were nuts if you said that the American people would put up with this. Better not question this new security though, you might be targeted for being a dissident.
What price 'freedom'? It seems to me that the price of our 'freedom' has been the loss of that freedom, and that the aims of the terrorists are slowly, but surely, being realized by our own stupidity and desire to be secure. So, I guess we can no longer look down our noses at those totalitarian countries and dictatorships where people's movement is closely monitored and controlled, they might be more free to move than we are.
The anger - dear sir - is directed at pirates and freetards, the very people who think that their actions have no consequence. Just like Geohot though that his breaking into the hypervisor had no consequence. Yet it did, it resulted in the removal of OtherOS.
Game Piracy and the freetard mentality costs all of the paying customers because we end up paying more for less because cheap gits won't pay for their entertainment.
Not only that but in their desire to get free stuff, those pirates and freetards - oh hell, let's call it like it is - thieves who steal games are opening a secure platform that is there to protect the paying customers. If the security on a PS3 is compromised and it can access PSN unfettered, that represents a threat to the PSN security and any threat to that is a threat to the security of my financial transactions and information held within PSN. Sony knows this, and sure it protects their profits to protect PSN, but it also protects me as a customer. Thieves with nothing more than free games in mind might not be the biggest threat, but riding on their coat tails are the black hat brigade who want nothing better than to start scraping information from PSN so that it can be exploited.
Before you try to argue otherwise, if you're an IT professional you know that network security is built in layers, and the clients are one of those layers. The first step to cracking a secure network is to compromise a client that has access to the network.
So, yes, anger, bile, vitriol, all directed at the thieves who'd rather spoil the party for everyone else instead of paying for their entertainment. Oh, and that's without even discussing the negative impact that game theft (aka piracy) has on a software market, and that market's subsequent decline - which hurts everyone.
Firmware 3.42 altered the USB device handling, 3.5 altered it further and threw in a whole new encryption layer. Downgrading your firmware back to a version prior to these is great and all, but things move, games get released, new firmware is mandated.
As for doing what you want with your computer, it's a game console, not a computer. The PSN is Sony's network, not yours, the firmware is theirs, the encryption keys are theirs and the stolen service key that was cloned to allow the jailbreak exploit is Sony's too. So, if you're so concerned with your property, why are you not concerned with the property of others? If you want to take your PS3, downgrade it and take it off line forever, that's great. But if you being that compromised system back online onto PSN I hope, as I said in my post, that you find yourself the subject of a perma-ban because I don't want security compromised systems accessing PSN. It's your PS3, great, but it's Sony's PSN. Don't be all hurt when someone points that out to you.
Gotta love that last point of yours. It's always the last resort when losing an argument to resort to the "you have no life and no friends" argument. It always smacks of projection when someone pulls that card though. But, well done you, I'm sure I'd feel crushed by your comments if any of them were even remotely the case.
For any digital market place to work, there has to be a way to control the movement of content and protect it against abuse. If there is not, the digital market place will simply collapse like a house of cards. The security on the PS3 is less about DRM than it is about protecting paying customers, and their transactions. But you go right on tromping around on your aged DRM high horse. I'm sure you'll feel it's relevant for years to come...
...if instead of bitching to high heaven about how much Sony supposedly makes in profit from this and that, people would occasionally look at how much things actually cost to make, and therefore why they cost what they cost. You know, it's not exactly rocket science to understand that when something costs XYZ to make, the maker needs to recover that cost, plus the costs of distribution and advertising and a profit margin, simply to remain in business.
As for the term freetard, I know the definition of it, just as I know the definition of pirate. I'm sure you do as well. If you choose to be labeled with either, that's your problem, not mine. I'm not the one defending people who don't want to pay for their entertainment, but would rather pay for a device that allows games to be copied and played for free.
Oh looky, the guys that want to make lots of money selling a piracy solution to a hard to crack console are making inflated claims again.
Let's see, in order to play any game that is release from about *now* onwards you will have to have firmware 3.5 at least. Yet the freetard movement thinks that being able to force a console to downgrade the firmware in order to play copies of games is some kind of great victory over Sony. And let's not mistake this, these folks think that they are harming Sony and no one else by their actions.
Well, I've got some news for these folks. First of all gimping your PS3 so you can play a copy of an older game, most of which cost $20 or less now anyway, is pointless in the extreme. Any work around used to gain access to PSN using such a gimped PS3 will soon be met with a fairly blunt instrument called the permanent console ban hammer. Oh, and finally, you can't play new games without constantly bounding your system between firmware versions, and believe me when I say it's only a matter of time before a firmware update actually validates whether or not a PS3 has been used with a 'jailbreak' device, and phones home if it has - at which time I will refer you back to the ban hammer I mentioned earlier.
As for harming Sony. What is the motivation for harming Sony in this? Anyone who bought an early Ps3 was already gifted $300-400 (USD) of free hardware with their purchase since the systems were sold at such a loss initially. Sony - more than any other gaming company - actually tries to develop new an innovative games. Any harm you do to Sony's gaming division hurts their ability to continue operating the Playstation brand as they have in the past. The actions of freetards really don't do much to harm Sony as an organization, if they did, Sony would go elsewhere with their business focus. In the end, the actions of freetards and pirates alike hurt gamers in general, no one else. It's thanks to pirates and freetards that the PSP game market has become so stunted. That is the result of the actions of people who are so selfish and cheap that they can't be bothered to buy their own games.
One other thing, this jailbreak crap has zero, nothing, nada, nil to do with OtherOS. It wasn't a response to the removal of OtherOS, all it was, was a business opportunity for a group of people trying to exploit others by getting them to buying a piracy device before it could effectively be blocked.
So all you jailbreakers out there, enjoy your old classic games that can be had for cheep anyway, I'll be playing GT5. And when your console get's perma-banned, I'll still be gaming with my friends quite happily. Frankly, I'd like it if Sony came up with a way to brick consoles that had been jailbroken. I know they won't, but it would serve the entire lot of you right if they did.
You score Kinect 90%, the same as Move was scored back in September. The Move review was glowing and positive throughout, and yet the tone of this review is markedly different including this phrase in the concluding paragraphs;
"But there's no ignoring Kinect's severe limitation. "
You talked of lag in control and other aspects that were not good about Kinect, and yet it rates a 90%? Sorry, maybe I'm just confused, but that score seems a bit generous for a product about which you use the phrase "But there's no ignoring Kinect's severe limitation. "
Could it be a small amount iof inherent bias? Advertiser pressure? Really, I think we need to know because I've never seen a review that marks something 9/10 and yet is critical of it to the point of talking about a "severe limitation" within the product.
Today's CS graduates are generally speaking little more than script kiddies. When CS syllabuses started including psychology, business, and all sorts of other 'soft' skills at the cost of learning OS fundamentals, hardware, multiple high level languages or the underlying math behind various methods it was clear that the end was nigh. When I left college in '90 there were already Post Graduate Diplomas in IT, these folks were actually fooled into believing that having their PGDIT qualification in addition to their Arts or Social Sciences degree made them computer scientists. The problem was - of course - that the 'skills' that they learned on this PGDIT were entirely end-user. Today it would be the equivalent of teaching a post grad course at college that teaches Excel, Word and Access and a little bit of macro work, but telling the students that this was fundamental tech stuff and that they were getting a good grounding in everything. HA!
The thing about all those 'useless' languages that I learned is that they taught me method, process, analysis and ground up programming. Learning assembly language or literally entering data directly into the console of a truly ancient PDP-11 taught me about the connection between what we see on a screen and what goes on inside the box. Remember that box? Building single board systems taught me system fundamentals. Statistics, mathematics, numerical analysis, these all taught me basic tools which I could use to make new things. Teaching me a broad range of software engineering skills instead of a specific method, teaching me fundamental database skills like data analysis and normalization, teaching me how a compiler and an assembler works, and then making me build one, Oh, I could go on, there were so many things we did on my ancient CS degree that I know for certain are no longer taught. Granted technology has moved on, but underlying everything, under all the layers of abstraction and scripting the same fundamental things happen, and have to happen. There is no other way.
How many kids coming out of college/uni with CS degrees today could program an efficient binary sort? How many even know what one is? How many could recognize the need for such an algorithm? How many could build an assembler or even know why it's necessary to have one? How many understand the concepts and implementation of virtual machines so necessary for Java?
I find myself being one of the few tech folks where I work who even has a feel for the stuff we work with. I mean I can see an application or a system behavior and diagnose it with ease, I know what is going on under the wrapper, I know how the system is built and how it does what it does. I can interpret the behavior and determine the issue far more quickly because of my depth of understanding, not because I am trained in the specific system but because I understand the principles.My younger colleges with degrees that are a decade or more newer are annoyed and not really impressed that old greybeard can do this, because they cannot. It's pure jealousy.
The worst thing though is that as time has gone on, my experience and understanding have become a liability. I'm no longer as near the hardware as I was when PCs and networks were younger. Now there's a whole department to manage the servers and networks. Security teams to dream up new and pointless regulations and restrictions on what we can, and can't do. It's got to the point that because so few people on staff have a real depth of understanding, that even though I *know* a solution, or *know* how to get something done because I actually understand how the system operates and integrates. Even though I am in a position to literally hand the resolution over, I am not believed, or trusted to have the solution. It's obviously impossible that I could have a solution to a problem I have never seen before. So we have to go to the vendor with some 20-odd year old spotty faced youth who looks up his knowledge base for a living. But because spotty youth doesn't know we have to wait for the second level support tech who scratches his marginally older head in doubt and refers it to the devs. Eventually the developers or some grey beard in a tertiary support role get's wind of the issue and tells us what to do, which is exactly what I've been urging the server folks to do since day 1. But, they simply could not take my word for it and have to wait for the vendor to tell us.
Sometimes knowing too much is both a professional and a personal liability. The stress that comes from knowing a solution but being ignored in preference to a third party vendor is simply immense. I put the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of fashion conscious CS programs trying to attract more students. In my humble opinion, they'd be better going for quality over quantity, but that's no how the funding formula works so instead they go for the broad base and attract as many bums on seats as they can. Watering down the curriculum to match the average quality of the incoming students is a necessary evil in that system. In terms of producing good graduates with skills that will serve them all career long, the high quality approach would serve the industry and individual better. Let the arts and social sciences have the post grad diplomas in IT and let them take all those junior roles that require some tech exposure, but let's go back to basics and start educating more computer scientists who can go on to become the core IT professionals and teachers of the future.
</rant>
I hate software patents...
I hate software patents...
I hate software patents...
I hate software patents...
I hate software patents...
It doesn't matter who is on either side of these cases, I still hate software patents. I can see someone wanting to patent a specific, and novel algorithm. But how someone can patent the use of XML in any way is beyond me. It's simply a markup language, and any and all extensions to it are not only obvious they are logical based on the original concepts of a markup language. This is simply ludicrous. I looked up the actual patent and it's not a new and novel invention, it's a freaking obvious evolution of existing markup language handling. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Microsoft is getting shafted over this. there is nothing innovative or new in this patent. A competent practitioner in the field could easily develop their supposedly unique approach themself. Hell, even the language of the patent makes it clear that the thing being patented is simply a development of exiting concepts and technology.
Thank you US patent office, US courts and little tiny annoying Canadian Patent troll, you have made me side with Microsoft. That is a remarkable feat.
It's illegal. No, it's not illegal to make a mod chip. This device is illegal, and will be banned simply because it is a cloned Sony service key. Those things are protected by patent(s) and/or copyrights and/or strict licensing. Not only that but the backup application that is distributed to work with this thing uses unlicensed code from an unlicensed Sony SDK. Sony has plenty of grounds to block this device and not because it breaks their security - which isn't a sound defense in some places, but because of the nature of the device and it's software.
As for the arguments about backing up game discs. well, yes if BluRay discs were not nearly scratch proof that might be a legitimate argument. However since they are virtually scratch proof, and at very least extremely scratch resistant, that backup argument doesn't hold much water. the truth of the matter is that this is a piracy (aka theft) enablement device. Nothing more, nothing less.
As for the whole car/iPod analogy. That's not in any way applicable. the iPod doesn't have the ability to disable the alarms, locks and engine management system. A more accurate comparison would be if someone started selling a device that was a clone of a Ford service device used by Ford and Ford dealers to interrogate the car's computers and reprogram the alarm and locks. I'm pretty sure that in that case not only would Ford act like Sony has here, but they'd win.
What the hell is the difference between cutting corporation taxes or granting you big corporations tax exemptions and the government spending money to stimulate business? Both cost the government money. But the thing about a tax cut is that it's a permanent drop in income to the government, where as spending happens once, and is not a permanent reduction in government income.
Funny how his tune has changed despite the fact that the Obama government has not materially raised taxes on anyone or anything - yet. It's almost like he has a political agenda? But why would a corporate get involved in politics? Surely the government of the people, bu the people for the people needs no corporate involvement? Oh, wait, that's right, the US Supreme Court had a senior moment thanks to 'W' and granted corporations many of the rights of a citizen. Corporations are people too now...
If I wanted to have a discussion about architecture I would hardly pick a comment section on an article like this, would I? I'm quite well versed in the CellBe architecture and x86 architectures. I didn't equate the two architectures, however there is no point in discussing that in this thread. Nor do I wish to discuss it with you, yours is not a game I wish to play.
As for the many other commenters who wish to defend game piracy. Keep it up kids, stick it to the man. But you all still know that you are getting something without paying for it. No matter the semantics involved, when someone knowingly obtains something without paying and without the consent of the owner, an act of theft has occurred. But hey, if you're all fine with that, then good for you. Go be thieves. Justify your stealing with whatever crap you can think of. At the end of the day, you still know what you've done, and you know that it's not right, whether the law catches up with you or not.
I see that the days when maturity and honesty, and for that matter morality, were aspects of debate are long gone here at the Register.
That's actually kind of sad.
Sony gave you a choice, which gave you the RIGHT to decide whether you wanted to continue using your PS3 as a pretty severely gimped Linux workstation, or as a video game console. It's your decision.
Why did they remove Linux? well, there are lots of tinfoil hat reasons, but the simplest explanation is that they felt that there was a potential security risk. Perhaps that security risk would have panned out to nothing, perhaps it would have panned out into a full hack. Sony doesn't and can't know. So they protect the PS3 architecture and PSN by blocking further use of Linux on PSN connected PS3s. Who's to blame for that? Kinda seems like it's the folks trying to break the security, not Sony. However Sony did leave Linux users with a choice. You can decide not to update your firmware until you choose to. But if you decide in future to update, you can do so and you have lost nothing on PSN or your PS3. So you have time to transition your Linux work off to another system before updating since you can choose your own timescale to update.
What RIGHT was it they took again? Where was that RIGHT enshrined? Which bill of rights or constitution protects it? Oh yeah, that's right, they didn't take any rights away from you and the imaginary rights you think were taken are not defined anywhere except your own expectations.
You said... "And before someone says "But by copying you're permanently denying the owner [Sony] of the revenue they would have got had you bought it instead" - since I never bought it, they never had the revenue to be relieved of in the first place."
No, Sony (or whatever publisher) never had the revenue, so you didn't steal the cash from them directly. However, if you walked into a store and took the physical game disc without paying, you would agree that was theft, correct? So, if you go online and download the game without paying for it, how is that somehow different conceptually? Games are frequently available for download through the PSN. I see no conceptual difference between the physical theft of the disc, and the digital theft of a download. Since you knowingly download the game without paying, you have intent. So we have someone who in a pre-meditated manner, knowingly downloads a game without paying for it and then uses said game. That sounds a lot like stealing to me. The fact that it's digital rather than physical doesn't alter the concepts. That is one area where culture, society and the law have yet to catch up.
Flame away kiddies. One day when you are (assuming you're smart enough) developing games and people are copying your games for free, you will revisit this topic, and you will consider their actions theft.
I've probably been working in technology longer than you've been able to eat solid food.
with respect to scratched game discs, you can get replacement discs from publishers, you need to contact them directly. They will want a proof of purchase and the scratched disc.
However unless someone has really tried to damage a BluRay, I've yet to see any BluRay with 'incidental' scratches like you see on CDs and DVDs. However YMMV.
As for the rest of your little rant, I really do think you need to seek help for your condition.
I have some sympathy with the OtherOS thing. I wish that it hadn't been removed, and I would honestly have preferred it is that little egomanic GeoHot had left is alone. Sony went the extra mile to allow Homebrew development with Linux on their PS3, but that wasn't good enough for some. Considering that the PS3 is a closed architecture with security to provide assurance of secure online transactions, it was no surprise (and should not have been to anyone) that when the security is threatened, Sony takes action. I don't like it, I think it is extremely unfortunate, but rather than blame Sony for it, I'll point the finger of blame at the community that is hell bent on hacking the thing.
I probably was a little harsh in suggesting that people get over it, but in reality Sony isn't going to restore it, and people do need to move their Linux work to something else and just let their PS3 be a games console.
The trouble I have is that a lot of the folks I have run across who had a linux partition are the very same ones looking for the ability to run copied games. So to me, in my experience, there is a high correlation between the desire to run games that haven't been paid for, and the desire to run Linux. I'll freely admit that not everyone running Linux on the PS3 is like that, but in my experience the majority are.
All that aside, the PS3 was a horrible environment for running Linux, you didn't have access to the RSX, you only have 256MB of memory which made it all about as useful as a chocolate tea pot.
However no matter how useful anyone claims Linux to be on the PS3, Sony being forced to take action and remove Linux does not justify the 'stick it to the man' attitude that has people cheering on this possible device. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Lastly, this argument that Sony just put out the hardware and one you buy it you can do what you want is fine, but you also have to recognize that the PS3 is a combination of hardware, software firmware, and something else. The actual hardware design and construction of the system is by design, intended only to run Sony's software. That is a departure from previous hardware that people have bought. the PS3 is not a PC, it's not intended to be used without it's system software. If you as a user elect to use the machine in a way that Sony doesn't approve of, that is your decision, and Sony isn't taking that choice from you. What they are doing is saying that if you decide to operate the system in a way that deviates from the intended use of the system, you are deemed to have broken the warranty. They can put whatever terms of use they want on their network, and if those terms of use require up to date firmware, then it's your choice whether you update or not. Not updating simply means you lose access to new software and features. but that is your choice to make. Sony is under no obligation to continue supporting you or your PS3 is you decide to use custom software or hardware on it.
I really can't see what people have a problem with here. If you decide that running Linux is important to you, you stick with FW 3.15, if you decide that playing new games and stuff is important, you find another way to do Linux and update. Sony is not forcing you to do anything. They are simply mandating that for your PS3 to be supported you must use the current firmware. Just as if this mod-chip exists and works, Sony is under no obligation to support users who use it on their PS3. It's the users' choice, But they should not be surprised if they are excluded from the future updates and content. That is the consequence of their choice.
In fact the obligation that Sony is in fact under, is a financial duty to it's PSN customers. Sony has a duty of care to protect the integrity of the PSN, and since the PS3 is an integral part of the PSN transaction experience, they have to protect the integrity of the PS3 also. Failing to do so puts customer transaction information, including credit card numbers and persona information, at risk. How would you react if PSN was hacked through a jailbroken PS3 and your credit and personal information was compromised? That is the burden of care that Sony has, and it takes precedence over the choice of individuals to run unauthorized software or hardware on their PS3 system
I'm certain I'll get down voted to oblivion again, which is fine, I would expect no less.
It's even better than you say, in fact.
If you download the firmware update it will not install without the user selecting to upgrade and confirming the removal of Linux. This is necessary to continue using PSN, but in fact Sony doesn't remove the Linux partition, the user does, because it is the user that runs the software and confirms it's removal.
Oh, I'm sorry, did a bolt of reality momentarily illuminate the bankruptcy of your arguments that there are legitimate uses for theft enablement devices.
And before anyone else barges in and says it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. I'll put it this way, if you went to a store and stole the game of a shelf, it would be theft. The intrinsic value of the disc and case are perhaps $2, the value of what is stolen is the game on the disc. What is the difference if you instead download a copy of the game and burn it to your own disc (or lodge it on an HDD)? You are still playing a game you did not pay for, and you have in fact deprived the publisher of their rightful revenue. That is theft. And just let's be clear, now that you can download games from sources like PSN, the act of downloading a game without paying for it is now analogous to stealing from a physical store because.
However I am certain that freetards everywhere will commence downvoting my comment into oblivion, which is great since for me, it simply confirms how close to the knuckle my remarks are. People hate being shown their own mis-conduct and typically react angrily towards those exposing the truth. Flame away.
Um, let me see, how can I put this gently? Oh yes. Total crap (see polite - sort of).
Look, I've heard every justification in he book that claims legitimate use, and that's just a bunch of self service bullsh*t. You and I and everyone else knows that should a mod chip for the PS3 ever be made it will be used 95% of the time to play stolen games.
There is no region locking on the PS3, the PS3 covers the majority of the common sound and video codecs, and BluRay's rarely scratch, few have the ability to image the disc to back it up, and even if they have that physical capability it requires software to remove copy protection which is more or less illegal in most countries. So the supposed legitimate uses are infinitesimal compared to the illegal use the device will promote.
Then of course there is the simple fact that if Sony detects that your PS3 ha been backed your PSN ID, and your PS3 will be instantly perma-banned, without hope of appeal.
However all that follows the *huge* IF, as in IF this thing even exists.
...grow up, but a cheap PC to run Linux, update your PS3 and stop crying over spilt milk like a little spoiled child who's favorite toy got put into time out. Linux isn't coming back to the PS3. And before you flame me, consider that if the little ego-maniac, glory seeking, man-child hadn't announced his tiny exploit with such a blaze of publicity, you'd probably still be running Linux.
The lesson here is that one bad apple can spoil the barrel.
I gather that the only way this device can in anyway work is if it is an unauthorized copy of a maintenance device that Sony may use to put units in to a service mode when they are being serviced.
That's not so much a jail break as an act of theft since such service keys (assuming they exist) are certainly closely guarded and protected by quite a few contracts, copyrights and probably a patent or two. Now, whether this thing actually works or not, I'd bet that the very next firmware update makes a change that prevents it from working in future.
Not only that but I would be really unsurprised to find Sony very carefully looking at the service keys and who has them and who might have leaked on to the outside world. At which point the full force of the law will come crashing down on anyone foolish enough to sell a device that contains the proprietary and copyrighted code required to put a PS3 into service mode.
At the end of the day, even if this product exists and works, it can only work in one way, and that way leads straight to court. The jokers behind this apparently believe that since it's 'OK' to 'jailbreak' the iPhone in some places, that it's similarly OK to do the same thing to the PS3. The trouble is if they use copyrighted code, to do it, they are in deep trouble, and it's quite decided NOT OK.
Never mind the whole fact that these devices are only ever used for one thing - theft. Oh, I know about all the 'legitimate uses' that people claim, which it total and complete non-sense. These devices enable the use of pirated (AKA stolen) games. As such, they are nothing more than theft enablement devices. I wonder whether the makers might be charged with inciting their customers to steal by enabling them to do so? Or perhaps they could be charged with conspiracy on the grounds that their device is designed specifically to enable theft?
Ah well, who knows, since this device hasn't yet surfaced and all we've seen is a PS3 (that may or may not be a debug unit) running Infamous of the HDD, which considering it's available for download isn't exactly a major feat. Oh, but if you want 1000s of suckers to drop $150 with you, by all means fake a video and claim your claim and collect your money.
Personally I think the odds of seeing this device ever on the market are slim to none, even if it does actually exist, the only way in which it can work requires the user and maker to break copyright, and computer tampering laws.
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