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PS2 Games to Require Online Authentication
M Bison (ha-ha) sent in this news-bit about Sony adding new copy control measures to PS2 games. Sigh. CT: For starters, the future DVDs and CDs will be imprinted with unique serial numbers, and the PS2 will authenticate over a network connection before allowing playing. This is apparently connected to the upcoming PS2 hard drive, and network connection.
"Therefore, I don't think you'll be required to put Name, Address, Email account, etc."
You miss the point. By collecting this information, Sony makes MONEY. Making money is the only reason that Sony exists. They have no higher power to answer to for this. There is no morality for Sony. There is only making money. And if they are going to force online authenitcation anyway, you can be sure that they will have no qualms about doing a little more work to turn a huge profit on it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This isn't just a Sony issue. This could become a keystone technology in any "Internet appliance" that uses physical/replaceable media. Want to play a movie or music CD? Better have a network connection for authentication! This is almost DIVX like in concept, and I suspect it will be met w/ the same reaction from consumers.
I don't care anyway, I pay for my games.
So do I, but I care if they plan to make me hook my console up to an outside line to validate my games. This had better be only for those online-only games, or else they will suffer a rude awakening. And what's up with the locking the game so you can't take it to a friends house, or sell it to a used game shop... Hey, this also means that these games CAN'T BE RENTED.
Josh Sisk
Oh whoopdee doo. Are you trying to impress me? Try again. I know plenty of people with a more impressive skillset than "writing network code."
I know how easy it is to do this type of stuff. And yes, I have in fact done similar things in the past to get around some of the silly authentication.
Hey idiot, all you have read is a dailyradar article. Don't assume that just because you can write "network code," you can hack your way around a product that you don't even know about.
For example, Xerithane (speaking of tasteless geeky nicknames), Half-life and Q3A still has a secure and working authentication system. Let's see you prove yourself by cracking that, wiseass.
You come from an .edu -- lets hope they can teach you some common sense.
If coming from a .edu would mean I have common sense, it's obvious you didn't come from one.
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This would be enough to keep me from buying one. And what happens when the PS2 becomes obsolete? Is Sony going to keep running their authentication servers forever, or will there come a day when no one can play the games they purchased for this console? "Sorry, why don't you go drop $500 on a PS4?" No thank you.
the carnation in my buttonhole / precedes me like a small / continuous explosion. -RS
For example, in cases where use is limited to only the original purchaser, such as a game or character purchased and downloaded from the Internet, once the game is played on one PS2 it will not work on other consoles.
What this tells me is that gone are the days when you can just grab a bunch of your games and run over to a friend's house to play games for the weekend.
They're making consoles so complex, they're hardly "toys" anymore.
And I'm also wondering if the cost of creating this service and putting it into action isn't going to cost them almost as much as they "lose to piracy."
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
- A.P.
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Now when the PS2 server goes down, you can't play...
Hope they plan to have a ton of mirrors!
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
Aye, time to switch to decaf :-)
Cynicism about corporate motives is a learned response after 12 years of working for them.
Oh I'm sure blockbuster and all those game rental places will LOVE this one
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
... and missing.
-paul
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And one right that we must have is the right of backups. So one of these 'enumerated' fair-use rights must be to make full backups of your expensive media.
No, it is not acceptable for them to offer a service that will send me extra copies. I have no assurance that they will be in business in 2 years, 10 years, or 50 years.
That's the issue. You cannot, in TECHNICAL TERMS distinguish between fair use and infringment. The only thing that can make that determination is a LEGAL COURT OF LAW.
So, even if you could construct, and keep up to date, such a hypothetical list, there still would be no way for a technical measure to determine whether or not the use it is put is on the list.
Perhaps the thing you bring up is not a disadvantage, but the reason that the entire system was implemented in the first place?
Why implement a system that causes a huge amount of hassle to all legitimate gamers without appreciably making a dent in piracy? Well, like you said, such add-ons are historically purchased by a vast minority of customers; yet said add-ons only have value if they are owned by the vast majority of customers.
So, all Sony has to do is implement this DiVX style system, thus mafia-style "encouraging" you to get a network adaptor. Think about it. To you, your purchase of that modem adaptor just so you can play use-controlled games was a hassle; to sony, it was $45 revenue. So painfully obvious.
The eternal stupidity vs. malice dichonomy .. I don't know how to spell 'dichonomy'.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Promptly be hacked the minute it enters mainstream consumption. I can't wait until some warez kiddy, makes a 'ps2 authentication server' that runs as a background process on his networked WinME box... that will just be great.
You left out one thing. It will also mean a lot more games don't get returned. I can see kids having their mom rent the latest and greatest FPS for their kids, only for it to end up "missing" on the day it is due to be returned. I think something like divx where they dispose of the CD after rental would be more likely here, although that is a complete waste of resources.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Of course Quake 3 authenticates your unique key and nobody's bitching about that (much)...
Ok my karma is maxed out. When do I become Enlightened?
Why is everyone so excited that someone else can hack something to get them the service they want? Each time we hack something, the big companies learn something new about how things were hacked, and it makes it much more difficult to hack things in the future.
What we need to do is identify what rights we have as consumers (and, no, not the right to pirate), then pressure our governments to create a law that forces RIAA, MPAA, M$, and other Copyright-based companies to protect our fair-use rights!
I've written my Representative in Congress, have you? (...assuming you live in the US...write your government leaders in your own countries)
Doh!
I don't try to impress people. It's bullshit, just like you. I do what I do, I say what I mean. I know what I can do, and I do it. It's not my fault you envy my abilities and think you have to talk bad about me to make me feel better. A good quote about this, "Everything we hate in others, we hate in ourselves." -- So if you think I'm bullshitting, that means you obviously do it too. Which seems reasonable after looking at your posts.
Hey idiot, all you have read is a dailyradar article. Don't assume that just because you can write "network code," you can hack your way around a product that you don't even know about. .. well.. anything.
Yes, I'm sure you said the same thing when people said it's possible to crack CSS. Stop talking, and doing - you obviously don't know the first thing about
As for my nickname, it's mostly derived from my Gaelic roots -- you definitely aren't a scholar of any sort other wise you'd know that.
If coming from a .edu would mean I have common sense, it's obvious you didn't come from one. .edu means you are another sheep in the herd. What's it like to not be able to think freely?
No, coming from an
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Yes, and I'm sure Johan said, "This can be cracked" long before it was released. One of the first things they should have taught you is no system that has an untrusted party is ever truly secure. You must be a biology major or something?
As for school, I did go to a university -- I was talking about you specifically. I don't have a rebellish opinion about standard education. It works, for standard folk. You really have no idea who I am what so ever, or what I do, and it makes it that much more fun when you talk shit about me.
Good thing you don't matter - otherwise I'd care about your opinion of me.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
The way I read this, a network connection will be mandatory. YOU must have DSL, or something.
While network connections, etc are common these days, I do not want to be **required** to connect my playstation to a network.
I wonder what kind of a marketing flap this will create?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If they think I'm not allowed to lend a game to a friend, surely I am not allowed to invite friends over to play the game. Right?
What they really need is a joystick with a fingerprint scanner to make absolute certain that no one but the authorized person is allowed to play the game.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Xerithane, did you make some simple workaround to hack into the Sony headquarters and dig up the info, or are you just bluffing to karma whore?
I'm not saying it can't be hacked. But there are two things I'm pretty sure of:
1. It will happen AFTER the system is implemented /. user blathering his "hack this hack that" opinion three months before it's released, just from reading news on a video game website. Calling them "stupid folk" when you don't even have first-hand documentation on how this work only reflects poorly on you.
2. It won't be from a
Go ahead and burn my karma, but this time I don't really care.
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The key difference is that a pure multiplayer game (like Quake3 or Phantasy Star Online) will always have the network connection active and so the validation is no big deal.
Except Quake 3's network design is nothing like Phantasy Star Online's, and Quake 3 has a single player.
I understand central authentication being used in games that require a connection to the full Internet, such as massively multiplayer games such as EverQuest. I don't understand such authentication being used in LAN-oriented games such as Quake 3 or Tribes (AYBABTU). A LAN-party network may not even be connected to the Internet.
Thing is, Tribes 2 is going to use central authentication, but it isn't massively multiplayer. I can't see people buying business DSL just to get multiple IPv4 addresses so that everyone at a LAN party can authenticate to Sierra's central server.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I agree with you, however, many people are of the opinion that there is no way to win in the legal system. The big companies basically own the U.S. government, although there are a few (very few) good people left to keep things from going into utter chaos. So, basically the laws are written by the whores of Sony, Microsoft, IBM, MPAA, etc. and the citizens are getting the shaft. The few of us that know we can make a difference lack the resources of these companies.
However, I agree with you, although that has to be qualified. I think that we need to pressure our government to create fair laws to protect our rights from big companies. The only way to do this is if the majority of the people wake up and do what's right rather than blindly supporting Republicans and Democrats. We need new blood in our legal system. We need to wake up the public from their apathy. I think it's ok to hack stuff to use it fairly, but at the same time that should be secondary to making sure those in power understand that we have rights and they are not to infringe upon them.
Unfortunately, in the crowd that is most technologically intelligent, we tend to think that we can ignore the government and it will go away just like our bosses at work. Instead, the government is more like a hyper child that just drank a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew. We are the ones that control the government, not the other way around. Unfortunately, many of us end up doing like we do at work. When our boss asks for a stupid feature in a program we are making, we make it but find a way to get around it to work right. Other times we ignore that we were even asked to do something. However, in this case there are more consequences. The U.S. government thinks we are all very expendable, and most politicians would have no problem taking some money from a big company to make a law and proceed to put you in jail. Hacking for usage of pirating doesn't solve the problem, it only works as a temporary workaround, or could sometimes make things even worse.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
That is just when it gets fun. The authentication packets can obviously be detected (by the console and server) so you just run a replace filter on the router that detects these packets and replaces the information. Good kernel hacking going on there. It'd be a fun project to work on, if I had more time I would definitely jump on board if this came to reality.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
When any solution creates more problems than the problem, it's not a solution.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
So if all the new games are only allowed to play on one console, how am I goign to rent a game to decide whether or not to buy it?
...but this is stupid. If I can't trade games with my friends, then screw this. I'll just go out and buy a DVD player and keep buying used games for my PS1.
(Granted, it's stupid to have a console in a car, there is a certain cool factor in doing it)
:)
Ah, there speaks a man who's never had to drive fourteen hours in a car containing children
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The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
Great, so I guess you can't take some of your favorite games over to your friend's house without lugging your own PS2 over to his house as well. Thanks for that wonderful pain in the arse Sony! Plus I'm sure there will be plenty of cracks that come out soon to circumvent this anyways. What's the point?!
Does anyone think this'll prevent the general population from wanting to get a PS2 later this year? And what about /. users? Will you not buy these DNA-S games? I'm wondering if this plan will hurt Sony.
Developers: We can use your help.
I can't believe no one's stumbled on this yet. Of course they can be rented. You know how they're gonna do it? An affiliation with the major rental chains (*cough* Blockbuster *cough*) will let those serials be used--and Sony will get a cut from each rental.
This is the same formula used in Video Stores across the country with movie studios. You get say 30 copies of Meet the Parents on VHS. You don't pay the $70 bucks a wack for them, as you normally would, instead you simply pay $20--but, Universal gets their cut. A video renting program must be installed and used on your computer that keeps track of when each tape was rented, therefore detailing the amount that has to be reimbursed to the studio (it communicates with a host via modem at the end of each day). After so many weeks, when the title isn't as hot and you have all these copies sitting around not doing anything, you send the unused ones back. But, those that are left on your shelves still cost you, but now only a lesser fee for each time they're rented.
The video game scheme would work the same way, with everyone getting their cut.
Never deny the power of profit.
Until somebody has a network sniffer on there, has cracked their encryption - or modified the hardware itself - and/or is selling a little black box to verify your games, or even better yet, has released linux software to do it for them. Time to save those old machines :). I'm waiting for a resurgance of "dongles" and the like for consoles.. heh
Alternatively to that, I guess you could always copy the playstation CD/DVD, and then use a software hack like the "nocd" fixes that are becoming common for games in the PC world.
Discs get broken and scratched! This isn't a made up problem .. if I drop $50 on a game, I better have the ability to store the original someplace safe.
..don't panic
Hopefully soon everyone will just get all this authentication silliness out of the way and just test the DNA of the person turning on the console. If you bought the game / console, you get to play. Otherwise it poisons you and you die a horrible death. I wouldn't fuck with trying to reverse engineer that system.
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reverendrich.com
Anyone who knows anyone with a Sega Dreamcast can tell you very quickly why Sega was brutalized on that system : Piracy. Of course with the DVD of the PS2 it's less likely (at least for the next short while) but if the games can be installed on a harddrive it will become prevelant.
Not that I wouldn't find this tactic incredibly annoying, but if you don't like it you don't have to buy one. These companies take multibillion dollar hits on these systems because the systems are subsidized by game sales. When piracy becomes so commonplace that Joe Average has a library of duped games they have to find alternatives.
yafla!
Online authentication is not just a way to verify software authenticity, it also allows Sony one more way to invade our lives and track what we do. This is an incredible way to monitor users and build demographic databases. Allow me to explain why.
The system will require registration to use. Period. They will come up with a million BS reasons to support it, such as tracking attempts to play copies.
The registration will give them the following information about the user:
- Name
- Address
- Email account (Required so that they can send you a random password of course.)
- Telephone number (For immediate contact in case of suspected fraud on your account.)
- Age (They are required by law to ask, so that at least kids under the age of thirteen are not exploited like this.).
This information can then all be linked backed to credit databases and advertising profiles to produce more information, allowing Sony to cross reference a user's buying, playing, and viewing habits. They will be able to figure out when you get paid, and use that as a basis for when to send you spam for a sequel to the game that you played for 200+ hours last year. Sony will generate a list of your favorite movies, and sell it to the MPAA, who will in turn allow movie companies to use the data to spam you with ads for like movies.
Those of course are the nice uses.
What happens when someone else wants to know what you do, what you watch? If someone is accused of a sex crime, the government will be able to subpeona your logs to see if you were watching kinky DVDs. After a school shooting, the state could use gameplay records to state that the offender learned to kill from video games, and prove it by producing records of all the games he played. A wife could divorce her husband on the grounds that he ignores her to play games all the time, and she could subpeona the records as proof.
I have a Playstation 2 now, and I love it, but I have a feeling that I might not be purchasing too many future releases.
The reason why it wont fly with the PS2 is simple -- the PS2 doesn't ship with any network options. Sure, Sony is going to add a HD and network adapter in the future, but historically such add-ons are purchased by a VAST MINORITY of total console owners. If its not supported in the base config, developers are not going to make it a requirement for using their software because that will drastically reduce their total potential market.
There may be some exceptions..PS2 equiv games of Phantasy Star Online (can you say Everquest: Console Edition?) may adopt the system..but the vast majority of games will not.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
It will also kill the second user market for games, but then, that's probably what they want...
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How do you know they won't? What's to stop them? Only not buying the console will absolutely ensure that this won't happen, so I'm not having one.