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Sony PS2 To Sport Netscape and SSL
joq writes "Just when you thought you'd heard it all... RSA Security Inc. announced it will market a development tool to equip software for a PlayStation2 game console developed by Sony with Netscape and SSL. The new development tool will allow game developers to equip online games for PS2 with SSL or other encryption means to prevent such games from being copied. Sony will sell a PS2 compatible hard disk drive unit with a broadband communications capability and is expected to sport Netscape equipped with SSL. The browser would not be necessary, however, for using game software with SSL because such game software itself processes an amount of money charged with users of networked games through a credit card number securely. Full story is on NikkeiBP and also the RSA press release"
When Mozilla 0.9 (on Linux) crashes for me (which is rare now) the "Talkback" window that pops up to send back a bug report has "Netscape 6.5" in the title. This led me to assume that Netscape would branch from Mozilla again before Netscape 6.5. It only makes sense as the current Mozilla is an order of magnitude better than 0.6, or whatever version it was that Netscape branched off of originally.
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Sony has been porting mozilla to the PS2 with the help of Netscape, thus a Netscape branded Mozilla.. not 4.x
You don't need a PS2 in order to do that. Get a Geforce2 MX400 and the latest NVidia drivers. Hook the s-video port up to your TV (PAL or NTSC) and enjoy! I have successfully played Quake 3 on my TV, excellent picture quality and very fast too! Here's proof. And here is Konqueror displaying /. This card will even display the console at bootup if you only have your
TV hooked up, unlike the Matrox cards.
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
Are you suggesting that Microsoft has ported IE to the PS2? Wow! That *would* be news. Microsoft developing software for a direct competitor? Hmm, somehow I don't think that will happen (OK, so MS did this very thing with Apple...but that was to prevent them from looking like a monopoly).
I imagine what they mean is that Sony is working with Netscape, the company, to use the Gecko rendering engine on the PS2. Netscape provides software engineers that are familiar with Gecko (Mozilla couldn't offer software engineers as easily, being an open-source movement). I could be *way* off base with this, though.
--Be human.
LOL. I aim to please :-P
--Be human.
Except that your box is lacking TV-out, something the PS2 has, and you neglected to buy a monitor. Figure about $100 for a monitor, and suddenly you're looking much closer to the PS2's price point. Unless you plan on enjoying those state-of-the-art on-board video graphics by plugging the VGA cable right into your optic nerve...
That's why Everquest and Ultima Online make absolutely no money; because everyone would rather play on MUDs for free than submit to a pay per play model.
A great resource for such questions can be found at:
Here you can search a range of dictionaries, giving this definition (among others):++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
I'm suspicious of that claim in NikkeiBP. Note that the RSA press release is entirely reasonable, and doesn't discuss piracy but privacy. Presumeably of credit card numbers and the other things SSL is typically used for.
If one of the intents really is to prevent unauthorized copying, I'm surprised RSA has signed on to this, as they're normally a fairly non-bogus company.
First: don't flame me if I'm blatantly, clearly way off in wackyland on this one. I'm just going off what I've read in the linked articles.
The only mention of "Netscape" comes in the NikkeiBP article, a single mention in a paragraph midway down the page claiming Sony will likely sell a hard drive unit with Netscape and one of the SSL technologies pre-loaded. No mention of Netscape is found in the RSA press release, and there is nary a mention of the version of NS expected to be included.
My first thought was "why wouldn't Sony go with a customized version of IE?" Several ideas quickly leaped to mind; no Windows infrastructure in the PS2, MS will be competing directly with Sony within months, MS hasn't said a word about such a deal, and other, less-developed nagging thoughts.
I don't know why Sony would go with an ancient, cruddy codebase like the 4.x series. Outside of the Windows and Mac platforms (and maybe not even then), the Java support is atrocious, and the browser is extremely prone to crashing. Unless Sony uses the Source and does some mad fixing of the 4.x code, I don't really see them using 4.77 in the PS2.
Netscape 6 was a brainfart. Enough said.
The only possibilities that make anything close to sense in my mind:
1) Sony uses the 4.x codebase, does some fixes and tweaking
2) Sony uses the Mozilla/6.xx codebase, doing any necessary massive bugfixes to the code, but possibly waiting for the 6.5 release, which I've caught the rare passing mention of in Bugzilla. I have no idea if Netscape ever plans on doing another branch from the Mozilla trunk; I personally think that would be a very wise idea, giving a big boost to the Mozilla project's profile, as well as Netscape's credibility, no thanks to that 6.0 business.
2b) Sony uses Gecko and builds a simple browser around it, including PSM 2.0. Better option for them, IMO.
3) Sony doesn't bother with Netscape, the NikkeiBP report is off on that point, and Sony has their own plans that no one will be able to guess at.
Take your pick, can't wait to see how this development turns out...
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
> After all, then the price is lowered a bit (they will be forced to when the Xbox arrived) they sell the hardware at loss and are supposed to make it up on the games.
Even without the Xbox, the PS2 sells at a loss... all consoles do. And the money they make is not just on games, it's on the IDEs and the SDKs as well.
Sony will sell a PS2 compatible hard disk drive unit with a broadband communications capability and is expected to sport...
What they're hoping for is probably to make more money on the consoles themselves by selling premium equipment like the hard disk and the modems. For all you know, it might require you to sign up with some service that offers in order to play the online games, thereby increasing revenues.
The browser could possibly limit the sites visitable by the user (a-la-AOL) to those relevent to the PS2.
Is it me, but the article says that SSL is used to prevent the copying of games?
When I last checked SSL stood for Secure Socket Layer. As in sockets. TCP/IP ones.
Still, using SSL for the communications to online gaming servers should slow down the hack-a-bility we've all seen to often on Counterstrike et-al.
SSL is not merely about encryption of data in transit, it's also a cryptographically secure method of authentication. Imagine that each and every PS2 DVD-ROM is pressed with a unique SSL certificate. Now, when playing online games the game server can require that all client PS2's authenticate themselves with this certificate. If the same certificate is used more than once at the same time then all connections using this certificate are kicked from the server and probably banned. The advantage of doing this with SSL as opposed to just serial numbers is that it has been tried and tested in the field and shown to be secure cryptographically, and the data is encrypted in transit so replay attacks are useless.
It doesn't prevent copying per se but it makes playing online with a copied game all but impossible. Given how much of a part of modern gaming is concerned with playing online, this is a major deterrent to copying.
Plus, you had to build the computer yourself. I think we're talking about off-the-shelf computers for $300 here, not some cobbled together geek-rig with a cardboard case.
When you actually limit your examples to the actual realm at hand, you'll see the PS2 could make a decent cheap computer.
Ah... to have a replacement for the C64.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
I know that if the hard drive and network capabilities cost over 100$ US, Sony won't be selling many of them. People do not like to buy add-ons. I own a couple of consoles but I never bought anything other than more joysticks. People rather buy a brand new console than buy an upgrade. It's simply not worth it.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
Remember how many quarters you spent on video games in arcades when you were a kid? I know I lost countless quarters to joust, defender etc. Well, heads up... with they way they are pushing this kind of technology, within a year or two, computer games will probably be on a pay per play scenario, and if you have no internet access, then you will probably miss out on the vast majority of games. And if you do have internet access, then you can expect to pay $1 and up a pop for a game. Just wait and see. As horrible as this sounds, I bet it becomes all too regular.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
This is important in case this technology becomes usable by the RIAA or similar agencies. Otherwise I take a look at this and see several reactions that become occasionally troublesome.
Most consumers will not care too much as long as the games don't cost too much.
Some will get not care, as long as their parents buy them the game.
Certain folks will take joy at a new toy to crack.
Some will be outraged that they actually have to pay money for a game since they will not be able to copy the game.
and then there are those that will figure out some way to apply this to their favorite hot button issue whether it applies to the situation or not, be it civil rights, crime in the inner city, or the massive Australian-American trade imbalance problem [joke]
(sigh) somehow I do not think of this as being very important by itself.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Slightly Offtopic, but are there any more news on the rumoured Linux which they got to run on a PS2?
It's not rumored anymore--they had it on display, running, at LinuxWorld today (apparently Sony lent out one of their kits ahead of time), and it looked sweet. Now I'm looking forward even more to when I get mine on the 20th of June. (:
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BACKNEXTFINISHCANCEL
But there are alot less stupid rich people than stupid people per say. Thus a reduced number of idiots, and possibly a better place to have fun.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Internet gaming relies on the fact that its enjoyable to play a game with and against lots of people whom you've never really met. I never play online at the moment for a number of reasons, but the biggest is absolutely because there are far too many childish idiots who enjoy nothing more than ruining it for people who are there for a good time. Make them pay, and (hopefully) the lamer ratio would drop to an alltime low. Also, the game creators would be more pressed to make a game fair and reasonable to keep the gamers happy. It might cost a bit more to play, but I'd certainly pay to keep the losers out.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I wonder why they did this with Netscape and not Mozilla. Or even IE <ack!>. I mean is Netscape that much better in its extensiblity than IE? If extensibility is the issue then you'd think they would use Mozilla. How much more extensible can one get than an open source implementation?
Onorio Catenacci
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"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
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"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
-- Stan Dunn
I noticed this because I went and read the "full story" in the hope of getting slightly more readable English than in the posting, only to get the posting all over again, including the charming sentence:
If you read it three times, with your head on your left shoulder, it eventually kind of makes sense, even if I still don't quite see the connection implied by the use of the word "because". But I kind of like the idea of "...an amount of money charged with users...".
I don't mind this kind of text from sources from the Far East --- it makes it kind of a sport (used as a noun) to decode the stuff --- but straight from slashdot? Really.
Ron Obvious
Dude, you have a point - but please understand that the browser developers (MS and Netscape) have played leapfrog for years where standards are concerned. Both products have never implemented a full set of W3C standards. Instead, they have selectively implemented the standards when it complements the inclusion of their own "standards".
This has been an on-going pain-in-the-ass for the W3C folks. The problem, of course, is that no vendor ever got rich implementing standards verbatim - there's just no competitive advantage. Hence the "extensions" that vendors - most noteably MS - needs to include and hype in their products.
While IE is certainly a leader in standards implementation today, the V6.0 Netscape embarrassment (and other products) actually implement a fuller spec. There's a great book on the subject called "Raggett on HTML 4" by Dave Raggett - lead architect of the 4.0 spec. While the book is about HTML, itself, it's salted with a lot of insider glimpses of how specs evolve and how the software vendors (MS and Netscape) thrust-and-parry with the W3C. It's worth a look.
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
total FUD.
Scenario: Half-Life 2 comes out in a pay-per-use model like you describe.
You know what would happen?
Everyone would stick to Half-Life.
Most games in the PC gaming market (95%+) are just updates and revamps of games already out.
No one will lose their individual rights in that type of manner for no major improvement.
I would rather play Quake DM as regular then play Return to Castle Wolfenstein with a pay per play model.
There was a posting a few days ago on Slashdot about PlayStaion 2 gaining Net access via AOL (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-5928280.html ). That's more than enough reason for Sony to use a Netscape branded version of Mozilla. Mozilla is going beta with 0.9.1 in a few days, that's a lot of time for making the branded versions befor Christmas.
I can buy, for much cheaper than that, a bare-bones computer. All I need is a $50 case/power supply, $100 mainboard, $100 cpu, $20 worth of RAM (let's assume the board has onboard sound/video, not unreasonable for the lower end manufacturers). The PS2 is by no means competative to this, at least not yet.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Are they saying that you can purchase games for the playstation securely on the playstation, and download them (without being copied by other pplz) ... what would prevent someone from copying it once it was in a non-encrypted state on the local drive? (I presume that they will not be encrypting multistation game sessions ... after all, performance is, i think, a higher priority than encrypting the session)
Or is this another one of those pay as you play schemes?
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
...to make all kind of toys for the machine (like hard disk). After all, then the price is lowered a bit (they will be forced to when the Xbox arrived) they sell the hardware at loss and are supposed to make it up on the games.
But what happens is people use it for other things and done give a damn about the games?
Keyboard, harddrive and internet connection and it can be a really cheap computer at Sonys expense.
...seems a little like trying to marry a global distribution of pet food and a toaster.
If you have studied any history of gaming, you know that network access over consoles has ranged from a moderate to tremendous failure, from the early NES-enabled modems to the Dreamcast web. Obviously this is not what they plan to use SSL for, as Sony has a lot of corporate resources to do at least a little research with.
What SSL can be to them is an extension of their "set top box" theory of gaming (whose benefits we won't go into... *cough* 3D0 *cough*). This is their first step to being able to sell movies, music, or other traditional media that corporate-types understand, as well as the rather odd proposition by Square of selling character upgrades and new levels.
None of this seems likely, yet, to take off. Can you imagine typing in a credit card number with a dual-shock controller? It's heinous enough as is with a qwerty. And trying to stuff a DVD quality movie through even the most modern Cable modem is like trying to haul the Statue of liberty with the latest Dodge Durango and being surprised that it still doesn't fit.
Even things like character upgrades in traditional media have to be given away for free (without requiring a secure connection) or else must be so substantial as to consider it an expensive add-on and a separate purchase. None of this, of course, has any sort of real gameplay use or reason.
I guess the real story here is how Sony is paying all of its attention to the doomed convergence of paid movies, e-commerce, and consoles and how little attention it is paying the things that will matter in the coming console wars: good second and third party support and a wealth of fun, exclusive games.
The ______ Agenda
GreyPoopon
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GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
GreyPoopon
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GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Here's how the Sony PS2 works, with inside photos.