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"Install Other OS" Feature Removed From the PS3
Hann1bal writes "The next system software update for the PlayStation 3 system will be released on April 1, 2010 (JST), and will disable the 'Install Other OS' feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update."
Updated 3:49 GMT by timothy: An anonymous reader writes "This comes as something of a surprise. Particularly because only a month ago Sony Computer Entertainment management seemed committed to the continued support of the Other OS option on the PS3."
It doesn't run linux anymore.
Something sounds awfully fishy about this. If it's real, that's not exactly a day I'd want to release something like this.
OCO is Loco
Have you ever seen Sony do a good PR move?
No, the other OS will become inaccessible after the firmware update (the linked article warns users to back up any data on their "Other OS" partition prior to the firmware update).
You could just not install the firmware update, but then you can't use a lot of online features that check for current firmware.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
from TFA:
For those PS3 users who are currently using the “Other OS” feature but choose to install the system software update, to avoid data loss they first need to back-up any data stored within the hard drive partition used by the “Other OS,” as they will not be able to access that data following the update.
It looks like if you have an OS installed and do the update, the OS gets zapped as a part of the update.
GeoHot's hack was obviously way easier to do because he had a powerful userspace to work from.
Perhaps this is what's spooking Sony.
___________________ I want to be free()!
As per TFA: "For those PS3 users who are currently using the “Other OS” feature but choose to install the system software update, to avoid data loss they first need to back-up any data stored within the hard drive partition used by the “Other OS,” as they will not be able to access that data following the update." They'll also prevent older versions from signing in to PSN; which totally sucks as I do have Linux installed on my PS3 and love to play MAG!
You heard right. Even the YDL distro designed for PS3 installation was so slow and artificially hampered that it had little use outside of curiosity for the occasional hobbyist. I touched it once and that was it, it was painful.
How can they sell something with a certain set of features and then just take it away? Thats like Ford saying we are disabling the air conditioners that were previously working on pre 2008 vehicles. WTF? I know, it didn't (doen't) really work all that well (slow) but I did run PowerPC Ubuntu on mine. This is more of an "eroding consumer rights" issue. Why now, considering the rootkit etc.. This just proves once again that Sony gives a rats ass about its customers rights.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
People finally got into the Hypervisor on the PS3. That's pretty much the key to everything from legitimate homebrew to illegitimate pirating. I don't see a way for Sony to secure things in Linux. The Genie is out of the bottle. So this is the option they have taken. It's sad to see even though I never used Linux on it, or know anyone who did. It was nice to know the option was there.
Most tech products improve during their life cycle. Not Sony's. Emulation, Linux... every iteration removes one more feature. By the end of the year, they hope to have removed sound from the PS3, and a year from now the PS3 Omega will do nothing at all.
I bought my PS3 for two things, cell development and games. So to play games I need the latest firmware but the latest firmware makes it impossible for me to do cell development. This was an advertised feature when I bought it(a few months after launch) so I don't see how Sony can do this without facing a class action suite.
In addition, disabling the “Other OS” feature will help ensure that PS3 owners will continue to have access to the broad range of gaming and entertainment content from SCE and its content partners on a more secure system.
lulz...
I can't think of a better case for a class action lawsuit. They are extorting us out of features that we paid for. I bought this version of PS3 for several reasons, installing an alternative OS was high among them.
--why?
No, it doesn't seem that Sony ever gave you anything, if they can take it back whenever they want without you having any say. You are a serf who was granted some small favor from his lord. That small favor was taken back because one of you dared to question him; but sooner or later, for any reason or no reason, lord Sony might have changed their mind anyway.
Either the PlayStation 3 was secure, or it wasn't. If it was, then there is no reason to take any functionality away. If it wasn't, then it was simply a matter of time before someone, somewhere, by some method, did something that Sony didn't like. Either way, it's all because of Sony. They knew what kind of game they were playing; they've played it a dozen times before, and lost every time.
As for him achieving nothing useful, and as to whether he had any damn good reason; you have no idea precisely what he achieved, nor what could yet be achieved by him or others as a result of what he achieved.
It's not totally implausible that the feature allows some sort of exploit, but I can't seem to find anything about one actually existing, or it having come up in the past as a security concern. Is that just a cover to remove it, or are there actually security concerns?
I think it's a huge security concern that Sony is trying to plug up without anyone noticing. Linux has access to all the hardware of the PS3 when it's the OS being ran (implementation isn't perfect yet though). Including it's blue ray disc reader that a lot of people don't normally have access to. This is how the Dreamcast was hacked even though it ran special 1 gig discs. People figured out how to hook the Dreamcast to a computer and make the Dreamcast become an external drive to read the discs and send them to the computer allowing everyone to pirate the games. Now we have the first signs of the PS3 being hacked, removing the Other OS feature removes one problem of Linux no longer being able to be used to install/flash the BIOS for the future cracked firmware (a la PSP style hacks), but it also removes the option of having the PS3 being turned into an external drive to read possible 'hidden' disc data that would only be read with PS3 firmware code.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Ah, that makes sense--- so it's Sony's security they're worried about, rather than, as the press release implies, the security of Playstation owners.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It might have amounted to something yesterday. Now it's just another fringe platform. In the long story of computer history there have been many processors that have been marginalized by their vendors when they really did rock. The Cell is one, and now it's lost.
The thing is, I expected that from Sony because that's what they do - so I never bothered to master programming for Cell. They just don't get it. They never did and they never will. They've got some world class engineers and the poor bastards are restrained from ruling the world by the idiots they have in marketing and the executive branch.
To be fair, Toshiba and IBM (who participated in the Cell design) don't get it either - they'll never release a Cell platform that normal people can afford, and so they'll avoid the synergy that takes it from the fringe to dominance. It'll live and die in their mainframes and that's it - and they'll make a mint migrating their customers to the next fringe platform because God & Everybody knows you can't run mainframe OS's on x86 harware (right?).
But Sony? No, I expect this from Sony. Some people will find a way to break their DRM and run any OS you want on the thing now - but it's too late. That's too marginal and conditional for people who build stuff. Dammit Sony: we have enough stuff that doesn't work with our other stuff! Will you quit with the breaking flexibility please?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I wonder how the HPC community is going to respond; there is a not insubstantial community who heard "150Gflop/$400" and "Linux" and decided to build clusters from PS3s. Those machines can probably just have updates held back, but it makes replacement a problem. To forestall the inevitable "that isn't a serious use" argument, US Airforce owns Something like 2,500 PS3s for compute work.
Killing Linux on the PS3 also presents something of an issue for the other Cell "partners", who seem to be looking at the PS3 as a low-cost Cell development starter kit. The other Cell machines on the market are *much* more expensive (an IBM QS22 blade is $8-20k, depending on configuration, and Mercury Computer Systems doesn't even like talking about how much their Cell boards cost). Given that Cell is an enormously difficult architecture to target, having relatively inexpensive systems to test and train on is very desirable for the other vendors, especially now that so many of the HPC folks are fixated on GPGPU, which is also terrible to program for, but has a far lower cost of entry. It could be that IBM's decision not to pursue Cell in the HPC market is how it became politically tenable for Sony to kill off Linux on the PS3.
No, that's not true. The "Other OS" feature runs through a hypervisor which limits full access to the cell processor and restricts access to the GPU.
As someone who used to buy exclusively Sony products this is just one more reason for me not to buy their products anymore. Lets recap shall we.
They buy draconian laws from clueless congress critters? .. Check.
.. Check.
.. Check
.. Check.
.. Check.
.. yep
.. yep
They want to ban consumers from possessing devices with a record button?
They want to proprietize the marketplace with proprietary DRM infected media formats?
They lobby lobby lobby for broadcast flags?
They lobby to close the analog loophole.
They lie to politicians (about piracy killing profits) for more draconian laws while turning record profits ?
They want to disable you ability to record CDs on you computer with rootkits while lobbying for a piracy tax on blank media?
They sue their customers ?
They are pro DRM, ACTA, DMCA,
Slapped red handed giving payola to radio station DJs to skew the song charts."
Anti fair-use?
And they support the view and by proxy have told Congress that countries that support open source software as part of a gov. procurement policy should be on a watch list.
Hmmm did i miss anything? When I take all these things into account a disturbing pattern emerges hence, when it comes to their products I'll take a pass.
There would be an uproar heard in Congress if General Motors used their OnStar download links to remove a feature. Suppose GM did something so that third-party audio players like the iPod couldn't use the car's speakers. This isn't totally unreasonable. GM's onboard entertainment system has a port for connecting a CD changer. If you didn't buy the CD changer option, that port is unused. There are third-party non-GM adapter kits for connecting an iPod to that port. The dashboard CD changer controls then control the iPod.
GM could probably download an update to change the interface so that this would no longer work. GM would prefer that customers buy a GM audio source; they remarket XM Radio. Arguably, the iPod is a device for pirating music, and removing that capability would enhance the security of the system. It would also eliminate the possibility of unauthorized iPod software interfering with the car's networks, and perhaps the OnStar system.
So why shouldn't GM do that?
Dear Anonymous Hacker with absolutely no clue about how the law works,
I paid for OtherOS - Sony will allow me to keep it and access their online network or I will destroy them in a lawsuit, plus press for criminal charges.
Successful EA Litigant - Versus Spore DRM.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
They're still advertising the "Open Platform" feature on their website:
http://www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/index.html
"There is more to the PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3(TM)) computer entertainment system than you may have assumed. In addition to playing games, watching movies, listening to music, and viewing photos, you can use the PS3(TM) system to run the Linux operating system."
Let's see how long that page lasts...
They took down most of the options on their 'Contact Us' page. You can't e-mail, or anything.
BUT they were stupid enough to leave the phone numbers on the site so feel free to clog their phones with calls expressing your displeasure over their violation of your property rights.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
How can they sell something with a certain set of features and then just take it away? I know, it didn't really work all that well....
1 Because the feature was never advertised
Wrong.
More than a bummer. This option is what has made the PS3 a popular machine for clusters in the science community. This will be a big set back until a work around turns up.
Small claims court is a great thing, and will quite often let you recover the full value of damages rather than getting a coupon or some similar crap from a class-action suit. File for the full value of the thing, claiming that whether you accept the update or don't, irreparable damage will be done to functions you purchased the system to perform. Quite often, they won't even bother to show up and will just quietly pay off what you win. I'd strongly encourage you to look into the small-claims rules in your jurisdiction, and you can also find some basic information here.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
It's probably the minor hypervisor glitch I discovered back in 2.7 that allowed me to send more commands than I should have been able to send to the GPU, right past the hypervisor.
That was the best potential vulnerability we had at the time and I just stumbled upon it trying to figure out if I could tweak the encoder I was writing for the PPC Ubuntu install I had on at the time.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The rampant chipless/modless piracy didnt help either.
The Dreamcast died because Sega needed to get 10 million more units sold and they didn't have the capital to build the machines.
There are a few people that like to claim 'piracy' had anything to do with the Dreamcast's death because geeks like you and me went on an IRC channel and downloaded a game or two and burned it, and found it played just fine. Then we asked a friend with similar interests and PC capabilities and they said "yeah, I did that too!", and mentally we turned that into a baseless statistic that must mean so many people did it that Gamestop was full of unsold games!
Nobody seems to remember that back when the DC was popular broadband was not available in most places and there was some skill and knowledge invovled in acquiring the .ISOs before getting them burnt to a disc.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Why is this modded funny? Does "Finkelstein" sound too much like a jokey "stereotypical Jewish lawyer" name? 'Cause a quick Google search seems to confirm that this is a real law firm.
Sony is negating an advertised feature of their products after consumers have bought, paid for, and privately own them. Sounds like ripe material for a legitimate class-action lawsuit to me.
Some people claim that Sony supported 3rd party operating systems in order to prevent the homebrew community from hacking the PS3. A lot of effort went into hacking the original Xbox in order to run homebrew on the device (the key part done by Bunny). Once this was opened up, it was only a matter of time before people could easily pirate games for the console and circumvent all copyright protections. Therefore, if Sony had not allowed a 3rd party OS to run from the beginning, then more people would see a need to hack the console and it would have been done.
To address the issue about properly hacking the PS3, the PS3 allowed 3rd party operating systems to run however it didn't allow full access to the graphics chip. So you could run linux but getting 3D hardware accelerated graphics was not possible. So if you are no longer able to purchase a PS3 that supports linux, it is possible that someone in the community shifts their efforts to opening up the console to run homebrew or linux which would then allow full access to the graphics hardware and thus properly hacking the system. Unless I am misinterpreting your definition of proper but either way it would be properly f***ed.
People want to use their devices for whatever they desire rather than being locked into what the manufacturer deems acceptable. So by not allowing owners to run their own software / OS, people will now put more effort into hacking the system so they can (or so goes the theory).
Sony already caused massive issues with number crunching by removing the ability to install Linux on the latest slim PS3 models.
The old ones never need to be connected to the internet or have the ability to play the latest games, so they will not need this firmware update and will be unaffected.
This isn't big news, except maybe if they need second hand replacement PS3s.
You not only hit the nail on the head, you drove it in with a single blow Daniel-san style.
This is why I've avoided Sony hardware like the plague for years now.
It's not that they don't release some EXCELLENT stuff.
It's just that they're such control freaks that they eventually decide to take their ball and go home with it.
Never mind that they're killing their own product.
Never mind that they're destroying a potential developer base.
Never mind that some of the things being developed on said platform are incredibly innovative uses of the equipment.
No, it's "MY BALL! MY BALL! MY BALL!"
Wake me when someone catches a clue.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I thought the option was only there to skirt tax laws and get the machine taxed as a 'computer' ... perhaps the laws have now closed the loophole? It could have just been a rumour of course.
1st of april release? Doesnt that seem a bit... Foolish?
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
Let's face it, the only real reason Sony gave the feature in the first place was because they wanted to bolster their case for passing the PS3 off as computer rather than an entertainment device for import tax purposes.
Other OS was just a tax dodge, one that failed in court, and when it did Sony decided to stop supporting it, that's really what it comes down to at the end of the day.
I've no doubt that you're right, GeoHot's actions are a major reason Sony have now decided to remove this feature retroactively too because keeping the feature meant they now had to use resources to ensure the feature was secure. The real blame, the majority of the blame must really go on Sony for telling their users this feature exist for the user's benefit, rather than the reality which is that it existed for Sony's benefit as an attempted tax dodge.
Sony is the real enemy for implementing a feature for the wrong reasons, and then deciding to give up supporting it when those reasons bore no fruit for them. Blame them for only ever implementing the feature for their benefit, and not the users benefit, but half-arsed pretending it was for the users benefit giving users a very misleading impression of the likelihood of continued support for the feature.
You may never post of ./ again. You obviously have too high an IQ to be here. Personally I feel your gift would be better served if you applied yourself to solving world hunger... or the DRM crisis which ever you like.
/whisper DRM, DRM, DRM
YOU can blame pirates for this. I'm going to blame Sony.
Wouldn't have happened if that hacker hadn't cracked the security core through linux. You can go ahead and tell yourself that Sony is being all demonically evil here, but the truth is they are acting in response to a legitimate piracy threat. If that threat didn't exist, then there would be no reason for Sony to waste the time and effort to remove an existing function from a product.
You can blame Sony if you want. I'm gonna blame the root cause of the problem.
Their not They're....
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
When the Cell was first announced, I was very excited about it - I do signal processing and protocol simulation for a living, and having something with 8 powerful signal processing engines plus a dual core CPU to run the protocol stacks was just about a perfect fit. So I got my boss to approve buying a PS3 to begin evaluation on, and we began trying to find a vendor for the Cell chip (we can do our own PCB design and fab if needed).
After many talks with IBM, we found that unless you were willing to buy millions of parts, they didn't want to talk to you, didn't want to sell you the chips, didn't want to support you, here's a nice mainframe blade, isn't that good enough (NO! I need something like microTCA, not a big ass blade!).
Add to that how the PS3's Linux had really crummy support for graphics (because rather than being SMART and making the PS3 have the best OpenGL implementation out there, Sony crippled the system with a dumb framebuffer).
Recently, IBM has announced they are end-of-lifing the Cell blades, and moving everybody over to the newest Power series CPUs. So, you can pretty much bank on the Cell only being in the PS3, and maybe one or two TV sets (and even there, I would not hold my breath - until those TVs are shipping the vendors can and likely will change their minds).
While I would still recommend anybody wanting a Blu-ray player buy a PS3, and they are a decent video game platform, I would NOT recommend anybody even think about trying to support the Cell outside that platform - it will not happen, IBM has moved on, Sony doesn't want to support it.
And while there is much typical slashbot dick-waving posturing about "I'm gonna SUE! CLASS ACTION BABY! I'm gonna DESTROY SONY!" - good luck with that. You are taking a minor feature that most PS3 buyers don't even know about, that is periphery to the main function of the device, and trying to say you are in some significant way harmed by this? You expect an attorney to take on a major class action like this, for what - lulz? Against a multinational with a large army of lawyers? At best, you will get US$10 off your next Sony purchase.
What needs to happen is all the companies that bought PS3s to explore Cell programming need to start pressuring IBM and their limited set of third-party vendors like Mercury Computers to release the next generation Cell (with double-precision SPUs) on something reasonably sized and priced.
Meanwhile, flood eBay with all the now-useless PS3s they had in their clusters - drive the price down and cost Sony money.
www.eFax.com are spammers
All I can say is this is a perfect case for a class action lawsuit. And I hope Sony will start to feel it financially big time.
I wont even mind in this case that some lawyers might get rich from it.
This might be one of the main reasons they are retracting this feature. Companies are selling game consoles at a loss. The real money is made with the games they sell. If Universities and NASA are buying up your consoles as cheap processing power, that's not good for their business.
As I understand it, for a class action to happen, you have to have several preconditions:
1) there has to be an easily identifiable group of people to belong to the class. This would NOT be "the set of all people who bought PS3's that could run Linux" for reason #2 below, but rather "The set of people who bought PS2 to run Linux."
2) There has to be a harm to the class. Thus, just having bought a PS3 that could run Linux would not be enough - you would have to have bought the PS3 to run LInux. Moreover, the harm to you is in proportion to the time you run Linux on your PS3 vs. the time you use the GameOS - so if you only run Linux 10% of the time, you are at most going to get 10% of the price of the machine.
So the only folks who are going to be able to get ANYTHING are the people running Linux close to 100% of the time - folks running clusters, doing Cell research, etc.
And were I Sony's lawyers, I'd then ask "OK, so why are you applying the update? Unless you are playing games or accessing Sony's online network, you don't need to update. Thus, if you really ARE using this mostly to run Linux, you aren't harmed, since your machine will continue to run Linux. And since we aren't selling new machines with this ability, they don't fall under this class."
Thus, the whole "harm" aspect is shut down - thus no suit.
And even IF some set of users could show they both run Linux AND run the GameOS, then the argument would be "OK, so you run Linux 50% of the time, and so need to update. OK, we just cost you 50% of the amortized value of the box. When did you buy that? Two years ago? OK, GAAP says depreciation on that is 18 months, so it has depreciated to zero. 50% of zero is zero. Go away."
www.eFax.com are spammers
Idiot?
Well, you buy a console with X functionalities, and then Sony decides to remove some of them. If you paid for a console which can install other OS, will they return the money to you?
Figure that they want all consumers to buy the new PS3 and in the next update, they close the functionallity of playing games. Would it be acceptable?
Is it acceptable to have functionlities removed after you paid for them? Come on!
Idiot is thinking that because some people abuse something, you can remove it from legal users.
While suing Sony sounds great, it involves finding a lawyer (ideally a class action lawyer) to handle it. But here in the US, we have another mechanism: the FTC.
If enough of us file FTC complaints online, they might take note. I wrote something like the text at the bottom of this post.
The company in question is:
Sony Computer Entertainment America
919 East Hillsdale Boulevard
Foster City, CA 94404
---BEGIN FTC COMPLAINT---
Sony (as Sony Consumer Entertainment America, Inc.) sells, and has sold for several years, a popular device called the Playstation 3. Up until now, this device has two features of note:
1. It supports a feature called "Install Other OS." This allows users to install operating systems such as Linux on their Playstation 3, which many users use for scientific and other purposes.
2. It supports something called the PlayStation Network. This is an online network of gaming users and is critical to obtaining the full gaming experience advertised by Sony.
Yesterday, Sony announced (http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmware-v3-21-update/) that they were going to disable the "Install Other OS" feature on all PlayStation 3 units, even those already sold. Users can opt out of this disablement, but that will in turn disable PlayStation Network.
Sony claims that this is due to "security concerns." These security concerns are probably that Sony realized that "Install Other OS" might allow PS3 owners to bypass digital rights management restrictions. In other words, Sony is crippling an existing product to aid in preventing users from doing something that may hurt Sony's relationship with content developers. (Users attacking the Playstation 3 may or may not be legal, but that shouldn't matter here.)
I am not an expert in the relevant law, but it seems to me that a company should not be permitted to disable functionality of products already sold, especially when the reason that they disable that functionality is to prevent their users from doing something.
Does the PS3's license agreement say that Sony can add or remove features at will? If so, it seems like all the ranting and noise about a lawsuit is for naught.
I see this sentiment a lot whenever class action lawsuits are discussed, but as a lawyer that has absolutely nothing to do with class action lawsuits, I would like to point out that one of the biggest purposes of class action lawsuits that people normally overlook when complaining about them is the deterrence effect.
Class action lawsuits are basically one of the most, if not the most, expensive form of litigation a company can endure. Even though due to the number of plaintiffs, in the end each person might only get a $10 gift card, the combined cost to the company of that are staggering.
In this case, it would be taking Sony to task, and hopefully Sony would see the error of its ways and back down. Even if that is not the eventual outcome, it sends a message to all the other bad guys out there, if you engage in this type of shenanigans, you should think twice because it will cost you dearly.
In a way, the lawyers who bring the suit are acting as private attorney generals, punishing wrong doing that may not rise to the criminal level, but affecting large swaths of the populace in a tortious fashion nonetheless. While no doubt the lawyers involve need to be incentivized to engage in this activity somehow, whether they should be rewarded as richly as they are for it currently is another issue entirely...
So you're the guy who made some law firm crazy rich in exchange for no benefit to the community whatsoever?
Successfully suing DRM-happy publishers is a great service to the community, because it prevents fraud (you buy the game, and it doesn't work - that is fraud). The pay-out in this case is a punishment for bad business practices, and its value lies mainly in that, not in someone receiving a $10 cheque.
I can certainly thank GP for doing what he did, since it makes a difference for me as a gamer who buys (and not pirates) games, as well.
OtherOS was available directly at launch. They heavily advertised the ability to install your own operating system.
And their current "It does everything" ad campaign is a total lie since the newer models and very soon older models with new firmware won't have some of the originally advertised capability.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.