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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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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"
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.
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.
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...