US Air Force To Suffer From PS3 Update

tlhIngan writes "The US Air Force, having purchased PS3s for supercomputing research, is now the latest victim of Sony's removal of the Install Other OS feature. It turns out that while their PS3s don't need the firmware update, it will be impossible to replace PS3s that fail. PS3s with the Other OS feature are no longer produced since the Slim was introduced, so replacements will have to come from the existing stock of used PS3s. However, as most gamers have probably updated their PS3s, that used stock is no longer suitable for the USAF's research. In addition, smaller educational clusters using PS3s will share the same fate — unable to replace machines that die in their clusters." In related news, Sony has been hit with two more lawsuits over this issue.

Comments

Sony is a terrorist organization

[Anonymous Coward]

Bomb them to hell if they don't bring back this feature, vital for national security.

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[Anonymous Coward]

Benjamin Franklin said it best. "Anyone who would trade money for something produced by Sony deserves neither, and will lose both."

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[PopeRatzo]

Bomb them to hell if they don't bring back this feature, vital for national security.

This was their plan all along.

It's payback for Hiroshima.

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[JamesP]

How about this:

Ban them forever from selling to the US Gov.

You know, the whole "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me"

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[smooth wombat]

You know, the whole "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me"

No, no. You have it all wrong. Here's the actual quote:

There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- [pauses] - shame on you. Fool me -- You can't get fooled again. - George Bush, September 17, 2002.

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[commodore64_love]

I don't think the government buys anything from Sony, other than a few consumer electronics for conference room. Most of the time the government purchases from dedicated contractors like Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon, et cetera.

BTW:

A number of those contractors have discovered that dicking with the U.S. Military (example: employees mischarging time) leads to serious consequences. Like millions of dollars in fines. I hope the USAF makes an example of Sony and drags them through the court system, for their false advertising scheme.

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[The Hatchet]

To sell a product with a promise of certain features, and then to act as if it is your own and disable everything you don't want the real owner to have. Disabling the otherOS feature was totally unnecessary. It was just some kind of cruel bullshit, limiting your freedoms on a device that belongs to you. That is the modern way.

Buy a kindle? Have YOUR PAID FOR books removed at amazons will.

Buy a PS3 for clustering? Have your PAID FOR CLUSTER disabled, unrepairable, and suddenly worth its weight in crap as soon as the machines start to die off.

Buy an apple product? well, might as well put your head in a plaster garbage bag and die, they own everything that touches the screen of that device, hell, likely they even own the device, just 'licence' it out to you in some peculiar way.

If sony's terms of service said something about taking away features at their own will, it is not a valid part of the contract. Here in america, we have laws that prevent mega-corporations from making insanely complicated contracts and inserting clauses about how they own your soul and can harvest your body parts whenever they please. This modern pattern of bullshit is why I avoid buying anything that follows that pattern. Unfortunately every day there are fewer options. And soon enough they will all be gone.

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[tekrat]

"Here in america, we have laws that prevent mega-corporations from making insanely complicated contracts and inserting clauses about how they own your soul and can harvest your body parts whenever they please. This modern pattern of bullshit is why I avoid buying anything that follows that pattern."
--- === ---

So,... you have no credit cards, don't own a house or a car either, as far as I can tell, because all these things have insanely complicated contracts that the banks can change willy-nilly if they please.

  I'd also have to say that you don't own a cell-phone either, as most phone contracts are bigger than the phone book. And I'll bet you don't have cable-TV either. Or Health Insurance.

In fact, here in America, almost everything comes with an insanely complicated contract that grants all kinds of rights to the giant-mega-corp, and almost nothing to you. And you're paying them for that priviledge. Ain't capitalism grand?

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[NonSenseAgency]

I spent many years first as Fedral Sales Manager and then Vice President of Sales dealing almost exclusively with the US Government and its affiliated agencies and contractors. Your statement "I don't think the government buys anything from Sony, other than a few consumer electronics for conference room. Most of the time the government purchases from dedicated contractors like Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon, et cetera." is simply untrue. The US Government purchases a great deal from Sony, see http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/mkt-government/resource.latest.bbsccms-assets-mkt-gov-latest-gsacontracts.shtml and http://www.ivci.com/international_videoconferencing_news_gsa_contract_gs-35f-4259d.html and https://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/assets/files/mkt/gov/downloads/gsa_catalog.pdf. This does not even touch upon the COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) purchases where the government agency simply buys what it needs from a local vendor right off of the shelf. There are already procedures in place for prohibiting purchases from vendors that do not meet the terms of their contracts with the US Government. In the case of GSA contracts, they are subject to losing the GSA contract and being prohibited from applying for a new one.

Re:Sony is a terrorist organization

[NonSenseAgency]

I am afraid you did not understand my statement at all. If the federal government posts an injunction against Sony for failing to meet the terms of their contracts, and selling items that do not meet or continue to meet their advertised purposes most assuredly violates their contract, then ALL vendors are affected. If Lockheed or Northrop or any Prime or Subcontractor includes items manufactured by Sony after such an injunction has been issued, the bid is VOID. No contractor will risk losing a contract if such an action is even remotely likely. They will specify some other supplier's equipment instead. Depending upon precisely how the injunction was worded, this could mean that computers bought by the government could not contain CD or DVD drives manufactured by Sony or even something as small as a power supply or cable. Even if the items were purchased COTS rather than off of a GSA schedule or as part of a prime contract, the government still has to right to forbid the purchase of any Sony products from any source for violation of warranty of implied merchantability by any government agency and by extension, from any contractor. Will the government take such action? Probably not. But it is in their power to do so.

COTS = COST

[Anonymous Coward]

There's been a big push in recent years to move to "COTS" (Commercial Off The Shelf) solutions in the government - the military in particular. And while this may be find for things like holsters, backpacks, and office chairs, I think this highlights for EVERYONE, not just bright young aquisitions officers, that sometimes taking COTS technology and using it for your highly specific and critical application is not the best choice. Unfortunately, sometimes (sometimes!) big, expensive, and proprietary in-house solutions really are the best.

(heh. captcha is 'acquire')

Re:COTS = COST

[Brad Eleven]

Meh. Big, expensive, proprietary in-house solutions are rarely the best IMHO. The USAF could have made a deal with Sony.

Re:COTS = COST

[Richard_at_work]

Or just bought a PS3 commercial developers kit and bypassed all of this.

Re:COTS = COST

[TheRaven64]

Not really. It should highlight the fact that you should always require a second source for any off the shelf products that you're buying. If you go for a single-vendor solution, you are totally at the mercy of their whims, when it comes to pricing and availability. A big in-house proprietary system would have cost more, in this case, than simply buying twice as many PS/3s as they required. The Cell is now starting to look dated, and by the time they actually need to replace this system they could just throw it away and build a new one based on whatever the latest GPGPU design is at the time.

Do you really think that replacement nodes in a big SGI machine cost less than a couple of PS/3s? Or that the price doesn't shoot up rapidly once SGI moves on to the next design? Or that there's a large second-hand market for them?

Re:COTS = COST

[JaredOfEuropa]

Proprietary in-house solutions aren't even always the more expensive choice. It's too bad these decisions are often made poorly.

Outsourcing is good, focus on core business, buy-not-build, standardise, 80-20 solutions... all of these make sense, but I am dealing too often with the mess made by people turning these good pieces of advise into thoughtless mantras and moronic MBA one-liners, as a replacement for thoughtful and informed decision making. A lot of todays leadership doesn't want to make decisions; they look for rules to make their decisions for them.

Re:COTS = COST

[teg]

Systems like these have a very limited lifespan. The military saved a lot of money upfront. The consequence of this is that the number of active nodes in the cluster might go down slightly during the system's remaining lifespan (a couple of years, not more). Negative impact? Yes. But enough so that spending many times the amount on getting custom built hardware would be worth it? Very unlikely. And if you go a couple of levels up the hierarchy, risks like this - and cost savings - are averaged out over many acquisitions and projects. I think your conclusion is extremely unlikely.

Re:COTS = COST

[quacking duck]

[...] but its cheaper to buy the PS3 which Sony, like every other console manufacturer, sells below cost and make up the difference with game sales.

USAF buys literally tons of loss-leading PS3s but no games? I think you just hit on why Sony doesn't care about the problem the Air Force faces now.

Re:COTS = COST

[bemenaker]

For some reason, I don't think it SONY would have a problem of selling directly to USAF slim's with an older ROM on them specifically for this purpose.

Re:COTS = COST

[Richard_at_work]

I've used a developer box, you can self sign and deploy to other PS3's, you just don't have a license to deploy commercially.

not necessarily impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

It turns out that while their PS3s don't need the firmware update, it will be impossible to replace PS3s that fail.

Unless they, y'know, get directly in touch with Sony and tell them what they're trying to do. I'm sure in a case like this that something can be worked out. Instead of actual reporting and checking up on the situation, we instead get people using words like "impossible". There are many things that happen every single day that fall into this same category of "impossible", and yet they happen...

Well they have the bargaining power

[Chrisq]

Well they have the bargaining power. Like, if you don't supply us with an OS install feature you better get nervous when you see an aircraft flying towards your headquarters. Or maybe you won't see a thing. Accidents happen you know

Re:Well they have the bargaining power

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem. US missiles have a highly accurate targeting system. Its calculations are powered by a cluster of PS3s.

Opportunity?

[vodevil]

This will be a good opportunity for the government to see how good hacking/jailbreaking/etc. is, and they can install geohot's fix so they don't lose linux support.

Re:Obvious outcome

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Apparently, for the particular bit of number-crunching that they were doing, Cell curb-stomped x86. They then concluded that, if you want Cell, your only options are a few absurdly expensive specialist compute servers(IBM makes one, Sony at least has a model number, I think that there are one or two others) or cheap PS3s. Since, when the started, OtherOS was a standard, supported, option, the only "hacking" involved was the inconvenience of having to touch each machine to kick off the install.

Had their algorithm not suited Cell, the PS3 would have been an absurd choice. Since it did, though, it was actually pretty sensible(barring Sony's hard-to-predict action).

This was already an issue

[Jizato]

The slim PS3s didn't support the Other OS feature from launch, and when they started making the slim models they stopped producing the older ones that did support it. This has been an issue since Sept 2009.

Re:All this backlash will mean one thing

[erroneus]

I don't care about that and I doubt many others do either. What I do care about is that Sony is getting the recognition it deserves on this matter. You simply cannot do this to consumers and expect to get away with it. Sony is building a history of such behaviors including lobbying for law that excludes them from prosecution when accessing computers across the internet searching for infringing copyrighted content, the installation of their rootkits and this removal of features debacle. While people continue to chant "well, don't buy from Sony!" I have to say I am glad to see that more and more people are taking notice and are saying the same thing -- Don't buy from Sony!

Law suits and criminal charges aren't enough to stop Sony. People have to stop buying from Sony to make Sony care. I'm just one guy... I won't buy another VAIO, another Walkman, another Clie', another camcorder, another TV, a PS(X), another DVD or CD with Sony/BMG on the label. Nothing. Not another penny. And the more attention this draws, during a time when people are still a bit more cautious and thoughtful where they spend their pennies than ever before, more people will be joining me in my boycott of anything Sony.

And this message isn't just for Sony. It is a message for any other company out there who would try the same thing.

My Sony Rip van Winkle story

[PolygamousRanchKid]

In the 90's, when I needed any electronic stuff, I used to look at Sony first. I bought most of my stuff from them, never had any problems, and was always satisfied with the product. Call it the highest level of brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Then I fell asleep. I woke up about ten years later.

The Sony I knew then, was suddenly very, very different. Now, Sony will be the last on my list, when I need to make another electronic purchase. I really feel that Sony doesn't give a damn anymore about product quality and customer satisfaction.

Sony rootkiting your PC? Maybe I am still asleep, and having a nightmare . . .

Re:My Sony Rip van Winkle story

[MemoryDragon]

The product quality from Sony still is top notch, it is their dreaded, we know better than you attitude. Example, buy a Sony car radio, excellent built quality, top notch production, but then you pull the key, it makes three annoying beeps loud as hell, to remind you to take off the front plate.
No there is no way to turn that off unless you build a bypass circuit to the speakers or let an amplifier do that.
Number one complaint about Sony card radios for the last 10 years, Sony knows this, are they going to change anything? No!
Same goes for Vayo notebooks, you have to get the drivers from sony, if the driver is faulty and the manufacturer has offered a different driver, which fixes it
you are not allowed to use it (there are hacks though), and Sony often does not deliver the driver anymore because that line of notebooks is discontinued.

It is their we know better than you attitude why I personally have Sony at the bottom of my hardware purchase list nowadays.
Others have shoddier hardware but the support and attided is what influences me to 80% on my purchases. For the same reason HTC has become
bottom provider, my next phone will be an official Google supported one, instead of going for the hardwarewise better HTC model.

Retroactive crippling of hw should be illegal

[FreeUser]

There's been a big push in recent years to move to "COTS" (Commercial Off The Shelf) solutions in the government - the military in particular. And while this may be find for things like holsters, backpacks, and office chairs, I think this highlights for EVERYONE, not just bright young aquisitions officers, that sometimes taking COTS technology and using it for your highly specific and critical application is not the best choice. Unfortunately, sometimes (sometimes!) big, expensive, and proprietary in-house solutions really are the best.

No, what it drives home is that, when you purchase a piece of hardware, it belongs to you, and no vendor should have the legal right to modify what you have purchased without your consent, nor to coerce consent for modifications that reduce or cripple the capabilities of something you have purchased.

Maybe now that military and commercial interests are being impacted, we can get the barest modicum of consumer protection to outlaw this shit (and similar, retroactive software modifications as well, such as Steve Jobs foists upon his hapless iPhone slaves ... it all eventually amounts to the same thing, and puts a lot more than the military at risk).

I know for our trading platforms we would never tolerate this kind of thing from a vendor (and Apple has lost out on this on more than one occasion for exactly this reason). I'm amazed the military hasn't come down on Sony like a ton of bricks -- a large investment bank certainly would have.

Re:Retroactive crippling of hw should be illegal

[jonwil]

They HAVE done something evil.

They produced a product (the fat PS3) and included (and advertised) the OtherOS feature and its ability to run Linux.

They then removed that function.

If a car maker sold you a car with a satnav built into the in-car entertainment system and advertised that the car came with a satnav and then proceeded to remove the satnav function when you took it into the dealer for a service, you would have every right to be angry at the car maker for removing this feature.

Re:Retroactive crippling of hw should be illegal

[Richard_at_work]

In *this* case they have not done anything like you are suggesting - in *this* case the equivalent car analogy would be if you bought a car with satnav, drove it around for a while and then went back to the dealer and bought another car, but between the two purchases the dealer had removed the option from sale.

The firmware update issue does not apply here - the USAF's issues are not related to a firmware update, they are related to Sony no longer selling new PS3's with the feature advertised on older models.

So in *this* case they have not done anything 'evil'. Sony's promise of a feature to you with regard to your old purchase does not stand with regard to a new purchase. Now, I agree that they have completely fucked up with regard to teh firmware update killing already purchased features, but thats not at issue here.

Re:Retroactive crippling of hw should be illegal

[drinkypoo]

As such, they're not so concerned over not being able to buy new parts (many places cannot buy new parts for their existing systems), but maintaining existing ones.

Actually, you're right and wrong. Prior to this problem there was a ready supply of spare parts: Used fat PS3s. Now Sony has changed the functionality of those systems; the majority will have been updated. Now the used consoles are not workable spare parts. To return to the car analogy, it's like you bought a car which was advertised as being the best off-road vehicle on the market, if you just upgraded to monster truck wheels and tires. The dealer then finds out that people are using 4x4 vehicles to get to a magical land where vehicle accessories are cheaper than those sold by the dealer; in fact, they have accessories that make the vehicle useful for more purposes, so that the users are less compelled to buy another vehicle. So the dealer institutes a policy that whenever a vehicle is brought in to the dealer, they remove the front axle and the transfer case, and it becomes a 2WD vehicle; the user is simply lied to, and told that this change is necessary to make the vehicle safe, or perhaps to improve road safety. Now you're stuck with these gigantic wheels on a 2WD vehicle, and you look like an idiot driving down the road with 'em. They can be removed, but it's going to take additional labor, and you're going to have to put the original wheels back on. Unfortunately, in this car, you have to rebuild the entire car and replace all the fluids when you replace the wheels so now you have to do the oil, coolant, trans fluid...

The analogy is clear: At least some people purchased the PS3 specifically because of the promise of being able to run Linux. Sony claims that Linux enables game piracy, but this is false; it enables movie piracy. So for an unrelated reason, Sony is disabling this functionality; all the while lying to the users. Users with a Linux partition still have the partition but cannot boot it. In order to reclaim the space (which is now simply an impediment) users must format the entire disk and redownload content, reinstall games, et cetera. And finally, if you are complaining about it, people will think you're an idiot, because you should have known better.

Sony is evil, and must be destroyed. Stop buying their shit! And especially, stop making excuses for them. They don't deserve it.

Idea

[kurtis25]

I have an idea... Let's make the PS3 useless, then sell a PS4 with the other OS option, when it's time to sell PS5 (to be nicknamed the piss) we will turn off the other OS option in the PS4. We can do this for 50 years before anyone catches on.

The Onion right again

[FireofEvil]

http://www.theonion.com/video/sony-releases-new-stupid-piece-of-shit-that-doesnt,14309/

Re:Oops!

[Jaysyn]

[Citation]

17 U.S.C. 1201(e) (1998)

Exception for Law Enforcement and Intelligence Activities. The DMCA permits circumvention for any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity by or at the direction of a federal, state, or local law enforcement agency, or of an intelligence agency of the United States.

Re:what about folding?

[Verunks]

folding@home has nothing to do with this, it's a gameos application you can run it on any model, you don't need to install linux or anything else