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Sony Releases PS3 Firmware Update To Fight Jailbreaks
RyuuzakiTetsuya writes "Destructoid is reporting that the 3.42 firmware has been released for the PlayStation 3, and it has fixed the USB vulnerability that allows the PSJailbreak exploit to work."
Sony's brief announcement of the update refers only to "additional security features," though the EU blog post acknowledges that a vulnerability was addressed. PS3-Hacks.com confirms that the patch is effective against the various jailbreak tools, and they point out a different tool for bypassing the update. Sony told the BBC, "... as we always have, we will continue to take necessary actions to both hardware and software to protect the intellectual content provided on the PlayStation 3."
And it is disingenuous itself to not point out that those same hackers jailbreaking the other OS is why it got removed. Make no mistake, this is a war, and legitimate users are the collateral damage. Neither side is blameless, Sony nor the hackers.
I don't know the technical details of this particular hack and how easy it will be for hackers to get around the patch. However, even if they're unable to stop the pirates for long, the money may not be as wasted as it initially seems. Imagine if it actually were as many people here would like. No DRM was ever put on games, and no one was ever prosecuted for piracy, or even running servers to distribute pirated material.
Once it got into the public perception that pirating games was easy and virtually risk free, I think you'd see a whole new floodgate open that really would destroy the gaming market. You'd get many people who formerly bought games deciding they can save some money by just pirating everything. Then, as piracy becomes more and more commonplace, even many of those who firmly believe it's wrong will start to grow bitter.
Knowing they're continuing to spend money trying to support the game makers only to see nearly everyone they know just grabbing the titles for free. Then watching as company of company struggling just to keep afloat despite making critically acclaimed games that are being played by millions. Many of them will decide it's just not worth it anymore and decide to save their money before the inevitable crash.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think humanity is selfless enough to support a thriving software market on the honor system. I suppose it's possible games could survive in some form as interactive ads that endlessly try to market products to you, but not much beyond that. DRM may always doomed to failure, and lawsuits seem excessive and overly heartless. Even so, I believe the fear of getting in trouble and the effort of getting around DRM provides benefit to the companies that practice them that goes beyond the cost of their implementation.
Once it got into the public perception that pirating games was easy and virtually risk free, I think you'd see a whole new floodgate open that really would destroy the gaming market.
ROFL
What alternate universe did you come from? Pirating software is and always has been easy and virtually risk free. Look at the experiences of Reflexive and 2D Boy, for example. Reflexive released a game with DRM and 2D Boy released one without... both found piracy rates were around 90%. Reflexive estimated that, for every 1,000 pirated copies their DRM eliminated, they gained 1 sale.
Do you think the 90% of people who pirated those programs suffered any reprisal at all? Can you find even a single instance of someone being punished for copying either program? Of course not. Piracy is virtually risk free.
Breaking DRM may be difficult, but it only has to be broken once. The vast majority of the people who download pirated software are just grabbing a copy that's already broken and know absolutely nothing about DRM. For the majority, it's as easy as clicking a link.
And yet... not only has the gaming industry continued to exist, it has grown enormously. Your declaration that piracy being easy and risk free would destroy the game industry is completely, utterly wrong because piracy IS easy and virtually risk free and the game industry has not been destroyed.
The undeniable truth is that the vast majority of pirates aren't interested in buying software. No amount of DRM is going to change that. It's just as true that removing DRM doesn't turn the 10% or so who do buy software into pirates. The figures stay the same regardless of DRM.
Despite what you believe, it seems that about 10% of humanity is selfless enough to support a thriving software market on what is, in fact, mostly an honor system.