New PS3 Firmware Contains Backdoor

Vectormatic noted the rumor floating around that the most recent PS3 patch has a backdoor, and "Sony can now remotely execute code on the PS3 as soon as you connect. This can do whatever Sony wants it to do, such as verifying system files or searching for homebrew. Sony can change the code and add new detection methods without any firmware updates."

Comments

AGAIN, Sony?

[MarioMax]

Didn't you learn from your mistakes the last time you tried this?

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Dunbal]

Yes, they learned it was SO cheap that it's worth doing in all Sony products.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[poetmatt]

lawsuits? what are those?

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[hypergreatthing]

ohh so you mean besides the sony root kit and remotely disabling blueray player fiasco didn't tell you way in advanced not to buy sony products?

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[ruiner13]

I'm pretty sure the 360 has a similar feature that has been there for a while now... why only bash Sony for it? Its not like MS has a history of empowering consumers.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[critter42]

Because Sony initially DID empower consumers - they touted the ability to run Linux on it, then decided to take it away. People who purchased it for the Linux capability are now screwed and just trying to get what they paid for, and Sony is actively, deliberately preventing them from doing so.

No such previous promises about the 360 have ever been made by Microsoft

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Moryath]

Actually, no. The Xbox360 won't execute code without permission.

The worst it currently does is check that your firmware and the game you are wanting to play are both up to date, and then if either check fails, tells you you will be signed out of Live (but still free to play the game in offline or LAN mode).

Could I see MS doing this in in the future? Possibly. But I really don't think they consider it that big a deal. The people who have a hacked Xbox360 are already pretty much staying offline anyways so it wouldn't do them much good to insert this kind of code.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Joce640k]

img src="facepalm.gif"

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Riceballsan]

They did the first time, however there is a big difference. The first time it was on PC's they don't own. With the way hardware manufacturers are working on rigging the laws, PS3 is Sonys hardware, you are just paying to borrow it.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[TheGratefulNet]

they learned that the kids today will buy anything if its shiny. rootkits? sony music vs the world? optical discs with invasive DRM? annoying copy/read protections? proprietary connectors that cost as much as the unit, itself? remember all that stuff?

wait, hang on:

"oh look, a new video game to keep us distracted. lets get it!"

its impossible to get a boycott going; the 'shininess' wins with today's kids and they do NOT ever vote with their wallets. they buy sony blue ray (no, I'm not spelling it their way), they encourage the DRM with their purchases and sony laughs all the way to the bank.

I can't see any products sony offers that isn't also available elsewhere and better. not the exact same thing, but sony is *fully* boycottable with very little pain involved. its easy to do.

please consider not buying sony. ever. you can find alternatives. you can, really.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[DrXym]

The worst it currently does is check that your firmware and the game you are wanting to play are both up to date, and then if either check fails, tells you you will be signed out of Live (but still free to play the game in offline or LAN mode).

So how do you explain Microsoft are able to wield the banhammer and ban people with modded XBoxes? The answer obviously is they have installed surreptitious checks in the firmware, into games and possibly during signon that test for mods and flags them for review. I assume modded boxes reveal themselves in a number of ways, e.g. by sailing through copy protection checks faster than possible, not reading bytes correctly in some cases and so on.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[The Living Fractal]

You might as well replace "Sony" in your post with any of the top tech companies. Apple is even worse. And yet people have put their market cap at 300 billion. I think it's rather stupid of Sony to spend all this effort doing what they're doing, but I also think it's rather stupid of people like you to get on an internet forum and tell people to consider never buying sony, ever. The vast majority of people who buy a Playstation 3 love it. I own TWO. I love them. Sony wasting its time to prevent me from doing something I was never going to do in the first place is not going to change my experience of owning a PS3, and listening to you I never would've had that experience in the first place.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Sparrow1492]

No, the hardware is yours unless you specifically enter into a rental agreement. What they can do however is licence you the PS3 OS that runs on it and get you that way.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Dunbal]

And yet people have put their market cap at 300 billion.

There's a reason that bubbles are called bubbles. I think it's so funny how the stock keeps going up and up, as if there is no limit. Especially when the company isn't even in the top 100 revenue generators. Enjoy the ride while it lasts - 2008 is already 3 years away. The next crash is coming. No one knows how soon, but $100/bbl oil does not help "consumer spending" at all.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[bdsesq]

How is Apple worse?
When did they root kit your iPod or iPhone?
Who did they take to court for jail breaking?

The answer is they have not done either of these.
You are free to hate Apple or Sony or MSFT.
Just please be accurate when you rant.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Lemmy Caution]

When the Kinetix was hacked to support the PC, Microsoft not only didn't get legal: they celebrated the achievement. MS has not made a practice of suing its customers. They do check the integrity of your system before allowing you to play online - that strikes me as completely reasonable, as part of a TOS for an online service - but they don't sue you if you hack your system, nor force your system to upgrade if you don't want to.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[AmiMoJo]

But what about for BluRay?

Bittorrent

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[AmiMoJo]

Just please be accurate when you rant.

You must be new here.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[WWWWolf]

I'm pretty sure the 360 has a similar feature that has been there for a while now...

That's true - modded 360s get banned from XBL over somewhat similar mechanism. And Nintendo seems to release Wii firmware updates that do shit-all except nuke homebrew. (Don't ask me for details, I've never run Wii homebrew. But I've seen damn-a-lot of firmware updates! Oh, the excitement of seeing awesome free updates from Nintendo and not seeing any new features whatsoever!)

why only bash Sony for it? Its not like MS has a history of empowering consumers.

Two reasons: Sony has had history with this stuff. The backlash against them when they tried to put rootkits in their DRM'd *ahem* superficially CD-like audio media products, and how they handled that crisis, was a very sorry cavalcade of sheer idiocy. Reason 2: PS3 has come a really long way down. Originally it was an epic super-console that was supposed to do everything and anything and run Linux. Features have gone, Linux support was scrapped retroactively, and now Sony apparently has shown, very clearly, that they're not cool with homebrew and all tampering will be dealt with. I've stuck here with Nintendo and MS - at least they've been honestly claiming their consoles are closed platforms the whole time. I've gotten exactly what it says in the package.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[commodore64_love]

>>>the 'shininess' wins with today's kids and they do NOT ever vote with their wallets. they buy sony blue ray, they encourage the DRM with their purchases

Pay?
Purchase?
Not familiar with those concepts, but I know this one: "FREE: The Future of a Radical Price" http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B002V5CUHI

>>>you can find alternatives.

Yep. Emulators.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Eivind Eklund]

Well, I personally don't accept Sony stealing from their customers *even though this time that customer wasn't me*.

Sony first advertised OtherOS (combined with the ability to play new games and the ability to get on PSN) and then removed this.

Theft.

I don't voluntarily give money to thieves, even if they so far haven't stolen from me.

So I've boycotted Sony, and they can say bye bye to the $1000+ per year I used to spend with them.

Whether "lots of people" are happy with them is immaterial - I was happy with what they delivered, until they started stealing from people.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Verunks]

I can't see any products sony offers that isn't also available elsewhere and better. not the exact same thing, but sony is *fully* boycottable with very little pain involved. its easy to do.

please consider not buying sony. ever. you can find alternatives. you can, really.

you are wrong at least for the ps3, it's not replaceable by other products, sure most of the game are available on pc or 360 but I bought a ps3 to play some great exclusive title that you can't find on any other platform, most of those title are made by sony first party studios so good luck hoping that they'll ever come to pc or 360. You can find alternatives for other sony hardware but not for ps3 games, games are like movies so unless you want to watch "in the name of the king" instead of lotr there is no alternative

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[mrdoogee]

Its the chicken and the egg argument. Sony fortified the PS3 because somebody cracked the hypervisor. Somebody cracked the Hypervisor because Sony removed the Other OS option. Sony removed the other OS option because they saw someone could use it to homebrew/pirate.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[sconeu]

And yet, people felt the need to mark this comment flamebait.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Heretic2]

Sorry, what was that? I can't hear you over the revving engine of my Ford GT La Mans SPEC II Race Car in GranTurismo5.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Richy_T]

Methinks you don't really comprehend the concept of a boycott.

It is not about just slightly changing your purchasing decisions as long as it's convenient to you, it's about making conscious decisions to avoid a product or supplier even when it leads to a slight short term negative to you. Yes, that may mean you watch something else instead of LOTR. If you don't want to boycott something, that's your choice and that's fine. Just realize and accept that you don't care enough or simply don't think a boycott would be effective to do anything about it.

Personally, I've been avoiding Sony products for a long time. They've always given me a bad vibe and I wasn't surprised when the shit started becoming actually overt and directly aimed at the consumer. Of the products I can think of that I've walked away from, I can immediately recall the Vaio, a flat panel TV, a cell phone, a Clie, a PMP and an e-reader and anything with the Sony Memory stick. Small peanuts for Sony I'm sure. My life has gone on.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[kiwimate]

You're talking about intangible features - nothing to deprive you of actual material possessions. Therefore, not theft, and not stealing.

Or so goes the argument to explain why pirating music is not theft. (And this one is even more innocuous - it's not even "copyright infringement".)

You can't have it both ways.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Thaelon]

Of course they didn't because we didn't teach them a lesson.

People kept buying Howard Stringer's customer-rights-disregarding products.

Why would he change company policy when there were no negative consequences the first time?

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[overlordofmu]

I like that Sony can proactively look for cheating on the PS3. If you want to jailbreak your PS3, you are running your own firmware and this doesn't affect you anyway. If someone is pissed that they cannot pirate games or run modded games to cheat, maybe they should work harder at cheating and quit bitching about Sony beating them at their own game.

Currated computing like iPhones and PS3's are preferred by some people. I am an open-source zealot and totally passionate about open systems and software. But sometimes, the system being closed or locked down is a good thing.

Now, I do believe that there should be no repercussion for jailbreaking your PS3. Mod away at that fucker, hardware and software, and if someone tries to attack you via the law that is wrong. However, I do not want to see you on the PSN with your cracked PS3 and I don't care if you cannot play new games on it because they require new firmware. You chose to mod the thing and if that excludes you from the walled garden of the PSN that is because it should. A locked down system with verified binaries is a primary method for preventing cheating with online games.

So why do I like Sony? Why do I buy products from a company that assfucks its customers? The answer is "pragmatism". I love to play video games. Now I used to be a PC gamer. However, the constant fight to keep my hardware current and then paying money to a company that, clearly in my view, is a much bigger assfucker of their customer, Microsoft, was expensive and a less preferrable option.

The PS3 is the beautiful piece of hardware. Microsoft's offering pales in comparison to the PS3. For example, I just played "Dead Space 2" without swapping disks and also got the game "Dead Space: Extraction" with motion controls in HD on the same disk. None of that is an option on the Microsoft console.

I have a dedicated firewall, a laptop, a server and a desktop, all running Linux. There are two computers that have versions of Microsoft OS's installed with GRUB handling the multi-boot but it has been months or years since they have been booted into a Microsoft OS. I partitioned my PS3's new hard drive (that I had just upgraded) with space for the Other OS option years ago and then never even attempted to install Linux on it, because there was no need for me to do so. I prefer my PS3 to run the PS3 OS because I am gaming on it and never needed a 5th box running Linux. The loss of the "Other OS" option didn't upset me in the slightest.

Sony does make some damn fine hardware. It is a huge company with an enormous product line-up. Are there some lemons in the line-up? Sure. But "evil" Sony is pushing the tech of audio/visual hardware into the future and making some exceptional products like the PS3 in the process.

Microsoft didn't see the need for HDMI, Blu-ray, user upgradable hard drives, built-in wifi and ethernet both. Sony did. Microsoft gamers are buying add-on kits, new versions of the console and specialty external drives to mod their console. Mine takes any USB thumb drive or external HD without complaint (as long as the filesystem is FAT - no e2fs or NTFS support). I don't have to switch disks to play a triple-A title from start to finish. Upgrading the hard drive took five minutes, a phillips screw driver and didn't void my warranty. A warranty I have never needed because that PS3 is a rock-solid work-horse, used for many thousands of hours and nary a glitch in all that time.

Sony is a gargantuan company and some arms of said giant have done some shit-tastic things. However, they innovate; they create new standards and new products that fit those standards.

As much as I fear the idea of "Trusted Computing" and worry that the day will come where internet access is only permitted on "Trusted Computing" certified devices, I do prefer to do my online gaming in a ecosystem that makes sure everyone is playing on a level field. That no one has auto-aim mods installed is much more valid a reason to do t

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[casca69]

Hey Now... Just because your car company doesn't have a back door to update your engine is no reason to get bent out of shape.
After all, according to the EULA, you only rent it for a one time fee and a monthly cost of PITA, right? ;-)

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[g_rampage]

The argument with piracy isn't about intangible features, it's about the fact that piracy doesn't remove the pirated good from the original owner. If I copy your game or song, you are not deprived of that game or song. It has nothing to do with being tangible or not. It's simply a matter of using the correct terminology. You can argue that theft is the wrong term in this case (off the top of my head fraud might be a better term) but that doesn't make your point valid.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[hazydave]

I do agree... Sony sells the best dedicated console, and even with this move, the most open. It is not in my best interest as a user for them to make stealing software any easier, so I really have no problem, if that's the extent of their use for this interface. And given "secret" update pushes already documented in Windows, I think there's an excellent chance that Sony was, until just now, the only one NOT doing this kind of thing already.

On the other hand, I used to be a big fan of Sony media players, televisions, and camcorders. Today, not-so-much, and that's primarily because others have just made better kit. Sony has long refused to support anything but 1080/60i on their consumer and even some pro-level camcorders... I'm getting 1080/24p, 720/60p, 1080/30p, and 1080/60p on at least one of the two Panasonic camcorders I bought to replace my Sonys. My Sony TV was replaced first by a Mitsubishi, then a Samsung, for the media room... long ago. My last Sony TV lost its place to an LG-LCD last Christmas. And that Sony MD recorder was replaced by Tascam and Samson (Zoom) digital field recorders, and my smartphone, when it comes to play back.

And in fact, one reason they're better products... many of these all use the same SD/microSD memory cards. Even my PS3 supports these. My digital field recorders let me transfer audio directly to my PC... the "WebMD" recorder could have supported this, or MP3 native, but Sony was worried about protecting me from my own live recordings.

In short, nothing magical about the company, any more than any other company. I choose products based on features offered and company reputation, but I had no need to reject Sony based on policies... their products were enough.

As for Blu-ray, that's a big over HD-DVD. While it might not have been obvious to those not in the video world, at least Blu-ray was spun out from Sony to a standards group. While certainly under the auspices of the DVD Forum, HD-DVD was effectively a Toshiba/Microsoft proprietary format. The reason no one but Toshiba made HD-DVD players (other than a couple Samsung BD players hacked to play a subset of the HD-DVD format as well) was simple: Toshiba treated HD-DVD like their own gaming console. They could sell the players at or below cost, because they were collecting the royalties on each disc, just as Sony, MS, and Nintendo do on their respective consoles. No other hardware company could make money on HD-DVD... this same experiment was tried in the 90s with the 3DO gaming platform, with identical results.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[thunderclap]

This is going to sound harsh but as my father was German and an immigrant, and I'm 40 I can say this. The German citizens said the same about the Nazis prior to 1941. Some experiences are better not had. YOU are contributing to a company which deliberately violates laws, manipulates equipment and willingly and without care destroys hardware not theirs for the sake of profit. If that isn't evil, then I am at a loss. The CEO of SONY in my eyes is no better than Honsi Mubarak right now. Mod me down right now. But honestly Sony needs to be taken down a few pegs.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[TrancePhreak]

Sony releases PS3 with OtherOS, no GPU access for it. People find out, desire GPU access. People find vulnerabilities in hypervisor to enable GPU access, Sony notices and removes OtherOS.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[praxis]

Everything you mentioned is a pretty small proportion of entertainment options one has to choose from. Clearly, you feel that the DRM, wholesale admin rights on your box, draconian restrictions on items you "buy" are a price worthwhile to pay for Spiderman movies. That was exactly the point TheGratefulNet was making, that the shinnies are too enticing to allow for any serious message being sent to Sony et. al. The future will only get worse.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[praxis]

While I don't personally feel that Apple is worse than Sony--not in any appreciable way anyhow--they certainly are no better. When I buy a device from a company that has root on that device (as far as I can tell those rights are not remote but I cannot be certain of this) but does not give me root, I find that dirty. Granted, I can acquire root right for myself and I will not be charged with a crime or civilly sued--as they tell me--but the terms I must agree to *after* I buy the device do stipulate that I am in violation of their agreement.

That said, I don't hate them, for that's a strong word, and the value I derive from the product outweighs the dirtiness I feel with supporting that sort of business practice. But I did do the analysis, and since I've "purchased" my device my feelings have drifted towards regret. My next device buying decision is going to have a higher bar of usefulness if I'm going to support "owning" a device under such agreements.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[feepness]

How is Apple worse?

Worse? I don't know. But certainly not a whole lot better with their censorship and lockdown mentality.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[praxis]

I don't think you understand what the part you quoted means, or perhaps you missed the "not the exact same thing" part. You feel that the exclusive titles available on the PS3 are worth degrading consumer rights, privacy, giving up root on your machine, accepting that terms of a sale can be change post sale by the corporation but not the buyer, and all the other things that Sony and others have done in the last decade. That's a perfectly fine way to feel, but that was the point he was trying to make, that people value the shinnies more than letting things go further down towards a master/slave business relationship.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[The End Of Days]

The truth is trolling at Slashdot.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Gaian-Orlanthii]

I buy nothing new from Sony. All my PS 2 gear and games are secondhand and I don't play online. At least this way they make no money from me.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[I8TheWorm]

Too true, and my personal boycott has been going on for ~5 years now. Of course, I'm not a kid and shiny doesn't distract me in the same way.

I don't miss blue ray (I'm with you on the spelling), and don't have any Sony products in my house. Strangely enough, I'm still able to watch tv/movies, listen to music, and use the intertubes with relative ease.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[jabelli]

If you can't see the difference between copying data and destroying it, there's no hope for you. Copying a song would be theft if you copied it from the masters and then destroyed them so that Sony (for example) had to re-record it. Sony deleted data (the "Other OS" feature.)

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Yosho-sama]

Why the hell was I modded troll? Just because you disagree with me doesn't mean I'm fucking trolling.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[AndroSyn]

The German citizens said the same about the Nazis prior to 1941

The CEO of SONY in my eyes is no better than Honsi Mubarak right now.

Really? You equate Sony messing with people's PS3s with the evils of the Third Reich or the oppression of the Egyptian people? Nobody has died at the hands of a Sony updated PS3. Sure this is a dick move, but there is something to be said for PERSPECTIVE.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[ducomputergeek]

But they get banned from Xbox Live, which is a paid for after market service. If you mod your Xbox, you are still free to play it at home off-line or via lan. They do nothing to stop that.

All they do is ban the console from XBox Live. And personally I like that feature since it makes it harder for the average person to cheat with mods.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Khyber]

"You're talking about intangible features - nothing to deprive you of actual material possessions. Therefore, not theft, and not stealing."

BUT it is FALSE ADVERTISING, and then it's also Bait and Switch.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[gmthor]

They probably copied it from the XBox 360 which uses the same technic to ban people from XBox Live.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[phtpht]

How is Apple worse? When did they root kit your iPod or iPhone? Who did they take to court for jail breaking?

Wasn't there some story about Apple bricking all the jailbroken gadgets some time ago?

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[thunderclap]

That's lazy. Self control is the issue. Nothing on that

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Unkyjar]

I miss cartridges.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Khyber]

"You're talking about intangible features - nothing to deprive you of actual material possessions. Therefore, not theft, and not stealing."

If ONLY someone had their original Fat PS3 box, so we could clearly show in court that Sony advertised Linux, we would instantly win, because one of Sony's current defenses (as they scramble across the web to get any hint of advertising PS3 Linux capability,) is that they never officially 'advertised' it at all.

I'd be willing to pay ten grand just for the box. It would go straight to my lawyer and we would force Sony out of America.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[dummondwhu]

If ONLY someone had their original Fat PS3 box

I had one up until a couple of months ago. Then it died so I blasted it with a double-barreled shotgun. The mangled carcass is still sitting on the back seat of my SUV in a hefty bag. True story.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[shentino]

And what right does Sony have to be giving me orders on how to use my own product?

If I want to tinker with it and void the warranty, so be it. They can ban me from PSN too.

And if I was a hacker it's not my job to help Sony protect it's bottom line, unless they hire me as a consultant or something that grants them the right to demand my loyalty instead of simply ask for it.

Unless I'm actively assisting hackers and pirates, or tacit collusion with same is a motivation, the hackers and pirates are using my work on their OWN initiative, and it's hardly reasonable to DEMAND that I inconvenience myself and refrain from what I have a legal right to do based on it making it easier for others to break the law.

I have no duty to police pirates or hackers.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[thunderclap]

Yet. But someone will. Give it time. The fundamental belief that they own all the hardware even though they already got the money they asking in exchange for it does allow that. Its a decision made by a person with a despotic mindset. A thug is a thug regardless if he's ruling people or making wares.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[thunderclap]

I see you don't have the scrot to admit you don't like Hacking, eh? Once you legally exchange money for the product, they shouldn't say anything about using the product period. Honestly, I saw nothing wrong with what Geohot and the rest of them did. Its his system. he wanted to tear it apart. He showed everyone how. Problem isn't 'the people who think they can piss wherever they want and get away with it' (because the homeless and drunks will always do that). It's the fact that Sony didn't want anyone to reveal that. They lose that right when they release the object to the masses. As long as no one makes a new one and claims its there, they should have a leg to stand on. This is how bad everything has gotten.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[alva_edison]

I believe the parent is referring to the box the system came in, which would have advertisement of OtherOS (presumably, I don't have one).

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[exomondo]

I'm pretty sure the 360 has a similar feature that has been there for a while now... why only bash Sony for it?

No they don't have such a feature.

Its not like MS has a history of empowering consumers.

So it doesn't matter how bad you are, you shouldn't be attacked unless you're worse than Microsoft?

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[exomondo]

So how do you explain Microsoft are able to wield the banhammer and ban people with modded XBoxes? The answer obviously is they have installed surreptitious checks in the firmware, into games and possibly during signon that test for mods and flags them for review.

And what's that got to do with a backdoor that allows remote code execution?

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

This is sort of stupidity is why the "intellectual property" crowd is so morally bankrupt.

Let me spell out the difference for you:

1. you obtain information "illegally" - the original source data remains and its user can keep using it with no difficulties. Result: theoretical loss of theoretical income based on a make-believe concept of "artificial scarcity" of information, a concept introduced as an ill-planned and seriously back-firing method of promoting arts and sciences (many other methods can replace this scheme and remove the whole issue but would result in eradication of massive corporate profits based on scams rooted in the current system).

2. you disable a previously working (paid for) software feature remotely - the user can no longer use it. Result: actual monetary theft resulting from loss of access to paid-for functions.

It is "both ways" only in your mind.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[exomondo]

When the Kinetix was hacked to support the PC, Microsoft not only didn't get legal: they celebrated the achievement.

Initially they said they would pursue it legally, but it seems they thought better of that and instead realised this wasn't a bad thing. I'd say it was just the standard reaction from the legal department to any potential IP issue, which then got overruled.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[exomondo]

That's true - modded 360s get banned from XBL over somewhat similar mechanism.

Not a remote code execution backdoor, they don't do anything to your console, they just ban you from their network. Which i quite like, since it means i don't have to worry about script-kiddies running modded boxes to cheat in online games.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[dummondwhu]

Ah, good call. If I come across one of those, I definitely won't blast it.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[spazdor]

Incredible injoke. Well played.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Seth Kriticos]

Oh come on people, please don't label every possible action "theft".

Sony did not steal anything of you, instead they commited "FRAUD". They advertised the costumers features of their product, and removed them afterwards in fairly illegal ways, that's a breach of contract (assuming that most of that small print babling nobody reads is invalid) and as such fraud.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Lutefisk McFjord]

Maybe you forgot how Apple created "rules" designed to push specific people off of their platform, while giving exemptions to their pets? Remember the "bikini ban" that resulted in all apps featuring scantily clad ladies being removed from the app store, even as the Sports Illustrated calendar sat on the front page? Or maybe you forgot about the rules stating 'no compiled code from other languages', which was intended to destroy the 'flash to iphone' project Adobe was working on, only to change the 'rule' to 'you must receive special permission from apple' in order to do so? Some of us hate the idea of a company playing favorites to manipulate the industry. If you are going to make rules, apply them fairly and across the board. Apple does no such thing. And then there's the iphone lying about signal strength. I'm sure that was an honest mistake. Yep. The bad design that caused the iphone4 to short out when you hold it wrong? I can accept that companies make design flaws sometimes, but watching a company refuse to take responsibility, instead telling people to buy an accessory to make it work properly? Classy. Advertising on the glenn beck show to hype the iphone? After including bullshit in your itunes TOS about 'not being used for nuclear weapons'? How can they have such a disconnect, where they pretend to be concerned about humanity, yet advertise on a show that encourages violence against dissenting opinions? The list of affronts is neverending.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[CronoCloud]

It's pragmatism for me as well. I even had Linux on mine. it helped free up the x86 machine for other members of my family to use. I also love having the PS1 and PS2 backwards compatibility.

Personally I've believed that Final Fantasy was more linear than previous Final Fantasies because of the Xbox's storage limits. A game on multiple discs has to be inherently more linear than one on a single disc.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[CronoCloud]

If ONLY someone had their original Fat PS3 box, so we could clearly show in court that Sony advertised Linux, we would instantly win, because one of Sony's current defenses (as they scramble across the web to get any hint of advertising PS3 Linux capability,) is that they never officially 'advertised' it at all.

I DO have my FAT PS3 (CECHE) box, and it DOES NOT mention OtherOS or Linux....at all. I don't know where people are getting the idea that it did, probably from people who keep promulgating the falsehood, but it never did.

They never officially advertised OtherOS. The capability got mentioned on a few geek websites and interviews with geek journalists just before the PS3 launch, but they never advertised the feature.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[CronoCloud]

They removed features because people didn't want to pay the price for a super "does everything" console in a recession. You remember how Slashdotters in particular kept whining about the price, and what they called Sony's "arrogance" in charging that much. Well Sony listened and downsized the console to reduce the price.

Then again, I have a "Fat" CECHE, which I did have Linux on at one time. One issue people rarely mention in articles and threads on Slashdot is the crappy GameOS/OtherOS partitioning schemes available. You can either have 10GB to GameOS and the rest to LInux. (which cripples GameOS with the massive downloads/game caches) or have 10GB to OtherOS and the rest to GameOS (which cripples Linux) Neither is optimal.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[mrchaotica]

Wouldn't "vandalism" or "destruction of property" be an even better description than "fraud?"

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[melikamp]

The answer is they have not done either of these.

You are talking out of your ass. Apple sneaked in a kill-switch into the iphone and admitted it after the fact back in 2008. They are freaking patenting it. If you don't think they sell it to you backdoored, you are just being insanely naive. But hey, that's how Apple makes money: their niche is stupid people.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[DrXym]

And what's that got to do with a backdoor that allows remote code execution?

The fact that MS are suspected of patching games to add those checks? Go google about previous MS banhammers. Console vendors obviously don't want modded boxes using their services and it is quite obvious they are going to develop surreptitious ways of checking for mods.

FFS, the hyperbole in this story is ridiculous. One IRC and people are running around screaming "backdoor". It's clearly just a way for Sony to execute checks during signon or similar. i.e. box tries to sign on PSN, PSN says to box run this piece of code and return an answer. If you don't like it don't mod your box, or don't sign onto PSN because you'll get banned and your PS3 will be blacklisted.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Xest]

It's not as if they hadn't done it with the PS3 either to be honest.

Whatever happened to software backwards compatibility that was promised after they removed hardware support from the original PS3s? that vanished sometime after a lot of people had initially bought PS3s, many likely in part because of that feature, possibly even having traded in their PS2 in the process.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[Eivind Eklund]

I'll meet you halfway: It's both fraud and theft. The fraud happened when they sold it (and turned into fraud with the removal), and the theft happens with the removal.

Though it is hard to say if it would meet the common law definition of either fraud (it miss the "the speaker's knowledge of the fact being false" part of the fraud test), it is in my opinion both morally fraud and morally theft (removal of something that had been sold to another).

As for the theft: Even for people not using OtherOS, value gets stolen. The overall value of a PS3 goes down when OtherOS is removed - it means that the resale value to supercomputers based on PS3s is gone, and the ability to repurpose an old PS3 as a media player gets worse.

Actually, that means that this even affects the people that have slim PS3s: Less "fat" PS3s get repurposed, which means a glut of PS3s in the market, which means decreased value of the used slim PS3s. That connection does not see fraudulent/immoral, though - you'd have a similar effect of e.g. MS lowering the prices on the XBox360.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[man_the_king]

Why the hell was I modded troll? Just because you disagree with me doesn't mean I'm fucking trolling.

Anybody who dares to employ similar terminology such as yours while deriding Sony would have been termed "Insightful", "Informative" or "Interesting". However, since you dared to take an anti-anti-Sony position, you are being modded "Troll".

I guess the /. message is "Either you crap on Sony or Slashdot will crap on you".

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[AK Marc]

Theft requires deprivation. Theft of a service is a real theft, even though nothing was "taken" it still caused a deprivation. Sneaking into a movie theater is "theft" even though there's nothing physical. First, it requires a seat be used, and adds a marginal load to the electric bill (through cooling) and support staff for cleaning.

Theft of an option includes deprivation. You had something (whether a physical something you could hold, or the ability to perform some action). That something is then removed. That is a deprivation. It's something that existed before you had or could do that you can't have or do after.

But copying has no such constraints. If you close the door to your room, you can make a copy or not, and no one outside will ever know. The copyright holder can never know. When you steal a service, the theater can take a photo of the theater when the movie is playing and know exactly how many people are in there and compare that to ticket sales. They know if there's a loss. Why? Because it actually affects them. But copyright infringement numbers are fabricated. They don't know, so they lie to make up inflated numbers in order to gain sympathy to help with a PR campaign.

You can't have it both ways.

I don't know what kind of simpleton you are, but my definitions are consistent and result in copyright infringement not being theft, but Sony's actions falling under it. One results in someone suffering a deprivation of an item or resource (and no, fabricated assertions about some resource that never existed, "potential profit" isn't a resource), and the other doesn't. I only want it one way. My question is why don't you? Why are you perverting the definition of theft to further some agenda?

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[exomondo]

The fact that MS are suspected of patching games to add those checks?

So? A backdoor allowing remote code execution is a security issue.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[badkarmadayaccount]

It's fraud.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[DrXym]

As I said it's hyperbole. If it's part of the PSN signon it's not a backdoor. The box would have to connect to PSN, be issued with a challenge of some form, execute the challenge, report the result, proceed to be signed on. We're not talking about an open port here where any arbitrary passer by can run code.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[exomondo]

As I said it's hyperbole. If it's part of the PSN signon it's not a backdoor. The box would have to connect to PSN, be issued with a challenge of some form, execute the challenge, report the result, proceed to be signed on. We're not talking about an open port here where any arbitrary passer by can run code.

So a *protected* backdoor is of course fine because sony's security on the PS3 is so top notch, as we've seen.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[DrXym]

It's not a backdoor. It's a challenge / response. Easily understandable for anyone who wishes to bother.

Re:AGAIN, Sony?

[exomondo]

It's not a backdoor. It's a challenge / response.

Show me.

IRC

[Ogive17]

Wow, the "source" for this speculation is an IRC conversation.

Not that I respect Sony considering what they've done in the past but I think I'll hold off judgement for a bit longer on this one.

Re:IRC

[hedwards]

I'm with you on that, Sony definitely isn't above doing this sort of thing, but personally I'm going to wait until there's more information available before updating my firmware just in case. Personally, I won't be buying anything more from Sony after this. If they think that they can treat me like this they can pretty much just fuck themselves with the longest, pointiest, hottest poker they can find.

Re:IRC

[dc29A]

I don't beleive Sony are that dumb. A backdoor pretty much opens the PS3 not just to Sony but hackers and most importantly malware writers. PS3 botnet anyone?

Re:IRC

[ElectricTurtle]

As many have alluded and will allude to in this discussion, they *are* that dumb, as evidenced by the fact that they did it before.

Re:IRC

[MacGyver2210]

I think a botnet would be just about the best use possible for that heaping pile of shit.

Re:IRC

[commodore64_love]

>>>I think I'll hold off judgement for a bit longer on this one.

Has Sony done anything worthwhile?
- invented CD.
- invented Playstation and broke the NES/SNES monopoly.
the end

I was planning to get a PS3 once the price dropped, but now I think I'll just continue playing my PS2 and 1 games. The Nintendo Wii is looking pretty attractive (although I hate playing Sonic with that damn controller that doesn't register my inputs). Or maybe an Xbox 360.

Any PS3 games that will not play on the 360? Or maybe just quit consoles and try computer gaming again. Haven't touched a computer game since the 32-bit Amiga era.

Re:IRC

[SilenceBE]

Wow, the "source" for this speculation is an IRC conversation.

Does that suprise you knowing this is Slashdot ? This sites seem to be the fox channel off technology sites. Heavy biased news , no fact checking and the editors have the journalistic integrity of a goldfish. And I know I'm kinda harsh to goldfishes species to compare them with the slashdot editors, so I'm sorry for that.

For a group of people that has combated Microsoft FUD they seem to like the same tactics... .

The checking of installed software for going online is nothing new. Microsoft bans modded consoles for a while now and the only way they can do that is when checking which software or hacks is installed... . It is not they are using magical fairy dust in Redmond that tells them that a particularly consoles has been modded or not.

Don't like it ? Don't agree with the terms of using their networks and go online.

Really is there a place for the geek community that has no (or less) bias ?

Re:IRC

[LordLimecat]

Actually, they HAVENT done that before-- read the article you linked. That was a rootkit, not a backdoor; they are related but seperate. The BMG rootkit did not allow remote code execution; it instead took measures to hide its activity from visibility, causing havoc with some CD drives and assisting some viruses in the process.

Rootkit=/= backdoor. I know its fun to hate on Sony, and I fully support such positions, but lets not distort the truth here.

Re:IRC

[JackDW]

In the absence of effective hardware security, this is the only way to stop people cheating in online games. This has become a big problem on the PS3 since the jailbreak enabled it.

On the PC, where there was never any hardware security to prevent cheating, publishers have been using the same technique for many years. Consider Blizzard Warden, Punkbuster, and Valve Anti Cheat. All of these allow the publisher - or their authorised agents - to download and run code on your machine when you connect to the online service.

Now Sony's platform is thoroughly broken, Sony has to adopt Punkbuster/VAC/Warden-style technology. It's either that, or suffer a mass exodus of players to other platforms which will be free of cheats.

Re:IRC

[Dunbal]

Yeah it's not like any useful information gets exchanged over IRC.

Re:IRC

[erroneus]

You mean their track record for shoddy products, crappy product support, the previous rootkit installs and their close ties with the RIAA haven't been reason enough for you?

Re:IRC

[VGPowerlord]

Sony also invented the 3.5" diskette.

Re:IRC

[Cley Faye]

Any PS3 games that will not play on the 360? Or maybe just quit consoles and try computer gaming again. Haven't touched a computer game since the 32-bit Amiga era.

I'd say, Disgaea 3. That's one game that make me want a PS3... Sadly, as good as it is, it's still not good enough to counter Sony "bend-over" policy.
I really hate it when titles that can perfectly work on every recent system get locked down to one without reason (at least, good reason).

Re:IRC

[scorp1us]

I didn't think Sony would remove the Linux option, which was a feature from day 1. I was wrong.

Re:IRC

[hedwards]

It's the second product of theirs I've owned and the other one was a laptop which was just fine. When I got the PS3 it was cheaper than the other options for a bluray player.

Re:IRC

[nicholas22]

Actually, they HAVENT done that before-- read the article you linked. That was a rootkit, not a backdoor; they are related but seperate. The BMG rootkit did not allow remote code execution; it instead took measures to hide its activity from visibility, causing havoc with some CD drives and assisting some viruses in the process.

Rootkit=/= backdoor. I know its fun to hate on Sony, and I fully support such positions, but lets not distort the truth here.

Dear Sony stakeholder, The point is that they are both malicious. Thanks.

Re:IRC

[commodore64_love]

Nope. Sony's design was rejected. So were most other 3 or 3.5 inch variants. The final Floppy was based on a conglomeration of multiple companies, similar to how the DVD was created.

Somebody else wrote:
>>>What monopoly?

NES had over 90% share of the market. SNES was closer to a 50-50 share with Sega Genesis/megadrive.

Re:IRC

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I think I'll hold off judgement for a bit longer on this one.

I'm with you on that,

Personally, I won't be buying anything more from Sony after this. If they think that they can treat me like this they can pretty much just fuck themselves with the longest, pointiest, hottest poker they can find.

Well, so much for that.

Re:IRC

[ElectricTurtle]

Never did I say rootkit==backdoor. The parent I was replying to was saying that Sony wouldn't do a thing that opened the PS3 to malware writers, and the rootkit, by *your* own example "assisting some viruses in the process" did exactly ... what? The same thing. Before. Do you get it yet?

Re:IRC

[Tapewolf]

Has Sony done anything worthwhile? - invented CD. - invented Playstation and broke the NES/SNES monopoly. the end

Also Umatic, Betacam, and C-format (with Ampex). DASH. The APR series. They did a good job with professional A/V gear, and their earlier reputation is probably built on the back of that.

Re:IRC

[morari]

I'm pretty sure that Philips was actually the driving force behind the creation of the Compact Disc. Besides, there was no Nintendo monopoly by the time Sony entered the console game... Sega had been providing ample competition, especially with the Genesis.

I'd say ditch the consoles. Most decent console games are also available on the PC. The handful that you'll miss out on won't really matter in the long run anyway.

Re:IRC

[webmosher]

I cannot attest to the current quality of Sony products, as I have refused to even look at their products for 15 years (well before all this rootkit business).

I was bilked by their shoddy products many years ago, and discovered then that Sony has very distinct lines of products: 1) High end... which are probably worth it, but which I will not touch simply because I think other companies provide better products for the same price point and 2) everything else, which is at various price points. While the external style of these various products is quite good, I personally feel the internal electronics are no better than buying bargain electronics brands like Emerson, RCA, etc.

Just my opinion though.

Re:IRC

[MikeBabcock]

Not to mention, we already know Amazon does this with Kindles and Google does it with Android, why would we be shocked if a game company did it with their game console?

Re:IRC

[MikeBabcock]

That wasn't the point at all actually. The point was that one is internally consistent with their goals and the other is not.

Re:IRC

[realityimpaired]

Not going to name a lot of names, but I recently bought a Panasonic Blu-Ray player... while rooting around in the system menus I found, not even buried that deeply (only 2 menus in), an abridged copy of the GPL and LGPL, with links to where I can go to read the full license (on gnu.org), and an e-mail address and snail mail address where I can request the full source code for the player.

It came with the caveat that they would wait until the product had been on the market for 3 years in order to protect their ability to market the product... that's reasonable, IMO. And when you compare that to the actions of other companies, like, for example, Sony, well... 'nuf said. In terms of the electronics that're actually inside the equipment, there's only a bare handful of actual manufacturers... the real point which sets the two apart is their actions as a corporate entity, and given the choice, I'd go for LG or Panasonic over Sony any day of the week.

Re:IRC

[Maxo-Texas]

I stopped buying Sony products i 2001.
It was a horrific customer service incident.

I've gotten by just fine without them.

Re:IRC

[Entropius]

Panasonic, for one.

I used to have a Panasonic digital camera, of the "superzoom" type. The lens (which had the fastest aperture of any superzoom lens available) incorporated anomalous-dispersion glass and was well-designed, and thus had pretty low levels of chromatic aberration; the residual chromatic aberration had been characterized by the lens designer and was cleaned up in software in the camera. For what it was, it took amazing pictures.

Sony made a competing product. It had all sorts of shiny stuff advertised on the box -- lots of megapixels, various gee-whiz modes, "smile shutter", all sorts of stuff that can be marketed -- but the lens was *shit*, with nutty amounts of chromatic aberration, so it didn't matter what you did with it -- you weren't going to take good pictures at the long end of that lens, gee-whiz stuff or no, because the lens sucked.

Re:IRC

[DrXym]

Sony, Samsung and no doubt others already release the GPL / LGPL components to their firmware, e.g. here. I very much doubt Panasonic would be able to release the full source to their firmware even if they wanted to due to legal commitments. More likely they're referring to the GPL / LGPL pieces too, or bits they've accidentally infected with GPL code.

Re:IRC

[index0]

You do know if you installed any Ps3 firmware after Dec2009, you agreed to a EULA that has the following:

"To the extent permitted by applicable law, your rights to use or access the current version of the System Software will cease upon installation of a newer version of the System Software onto your PS3 system, whether such installation occurs through manual or automatic download by SCE through SCE's online network, or otherwise."

Re:IRC

[Zelgadiss]

Any PS3 games that will not play on the 360?

Off the top of my head.

Uncharted 2 & 3
God of War 3
Demon Soul
Killzone 2 & 3(upcoming)
Gran Turismo
LittleBigPlanet
Resistence 1 & 2 (I think)

Re:IRC

[anyGould]

That was my thought as well. I figure we'll see two things in short order:

1. Hackers figure out how to access the backdoor, opening the PS3 for their *own* software.

2. Crackers figure out how to change the backdoor so that Sony code gets ignored (and whatever responses Sony is looking for are auto-generated - "yep, did that. *snicker*")

Re:IRC

[anyGould]

If I owned a PS3, I'd be looking to exactly what extent my applicable laws permitted this sort of thing...

Re:IRC

[drzhivago]

All those games listed except for Demon Souls are made by Sony, so it's kind of like saying "You can't play Super Mario Bros. on your PS3."

And the sequel for Demon Souls will be available on the 360.

Re:IRC

[Zelgadiss]

He asked

Any PS3 games that will not play on the 360?

not

Any 3rd party PS3 games that will not play on the 360?

Hence I saw no reason to exclude Sony 1st party exclusives.

Re:IRC

[g_rampage]

Actually the point was "I don't believe Sony are that dumb." Not malicious.

Re:IRC

[overlordofmu]

Uncharted 1, 2 and (as of November, 2011) 3, Gran Turismo 5 and Infamous are all PS3 exclusive and more than worth the $60 price of admission in my opinion. Infamous is one easily overlooked but it should not be missed. It is an open sandbox superhero game that is a joy to play. You really feel like the city is your playground and can bat your foes around like a cat toying with a wounded baby bunny. Savagely fun!

Re:IRC

[drinkypoo]

Putting a rootkit on your computer to control your copying is consistent with Sony's goals of dominating media. Putting a backdoor in the PS3 is consistent with Sony's goals of controlling your PS3. They have demonstrated their immense hubris time and time again, especially as relates to the PS3; $600 being probably too cheap, for example. What is inconsistent about this (supposed) action?

Re:IRC

[drinkypoo]

invented CD.

The work was done by Sony and Philips engineers. I worked with one of the key engineers (well, I was in IT, so it is more accurate to say I worked alongside or perhaps near him) at Silicon Engineering. This story would be a lot cooler if I could remember who it was.

invented Playstation and broke the NES/SNES monopoly.

I guess you forgot about Sega, which had a quite successful business selling video games at the time. The Playstation forced them to reevaluate their strategy and they developed the Dreamcast, perhaps their first console that was really designed for ease of development. Then Sony published specs they knew to be total bullshit which showed their console to be twice as powerful as the Dreamcast, when in reality it was about as powerful, which had a chilling effect on DC sales. They murdered Sega (as a hardware company) with fraudulent specifications. (They also overkilled Lik-Sang, for which I can never forgive them.)

If you don't want to do multiplayer single-screen gaming, then you should just head back to PC/Windows gaming. Try to avoid Steam if you can, it's such a damned hassle.

If you do want to do multiplayerblahblahblah you should definitely get a Wii with MotionPlus, which is in my opinion an entirely different experience. Stick to only titles which will make use of it and be happy. I find that there is substantial jitter in the direct pointing no matter what I do, but stuff like bowling went from meh to fantastic when I got to use the MP. I barely use my Wii because it doesn't have MP and it annoys me... it's on the list I guess.

Re:IRC

[ClickOnThis]

As many have alluded and will allude to in this discussion, they *are* that dumb, as evidenced by the fact that they did it before.

Sony has a long history of shooting itself in the foot. And if you'll excuse the extended metaphor, they stand on their customers' feet while doing it.

Anybody remember Betamax? Sony created a superior technology. Then they shot themselves in the foot (they were tight-assed with licensing and lost out to VHS.) And they shot their customers in the process (orphaned the Betamax owners, by driving content-providers exclusively to VHS.)

I was pleased when Sony won the Blu-Ray vs HD DVD battle, because it seemed that Blu-Ray was a superior technology. And now they're screwing this up too. But this time, I want them to lose.

Re:IRC

[commodore64_love]

>>>Uncharted 2 & 3, God of War 3, Demon Soul, Killzone 2 & 3, Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet, Resistence 1 & 2 (I think)

None of those are compelling reasons to buy a PS3 if I've already got a Wii and X360 (I don't but I'm planning to acquire one of each). Maybe if you listed something "unique" like Final Fantasy 14 or Space Channel 5, part 3, but you did not so I'll pass the ps3.

Re:IRC

[TrancePhreak]

Honestly I found Disgaea 2 more enjoyable. Sure 3 has some new crazy stuff, but it just falls short on the rest.

Re:IRC

[sjames]

Sony co-invented the CD. Phillips independently came up with their own. Then (having learned from the Betamax debacle) they worked together on a unified specification that became the Compact Disk. We would have had something very CD like with or without them.

Meanwhile Phillips has never launched a trojan that would get an individual many years in the slammer.

Re:IRC

[Zelgadiss]

Each to his own. You like what you like.

But Final Fantasy 14 ... I would advise you stay away from that game.
It's been universally panned, and considered one of the worst MMOs to date.

Re:IRC

[Khyber]

"Has Sony done anything worthwhile?
- invented CD."

BZZZT! Philips.

Re:IRC

[JackDW]

Yes, but how do you catch the cheaters? Answer - you use something like Warden, VAC, or Punkbuster. Then, having detected them, you ban them from online play at some future point.

My point is that Sony are not really doing anything strange or especially frightening. Rather, they are adopting a long-established approach to detect cheats on the PC, hitherto unnecessary on consoles due to the secure execution environment, but made necessary now because of the jailbreak.

Re:IRC

[JackDW]

The only way to stop online cheating is if all the crucial game decisions are validated by the game server.

That's only applicable to certain sorts of game. In particular, it doesn't prevent aimbotting, or modifying the game resources so that the walls are transparent.

It's certainly true that you can write an aimbot that modifies packets enroute. But still, it is possible to do things about that. For instance, Blizzard seems to encrypt the headers of the packets used by WoW with message authentication codes (MACs), making it difficult to change the packets unless you know the current encryption key. To get the key, you'd need something running on the client PC - and that something could be detected by Warden at any time, leading to banhammer.

Re:IRC

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Actually, the CD was invented by Phillips

Re:IRC

[exomondo]

I didn't think Sony would remove the Linux option, which was a feature from day 1. I was wrong.

I believed it when a spokesperson said they would not remove it from the original fat PS3.

Given all the marketing material for the PS3 about how it's 'not a gaming console, it's a computer', how it 'only does everything', etc... I don't see how they are going to be able to make the PS4 ever sound superior when they can't put that sort of stuff in there (or maybe they will in the hope that the masses will trust them not to remove those features again).

Re:IRC

[exomondo]

Any PS3 games that will not play on the 360? Or maybe just quit consoles and try computer gaming again. Haven't touched a computer game since the 32-bit Amiga era.

There are quite a few PS3 exclusives, which i why i bought a PS3 in the first place, just to play the PS3 exclusives (everything else i get on xbox) but since the otheros removal it's been relegated to simply being a media center...and in fact since i got a TV with superior media center functionality built into it the PS3 isn't much more than a historic ornament in memory of a once great device.

Re:IRC

[commodore64_love]

Ooops. I meant 15. I'd buy a PS3 to get a game like Final Fantasy 15, if it was exclusive (which I doubt).

Re:IRC

[Zelgadiss]

You have a surprising amount if faith in SE, given their recent track record. :p

The last decent game they made on home consoles was FFX IMO, over the years my faith in them has all but disintegrated.

Versus is the last chance I'm giving the FF brand.

Re:IRC

[hedwards]

LOL, well yeah I misspoke, I meant that I'd hold off my judgment about flashing the next firmware until I get confirmation. And I'll not be buying any more of their products due to the other things that we know they've done, as in taking away the otheros feature and removing features from more recent editions.

Re:IRC

[man_the_king]

I really hate it when titles that can perfectly work on every recent system get locked down to one without reason (at least, good reason)

I suppose you think the same way about "Gears Of War" or "Halo" series as well, or do you only resent anything being exclusive to the PS3?

Re:IRC

[Cley Faye]

No, my hatred is not exclusive to the PS3. Since I play mostly on PC and don't have an Xbox360, the same goes for some titles here (not the two you mentionned, they are really overrated).
However Xbox exclusives tend to show up on PC after a while lately, but with PS3 exclusive we can barely hope for a port on the PSP (I'm still talking about Disgaea) or nothing at all.

Re:IRC

[man_the_king]

Not to forget that all of these games are superb.
By the way, you also forgot:
1st Party
--------------
Uncharted 1
God of War Collection
Demon Soul
LittleBigPlanet 2
MAG
Warhawk

Non 1st-Party
--------------------
fLow, fLower, Journey
PixelJunk games
Heavenly Sword
MGS4
Resistance 3
Heavy Rain
Ratchet and Clank Future TOD, Ratchet and Clank Future ACIT
...just to name a few more.

Re:IRC

[man_the_king]

Indeed. Expecting the Slashdot trolling moderators and posters (who say "anti-Sony post = Insightful, Informative, Interesting" and "non anti-Sony post modded -1, 0 or 1") is like expecting a jury of white supremacists to impartially adjudicate a case with a black defendant.

Re:IRC

[LordLimecat]

Being wrong is being wrong. Your post clearly said "They have done this before" when no, they didnt; that was a completely separate category of maliciousness.

You seem to be assuming Im defending Sony, when in fact I am trying to correct an obvious distortion of reality. Just because Sony commits one type of malicious behavior, does not make it appropriate to go accusing them of another (like "they write computer viruses" or "they brought down the internet" or "they kill puppies").

Re:IRC

[jisatsusha]

I don't see how it'd do that. All they'd need to do is have the rootkit check that the downloaded code was signed by Sony, and then sign any code updates they push.

Re:IRC

[man_the_king]

No, my hatred is not exclusive to the PS3. Since I play mostly on PC and don't have an Xbox360, the same goes for some titles here (not the two you mentionned, they are really overrated). However Xbox exclusives tend to show up on PC after a while lately, but with PS3 exclusive we can barely hope for a port on the PSP (I'm still talking about Disgaea) or nothing at all.

Fair enough.

Sadly, as good as it is, it's still not good enough to counter Sony "bend-over" policy

However, I think you are going a bit overboard here by falling in with the typical Slashdot "Sony is teh evil" herd mentality. Among most of the haters here, I see about as much rational thought applied as a group of white racists would apply towards a colored person.
I have a PS3 and I bought it for playing games, watching movies, streaming video and audio, etc. I was annoyed a bit when Sony removed OtherOS from my Fat PS3, but could understand where Sony was coming from, as Sony removed OtherOS IN RESPONSE to the first Geohot hack which abused the OtherOS feature.
But you know what, I would rather have that inconvenience than have Sony's ability to create hardware and games - the central aspect of the PS3 being games, movies, music and photos - I want endangered.
If a person truly wanted to boycott EVERYTHING immoral and unfair, he would have to renounce his citizenship and go "live off the land" on an uncharted island somewhere. Selective boycotting is petty and hypocritical. Most of the haters on here are more than compromising with other systems and other companies, but because it is cool to hate Sony right now, like any college kid they will fall in to be with the "in" crowd - hence the pattern of modding up anti-Sony posters and modding down non anti-Sony posters.

They should have bought a real computer.

[h00manist]

Makes you wonder how safe is it really to use these "game console" things, which is really a computer with no local rights to OS control.

Re:They should have bought a real computer.

[clang_jangle]

The wireless providers know only this model, and their business is booming. Don't think this isn't the future of all consumer-level computing. The freedom was nice while it lasted...

Re:They should have bought a real computer.

[lavers]

I'm just holding out hope that "real" computers will at least remain available to those who know what they're looking for. Might get to the point where we have to build them from scratch in our basements again...

Re:They should have bought a real computer.

[commodore64_love]

Or we could just run Linux.
  - I don't like linux, but then I don't like an OS that is controlled by Sony or Microsoft either. Whatever happened to respecting the citizens' property & leaving your goddamn megacorp hands off it? (Yanks wire from wall.)

Re:They should have bought a real computer.

[Dunbal]

What's there to be safe or unsafe about? It's a GAMING console It's also on the "good" side of your router, doesn't have a firewall, and in theory has access to your entire home network. It is most certainly a security risk.

Re:They should have bought a real computer.

[peppepz]

I share your fear.

I'm fine if Apple's tablets run a special-purpose, consumer-only OS that limits your freedom. If the Mac shows signs of going in the same direction, I have a bad feeling. If then Google releases a netbook with a locked boot loader that will only load Chrome OS, which in turn requires you to log in with your Google Account upon power up, I start to worry.

Perhaps RMS wasn't so paranoid when he warned against "the cloud" after all.

Re:They should have bought a real computer.

[Rob the Bold]

Makes you wonder how safe is it really to use these "game console" things, which is really a computer with no local rights to OS control.

Aw, cmon, what could possibly go wrong?

Re:They should have bought a real computer.

[Nursie]

Not only that but it also has access to an email address you used to sign up, a username and a password. And these may be attached to a credit card record online.

Re:They should have bought a real computer.

[ducomputergeek]

I bought my last computer for my home in 2007. These days all my home computing needs are served by two devices: Xbox (used to stream Netflix primarily these days) and my iPad. And the next TV I buy will probably have Netflix built in...

At work I'm completely out of the day to day development. I haven't written a line of code since July and I've turned over code review to someone at the start of this year. My sole concern now is overall systems architecture and generally answering hardware/networking questions the programmers have sometimes. The rest of my day is spent looking at statistics and customer requests/complaints figuring out what changes should/need to be done for the next version of our product.

Who?

[chemicaldave]

Who is logging into their PSN account with homebrew on their PS3?

Re:Who?

[Chyeld]

Who is logging into their PSN account with homebrew on their PS3?

People who like watching Netflix & using Homebrew?

Sony??!?

[elrous0]

But such a control-freak move seems so out of character for Sony. I mean, Sony installing an intrusive backdoor that could potentially be abused, just to fight a few pirates? I can't think of a precedent for that.

Re:Sony??!?

[Megane]

Woosh! The sarcasm passed right over your head. You even missed what was really being hinted at, the CD rootkit fiasco.

Re:Sony??!?

[peppepz]

Woosh, I was in my turn sarcastically suggesting that there is a much more recent and appropriate precedent of a console manufacturer protecting online gaming on their platform.

News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this surprising? Some might say backdoor, all it is is an update mechanism. Are there going to be articles on how Firefox has a backdoor that allows execution of any code Mozilla want?

Re:News?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Sony already had control of the system for anyone that connected to PSN. They added some more checks because some people were bypassing that control (in fact the same checks that Microsoft has been using for quite some time on XBox Live). This should not surprise anyone, and really doesn't change anything. You can still run your shitty custom firmware and play your pirated games, you just can't sign into PSN, which really shouldn't surprise anyone. That is of course if this random conversation from an IRC channel that somehow made the front page of Slashdot has any actual basis in reality.

Re:News?

[h00manist]

Why is this surprising? Some might say backdoor, all it is is an update mechanism. Are there going to be articles on how Firefox has a backdoor that allows execution of any code Mozilla want?

There is such a thing a being a trusted party, yes. But still, people will denounce and despise Mozilla, if Mozilla starts losing trust, showing they want to force people to run code that is harmful to their needs. So far Mozilla has not shown it's in their interest or values to do such things. People run their updates and trust them.

Not a rootkit

[Lord Byron II]

The "article" calls this a rootkit. The summary calls it a backdoor. Neither is strictly true.

Rootkits allow unauthorized users root level access and backdoors allow unauthorized remote users access. In this case, you're installing Sony software and this software allows Sony to autoupdate their software and remove cracks. This isn't much different from Chrome autoupdating or Firefox blacklisting certain extensions. The only real difference is that Sony might not have been all that forthcoming about the fact that this new firmware has this capability. My guess is that if you look at the EULA carefully, it does specify that they are allowed to do this.

I would suggest that if you think they have trampled on your rights, then take them to court. Sony will just keep making their firmware more and more "evil" until a sizable number of users stands up and says "no more".

Re:Not a rootkit

[SockPuppetOfTheWeek]

The "article" calls this a rootkit. The summary calls it a backdoor. Neither is strictly true.

Rootkits allow unauthorized users root level access and backdoors allow unauthorized remote users access.

It is unauthorized access. Unauthorized remote root access by Sony to a PS3 that belongs to an end-user who never gave them permission to do whatever it is they needed remote root for.

Oh, you may say it's in the EULA, but whether or not that holds up in court is another matter. They can't just put whatever they want in the fine print and expect it to be contractually binding. Their EULA could say somewhere in the fine print that Sony had remote access to root your firstborn's backdoor, but that wouldn't be a legal contract...

Re:Not a rootkit

[Svartalf]

Actually, your definitions are not accurate...

Rootkits allow remote users, authorized or not, clandestine root level access to a system without any auditing showing when it occurred- it injects the following into a system.

Backdoors allow a remote user a way into the system outside of the security and auditing of a system.

Neither of these require "unauthorized" users to be using them- and Sony claiming it's "authorized" to do so through it's PSN EULA does not negate that it's pretty much a backdoor that was not there before that was inserted via a recent firmware update. There is likely to be no real security management within this framework (heh...they didn't get the rootkit right or their PS3 security system right, what makes anyone think this will be any different?) and the moment someone wiresharks the protocol Sony's using for this thing, the bad guys will be able to do worse to you, including probably pushing botnet updates to the boxes. Real smart. One more boneheaded thing in a string of them from Sony. You'd have thought they'd have learned from the rootkit fiasco about this stuff, but noooo...

Re:Not a rootkit

[Svartalf]

Actually, that sort of verbiage can negate a contract or agreement. It has to have a definitive nature at the time of agreement and it needs notice for the change so you can either negotiate new terms or end the same if you don't agree with the new changes. Any verbiage that allows the contract to change so much on a whim as you're implying renders the contract null and void as there's no way to be able to be in compliance with the terms at any given time.

Re:Not a rootkit

[Andy Dodd]

A key thing to consider here - Since the firmware updates have been broken "wide open", there are no authentication secrets for this backdoor that Sony is in possession of that other parties are not.

Basically - Sony has access to this backdoor but SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE.

(If it exists, since the evidence supposedly a convo from bash.org - can't read TFA from my current location.)

Re:Not a rootkit

[Svartalf]

Agreed...on all counts there.

Re:Not a rootkit

[JackDW]

That's incorrect. Nothing forces Sony to reuse the compromised system keys for their back door. They could (should) generate and use entirely new keys, which will be used to validate all downloaded code. The new private key would remain secret. And if they get the cryptography algorithms right this time, this measure shouldn't create any security risk for PS3 owners.

Re:Not a rootkit

[halcyon1234]

This isn't much different from Chrome autoupdating or Firefox blacklisting certain extensions.

It wouldn't be-- if Firefox removed the optional "Check for Updates" setting, changed your hosts.txt file and router's routing table, added no new features with the update, and would only show cached, offline pages until you submitted to the update.

So except for nearly everything being different, it's exactly the same.

Re:Not a rootkit

[peppepz]

This is like saying that Windows Update is an unauthorized access by Microsoft to a Windows installation that belongs to an end-user who never gave them permission to do whatever it is they needed remote root for (hint: the end-user gave them the permission, by accepting the EULA that appears the first time you run Windows Update, and every time the conditions change).

And this behaviour is not limited to consoles only: all online games for PC I've used, have a license agreement that grants to the maintainer of that game a permission to run a software on my machine monitoring the processes running on my system to ensure that I haven't tampered with the game code.

Re:Not a rootkit

[segin]

actually, they can put whatever they want in the EULA and it is contractually binding, that's why those pesky pirates always avoid accepting Sony's EULAs - the "you agree for us to kill you" clause can be a real killer for some

Re:Not a rootkit

[JackDW]

Thanks for that. I am still right.

The topic here is remote exploits, not local exploits performed by the PS3 owner. Quoting: "Sony has access to this backdoor but SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE." (great grandparent).

If you want to compromise other people's PS3s, the backdoor is no use to you, provided it's correctly implemented. You can potentially MITM the firmware update that installs it, perhaps by DNS or IP spoofing, but once a correct firmware update has been received by the PS3, then it can check all future downloaded updates of any sort, using public key cryptography implemented in software with new keys downloaded as part of the update. Much like Windows Update or APT - neither of which rely on keys stored in hardware, and both of which are about as secure as these things ever could be.

You should pay more attention before you wade in to tell someone else they are wrong.

Re:Not a rootkit

[Travelsonic]

actually, they can put whatever they want in the EULA and it is contractually binding..

Not entirely true at all.

Re:Not a rootkit

[Schadrach]

You see, what I'd do if I had the capability and knowledge to exploit this properly, is I'd try to get a "forced" FW update + worm in place. PS3 rootkit forces execution for FW update, CFW includes geohot+LV2+network worm that attempts to spread itself. Yay for self-banning PS3s spreading their love?

Re:Not a rootkit

[Rakarra]

"My guess is that if you look at the EULA carefully, it does specify that they are allowed to do this."

Because a company puts some shit in a EULA doesn't make that shit legal by default.

You don't HAVE to install the update. I've held off on doing it so far.

But of course, Sony doesn't have to let un-updated PS3s on their PSN network either. Nor do they have to make it so that new titles will work on your now-non-standard system.

Re:Not a rootkit

[Andy Dodd]

Actually your information is the incorrect information. The fact that the system keys are unchangeable in hardware (hence the stories of the PS3 being irrevocably compromised) requires them to be the root for any firmware update. That DOES force Sony to keep using them.

Which means that any firmware update can be decrypted, unpacked, and analyzed to obtain any authentication secrets that might be hidden within the update. In fact that's probably how knowledge of this backdoor exists (again, can't access TFA at the moment), but I'm guessing it isn't from Wiresharking PS3s, but from reverse engineering the 3.56 update.

Re:Not a rootkit

[edxwelch]

You know that Skype now automatically updates without the users permission. So could we say Sony's backdoor is like Skype?

Re:Not a rootkit

[JackDW]

Which means that any firmware update can be decrypted, unpacked, and analyzed to obtain any authentication secrets that might be hidden within the update

Naturally. But this does not help. Let me start again with my explanation. There's two separate things here.

Firstly, authentication for the back door.

Secondly, authentication for the PS3 system in general.

The second sort of authentication has to use the old key pair, because as you rightly say, that can't be changed. It's in hardware, and code won't run on the PS3 without it.

But the first sort can use any key at all. Sony can generate an entirely new key pair, then distribute the new public key in the firmware update. That way, the back door is only useful to people with the new private key. Although fake "updates" might pass the second sort of authentication, they won't get through the first.

The point I am making is that the back door is not necessarily insecure just because the root key is compromised, because it can use new, independent keys for authentication. Thus it is incorrect to say "Sony has access to this backdoor but SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE." A well-designed back door would not have this problem, because its authentication keys would not be derived from the compromised ones.

Re:Not a rootkit

[JackDW]

No, it isn't just obfuscation. You can build a secure online update mechanism on top of a platform that is "wide open". It isn't even difficult. See Windows Update, or APT in Linux. These do not rely on obfuscation to keep the secret keys secret, because the secret keys never need to be released. Nothing prevents Sony building a similar system on top of the existing PS3 software.

Re:Not a rootkit

[mkraft]

It is unauthorized access. Unauthorized remote root access by Sony to a PS3 that belongs to an end-user who never gave them permission to do whatever it is they needed remote root for.

I'm not sure about you, but when I upgrade the firmware on my PS3, I have to agree to a few hundred pages worth of text. I'm willing to bet that that's Sony's way of asking permission.

I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[MogNuts]

I don't know anymore. We know why they are doing this. To stop developers from thinking that the platform is dead to develop for because there will be rampant piracy.

And to stop cheaters. I'll tell you, I've just recently gotten into online shooters lately (MoH and COD:BO), and I'll tell you, I swear to god the amount of hacks and cheaters* just makes me not want to even bother.

I'm almost siding with Sony on this one. It's almost to the point that you have to buy as soon as it comes out and then you have a window of enjoyment of a month. Then it's worthless. To me, what's the point?

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Lord Byron II]

Yeah, I think the only thing that Sony has done wrong is remove the "Other OS" option. They probably should not have included it in the first place. But other than that, Sony has basically sold you:

-A black box capable of playing games
-You have to pay $60 per new game
-If you want to play online, you can't cheat

This firmware doesn't change any of this, so why get upset? If you wanted a general purpose computer that you control the software stack on, then buy a PC and roll your own Linux kernel.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Svartalf]

And you honestly believe that this will prevent cheating in general or that their "security" was preventing it- all Sony's losing the keys to their kingdom did was make it slightly easier to cheat.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[AlexiaDeath]

No matter how hard they squeeze the console, there will still be hacks and cheaters. It's a race Sony cant win, not like this. Its not a technical problem, its a human problem. And human problems have human solutions. Piracy is curtailed by better availability and providing value with a purchase a pirate cant get. And cheaters... What do kids do if there is a cheater on the play ground? They stop playing with him. So why not put all people over certain abnormal skill level in a bucket labeled "Unreal" and let them cheat each other?

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[peppepz]

I don't understand why people can't buy a PC to develop "homebrew" software for it. It's more powerful and costs less.
All the efforts from hackers resulted in:

• piracy (not that I care, but perhaps game developers do, and I like the games they develop)
• no more Other OS
• cheaters in online games
• PC-like nuisances such as "serials"
• draconian security measures which only harm honest users

I think the majority of console players know that a console is a closed box when they buy it. It's meant to play commercial games only. And a game is only meaningful if its code hasn't been tampered with by some of the players.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[CharlyFoxtrot]

This firmware doesn't change any of this, so why get upset? If you wanted a general purpose computer that you control the software stack on, then buy a PC and roll your own Linux kernel.

It sets a bad precedent if (and time will tell if this is really the case) the box can be completely taken over by Sony from the outside. I'm not opposed to it per se but it should be clear on the box that they have the ability to do this otherwise it is an invasion of privacy. Sony isn't the copyright police they are a consumer goods company. Any poking around they do should be clearly and unambiguously agreed on by the customer.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[commodore64_love]

>>>-You have to pay $60 per new game

Anybody who pays more than $20 for a new game is spending too much. All it requires is a year's worth of patience to wait for the pricedrop. If the game is a hit, it will become a $20 Greatest Hit, and if it's a flop it will be lowered to $20 or less to move it off the shelves.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Charliemopps]

I'd agree, but the current situation is due to multiple blunders by Sony themselves. As far as I'm concerned they get what they deserve. Basing all their security on a singe Key with no backup plan what-so-ever was just plain incompetent. Corporate execs only learn lessons when they lose lots and lots of money. So lets see just how much money they can lose on this one.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Svartalf]

Challenge... Compared to console homebrew, PC homebrew's "easy".

As for the rest...that's because Sony screwed the pooch on their security measures and now they've got to frantically try to close the gaping hole in the fence they left, long after the horses left the pasture. The pirates would have eventually accomplished this same task with or without the homebrew crowd and laying this at their feet is LAME as what Sony's done in response to all of it. Quit trying to pin blame for all of this on everyone but Sony. It's their fault that the security on their console was so fragile (and it was, folks...) in the first place- they're the ones that relied on the signing key not being discoverable, which is actually an impossible thing to begin with.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[tepples]

If you wanted a general purpose computer that you control the software stack on, then buy a PC

Most people aren't willing to buy a gaming PC and connect it to a television. Most PC cases would look out of place in a cabinet. Most PCs don't come with a system-wide 10 foot user interface. Many people still have their game consoles connected to SDTVs and aren't aware of the existence of $40 adapter cables from VGA to composite and S-Video, which are sold only online on sites like sewelldirect.com.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Svartalf]

Actually, the firmware mod opens it up to being further hacked (Do remember that they lost positive control of the ROOT signing key...meaning that ANYONE can MITM their update chain now...) as now hackers can put and remove things at will on their boxes. This means we should see the beginnings of PS3 Botnets all over the place eventually.

And this would make the second wrong move from Sony, with the OtherOS being removed being the first.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Duhavid]

"All it requires is a year's worth of patience to wait for the pricedrop"

He was specific that for him he has about a month ( free of cheaters, who presumably need time to write the cheats ) to really enjoy the game. After that, no love. So, he really cant wait for the price drop at one year.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[h00manist]

Right. Sony does not have a monopoly, it is a fair and honest competition player. In some ideal, dreamy corporate-competition-is-always nice-and-honest free-market-and-paradise-for-true-believers dreamland. Maybe some people don't agree and think millions in profit flows from monopolist marketing cornered market strategies, not from much of anything else, and equates abusive pricing. Don't forget the profit is calculated *after* salaries and bonuses are paid to everyone, whereas lots of small game authors don't even get a regular salary or anything at all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11650482
Sony profits on PC and game sales
The firm made 31bn yen ($386m, £242m) in the three months to September

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[MikeBabcock]

I'm with you. I buy a proprietary gaming device, I expect it to be a gaming device and I expect it to be well protected. The difficulty in hacking the PS3 is the major reason I use one for online gaming. I don't play PC games online because the rampant cheating is not fun. I have all the respect in the world for people who want to play with a device and hack it to death, but I don't want that device being recognized as legitimate by the network.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[tepples]

I don't understand why people can't buy a PC to develop "homebrew" software for it.

Answered in my other post. Quick question: Do you have a home theater PC yet?

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[peppepz]

This actually confirms my view, that hackers have no interest in "homebrew" whatsoever, but are just interested in ways to celebrate their ego. In fact, there are millions of way one could "challenge" himself by coding - fixing Linux bugs, improving Mesa's OpenGL, writing a software for the management of laundries - none of which would interfere with my legitimate personal desire to play by accepting Sony's rules.

I approve the work of hackers when they support the freedom of expression or they put in evidence how stupid it is for the media industry to spend so much money in DRM (especially since all that money will be paid by end users in the end, by higher prices). But I don't think this is the case. The PS3 was just that, a toy, and now it's broken.

If somebody sets a lion free, I don't blame the lion, I blame who set it free.

The pirates would have eventually accomplished this same task with or without the homebrew crowd

Perhaps. What's certain is that all PS3 exploits started on Linux, so shall we bet that the net result of this will be that Sony will think twice before adding the "Other Os" option in the PS4? Great.

It's their fault that the security on their console was so fragile (and it was, folks...)

With hindsight, every accomplishment seems easy. The fact is that the PS3 security, as broken as it was, kept it completely safe from piracy for four years - which is a world record. What lesson do you think that Sony, being the evil company that it is, will learn for the next console they make?

1. drop DRM completely and let piracy start from day zero;
2. put even more and more crazy DRM in the hope of lasting some more years this time.

Frankly I have no doubt, and once again as a moron^H^H^H^H^H honest user I'll be penalized.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[peppepz]

I wouldn't know. Unlike the 360, the PS3 has nice "HTPC" capabilities out of the box - meaning you can browse the internet, you can toss most kinds of media files into it and it will play them, and you can take out those media files if you wish. It's also expandable with off-the-shelf hard disks and supports off-the-shelf add-ons such as pendrives, USB-HID devices, UVC cameras, bluetooth keyboards (the Apple one finds its place in a living room). And it has an official TV tuner.

Yes, I know, it doesn't play Matroska files.

Anyway there are fanless Linux boxes for sale which draw much less power (and radiate much less heat) than a PS3.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Cwix]

If you have games that people can play on any server they wanted, they are less likely to buy the shiny new game.

So its a formed of planned obsolescence, you game stops working then its time for you to buy the new one isnt it?

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[judeancodersfront]

All Sony's fault eh? Has nothing to do with Geo deciding to release the keys? Did the ps3 owners who paid for MW2 get what they deserved?

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

it's what ID software is doing with quake live.

you play 20 matches, during which they evaluate your skills. this way, from match 21 onwards, you're matched with players on the same skill level, which is great.

now i just have to play a few more games, pass the 20 matches mark and see if it works.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Martz]

It wasn't luck that Geo or SomeOneElse leaked the keys, it was inevitable due to Sonys poor crypto implementation. Sony will be to blame, is responsible, and has to somehow mitigate the damage that's been done.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[VGPowerlord]

Many people still have their game consoles connected to SDTVs

Really? I thought I read somewhere that HDTVs are now outselling SDTVs.

It stands to follow that people buying new consoles are more likely to have HDTVs now.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Richy_T]

Perhaps. What's certain is that all PS3 exploits started on Linux, so shall we bet that the net result of this will be that Sony will think twice before adding the "Other Os" option in the PS4? Great.

Wasn't it the case that they only added it to take advantage of a tax loophole which has since been closed? If so, there was no way they were going to add it anyway.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Richy_T]

Yes. About to enter its third year. Just upgraded it to the latest Mythbuntu and added the Hulu plugin.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[petermgreen]

Do you think they would be stupid enough to use a known broken signining system for a new mechanism?

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[jx100]

The jailbreak of the PS3 was in response to the removal of OtherOS, not the cause of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS

removal from the PS3 slim August 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz

announcement of hacking attempts at the end of 2009, success five weeks later jan. 22, 2010

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[thrash242]

The loss of backward compatibility with PS2 games bothers me far more than the "Other OS" option. Before someone chimes in with the ever-present "duh just buy a PS2 they're cheap", I already have one--I just don't have room for 4 consoles under my main TV downstairs, so my PS2 is on my other TV. It would be really nice to be able to play my PS2 games--all 40ish of them--on my main TV downstairs with the nice stereo and all that.

I do agree that removing the "Other OS" option is lame--it's just that removal of backward compatibility, which was another promised feature, affects me far more.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[MogNuts]

Isn't it a shame though? They do it to win. Probably because they stink. But the thing is, so do i! And I'd rather play with someone who stinks because it's more fun. At least each person gets enjoyment out of it because it goes tit-for-tat and each person feels like they have a chance to win if they both stink hah.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[MogNuts]

Very true. There always will be. But for example MW2 has 50% cheaters, that's pretty bad*. I really don't know the best solution for this. My take is the route MS took. Diligent monitoring and banning of cheaters. And yes they can re-sign up. However, make it verifiable. Make it a token $1 you have to pay with CC so that when they re-sign up, they can't.

The problem with just not playing with a cheater is that console users don't have that choice. They can't choose a server. They just get "find match" and the matchmaking code links up players.

The piracy problem. Yes I agree that it provides better value and the chance to find out if a game actually is garbage. But "piracy" is just like Nielson ratings. It doesn't actually have to be show people watch. The console makers have to sell to the devs that their IP is protected or they won't get console exclusives and hence less console sales and a cut of each game. It's all just for show.

* Granted I bet you that BO has it too, but if they were to admit that, sales would take a nose-dive. That's why "apparently" BO isn't affected on the PS3.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[MogNuts]

On second thought, as I've said on another post in this thread, maybe the best way is what MS did. Diligent monitoring and banning of cheaters. But who knows. Maybe just the threat of knowing that "ooh Sony is monitoring you and can brick your console" is enough to curtail the apparent deluge of cheaters.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[MogNuts]

It's funny you say that. There at most times is about 400k people online during weekdays and at night and weekends about 800k online. Yet with their matchmaking service, one in 10-15 times I can't find a game. It's humorous that I hear, and please correct me, there is only 50k for the PC version. However, if I had the PC version I could simply always choose a server of my choice and never have to wait. And yes you'll always be able to play it.

Not sure about tired of standing. I just work with the true realities of things. Unless it's COD/CS/L4D/TF2, a 1-2 years after shooter is released it's pretty much empty on the PC anyway. So unless you have IRL friends to play with AND who have the game, you have no one. So does it matter if you can play 10 years later? And also, I'm not talking about EA sports games here which close down the previous year. They don't count. They're garbage. But yes, I do love that some games can be played online with IRL friends 5 years later. That's true. But then again, on the flipside, consoles have significantly less amounts of cheating. If 50-75% of all PC servers have cheaters, why bother even playing.

I just don't know. What I do know is that game hacks/cheating hurts everyone. And it makes online gaming completely not even worth it

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[nurb432]

I hope you enjoy your toaster, and paying per slice of bread.

Oh, and if you want to toast an eggo, that requires a different license.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Khyber]

"Do you think they would be stupid enough to use a known broken signining system for a new mechanism?"

It's impossible to change (locked in hardware) so guess what?

They don't have a choice.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[bloodhawk]

And how exactly do you propose they get this so called new mechanism onto existing boxes without using the existing broken mechanism and therefore exposing it to exploitation. Do you think they are magically going to make new keys and updates magically appear on the PS3?

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[petermgreen]

Even if they can't change the existing verification system there shouldn't be anything stopping them adding a new one on top either explicitly for this new system or even for anything received over the net.

For disks it's harder because they would have to white-list all existing disks.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[aaron552]

I'm no expert, but while the updates they push to the console with this backdoor will have to be signed with the console's root key, the communications channel by which they are sent does not necessarily have to be...

ooh wait, how are they going to push a new private key to the console without a nasty pirate intercepting it? I see where you're coming from, now

(Thinking aloud here)

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[blarkon]

By your own reasoning the cheaters would climb out of the bucket and go back to griefing ordinary users. Anti-social behavior is about causing the most grief to and ruining the experience of the most people. You don't accomplish that by playing in a "cheater league" - you do that by ruining the experience of everyday gamers.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[AlexiaDeath]

If the cheater bucket is defined by came performance, then climbing out of it will mean that you would have to play at everyday gamer skill level immediately excluding any chance of grieving. Ultimately, the match setup code should be able to match people with comparable results and that's that...

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[peppepz]

It's different: the slim PS3 had no Other OS because of cost cutting. The fat one kept it originally.
Hotz's [is this writing correct? :D] first hacking attempts were done on Linux, on a fat PS3, and required Linux (and a hardware glitch IIRC) to work. So Other OS was removed from the fat PS3 in response to his (failed) attempts.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[peppepz]

No, the tax loophole involved shipping a CD with a toy BASIC interpreter with the console in UK. They did that on the PS2 (it was called YaBasic IIRC), which didn't support installing Linux at the time.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[man_the_king]

Hotz's [is this writing correct? :D] first hacking attempts were done on Linux, on a fat PS3, and required Linux (and a hardware glitch IIRC) to work. So Other OS was removed from the fat PS3 in response to his (failed) attempts.

That is correct - see "http://www.answers.com/topic/george-hotz#Hacking_the_PlayStation_3".
Fact of the matter is - the Sony haters on here do not like to listen to or consider any inconvenient fact which might demonstrate that their irrational Sony hatred does not have much basis in historical fact.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[jx100]

..How exactly does it cut costs to not have OtherOS? Unlike the PS2 emulation, there was no extra hardware needed to run Linux on a PS3. Slim PS3s can, in fact run Linux after they have been jailbroken.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[blarkon]

Piracy will never be fixed by availability or even a reduction in cost because most pirates pirate due to a sense of entitlement.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[peppepz]

By not having to provide and maintain Linux drivers and not being forced to choose hw parts supporting Linux in future models.

As an example of this behaviour from a non-evil company, see what happened to the Linksys WRT54G between v4 and v5.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Khyber]

Not so easy to do. Different PS3 models have different internal ROM sizes.

Older units might not be able to support it - newer slim models with the larger ROM size likely could.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[AlexiaDeath]

No, not fixed. But those that want and can buy will and the income is maximized because those people are actually the only ones that represent the potential income. The remaining pirates wouldn't have bought it anyway.

Re:I'm not so sure this is wrong anymore

[Richy_T]

Thanks

Re:Sony==epic idiots

[hedwards]

Unfortunately, they didn't just do all this up front, so a lot of us already have our PS3s and little to no recourse.

Oh yes, raep the customer...

[AlexiaDeath]

They will love you for it and come back for more.... erm... I think not. Sony went off my possible purchases list forever when they removed the OtherOS feature. Just makes you wander how far up their buts do the heads of Sony business people really have to be to pull this kind of reputation damaging stunts and actually believe that it will improve their bottom line.

I quit

[Anonymous Coward]

I give up. I am tired of fighting companies for my hardware that I have purchased. Apple, Sony, and Microsoft are wasting my time. I hacked my PSP because I wanted faster load times. I Hacked my iPhone because I did not agree with being charged twice for data. I hacked my PS3 just for fun. I quit.

Re:I quit

[tophermeyer]

Good news! You do own the hardware you purchased. If you don't like the content of this firmware update then don't take it.

Sony isn't interested in pleasing the small segment of users that do want to hack their units. They're far more interested in ensuring a smooth (and profitable) experience for the vast majority of their user base that doesn't feel like messing around with their units. If you don't like that business model then you shouldn't be buying a Sony product, because this recent update is certainly consistent with their past actions.

Re:I quit

[LordLimecat]

Im not sure why you blame Microsoft-- they dont tamper with PC hardware (couldn't, really), and you KNEW what you were getting with the XB360. FWIW I dont remember hearing of them going after anyone for modding their Xbox360 offline, and if you want to connect to live, you KNOW their policies.

Re:I quit

[Theoboley]

"I hacked my PSP because i wanted faster load times" Yea and im sure it had absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that you could pirate the hell out of games. I know that's why I hacked mine. At least i'm honest about it

Re:I quit

[ledow]

Stop buying shit that doesn't do what you want, then?

I'd have thought it was a pretty simple, and obvious, solution that you could have seen years ago.

Re:I quit

[Theoboley]

I never said that it was the reason that they did, I eluded to the fact that its the primary reason for hacking the psp, coward.

I bought my PS3 dammit!

[onyxruby]

Is it just me, or I could swear that I 'bought' my ps3 and it said nothing about a cable box like rental on the box. Why is it so hard for Sony to understand that this is my property and to leave it well enough alone? If they want to arbitrarily execute code on other people's property it crosses the line to hacking and that's criminal to in most jurisdictions.

What they have done is no different that the cable company demanding root level access to your computer in order to go online. People would be outraged there, why should a game console (which is just a dedicated computer) be any different?

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Theaetetus]

Is it just me, or I could swear that I 'bought' my ps3 and it said nothing about a cable box like rental on the box. Why is it so hard for Sony to understand that this is my property and to leave it well enough alone?

Excellent idea. Just delete your PSN login and disable automatic updates, and you're fine.
Err, until then, you do realize that you keep logging into their property and as long as you do, you're explicitly agreeing to their conditions, right?

If they want to arbitrarily execute code on other people's property it crosses the line to hacking and that's criminal to in most jurisdictions.

... apparently not.

What they have done is no different that the cable company demanding root level access to your computer in order to go online.

Sure. And that's not illegal. You'd be wise to tell the cable company to fark off, however, and get a different service provider. Of course, if you want to access the cable company's private servers (i.e. "PSN"), then a different service provider won't work for you. But you have that choice, you know, it being your property and their servers being their property.

Basically, I'm not sure if you quite see the irony in loudly insisting that the PS3 is your property and Sony should leave it alone, while simultaneously demanding unfettered condition-free access to Sony's property.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Rob the Bold]

Sony did not force you to connect your PS3 to the internet, to use PSN, or to update your firmware.

By way of a car analogy, Ford doesn't force me to drive my car. But it's just not that useful sitting in the garage -- but it is mostly safe from being wrecked.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[SilentStaid]

That's faulty logic. You can do whatever you damn well please with your hardware. All that Sony is saying is that if you connect to their network that you have to abide by their rules. What makes you think that because you bought that little black box that you're entitled to their (keyword) free PSN service? Is it because it advertised it on the box? Yeah, that's a good point. But that's more a case of false or at least exaggerated advertising (if not a very good one) and a far cry from why people are leveling at Sony. Don't get me wrong, I think that Sony is moronic too - but if they're going to provide their (keyword again) FREE service why is wrong for them to stipulate what you can run on it? It's similar to saying that you're not allowed on a network without AV installed, which here of all places I would expect people to understand.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ShakaUVM]

>>All that Sony is saying is that if you connect to their network that you have to abide by their rules

That still doesn't give them permission to hack your machine and violate your constitutional Right to Privacy**.

Well, hey, you don't *have* to use it online, right? No. Like a car being forced to sit in the garage, an offline PS3 is useless, and not what you agreed to when you bought the damn thing.

Or to put it another way, people like you will be very unhappy when their new Murder TOS comes out.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Massacrifice]

Because int his case they sold you a custom computer (PS3) in the first place, and thus guaranteed you that you could keep on using it for what it was designed to do as long as you didn't fuck with it. From the moment you break away from the deal, they can break away from it too. Don't like it? Don't buy one, or expect them to refuse you support / access. It's not like they were bricking it, or coming to your house to take it back, y'know?

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Palshife]

Don't some games contain firmware updates on the disc?

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[fearlezz]

it crosses the line to hacking and that's criminal to in most jurisdictions.
Nope, it's not. It would be if you or I backdoored someone elses hardware, but multibillion dollar organisations can pull this off.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[sosume]

Newer games won't run unless you have the latest firmware version.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[dakohli]

I guess the real underlying problem here is that Sony doesn't make enough money on the console sales, but rather, relies on game sales to make a profit.

I'll bet you Sony considers your purchase of a PS3 as "subsidised". As such, they feel that they have the right to mess with your console.

So, in order to protect their revenue stream they must enforce a strong copy-protection system.

Now, I wonder, if they were to sell a console for a price that they made a reasonable profit on, would it be so expensive that anybody would actually buy it? Even if they allowed the "Other OS" function on it?

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[MikeBabcock]

The only reason you'd have this update is if you voluntarily installed it via their software update. And the only thing not installing it stops you from doing is running Sony's services which don't belong to you at all.

You can use your device all you like, and play the games you have and listen to music and watch videos and the like, all without updating your firmware. You won't be able to connect to Sony's PSN (which you don't own) or Sony's store (which you don't own) but that fits your argument.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Kohath]

Why should Sony (or anyone) be interested in your posturing?

You're not offering honest arguments -- you've purposefully left out that you will be connecting to Sony's network. You know this. You know they own their network and only offer access to it based on agreement to certain terms. If you don't connect to their network, they can't execute code on your PS3 and you have no basis to complain. What conclusion can we draw other than that you're being dishonest in your post?

It's like hiring carpet cleaners and then pretending to be outraged that they violated your privacy by entering your house. An honest person wouldn't do that. Someone trying to swindle carpet cleaners might do it though.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[segin]

Except a company is just an conceptual and legal entity, and doesn't have human rights, so it should always get the short end of the stick.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Theaetetus]

Except a company is just an conceptual and legal entity, and doesn't have human rights, so it should always get the short end of the stick.

What short end of the stick? Are you saying that companies shouldn't own property? Because that's the only way that your comment could possibly be relevant to what I said.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ArundelCastle]

Is it just me, or I could swear that I 'bought' my ps3 and it said nothing about a cable box like rental on the box. Why is it so hard for Sony to understand that this is my property and to leave it well enough alone? If they want to arbitrarily execute code on other people's property it crosses the line to hacking and that's criminal to in most jurisdictions.

Your argument is fine for you, but for thousands of Call of Duty players whose profiles have been obliterated by other hackers, they will appreciate the extra protection to be able to play the game *they* paid for. Those hackers are arbitrarily execute code on other people's PS3s, and I don't see you calling the cops.

Maintaining the integrity of a system isn't always about corporate overlording, it's about protecting legitimate customers. Hard to believe, I know, but white hats sometimes need to see the world from the black hat side of things.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[sponga]

lol no, its like buying your own cable modem to connect to the cables service but they require a update for that cable modem to connect. Now thats a real comparison.

What the hell are you guys babying about now, this is unnecessary whining. Everyone knew about their root on the cd in the past who is tech literate, if you still went out and bought a PS3 well than don't come crying. It's not 'your property' as much as you like to think it is in imaginationland, you don't own their online servers or game producing.

What is this bs about 'my property', its only yours until you decide to connect or play one of their games.
I gotta give Sony the heads up on this console, they have basically won the piracy war to a point. It is nowhere near the rate of pirate games that is going on for the 360 and the hackers/crackers/encrypters have *failed* to fully crack their system. By the time they crack it there will be a new console out.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Crayon Kid]

But what about certain expectations that the buyer had? Fairly reasonable ones, IMHO. Such as (a) "I can play games on my PS3" and (b) "Sony will respect my privacy".

Suddenly, (b) has been proven wrong and if you object to that, (a) will follow. [Not to mention the infamous (c) "I can run Linux on the PS3".]

I think you can see how people might get a bit pissed off about all this.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[SquirrelDeth]

It's similar to saying that you're not allowed on a network without AV installed, which here of all places I would expect people to understand.
Well it is a bit of a problem when you don't have Windows or AV.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ChromeBallz]

You can do whatever you want with your PS3, as long as you keep to yourself. If you want to go online (and use Sony's network) you will have to obey the rules, however, or not go online at all. I don't want cheaters and hackers on PSN. I want to go online and have some fun, not be confronted with self-righteous "hackers" who's only fun they care about is their own. They can go rot for all i care.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[anyGould]

This reminds me of certain American Universities, that require you to install an application as admin to gain access to their campus network.

While the initial list of reasons for the app seem reasonable enough (Verify antivirus is installed, try to verify no infections, and make sure network harming apps are either not installed or are at least configured properly), they do provide auto-update ability to the application and so at any time can have any other commands added, which run under the same privileged level.

If there is no "All's OK" message from this app, the switches don't grant you access to the network.

I'll bet you $5 that anyone in Computing Science, Computing Engineering, or friends with people in those groups have a lovely "replacement" for that app that gives the appropriate answers without doing any of the work.

The people I went to school with would do that out of the sheer principle, not to mention because it would be fun.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[SilentStaid]

First of all, this is Slashdot, please don't dilute the term "hack" any further than it already has been.

Second, I don't see how this violates my privacy in any way, shape or form. That honestly may be my own fault, but if you wouldn't mind - please explain it to me.

Third, no, you don't have to use it online. That analogy is complete garbage despite it being automotive. My PS3 still plays games perfectly fine when I'm offline. Now - when new games start doing checks for firmware versions, that's another story - but it's not what's being discussed here.

All of that makes me wonder though... what exactly did I agree to when I bought the thing? What do you think you agreed to? You feel cheated, I get that. Believe me, I understand it. Right now I can't take my PS3 online because I refuse to update - I like having Yellowdog on there. But if you had actually read the "agreement" that you had in your box when you bought the PS3 you would know that they told you - at purchase - you are required to keep it up to date to take it online.

I just want to say again, I think it's stupid, and without serious reparations from Sony - I don't think that I'd be caught dead buying another thing from them but realistically the kind of incorrect and inflammatory comments you're making do nothing to help the cause. What helps is not buying another Sony product. What helps is when you explain to someone that the reason you're not buying something from them is because they make shady advertisements that promote aspects of their products that they'll later modify as their needs change.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ieatcookies]

You have an inflated view of entitlement. Feel free to disconnect your PS3 from the internet thus ending the service sony provides you. The problem here is that people suddenly forget that these companies need to provide customer support and attempt to control quality of their services and devices so that they can be competitive in their markets. Let the flaming begin, I understand most of you slashdotters that love to hack this shit up and play around in linux desktops rarely use support and probably have a laundry list of quality issues to bitch about.. but you're not the majority of consumers, not by a long shot. If sony wants to execute "arbitrary code" (I quoted that because it's rather sensationalist buzzwording) on my PS3, go ahead, as long as it works, I don't really care.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Schadrach]

...only if it disabled/fried TV cable boxes modified in any way whatsoever without exception, not only those modified for free PPV, and anyone and their brother could send signals over your cable line willy nilly.

You see, there are two things you disregard -- there are PS3 hacks that go out of their way to not be convenient for piracy (you could argue that anything that allows installation of software without coming from a licensed disc or PSN has the potential for piracy, but there's a big jump between that and Backup Manager-enabling stuffs. See 3.55-jb geohot for an example -- piracy is not exactly made easy by geohot's hack in and of itself without further FW patches to enable LV2 syscalls (and thus backup managers).

Realistically, if they just used this to detect modified game data, LV2 patches, and modified game executables for games played on PSN, that would be one thing, but they'll go farther than that.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Schadrach]

Oops, forgt th other disregarded thing -- Sony aren't the only party reasonably able to send a signal to your PS3.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Schadrach]

Who is running unauthorized code one someone else's PS3 again? Is CoD itself that poorly secured that connecting to another player for a game allowed the remote user to run arbitrary code on your console?

What'll be more interesting is when CoD hackers start MAC spoofing and start console permabanning other people's consoles, or the degree to which this could "poison" the second hand market.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Schadrach]

I'm all for them verifying game executables and game data for online play, as well as checking for LV2 syscall hacks. A hack or cheat of some kind should probably turn up on the first two of those checks, the latter is necessary for backup managers to function. Cheaters and pirates dealt with. Stop there, whatever unlicensed third party software I want to run on my purchased PS3 should be no one's business but my own so long as that software doesn't interfere with their service in some way.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[DarwinSurvivor]

The sad part is, 99.9% of people install the software on the CD their ISP gives them, thus giving their ISP exactly this power. I could *almost* understand if it was dialup, but these are people that connection through a modem provided by the company and even use a router in between.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Khyber]

"First of all, this is Slashdot, please don't dilute the term "hack" any further than it already has been."

Says someone that obviously doesn't understand the actual definition - a hack is a useful modification that serves a purpose, per the TMRC from MIT, who coined the term back in the 50s.

Sony's modification is useful (to them) - it is a hack by the purest sense of the definition.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Rakarra]

True, and you don't have to get those games either! It's optional, but newer games won't work with the older standards.

(Hi Palshife!)

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Etcetera]

What they have done is no different that the cable company demanding root level access to your computer in order to go online. People would be outraged there, why should a game console (which is just a dedicated computer) be any different?

No, actually it's more akin to the cable company demanding firmware access to manage your cable modem. Except, oh wait... they do! (Well, at least Cox Cable -- my provider -- does.) And there's nothing wrong with that. I paid $150 for my DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem at Fry's and it's absolutely my property. I can stick it on my desk and pry it apart with a voltmeter all day long if I want. But if I want to hook it up to Cox's network they demand that they be able to validate/update/verify code on it. That's no different than Sony wanting to validate/update/verify code on the machine when I want to hook it up to Sony's PS Network.

If you don't like it, don't use the PSN. The fact that the PS3 is more powerful than your cable modem is irrelevant. If you're using the PS3 as a "dedicated computer" then you're not going to (be allowed to) connect it to the PSN. Sony never made a representation that it would let unsupported/unvalidated/unverified/out-of-date/third-party/hacked/modded/custom hardware+software combos connect to the PSN any more than Cox lets me connect a NetBSD firmware'd cable modem up.

I love tinkering; I love electronics; I'm a ham radio operator. I also realize that there's a reason we pay for commercial reliability and one of the conditions for using that reliability is verifiability and security. If you're not using official firmware *I DON'T WANT YOU* on the PSN because for all I know you may now have an unfair advantage over me. Use the PS3 as an expensive paperweight for all I care; but Sony wants to verify that you're using official firmware before using its service, and as a fellow user of its service, I want them to too. Between the company and the 99.999+% of users who support it (or would if they cared at all) and the 0.001% of users QQ-ing on message boards, guess who's going to have their desires implemented?

Note: I speak only for myself and for no other entity; these words are my own only.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Dhalka226]

Err, until then, you do realize that you keep logging into their property and as long as you do, you're explicitly agreeing to their conditions, right?

You have an exceptionally quaint definition of "explicitly."

Of course, if you want to access the cable company's private servers (i.e. "PSN"), then a different service provider won't work for you. But you have that choice, you know, it being your property and their servers being their property.

If it were that simple, I would be inclined to agree with you. But it is not. PSN access is required by any number of things that quite frankly have no business requiring it, to force you to accept their updates, their new, unilateral conditions and, apparently, their backdoors. And I don't even mean for new items.

Internet access of any kind requires a valid PSN login. That includes things like the Netflix application, which has no need to ever touch Sony's servers or networks. It also includes some games, which will refuse to run without an Internet connection, and others, particularly new games, which refuse to run without specific firmware updates. And of course if you actually happen to enjoy any multiplayer in any game anywhere, you're out of luck.

If you could simply do the PSN equivilent of "tell the cable company to fark off [and] get a different service provider," that would be great. But you can't. Your choices are to essentially brick your property--certainly going forward and possibly even going backward as well--or continue to "use" the service you don't actually use but is engineered into the PS3 to be a required step to almost everything, so that they can continue to force you to "agree" to allowing them to run a backdoor to execute arbitrary code on your system.

Is "that's a nice PS3, it would be a shame if anything happened to it" your idea of agreeing to something, much less explicitly? I mean, really? Or are you just another ignorant person who doesn't even own the system in question but naturally assumes that reading half of a Slashdot summary qualifies you to post about it?

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[Theaetetus]

If it were that simple, I would be inclined to agree with you. But it is not. PSN access is required by any number of things that quite frankly have no business requiring it, to force you to accept their updates, their new, unilateral conditions and, apparently, their backdoors. And I don't even mean for new items.

Yes, so therefore, rather than complaining about those things and their respective manufacturers, we'll... complain about Sony! Yes! That makes sense!

Internet access of any kind requires a valid PSN login. That includes things like the Netflix application, which has no need to ever touch Sony's servers or networks.

Curse you, Netfl- I mean, Sony! How dare Sony do this?!
Seriously, your argument amounts to "Netflix requires PSN access when it shouldn't... therefore, Sony is at fault and I should have free and unfettered control over Sony's servers. Because it's my property by divine right, or something."

Your choices are to essentially brick your property--certainly going forward and possibly even going backward as well--or continue to "use" the service you don't actually use but is engineered into the PS3 to be a required step to almost everything, so that they can continue to force you to "agree" to allowing them to run a backdoor to execute arbitrary code on your system.

... and that still doesn't explain why an argument about "This PS3 is my property, therefore I should get free access to someone else's property" makes any sense whatsoever. I can agree that a PS3 without network access lacks many good features... but in what way does that imply that you should get free network access? Are you going to argue next that Sony should also pay for your ISP, since otherwise, your PS3 is essentially bricked? Where does the line of "it's my property" cut off?

I mean, really? Or are you just another ignorant person who doesn't even own the system in question but naturally assumes that reading half of a Slashdot summary qualifies you to post about it?

I do own a PS3. I don't think that entitles me to a free network connection, a free server hosting things for me, free support, or free anything else. Your ownership of the device ends at the network port. Or are you just another ignorant person whose only sense is a sense of entitlement?

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ShakaUVM]

>>First of all, this is Slashdot, please don't dilute the term "hack" any further than it already has been.

If you're going to be pedantic, you should make sure you're correct. Sony installing a backdoor that can do all sorts of neat (from their perspective) things is a hack, in both senses of the word. Furthermore, only pedants think that calling people "crackers" (which brings to mind redneck hicks living in the swamp) is a great adjective. The rejection of it has everything to do with how silly the word sounds.

>>Second, I don't see how this violates my privacy in any way, shape or form.

An entity snooping around in all of your files, installed secretly and without your knowledge or consent? That's pretty much the definition of invasion of privacy. While I suppose people like you think that corporations should get free passes on these sorts of issues, whereas individual hackers who did the same would get tossed in jail, that's a pretty hypocritical way to operate.

>>All of that makes me wonder though... what exactly did I agree to when I bought the thing?

A game playing device that handles both single player and multiplayer games without consenting to allowing Sony to look through all of my private files.

>>the kind of incorrect and inflammatory comments you're making do nothing to help the cause.

Kettleblack.

>>But if you had actually read the "agreement" that you had in your box when you bought the PS3 you would know that they told you - at purchase - you are required to keep it up to date to take it online.

Keeping it up to date is a completely different matter than allowing them to violate my privacy rights.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[cyber-vandal]

Errr you do realise that games also insist on a specific firmware version as well so unless you never want to play any new games ever again on your expensive console you don't have a lot of choice about upgrading.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ravenshrike]

True, but you sign a paper contract to allow them to do so.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ravenshrike]

Eh? I always felt that cracker was much more likely to be hurled at some yuppie in New York than at a redneck in BFE.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[westlake]

Is it just me, or I could swear that I 'bought' my ps3 and it said nothing about a cable box like rental on the box. Why is it so hard for Sony to understand that this is my property and to leave it well enough alone?

Maybe it is just you.

PS3 System Update History

You might be satisfied with a feature list frozen in 2006. But in 2011 the PS3 can still be described as a feature-rich, state-of-the-art, video game console with HD support and 3D capable Blu-Ray drive, supporting a broad range of streaming media, social networking and other online services.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ShakaUVM]

Wikipedia says it refers to poor people in rural Florida and Georgia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(pejorative)

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[mkraft]

You are free to do whatever you want to your PS3, as long as it is OFFLINE. Once you connect it to the PSN, you start to affect other users and Sony should be well within their right to prevent you from doing malicious things on their network. So if you want Sony to leave your property alone, keep it off of Sony's property (PSN).

BTW, Blizzard does the same thing when you run World of Warcraft. See The Warden.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[egranlund]

What they have done is no different that the cable company demanding root level access to your computer in order to go online. People would be outraged there, why should a game console (which is just a dedicated computer) be any different?

Unfortunatly I'm not sure how many people would be outraged by this. I remember once my parents let the comcast install guy touch their computer when they installed the cable. Jesus Christ, it was like an explosion of adware.

Re:I bought my PS3 dammit!

[ShakaUVM]

>>Those agree buttons that you have to select twice and the veritable ton of text above it means nothing. You're completely correct and not at all just going on what you think about it.

EULAs don't let companies do things that are illegal. This is a very key principle that for some reason the normally libertarian /. groupthink seems to want to defend.

EULAs aside, there's a long body of case law that you can't just sneak into a contract: "oh, and we get to kill you if we want".

Maybe, Maybe not

[JavaBear]

If it IS true, then I don't see it as being legal, at all. I certainly do not recall seeing "Sony retains the right to install and execute software in the background, and obtain information about files stored on the device, and engage in general butt fuckery of our users, without user approval" or anything remotely like it in the EULA's.

Re:Maybe, Maybe not

[Vanderhoth]

But the ELUA does specify that Sony reserves the right to change the EULA whenever they want. Next time you read it they might even quote you ;) /end sarcasm

Re:Maybe, Maybe not

[TheAlgebraist]

Pretty sure there's something in there about being able to modify software on the ps3 to improve Service. What you failed to notice is 'Butt fuckery service, written "Service", is the fuckery of users buttocks.' in the definitions bit around page 347. Pretty sure this is boilerplate legalese. Of course, this is only possible because of the strike down of sodomy laws a few years ago.

Be careful what you wish for.

Re:Maybe, Maybe not

[Svartalf]

The problem is that if they don't call out that they're doing this change and make it clear instead of in the fine print, it may negate their EULA as some of this is really non-enforceable from start to finish. You must, for example, give ample notice that you're changing the terms and doing it in a firmware update isn't it. (Makes the change non-enforceable...) Also, just because they can claim they can do this in the EULA doesn't mean they're legally allowed to do it. It's a sold item. It's roughly analogous (to use the classic /. bad car analogy...) to Ford coming to your house after you bought your car to forcibly update the firmware on your Fusion's onboard electronics to ensure that only Ford parts and firmware are running in the vehicle- after the sale of the car and telling you that their EULA allows them to change this and you've no say other than to sell the car. Bad car analogy it might be, but it's analogous- and when you run it through your head that way, you should have issues with it as will the courts (if you can get competent counsel that is...not all attornies are cut from the same bolt of cloth...)

A penny saved...

[Goboxer]

I'm suddenly very happy that I decided not to buy a PS3. It's too bad, because it really was an attractive system.

Re:A penny saved...

[DrXym]

I only have a 360, which at the moment is being repaired. Yes, RRoD, but after 4.5 years of good performance, I'll give it some maintenance. At least with the 360 things are straightforward and Microsoft knows how to not be evil.

Maybe you should be wondering how Microsoft manages to detect and ban people using modchips. Answer - in a similar fashion as Sony is intending right now - mandatory updates that detect modchips through various means when users sign onto XBL. e.g. this story speculates that MS stealth patched some games to install modchip detection code to wield the banhammer.

They were dumb enough to root your PC

[Anonymous Coward]

They were dumb enough to root your PC and dumb enough to use GPL code in their proprietary DRM. They were dumb enough to tout 192 khz as the dogs bollocsk because it was able to reproduce sound more faithfully and at the same time that a watermark below that range was not audible.

So they're definitely dumb enough to do this.

Rumors are not news.

[derrickh]

You're posting an unsubstantiated rumor accusing someone of something pretty major. A rumor overheard in an IRC chatroom.
I don't expect /. to require New York Times level of journalism (or even Fox News) but come on.

D

Re:Rumors are not news.

[hedwards]

I disagree, information like this after the fact is more or less worthless. We'll see whether it turns out to be the case or not, but anybody that patches up might very well be in the position of not being able to undo it. A post like this is just a heads up to look out for something that might happen.

Plus it's not like Sony hasn't done anything like this before.

Re:Rumors are not news.

[derrickh]

"Plus it's not like Sony hasn't done anything like this before"

That's not a reason to be able to accuse someone of something. You can't publish in the newspaper that Bob stole a car because you heard it at the bar and besides, he got caught stealing a car before, Thats not how news works. And unless Slashdot announces that they're no longer 'news for nerds' and have switched to 'TMZ for techies', they should be more vigilant about what goes on the site. At the very least put that it's a Rumor in the headline instead of the sensationalist one that's there now.

And the source is an IRC conversation. I thought using Twitter as a source was bad, but IRC?

D

Warden?

[BLKMGK]

Sounds like something from World of Warcraft? They download code that executes and without proper handshaking they know you've done something funny. Not quite the same as the Warden stuff but close enough and a real PITA to get around I'd expect. If this is simply a hook to allow the download\execute of code it's potentially a real bear to solve short of not using their network. :-(

Re:Warden?

[Schadrach]

It would be similar, if Warden also banned you for running any software not specifically approved by Blizzard, for having any software not specifically approved by Blizzard installed, or even for having the *capacity* to install software not approved by Blizzard.

Re:Warden?

[BLKMGK]

As I understand it if you run software that the Warden finds to be objectionable you can be banned. It's a watchdog not so much different than this.

Re:Warden?

[Schadrach]

You're missing the distinction: Warden checks for software identified as being used to cheat on WoW. This is to check for running any software not specifically approved by Sony, having installed (but not necessarily running ATM) any software not specifically approved by Sony, or even having the capacity to install software not approved by Sony.

Effectively, Blizzard blacklists software that specifically interferes with the functioning of their network and game. Sony wants to blacklist any software that they didn't get a cut from, and also wants to blacklist having the capacity to install such software. If they were only checking for modified game data, modified game executables, and LV2 hacks (read, the things that indicate you are running a pirated or hacked game) when playing online, it wouldn't be a problem and actually would be equivalent to Warden. "You have the capacity to install software we aren't getting a cut from and installed an SNES emulator (or whatever your homebrew of choice is) with that capability" is an entirely different beast though.

I'm pretty sure Warden doesn't ban you if you have an FTP server installed (or even running), or have a debugger installed (but not running), or any game that Blizzard doesn't directly profit from. I'm even more sure that it doesn't ban you if you are capable of installing additional software on your PC.

Re:Warden?

[BLKMGK]

Yes, I missed the point you were trying to make - thanks for the clarification. FWIW there are some software packages, games, that will refuse to load if they detect some software onboard. I refuse to buy them, that kind of crap pisses me off. My PS3 hasn't been updated since this all hit - I'm waiting for the smoke to clear and custom firmware to appear!

In that case... don't buy a PS4 ;-)

[Lonewolf666]

I know it does not exist yet, but a few years from now, there will probably a PS4 because the PS3 is becoming obsolete.
At that point, everybody should remember that Sony is managed by assholes and cannot be trusted...

Re:In that case... don't buy a PS4 ;-)

[peppepz]

Then they won't be able to buy a console at all, because Microsoft act much worse on their console (the 360 spits warning messages whose wording wouldn't feel out of context in "1984").
Nintendo, too, periodically release firmware updates to stop "homebrew", and warn that they have the right to brick your hardware if they discover you have made an "unauthorised use" of it.

Re:In that case... don't buy a PS4 ;-)

[MareLooke]

Makes this "PC" thing running "MS Windows" not seem so bad after all eh?

Re:In that case... don't buy a PS4 ;-)

[peppepz]

Indeed - and I would have never foretold that I'd be saying this.

Anyway, I'm afraid that much of what I like in Windows comes from its "legacy" roots, and I won't feel safe until I see what Microsoft will do with Windows 8 after they've been exposed to the "bad examples" of iOS and ChromeOS ;-) .

Fanboys make me Laugh

[MacGyver2210]

the same as Microsoft uses to detect and ban 360's

Um, no? M$ uses the MAC and unique console ID and does the banning entirely on their own end. There is no code executed on the 360 at all.

If this is more than speculation, couldn't Sony be tried for the same 'hacker' bullshit they tried some kids for over the last few years, which I believe was "using a computer system without authorization" or something along those lines? If it's not legal for us, it's not legal for them.

Re:Fanboys make me Laugh

[DrXym]

Um, no? M$ uses the MAC and unique console ID and does the banning entirely on their own end. There is no code executed on the 360 at all.

Bollocks. How do you detect a modded XBox 360 using just the MAC & ID? Answer - you can't. The firmware obviously has to run certain tests that a legit firmware / hardware would pass but a modded one would fail. These have to be delivered to the console by means of a firmware update, or during signon, or by patches to games. Then those tests are executed and the results are stealth reported back to Microsoft. Then the banhammer falls.

There is no reason to think anything different is happening here. Except for the paranoid hyperbole that appears when Sony does something which a competitor already does. It's hard to see where this paranoia is even coming from. If you have a legit PS3 Sony can already run any code they like so what's the problem. And if you're running a modded PS3, why did you ever think in a million years you would be entitled to carry on using Sony's online services?

The answer is stark, either don't mod the console and things don't change one little bit, or do mod the console and get used to not having it.

Re:Fanboys make me Laugh

[DarenN]

And they detect it how? Magic?

No, they run some code on the console that tells them whether there's modchips or cheating going on.

Re:Fanboys make me Laugh

[Zelgadiss]

The Sony and Apple bashing on Slashdot is getting retarded.

Every time some news (and even unconfirmed rumours) comes up, everyone flies into knee-jerk mode and start inventing silly worst case scenarios - most which don't even make any sense from a business perspective for the said companies.

Re:Fanboys make me Laugh

[HBI]

Using the MAC address would be fairly dumb. It has a couple disadvantages:

1) Not visible beyond its local gateway
2) Readily changeable

It would be highly shocking if they weren't using some sort of fingerprint. Said fingerprint should not include the MAC, but include other data embedded in the hardware that isn't as susceptible to tampering.

Re:Fanboys make me Laugh

[man_the_king]

The Sony and Apple bashing on Slashdot is getting retarded.

Every time some news (and even unconfirmed rumours) comes up, everyone flies into knee-jerk mode and start inventing silly worst case scenarios - most which don't even make any sense from a business perspective for the said companies.

Some of the more rabid anti-Sony posters on here seem to me to be people who have worked themselves up into such a frenzy that by now, they are frothing at the mouth and have ceased to make sense. These jerks seem to be criticizing Sony for no other fault than for being a part of Sony Corp.

Bash.org

[definate]

Bash.org archiving reliable reporting sources since Wednesday February 02, @12:16AM.

Such as ...
Cthon98's expose on gullibility and technological literacy
erno's scandal on the misappropriated resources
CRCError's report on the abuses of power
DragonflyBlade21's critique on the human condition

... and of course entertainment news...
JonJonB's review of Harry Potter

Re:Bash.org

[commodore64_love]

BLOCKED. "The Websense category "Tasteless" is filtered."

Oh well. Guess I gotta wait til I go home.

Genesis does what Nintendon't

[tepples]

Has Sony done anything worthwhile?

Successfully sued Universal City Studios (now a division of Comcast) to allow the importation of Betamax VCRs into the United States (Sony v. Universal), establishing the substantial noninfringing use test.

broke the NES/SNES monopoly

What monopoly? Long before "Droid does what iDon't", there was "Genesis does what Nintendon't".

I was planning to get a PS3 once the price dropped

Stick with PCs. They're the only way you can be sure not to have an intentional backdoor used against you.

Any PS3 games that will not play on the 360?

MGS4 isn't ported because it fills the Blu-ray Disc and would fill three or four 360 DVDs. LittleBigPlanet isn't ported because it's a first-party exclusive positioned as a system seller.

Re:Genesis does what Nintendon't

[tepples]

With a PC, you can install GNU/Linux and in theory audit the source code of every package. With a video game console, you don't have that power even in theory.

Re:Genesis does what Nintendon't

[DrXym]

With a PC, you can install GNU/Linux and in theory audit the source code of every package. With a video game console, you don't have that power even in theory.

Which is great unless you actually want to play video games with your hardware.

Re:Genesis does what Nintendon't

[tepples]

Windows games tend to be loaded with DRM.

So do console games. In fact, console game DRM is specifically intended to keep users from becoming developers.

Re:Genesis does what Nintendon't

[metalgamer84]

This is why I stick with my old DOS games, which are still tons of fun. Thanks to DOSBox, any current system can play all the old games.

Re:Genesis does what Nintendon't

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it doesn't. Turn off updates in steam - they're not forced by any means. They are automatic, if you tell them to be.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100702082940AAz7LAn

Please stop lying.

How is it different from normal firmware updates?

[Brian Feldman]

Normal firmware updates are essentially non-consensual, so I don't get what is to sensationalize about pushing point releases as well as big updates over the PSN.

Disclaimer: I don't own a PlayStation 3, but I am fairly certain you don't have the option of running old firmwares, you're forced to upgrade anyway if you want to play any games.

This Will Hurt Sony's Bottom Line

[_bug_]

Future PS3 games will require the latest firmware be installed in order to play.

There's no way in hell I want to install a firmware that intentionally creates a backdoor into my system.

Therefore I have no other choice but to stop buying PS3 games. Sony will be losing my (albeit small) source of revenue and perhaps others will handle the situation in a similar way. Thus Sony loses out on revenue they'd otherwise have had they not made this move.

And I wonder if those in such a position will turn to piracy simply because they don't want to install a backdoored firmware -- further hurting Sony's bottom line.

Sony really doesn't seem to think these things through.

Re:This Will Hurt Sony's Bottom Line

[DrXym]

There's no way in hell I want to install a firmware that intentionally creates a backdoor into my system.

Wow that makes no sense at all. You install firmware by Sony and you're worried that Sony might "do things" to test the integrity of the firmware before letting you sign onto an online service also run by Sony?

Companies are Collections of Individuals & Gro

[geoffrobinson]

For all we know some people in some group, responsible for one aspect of the project, got this thing included. I doubt that the CEO of Sony and the guy who put the rootkit in the music division talked to each other and the entire PS3 group.

Provided Linux PCs remain available

[tepples]

I'm just holding out hope that "real" computers will at least remain available

Or we could just run Linux.

That is, if you can even buy a computer that respects your freedom to run a version of Linux that isn't Tivoized. If the PC market were anything like the mobile and console markets, one would have to buy a multi-thousand-dollar computer on which to make even the simplest of apps and a $100 per year or more certificate just to be able to run apps that you have made on a computer that you have purchased.

Re:Provided Linux PCs remain available

[Sique]

I'm just holding out hope that "real" computers will at least remain available

Or we could just run Linux.

That is, if you can even buy a computer that respects your freedom to run a version of Linux that isn't Tivoized. If the PC market were anything like the mobile and console markets, one would have to buy a multi-thousand-dollar computer on which to make even the simplest of apps and a $100 per year or more certificate just to be able to run apps that you have made on a computer that you have purchased.

You mean, like the computer market before the advent of the Apple II, the C= VIC20 and later the IBM-PC?

Re:Provided Linux PCs remain available

[melikamp]

It's not as bad as you say. There's just no demand. You can buy Nokia N900 today, and have a Debian-based GNU/Linux box in your pants that's also a superb, easy to use phone. It will cost you mere $600 (not that much worse compared to other phones when you reject the contract) for a lot of computing power, 30 GiB of SSD, and a huge screen. And since it doesn't come with a contract, you can start saving $40 per month with practically unlimited 3G (@ TMobile). You can run python even before rooting, and if you are really into it, you can install the freaking toolchain on the phone and compile your favorite C?? programs. I love it. But hey, you know what? No one else gives a shit. I am coming to realize that, by and large, people have no idea what the hell computers do and why running proprietary software is, frankly, insane. Sure, everyone has their own moral precepts, but people are actually so dim, they seem to be OK with being charged arm and leg for a bag which allegedly contains a cat. It is abundantly clear by now that Free software costs less to develop, is more reliable, and actually does what users want, and nothing else, but, again, no one gives a shit, because Stallman looks like a villain from a Brothers Grimm story, while Steve Jobs is the sexiest man ever to put on a black turtleneck, and even though he sells you overpriced pieces of turd, he is smart enough to use a VERY shiny wrapper.

Re:Provided Linux PCs remain available

[tepples]

You can buy Nokia N900 today, and have a Debian-based GNU/Linux box in your pants

I haven't seen it in any stores near me in the United States. On May 15, 2010, I asked in a Best Buy, a RadioShack, and a T-Mobile store, and none had heard of it. (Has this changed since then?) By and large, people have no idea what electronic gadgets are available through mail order, nor are a lot of people willing to brave return shipping and a 15% restocking fee when buying things sight unseen.

It is abundantly clear by now that Free software costs less to develop

Then why aren't there more notable Free games? Because a game is more art than program, and it requires a singular design vision in order to be useful.

Re:Provided Linux PCs remain available

[melikamp]

Yeah, it may be hard to find a retailer, but my point is, it's on the market, and it works with TMobile and AT&T.

Then why aren't there more notable Free games?

I was only talking about utility software, excluding pure entertainment (which, afaik, even RMS does not think has to be Free). And I definitely agree: art is primarily what makes games great, and art creation is not that much cheaper in the Free world—in fact, it costs exactly the same if it is original and not derived from other Free art. But I hope we will have more Free games in the future, as the Public Domain is now slowly recovering from nearly a century of not getting any new art. Artists are the ones who need to realize that the copyright law is unfair and that they must copyleft and monetize their art in ways that avoid intellectual monopoly and censorship.

Still, it is their network

[Plekto]

The rules have always been quite simple. You can do whatever you want with your PS3 as long as you don't go onto Sony's gaming network. Microsoft does the same thing with its Xbox Live - you play by the rules or not at all. The sheer number of people whining about this when it's standard boilerplate business practice to control access to your own servers and private network(s) is amazing. When you connect, it verifies that you aren't running any malicious code or hacks/cheats. This has been a staple of online anti-cheating software since the late 90s.

And, no cheating isn't controlled by having "better availability and providing value with a purchase a pirate cant get.", as one person wrote. It's entirely different in a console's case, since the games aren't pirated in the first place. Cheating in online games like this is controlled by making sure that everyone is using the same software and hardware. And, yes, the XBox does this already - they scan your machine and shut you down if you are caught cheating.

Concerning the source, this site really needs to hire someone to double-check new posts for basic common sense and validity before allowing it to.go live. IRC chat? Seriously?

Apple copied Microsoft here

[tepples]

What's unsafe is the potential for this to spread beyond gaming-specific hardware. Recall that Apple's App Store business model was largely a copy of the Xbox Live Indie Games model that preceded it by several months, right down to the $99 per year certificate and the 30% take on app sales.

Way to over dramatize

[DrXym]

The "backdoor" is probably a way for PS3 to run arbitrary code (e.g. through PSN signon) to detect modified PS3s. e.g. if Sony knew that some byte range was indicative of a mod they might run a bit of code during signon to test that byte range. If a new CFW test appeared to counter that test they could run a new one instead. Basically they could run any arbitrary piece of code they liked. Fail the test in a manner indicative of a modded box and watch your PSN access go bye byes.

I doubt the situation is any different from XBL where they've engaged in waves of bannings presumably by deploying similar tests. Did anyone seriously think Sony would sit idly by and let modders / pirates retain full access to PSN? Seriously?

DNAS Error -103

[tepples]

All it requires is a year's worth of patience to wait for the pricedrop.

By which time any attempt to play the game online will result in discovering that the matchmaking servers have been shut down: "DNAS Error -103: The software title is not in service."

Re:DNAS Error -103

[commodore64_love]

Really? Online games only last a year??? Then why would I want to invest in such a thing?

Re:DNAS Error -103

[ThatMegathronDude]

Any game where the multiplayer is worth the effort will likely still have working servers.

Wrong. CDROM = (Sony=LaserDisc) + (Philips=CD)

[Barryke]

Sony invented LaserDisc, Philips invented CD. And what we now know as a CD is the result of a joint task force between the two.

Interesting reads are wikipedia or "The CD Story" written by one of the engineers on that task force: http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/cdstory.htm

Re:Wrong. CDROM = (Sony=LaserDisc) + (Philips=CD)

[commodore64_love]

>>>Sony invented LaserDisc
>>>Philips invented CD.
>>>Interesting reads are wikipedia

Might want to try your own advice: "LaserDisc was developed by Philips & MCA." And: "Sony first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976." Once Philips and Sony realized they were headed down the same path, they decided to cooperate rather than compete. (Versus Sony's previous decision to compete against JVC's VHS directly.)

BTW laserdisc and compact disc are not really the same thing. Laserdisc is an analog format like records, while CD is wholly digital.

Lawsuits

[Barryke]

lawsuits? what are those?

In the USA suits do lawsuits to make law by precedent. Also, laws make suits.

No, benefit of doubt.

[NeverNow]

MS is beyond the point where you debate and criticize their moves: it's considered evil and that's it (rightly so, by the way!). Sony, apparently, hasn't reached that position yet.

Re:A possible solution

[DrXym]

So the "backdoor" code does a timing test and your VM flunks it. Basically unless you can perfectly emulate a normal firmware including all memory ranges, GPU functionality, the presences of all legit files, the absence of any illegitimate files, the timing of hardware (e.g. spinup / down of BD drive), the behaviour when dealing with bad sectors / fuzzy bits on discs etc. etc. etc. you will never be able to correctly answer some arbitrary challenge or code thrown at the firmware. The only way to win is not to play.

New countermeasures of this kind were also incredibly obvious and likely once the console couldn't rely on code signing any more.

Re:Companies are Collections of Individuals &

[click2005]

Isn't that like saying that you didn't beat someone to death your right hand did.

A CEO should be held responsible for the actions of the company they run. Isn't that one of the reasons they earn those multi-million dollar pay packets.

untrusted devices

[wkk2]

It sounds like this device, along with web TVs, need to be placed on a VLAN so they can be firewalled off from other local LAN resources.

No, it isn't like that

[Anonymous Coward]

For one, you can refuse updates under Windows.

For another, you can revert your windows machine.

For another, you're told what they're updating and if you find it in error, then you can sue.

PCs are missing entire genres

[tepples]

Most decent console games are also available on the PC. The handful that you'll miss out on won't really matter in the long run anyway.

PCs are missing almost entire genres, such as fighting games, which are designed for same-screen multiplayer. Publishers think there aren't enough PCs connected to large monitors to make a market. Capcom, for example, made the Super edition of Street Fighter IV console-only because the first edition sold poorly on PC and because too many people were making infringing copies of the PC version instead of buying lawfully made copies of the PC or console versions. And what's a good PC counterpart to platform-fighting games such as Super Smash Bros.? Or does the fighting genre not "really matter in the long run anyway"?

Re:PCs are missing entire genres

[ThatMegathronDude]

Lots of people do just fine without fighters. There are also genres that only make sense on a PC; RTS for example. Could you imagine playing StarCraft on a console gamepad?

Re:PCs are missing entire genres

[tepples]

Lots of people do just fine without fighters.

Not if you either A. have a fighter fan in the family, or B. have four people who share fewer than four gaming PCs. For those genres that do work well on consoles, which means almost everything but RTS and MMO, consoles are cheaper because of the split- or otherwise shared-screen that they tend to have far more often than PC games. Sure, it's less often than they used to due to the availability of PSN and Xbox Live play, but it's still far more often than on PC.

Re:PCs are missing entire genres

[CronoCloud]

Could you imagine playing StarCraft on a console gamepad?

N64 owners could, didn't you know about the N64 version of Starcraft?

There have been several RTS's on consoles, mostly ports from the PC, and a couple of cross-platform titles like Warzone 2100 or RUSE.

This can't even work

[kiwix]

So they will run some piece of code your machine in order to detect whether you are running some modified software.

But we now have full control over the machine, so we can just sandbox Sony's code, and give it a view of the machine that looks like an original unmodified one. the code will sent the right answer to Sony's server and we can still run modified software. What they're trying to do is just logically impossible! (just like any working DRM system)

Big Brother IS Watching

[n2hightech]

Remote code execution - Connected Web CAM - I see a big brother system in the making. Maybe the CIA added the backdoor so they can look for terrorists using PS3 for plotting their next attack. Or it could just be some sex starved computer geek wanting to spy on his "girl friend". I see a huge series of privacy violation law suites in the making. AKA school system spying on students using remote webcams.

Re:Companies are Collections of Individuals &

[BlueStrat]

A CEO should be held responsible for the actions of the company they run. Isn't that one of the reasons they earn those multi-million dollar pay packets.

Of course not, silly person!

They earn those millions because they won the "race-to-the-bottom" against all the other corrupt, amoral corporate executives competing for the position by being the most ruthless and amoral in their pursuit of money and power.

It's rather like a twisted "executive Darwinism" that's encouraged and enabled in the US by corrupt Progressive politicians in BOTH parties that have abandoned the Constitution and the rule of law starting about 100 years ago and having grown worse every year since because people can't be bothered to pay attention, educate and inform themselves, and then do something about voting them out.

Strat

Re:Companies are Collections of Individuals &

[Zelgadiss]

Actually I don't think people from different divisions of Sony talk to each other much.

Sony seems to be more a group of companies under one name, than a giant mammoth working in sync.

Some of their divisions don't seem to even get along. etc Sony music vs Sony electronics
It appears it has been like this for decades...

Hence I try not to punish one division for the sins of another, because chances are they had nothing to do with it.

Re:Companies are Collections of Individuals &

[Zelgadiss]

Actually I think the CEO of Sony is very much a lame duck.

Internal politics of other power brokers seem to have a lot of influence.

Slightly easier? Are you kidding me?

[judeancodersfront]

I'm no fan of Sony but I'm even less of a fan of intellectual dishonesty. Cheats before the key release were mostly glitch exploits but now the game has been ruined by hackers. Read about the lobby hack and how hackers can reset your stats. It's a mess.

Careful, Sony...

[NapalmV]

Overdo it and you'll find out that people disconnect their PS3 from the network once for ever and use it just for standalone games and movies. Fat chance to sell anything over PlayStation Store after that...

Re:Careful, Sony...

[SquirrelDeth]

I've been doing that since before the 3.10 (I think) update. I still have my other OS even though the partition is blank I won't give it up. Also have not bought any new games ("Your system need to be updated to the newest firmware version to play this games blah blah blah") since the other OS bull.

If True, Good Move

[PrimaryConsult]

This is probably the only painless way to curtail online cheating. Even matchmaking systems that put people amongst those with the same 'skill' will miss cheaters who are either really bad, or ones who don't cheat all the time and thus are in a lower skill bracket.

Why do I say painless? At the end of the day... it's a game console that plays blu-rays. I'm not ordering things online (save for the PSN) or logging in to my bank accounts or email on it. If something hacks my PSN account and buys a bunch of crap, chances are I wouldn't be the only one and it would be rectified via a class action or my credit card company's fraud department in short order. If it somehow manages to do something to the other machines behind my router, then shame on me for not securing them properly. The worst I could think of is it activating the wifi card and attempting to sniff the wireless nearby, but I've never given it the WPA key and wireless "security" is forfeit to begin with.

In any case there seems to be a ton of FUD spreading regarding this. They could have just as easily built that function in on day 1 and this would be a non-story.

Someone should make a timeline site

[TravisHein]

With interactive chart of events over time, from both sides where something was done and later undone by the community. This kind of opera needs to be charted for the muses of future generations.

All your installed base might be belong to SDTV

[tepples]

I thought I read somewhere that HDTVs are now outselling SDTVs.

Out-selling, yes. Out-deployed, no. Even if an HDTV is down to $300, the SDTV that you already own costs $0. Until the first round of LCD HDTVs start dying of old age, we can assume that hand-me-down TVs are likely to be SDTVs.

It stands to follow that people buying new consoles are more likely to have HDTVs now.

In the living room. A lot of times, the console is stuck on a hand-me-down TV, not the big monster TV in the living room or home theater.

Revert to dumb terminals

[tepples]

Yes, I mean that the computer market might revert back to doing work on dumb terminals, as was common prior to the Apple II. Web applications already show the beginning of this trend. Most people use their PCs for the proverbial "homework and Facebook": viewing works and occasional light-duty creation.

Unauthorized Access

[vajrabum]

I wonder if there's a crack in the EULA that would allow Sony to be prosecuted for unauthorized access to a computer system? It certainly doesn't seem likely to me that anyone who had installed cracks would knowingly authorize Sony to access their system.

finally

[stealth_finger]

Excuse me while I rush out a buy one........or not.

Not Just For Network Access!!!

[Will Call Again]

This "Rootkit" or whatever you want to call it contacts sony servers the minute that it is booted...Not just when you access PSN... And it will continue to retry ports until it has exhausted all of them. This is without even attempting to login to their servers(PSN)....So I'm totally against this...as it is a major violation of my privacy......I'm still confused tho....The $600 I paid is for a rental? At least that is how it feels at this point considering they change it all the time and give me no choice whether I want these changes or not...

Now we know

[ThatsNotPudding]

what's inside a Sack Boy.

Wait Until...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Wait until some hacker figures out how to pry this door open and starts killing PS3's the moment they connect to the Internet. Then there will be a huge Sony PR problem.

I wanted a PS3

[amiga3D]

I really drooled over the PS3. So many times I almost shelled out for one. Unfortunately Sony kept making we leery of purchasing one. I finally saw that the private key was had and began plans to buy one. Now I think maybe I'll just build a media center for my new HDTV instead. The only thing wrong with sony products is Sony.

Re:I wanted a PS3

[cpghost]

Well, maybe it wasn't emphasized enough: Sony's PS3 was never meant to be an open computing platform (despite their "Other OS" PR-stunt that they closed anyway). It's a *gaming* console designed for a closed SONY ecosystem (or whatever). Those who buy it should probably know what they're doing and what they're getting into. Everybody else should steer clear of it for obvious reasons and look elsewhere.

Re:I wanted a PS3

[space_jake]

Not even worth it for Netflix since that requires you to go through PSN now.

Re:I wanted a PS3

[amiga3D]

True. It's just a shame to see such glorious hardware so deliberately crippled. The machine has great potential which sony will never let it realize.

Re:I wanted a PS3

[amiga3D]

Exactly! sony could fuck up a wet dream.

Re:I wanted a PS3

[cpghost]

Absolutely! The real shame is that clone makers aren't able yet to get a decent supply of Cell processors, which is still the main selling point of the PS3 for non-gamers. AFAICS, PS3/Cell support is also slowly getting into FreeBSD (-CURRENT), which is just one more reason to buy a decent clone, should one ever be built. But I'm afraid that some patents would stand in the way.

Man-in-the-middle please!

[KreAture]

I urge someone to demonstrate a man-in-the-middle attack for this fantastic opportunity.
Let Sony send your PS3 some packets to execute, and replace them. Hmm, how about the neighbours PS3?

This must be the worst idea since edible underpants. I mean, there's probably a market for it, but really?

Hobson's choice

[tepples]

You're running their OS by choice

Sure, I'm running a video game console operating system by choice, but it's a Hobson's choice arising from a chicken-egg case. End users aren't going to dump consoles en masse for home theater PCs because neither are the publishers, and vice versa.

Re:Companies are Collections of Individuals &

[Anonymous Coward]

Progressive

That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

How it works today is...

[pizzach]

When most of the populace gets themselves stuck in a sticky situation, they expect the government to bale them out eventually. It will either be in the form of a class action suite, or regulation. It's because of this only 'hippies' do old fashioned things like boycotting.

We've BANNED SONY

[not_hylas( )]

Our Company, which uses many SONY-type products, banned them after the music rootkit incident, and we have never looked back. This confirms our decision was correct.

Why would you let any company in you domain that has *proven* hostile intent?
If it were Apple we would do the same, as much as we love them, we'd scale back to the least amount and then buy their products secondhand, as we are in the arts and it is a necessary thing to use some of their products.

We would love to do this with Adobe, even though they are not quite as malicious as they are pompous and lazy - but that's not really on the scale of what SONY willingly does.

We've partially banned Microsoft and are presently buying ONLY secondhand. They need to really shape up if they are to allowed back in our company.

It's called "voting with your wallet".

Open Source is what we're waiting for really and we support some projects with cash. We urge you all to do the same. It way past the time to put these companies "on notice".

Re:Get over it.

[phek]

the problem is that now they can sniff your home network to see what you're doing. They can run a search on your network for any shares/media streams with "pirated" movies/media then start investigating/prosecute you. They could also try to monitor what else you're doing on your network/internet. Before you would hope that the firmware updates wouldn't do that, but if so you could figure out what firmware it was and hold sony responsible. Now they could connect to your ps3 whenever they want and run whatever they want (provided your ps3 is turned on).

On top of that, installing something like this opens a vector for malicious hackers to bypass your firewall/router and have free reign of your home network.

Re:How is it different from normal firmware update

[phek]

as i somewhat stated in another thread, the problem is that the firmware updates held sony responsible for what your ps3 did. as in anything unethical/illegal could be tracked down to a firmware update. Now sony could cause your ps3 to do whatever it wants whenever it wants and you can't prove that they did it.

Re:Companies are Collections of Individuals &

[kbolino]

You really ought to study your history a little more, and I say this as someone at least sympathetic to your claim. Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan, titans all, were no less ruthless than today's corporate executives, and all of them started over 150 years ago. The government was drastically different then, but don't delude yourself into thinking that it was less manipulable, or that these men didn't take advantage of every loophole and extralegal arrangement they could get their hands on. Nor should you think that politicians were all upstanding individuals who would never collude with massive corporations; such deals are the backbone of the American economy, then just as much as now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to vilify Vanderbilt et al., they were all philanthropists and very smart men, but that does not mean they weren't among the most ruthless businessmen to ever walk this Earth.

And in regards to the parent post, corporate executives are accountable for the actions of the company. They are accountable to the board of directors and more importantly to the shareholders. No CEO walked away from a failing corporation with a massive bonus that wasn't approved by the shareholders, although that approval most likely came as a term of employment made when the company was still in the black. To suggest that a corporate executive should be held accountable to an extra-corporate body (like a government) for the actions of the corporation at large (rather than just his own actions) is to fail to understand the purpose of a corporation. A corporation is not a sole proprietorship, and a CEO is not a dictator. If the CEO encourages or engages in illegal behavior, then he has committed a personal crime and can be accused, tried, and convicted of such. If the company engages in illegal or unethical behavior, without the direct (demonstrable) support or involvement of the CEO, then a government can take action against the corporation (such as fining it, dividing it, disbanding it, or even nationalizing it, depending on the laws), but it cannot take action against the CEO (assuming that contract law carries weight in the country where the corporation resides, as in most of the world).

Think twice, it's Sony!

[epine]

Oh, look, they've stolen Apple's motto, too.

Sony has been on my skiplist for a long time now. I was seriously interested in programming the Cell chip, but it was welded at the hip to the Blu Ray tumour (and the politics that come with it), so I gave it a pass.

Recently purchased a camera as an mxas gift. Asked some people about their experiences. People who bought Sony AV equipment in the past had some stories about lack of ordinary interop, to put it mildly. Some of them put it in a good light: it's a lot better now with Sony's new products. Sorry, I've got better things to do than track Sony's progress through reform school.

Never much liked Frank, either.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

More or less same school of management.

Sony's best idea was including Other OS

[HannethCom]

Hackers were having fun playing around in Sony's little Other OS sandbox. There were a few that weren't happy with 2 SPUs being disabled in the sandbox, so they were looking for a ways to access all the hardware, which they found and lead to the disabling of the Other OS. For the most part everyone was happy.

This gave them basically 4 years where hackers were not trying to break the security. Then they disabled the Other OS functionality not allowing the hackers to play. If you make hackers unhappy, they will find a flaw in your system and exploit it to give them full access to the system and they now had a relatively large number of hackers testing the armor. If they had just left it alone they probably wouldn't have the problem they have now.

If they didn't have the Other OS option from the start, the dent in the armor most likely would have been found not to long after launch, so the last 4 years the key would have probably been out in the open.

Re:Companies are Collections of Individuals &

[man_the_king]

Hate abhors rational thought.

People would rather invent demons to ensure their hate can continue than make the effort to think. And I say this in a very general sense. In a way, Slashdotters are representative of that pettiest class of people - those who would act (our their hatred) rather than apply any thought to differing perspectives.

Re:Get over it.

[phek]

uhmm, it would be REALLY easy for sony to create a program to monitor what movies you watch through your ps3 and look at what content your streaming servers are offering, then report it back to sony. Since sony is part of the RIAA/MPAA i could see this as being very likely (not by targeting me personally). As far as the network security goes that's actually what I did last night, went out and bought a new media player and set up my ps3 in a DMZ. My network was/is set up securely enough so that they can't sniff traffic but they could interact with other machines on my network since it needed to access the media server. The only way it could have been more secure is if it was in a dmz and could only access the streaming media service on my network (which would still not solve the situation I'm describing) but since the ps3 wasn't available to arbitrary incoming traffic from the internet before I didn't see it as necessary. Now that it is (or it may be, i'm still not totally convinced this article is legit), the machine now needs to be isolated from the rest of my network (for general security reasons, not just attacks from sony).

Wrong?

[Barryke]

So exactly what did i say that was not correct?
You're actually enforcing what i said earlier. Except for your first mentioned citation:

"LaserDisc was developed by Philips & MCA."

Got source? I can not find that sentence, Google can't, and Bing can't.