Re:Not 100% correct -- key can be changed and patc
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PS3 Root Key Found
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I did, but I don't believe for a second that Sony can't work around this, even if it's not practical for them to do so and even if it involves a huge whitelist -- as mentioned, historically they've proven that they will go to immeasurable lengths to protect their intellectual property, easily at the expense of the customer.
Beyond that, Sony has already come out and acknowledged the flaw and announced that they will have a fix for it that will resolve the issue -- I don't think their PR firm would have been allowed to say that if they couldn't actually fix the problem.
That said, thanks for clarifying some of the misinformation I had -- I watched part of the 27C3 talk but did not view in its entirety, and had not seen the portion where they mentioned that the key was locked tight in the hardware somewhere.
Re:Not 100% correct -- key can be changed and patc
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PS3 Root Key Found
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· Score: 1
I'd assume that in the imaginary 3.60 update, they'd invalidate the original key by either removing it from the internal certificate store or trusted certificate store, so any binary signed with that key would be treated as an un-signed or incorrectly signed executable and would not run.
That does bring up the point that if the actual SELF does not run due to being signed with an invalid key, would it be able to launch a stub that attempted to upgrade the app? I think they'd have to come up with a secure and crafty way of managing this. Whatever they do will need to ensure that legitimate users with physical discs containing SELF executables signed with the bad key can at bare minimum launch the stub which will download the updated, newly signed SELF binary. In any case, I digress.
I don't think it's too long of a shot to assume they would publish updates to all of the games -- they already have the update data on a centralized server that each game contacts as it is run, it wouldn't be much of a stretch of the imagination that they could take the original un-signed executables (I'd hope they have them stored!) and just write a script that signs the most current executable with the new key and publishes for testing. This does assume that they have a valid database of this information today and that they have the ability to quickly and easily get their hands on the unsigned copies of the binaries -- something that could easily be quite an incorrect assumption.
Not 100% correct. The original model PS3 had the 'Emotion Engine' (or some derivative thereof) physically inside the unit, which it used to provide the 95% backward compatibility that the launch PS3's had. Soon after, they changed the size, put out 40GB and 80GB versions (instead of the 20GB and 60GB that launched), and these were missing the physical 'Emotion Engine' and instead had a software implemented emulation layer. The emulation wasn't perfect and their compatibility dropped to something like 80%-85%.
Shortly after that, they just ditched the backwards compatibility altogether, effectively saying that they didn't care to spend any more time on it to make it work better, they'd rather put out new games (I somewhat agree with them), and that if you wanted a PS2, go buy one, they're still on sale. Now, considering it was advertised as one of the selling points initially, perhaps they should change their marketing slogan:
"It only does everything" should become "It only does everything, until we decide it shouldn't do something at a later date, at which point we'll remove it without asking."
Yes, yes, I'm just trolling on that -- they only did that once, and only with the Other OS feature.
Not 100% correct -- key can be changed and patched
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PS3 Root Key Found
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"The key also cannot be changed without hardware modifications."
This is 100% incorrect and assumes that Sony will not take actions that *may* have a detrimental impact to their users. Historically, they have proven time and time again that when it is their profit vs. their customer, the customer loses.
Here's what they would have to do (from a high level perspective, all you encryption experts can retract your claws) to fix this:
1) Publish a firmware update (mandatory) for the PS3, needed to sign in to PSN, which includes an update to the root certificate / trust, which would include the reciprocating key for a new private key they generated.
2) Publish a small update to *every* piece of existing PS3 software that signs the executable with the new key.
As Sony licenses their technology and as every executable has to be signed by them internally anyway, it's not a stretch to believe they'd have (somewhere) a full list of these executables. They could just re-sign the SELF binaries with the new key, publish as a patch, and they'd have a new key.
I'm not sure where the statement came from that this was held in hardware -- I mean, sure, it's accurate -- everything held in FlashROM is effectively 'in hardware', but for the purposes of this conversation it doesn't in any circumstance mean that Sony can't fix this -- just that fixing it could possibly negatively impact their userbase. I again must remind everyone that this is not something they normally bother themselves with.
I expect 3.60 to come out soon with a new key and for every single program I run for the next two months to be telling me it requires an update before it will load.
That said, NOW, any of you encryption gurus out there with a better understanding of how the PS3 (mis)uses encryption are free to tear my post to pieces.
You beat me to the punch. I wish the RSS feed showed the good comments instead of whatever they're using to determine it. Though, I think you were more polite than I would have been. I was envisioning something more along the lines of:
"What color is the sky in the SysAdmin world you live in that an iPad could fix a poorly designed network with incorrectly configured routes while interfacing with an archaic PBX system?"
If I had mod points, you'd have been modded up.
That's OK, believe what you want. There were two crackfixes posted, and the second one actually did fix the issues and make the game 100% playable, though you caught me! It didn't come out until 2 days after the game was released. I'm not sure where you're getting your information from but apparently it's out of date.
For example you still cant download Assassins Creed II and it has been out for almost an month already.
Yes you can. And you could the day it was released. Matter of fact, I think it may even have been cracked and on the internet the day before Ubisoft released it. Research first, post second. It'll help you a lot in the future.
FYI, while your reasoning and rationale are 100% correct and I'm in absolute agreement, you're incorrect about the numbers.
The real price for the iPhone is as follows (for the device only, no contract, at all, period, direct from apple's store website 30 seconds ago on a non-upgrade eligible AT&T account)
$499.00 - 8GB iPhone 3Gb
$599.00 - 16GB iPhone 3G S
$699.00 - 32GB iPhone 3G S
That said, the real numbers prove your point better anyways. Just thought I'd point that out.
Exactly -- I worked this out with my fiancee. She was about to buy a new iPhone anyways so we signed her up for a new plan and I paid for the phone. She gets my 16GB iPhone 3G when the new one comes in and I get the shiny new 32GB iPhone 3G S and only paid $299 for it.
On a side note, all you clowns complaining about $499 for an upgrade price, for some reason my account didn't even qualify for that upgrade -- they wanted $699 from me, claiming I wasn't eligible for upgrade pricing until Dec 2009. $322 and change later and I've got a shiny new iPhone 3G S. It's not impossible. One of my co-workers got AT&T to provide him the $299 upgrade pricing just by calling, complaining, and threatening to cancel and pay the ETF. They sent him over to 'customer retention', who asked why he was cancelling and when he told them they offered him the upgrade at the $299 price...
Of course, he started at $499 -- not $699. I figured since my account was already screwed for some reason, I'd leave it be. Plus, if in December they reset my contract entirely for some reason (as the site shows it will), I'll have a free upgrade just in time for the next upgrade next year:P.
I don't know about that -- telecines are done from the film itself, in the back room or projector room. The audio in those cases is either a direct pull from the soundtrack CDs that are loaded into the projector or are direct rips from the projector's output ports -- there is no reason to use a microphone to pick up the audio for a telecine if you already have access to the film itself, as it's likely you'd have access to a pure digital or at least direct analog copy of the audio.
This looks like they're trying to get cammers, but like the GGGGGGGP or whoever posted, after the fact is too late...
You're using the minority and claiming it's the majority. Over the air signals comprise approximately 25-30 channels in low signal areas and 45 to 50 channels in areas where you have good signal reception. Those are the "free" entertainment you're referencing.
Out of a group of 400 or 500 channels, 25-30 or 45-50 doesn't represent the majority. The remaining 375 or 475 are channels that I have paid money to be watching -- and they're jamming 10 to 13 minutes of advertising into every 30 minute show these days.
Lastly, your "free" TV will be substantially LESS free come February 2009 when you'll need a converter box (e.g., need to purchase one, as in spend money, not free) to ensure your antenna's over-the-air reception translates into a format that is readable by your TV. While some newer sets will deal with this automatically, the people in general who rely on free, over-the-air television are likely the same people who will not have a brand new, HD set in their living room.
That said, I hate almost all commercials. Some of the more recent ones have at least been bearable, but frankly, if I'm spending >$100/mo on cable (Thanks, Comcast), I shouldn't be forced to spend 25 minutes of every hour watching craptacular advertisements for penis enlargement pills and viagra.
You're a fool if you imagine that this automated process is not redundant at several levels. NSI would be very stupid indeed were they to tie all of their finances or credit with a specific registrar to a _TIME BASED_ system that funneled down to a point of failure small enough that the/. crowd would be able to stop them from completing a process that could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Don't get me wrong, though. I'd like to believe that this would work. They really do deserve it.
I've got karma to burn here, so I'm going to go against all odds and agree with the above troll post on several notes:
Tycho was wrong on several important issues that he raised:
In the original post, he says "Indeed, gamers lured by the promise of the $400 forty gig machine (or those who purchased the twenty-gig, as I did) don't even have the slots to use mods built in."
This is absolutely not the entire truth, if even really capable of being considered the truth at all. All models of the PS3 do come equipped with USB ports which can be used to transfer the mods. The only difference is that the >20GB models include 3 card readers; MemoryStick, SD, and CompactFlash, whereas the 20GB model does not. While it can lightly be argued that this makes it more of a hassle to users of the 20GB PS3, USB drives are ultimately more common than MemorySticks, SD cards, and CF media. Not to all people, but to most. Even still, with USB ports on all PS3 consoles, his statement that some users may not have the slots built in was incorrect.
Not content with just that mistake, he continues further by misconstruing a reply available here by Epic's Mark Rein:"One of our guys even used an iPod to transfer the files on to his PS3."
Rather than assuming (as I did) that Mark Rein's comment was meant to illustrate the wide range of storage media that the PS3 was capable of copying content from, Tycho assumes that Mark was making a comment about the ease of copying the files USING the iPod itself. While I am not Mark Rein and I cannot speak for him and my words are only my interpretation -- it sounds to me like Tycho misunderstood what Mark was saying by making that assumption. We all understand that installing Linux on an iPod is not easy -- not the task for every user. I don't think that was the point. The point was that a lot of storage options are available -- and all PS3 units have the ability to use mods.
Tycho is granted reprieve when he comes back with a carefully re-crafted main point of "The fact of the matter is that you can't play mods without additional hardware, or media, or both."
I overwhelmingly agree. While I did not expect Sony to put UT3 mods on their download site, I did expect Epic to pony up the servers to add an in-game downloader. I also am unsure as to why I can't use the Sony WWW browser to download the mods. Either of these would be preferable to the current method, however, Tycho didn't mention either. Matter of fact, Tycho provided very little in the way of constructive criticism. Maybe that's why I feel so compelled to point out his errors.
Lastly, Tycho has no reason to overreact about the licensing issues that Epic is facing by attempting to allow users to post their own created content out to the network. No one wants to do anything that will cause either the instability of the console or the instability of any servers. For the initial release, I'm sure Sony wants to make entirely sure that the so-called "cooking" aspect of the editor is checked from top to bottom. The last thing that Sony wants is a UT3 exploit that allows full kernel access and full RSX access to homebrew developers.
While Epic should have done their homework sooner, the fact that it is alleged to be a simple downloadable update to the editor is a stupid point to fixate on. Every program gets updates. Yes, Epic did say that end-users would be able to create mods for the PS3 version immediately upon its release and for that bold and outright misstatement they deserve a fairly decent amount of shame. That said, the fact that they're apparently working very diligently on releasing these tools to the public is commendable.
I, for one, am glad that they spent the last months leading to the PS3 release play-testing it as opposed to shuffling through licensing difficulties with the corporate a
You missed some of the point. Actually, you missed most of the meat of the point. The 77% market share and lack of separation is only as big issue an issue because Microsoft refuses to implement proper web standard compliance in their browsers, and that forces programmers (who want their site to be seen properly by IE users) to program non-spec compliant code in conjunction with the spec-proper code for the _real_ browsers on the internet.
If IE supported all current standards properly, users who switched away from it to other browsers would not see so much of a difference in web content, because they would be looking at a page which should render correctly in _all_ browsers, not just one. Does anyone but me remember what Microsoft's website looked like in Firefox 1.0 before they re-did it to make it compatible?
I don't think this was the best time for Paramount to jump ship on the Blu-ray line. While they _may_ have looked at the numbers involved, units sold, etc., all of that data was over the last year or so. What they didn't really consider was that a lot of non-videophile (aka., people who would buy a specific HD-DVD / Blu-ray player) purchasers were going to start purchasing PS3s...
With Sony's recent price drop, the sales of their console have increased. As far as consoles go, this isn't a tremendous jump -- they're still trailing behind Microsoft and Nintendo as far as sales. As far as HD-Movie players go, however, this is quite a jump. According to 'figures' and sources., they are seeing up to a 135% increase in sales after their price drop. That's a lot of Blu-ray players on the market that weren't there a short time ago.
Personally, I'm pissed! I purchased a PS3 during the price drop and I'm ok with what Sony has to offer for the console and with what movies are presently out (though, admittedly, I'd like more on both fronts), but you'll notice I said 'ok', I didn't say I was a raving Sony fanboy. I think there could be more selection of movies and games -- and it saddens me that I will now not be able to own a 1080p copy of Transformers to watch on my 51" HDTV because some pockets were apparently lined.
I understand that I'm not the norm in the market -- a lot of people don't have HDTVs, and a lot of people that do don't have big-screened HDTVs, but even with that, I think that it's a big step backwards for Paramount to alienate my class of shopper.
Then again, I'm sure everyone who was alienated by the Betamax -> VHS move was saying the same thing then...
True and on point, however, keep in mind that Checkers has a simple requirement for the 'winner' to 'win' -- they take over all of their opponent's pieces. As you are undoubtedly aware, Chess has a much more complex requirement for victory -- one that does not require all of the pieces to be removed. As such, the computer would need to calculate how to 'win' as opposed to how 'not to lose', as it does in Checkers.
If the computer doesn't calculate further than 8-12 moves into the future, or attempts to calculate based on possible "checkmate in 8 moves" positions, it would ultimately end up calculating nearly every possible move anyways, because a skilled player against a poor player can mate from a fresh board in under 8-12 moves. Thus, any possible configuration of pieces on the board would be plausible as a 'last 8-12 moves' position.
Also keep in mind that Checkers is a single piece duplicated many times -- they all move the same until a point (when they're crowned) and then there still are only two sets of possible moves after that. As I am again sure that you are undoubtedly aware, Chess pieces are all different and all move based on different patterns. While a Checker only has at most 4 possible spaces it can legally land on in a turn, the amount of moves available in Chess are almost infinitely higher.
So, you're right, you don't _have_ to evaluate every node because some will clearly not result in victory, but I think you're mistaken in thinking that the amount of moves would be significantly smaller. I'd wager it would be more CPU intensive to figure out those last '8-12 moves' (as there would be as many combinations of pieces available for those moves as there essentially would be to begin with), than it would be to just throw the CPU at it and let it crunch everything...
While I'm not an AI programmer, I am schooled in the method of 'brute force', which is all these types of 'solvers' apparently do.
Re:Rock and a hard place
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Blue Blu-ray
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I disagree. The porn industry is still doing very well. You can see the numbers here. (Yes, I know the _TITLE_ of the article is 'Internet Pornography Statistics', but if you read the f'ing thing, you'll see the VHS/DVD sales at the bottom. STILL RELEVANT.) While 2006 showed a metered drop in revenue of about $500m USD, the number of units still increased -- meaning that they're selling more porn, cheaper. Sounds like a competitive market to me.
You wouldn't have as much free porn on the internet if these sites / production companies weren't making some kind of money providing it. By your logic, there shouldn't even be porn DVDs now, since it's all free on the internet anyway. We all know that's not the case!
No, sir, I call BS on your post. If you'd ever installed Windows Server 2003, you'd know the following:
1) Firewall defaults to ON out of the box on a default install UNLESS you're installing it into an existing domain with a DC GPO that forces it to off. (read: if so, you set it up that way, stfu)
2) Machine does not allow incoming connections until you close the Manage Your Server dialog. It brings this fact to your attention no less than 3 times during the initial setup. (read: after first boot, OS configuration, server type setup, domain creation, role assignment, windows update -- unless you close the dialog without doing that, in which case, again, your fault, stfu)
3) Machine really does not want to allow incoming connections until you complete a Windows Update and does make you click OK about 3 times to enable incoming connections.
4) Did I yet mention that you have to explicitly close a dialog that says 'No Incoming Connections are allowed until you close this dialog.' before it will allow incoming connections? I wanted to make sure I mentioned that.
So, no. I've never, ever installed Windows 2003 Server and 'accidentally' had a network cable installed, only to find that within 45 seconds it was crippled, and neither have you, because it's not possible unless you personally clicked 'yes, allow incoming connections to my unpatched, non-updated machine, and hey, while you're at it, let me open firewall.cpl (or the firewall control panel applet for you non command-line users) and disable the firewall'. See, because that's what you would have had to have done to create a situation that could exhibit those results, in case you weren't aware. I am, because I've installed Windows Server 2003, and all flavors thereof, no less than 100 times.
Sierra and Dynamix had many, many edu-tainment titles:
Mixed Up Mother Goose, Mixed Up Fairy Tales, Pepper's Adventure's in Time, Quarky and Quasoo's Turbo Science, The Castle of Dr. Brain, The Island of Dr. Brain, The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain, EcoQuest 1 and 2 (to a degree), etc....
A lot of those games were really fun. I never played the 'mixed up' games, but I played the rest of them, and recently played the Dr. Brain games again because some of the challenges in those games (especially on the higher skill levels) are deceptively clever and can stump people of any age for at least a small amount of time.
Further back than that tho, I had edu-tainment titles on my C64 back in the early 80s. There was 'Cave of the Word Wizard' where you typed the word that the computer said for points (yes, said, as in spoke! 3 C64 3), there was a baseball game that involved answering simple math questions to hit an oncoming pitch, etc..
I run dual-7800 GT OC's (SLI) with the latest rev on Vista Business Premium (yeah, it was free from work, wanna fight about it?) and haven't had any problems what-so-ever.
I actually had many more problems on my HP ZD8000 laptop with it's ATI x600 Mobility and non-native 1440x900 panel and ATI's inability to stretch the display on anything that isn't 1440x900 without completely locking the gfx card.
He wasn't talking about installing the games -- he was talking about making the boot disk. Windows 95 and 98 had the ability to create a bootdisk under the 'Boot Disk' option found in appwiz.cpl (Add/Remove Programs Control Panel Applet). It did it with a GUI, held your hand throughout the process, etc., true to Windows form.
So, no, Windows 95+ users never had to manually do a 'format/s' to make a boot disk unless they didn't know about the control panel applet, and that case is not the operating system's fault. As a side note, 'format/s' isn't a very difficult command -- nothing like trying to create a custom kernel package for your latest install of Debian from the source code. So, any argument that Windows 95 was 'difficult' in this aspect is moronic. I ran Slackware in 1995, and doing _anything_ in that OS was about as fun as gouging your eyeballs out with hot pokers.
So, yes, mucking with your config.sys and autoexec.bat may have been somewhat difficult, but any computer user that used DOS / Win 3.11 was probably already intimately familiar with it, as they probably had to install QEMM or 386Max for extended memory support long before breaking the plastic wrap on their fresh, new copy of Windows 95, and anyone who remembers eras that long ago will remember that QEMM and 386Max (or any other memory manager, for that matter) were remarkably difficult to get working 100% without diving in up to the elbows in your config.sys, manually.
Lastly, DOS had 'memmaker', which was the closest thing to a GUI for managing your LOADHIGH vs LOAD statements in your config.sys -- theoretically taking away the necessity for end users to have to muck with their config.sys or autoexec.bat files. But, I digress.
I'm assuming you meant CGA graphics card?:) A CGI graphics card would be a strange device, indeed.
On the nostalgia front, I still have an AMD K5-133 with a #9GXE64 (64 bit VLB-bus graphics card!) that plays 7th Guest and 11th Hour better than Windows;)
From what I've read, Microsoft has made some tough but I think "correct" choices for security in Vista... it should be very hard for limited users to do much more that use the machine.
I disagree. In my opinion, if you look at Vista and look at all of these new security 'features', it seems more like they've made it easier for malware/spyware attacks with the UAC. Not because it is inherently easier (because it is not!) but because they are training the users to blindly click 'OK' to anything that the OS asks if they want their programs to function.
If Joe User sees a pop-up when he's trying to install some PopCap game that says 'This program needs authorization to run, please enter your password: ' and is forced to enter his password and click OK any time he wants to do anything important, the odds are he isn't going to check the dialog to find out what.EXE file is requesting that access, nor is he going to be able to understand the correlation between the.EXE and the publisher. As such, he will begin to be trained to hit OK to these prompts, regardless of the information contained therein.
Flash forward 6 months -- Joe User is now very accomplished at clicking OK to the UAC asking for permission to install, and during normal surfing or normal computer use, the dialog presents itself. As he is not knowledgeable enough to realize the information presented is indicative of a malware install, he enters his password and clicks OK, and the spyware/malware is installed.
The problem lies in the general user not knowing the difference between a good, functional application and a spyware/malware application. Hell, I've seen experienced technicians who don't know the difference, it's not difficult to imagine. Users want their computers to 'Just Work(TM)'. They are willing to click any OK button or check any checkbox to make sure this is true. The more dialogs they are presented with and click-through, they more they get trained to blindly click through dialogs without knowing their true meaning. More warnings doesn't necessarily equate to more security.
Take car alarms, for example. When they were introduced, it was not commonplace to hear a car alarm go off. If one went off, people looked around to see what was going on. Flash forward to now. People hear car alarms every day. No one drops what they're doing to see what's going on -- it's all about being desensitized to them as a whole.
To bring it around 'full-circle', providing a dialog that requests user authentication to do every-day tasks just desensitizes the general user to this type of dialog. While MS thinks that it provides them the information they need to determine whether or not the action should be allowed, in practice, the user is just going to click OK until they get back to what they were doing.
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I did, but I don't believe for a second that Sony can't work around this, even if it's not practical for them to do so and even if it involves a huge whitelist -- as mentioned, historically they've proven that they will go to immeasurable lengths to protect their intellectual property, easily at the expense of the customer.
Beyond that, Sony has already come out and acknowledged the flaw and announced that they will have a fix for it that will resolve the issue -- I don't think their PR firm would have been allowed to say that if they couldn't actually fix the problem.
That said, thanks for clarifying some of the misinformation I had -- I watched part of the 27C3 talk but did not view in its entirety, and had not seen the portion where they mentioned that the key was locked tight in the hardware somewhere.
I'd assume that in the imaginary 3.60 update, they'd invalidate the original key by either removing it from the internal certificate store or trusted certificate store, so any binary signed with that key would be treated as an un-signed or incorrectly signed executable and would not run.
That does bring up the point that if the actual SELF does not run due to being signed with an invalid key, would it be able to launch a stub that attempted to upgrade the app? I think they'd have to come up with a secure and crafty way of managing this. Whatever they do will need to ensure that legitimate users with physical discs containing SELF executables signed with the bad key can at bare minimum launch the stub which will download the updated, newly signed SELF binary. In any case, I digress.
I don't think it's too long of a shot to assume they would publish updates to all of the games -- they already have the update data on a centralized server that each game contacts as it is run, it wouldn't be much of a stretch of the imagination that they could take the original un-signed executables (I'd hope they have them stored!) and just write a script that signs the most current executable with the new key and publishes for testing. This does assume that they have a valid database of this information today and that they have the ability to quickly and easily get their hands on the unsigned copies of the binaries -- something that could easily be quite an incorrect assumption.
Not 100% correct. The original model PS3 had the 'Emotion Engine' (or some derivative thereof) physically inside the unit, which it used to provide the 95% backward compatibility that the launch PS3's had. Soon after, they changed the size, put out 40GB and 80GB versions (instead of the 20GB and 60GB that launched), and these were missing the physical 'Emotion Engine' and instead had a software implemented emulation layer. The emulation wasn't perfect and their compatibility dropped to something like 80%-85%.
Shortly after that, they just ditched the backwards compatibility altogether, effectively saying that they didn't care to spend any more time on it to make it work better, they'd rather put out new games (I somewhat agree with them), and that if you wanted a PS2, go buy one, they're still on sale. Now, considering it was advertised as one of the selling points initially, perhaps they should change their marketing slogan:
"It only does everything" should become "It only does everything, until we decide it shouldn't do something at a later date, at which point we'll remove it without asking."
Yes, yes, I'm just trolling on that -- they only did that once, and only with the Other OS feature.
"The key also cannot be changed without hardware modifications."
This is 100% incorrect and assumes that Sony will not take actions that *may* have a detrimental impact to their users. Historically, they have proven time and time again that when it is their profit vs. their customer, the customer loses.
Here's what they would have to do (from a high level perspective, all you encryption experts can retract your claws) to fix this:
1) Publish a firmware update (mandatory) for the PS3, needed to sign in to PSN, which includes an update to the root certificate / trust, which would include the reciprocating key for a new private key they generated.
2) Publish a small update to *every* piece of existing PS3 software that signs the executable with the new key.
As Sony licenses their technology and as every executable has to be signed by them internally anyway, it's not a stretch to believe they'd have (somewhere) a full list of these executables. They could just re-sign the SELF binaries with the new key, publish as a patch, and they'd have a new key.
I'm not sure where the statement came from that this was held in hardware -- I mean, sure, it's accurate -- everything held in FlashROM is effectively 'in hardware', but for the purposes of this conversation it doesn't in any circumstance mean that Sony can't fix this -- just that fixing it could possibly negatively impact their userbase. I again must remind everyone that this is not something they normally bother themselves with.
I expect 3.60 to come out soon with a new key and for every single program I run for the next two months to be telling me it requires an update before it will load.
That said, NOW, any of you encryption gurus out there with a better understanding of how the PS3 (mis)uses encryption are free to tear my post to pieces.
You beat me to the punch. I wish the RSS feed showed the good comments instead of whatever they're using to determine it. Though, I think you were more polite than I would have been. I was envisioning something more along the lines of: "What color is the sky in the SysAdmin world you live in that an iPad could fix a poorly designed network with incorrectly configured routes while interfacing with an archaic PBX system?" If I had mod points, you'd have been modded up.
That's OK, believe what you want. There were two crackfixes posted, and the second one actually did fix the issues and make the game 100% playable, though you caught me! It didn't come out until 2 days after the game was released. I'm not sure where you're getting your information from but apparently it's out of date.
See my first response. Thanks!
For example you still cant download Assassins Creed II and it has been out for almost an month already.
Yes you can. And you could the day it was released. Matter of fact, I think it may even have been cracked and on the internet the day before Ubisoft released it. Research first, post second. It'll help you a lot in the future.
FYI, while your reasoning and rationale are 100% correct and I'm in absolute agreement, you're incorrect about the numbers.
The real price for the iPhone is as follows (for the device only, no contract, at all, period, direct from apple's store website 30 seconds ago on a non-upgrade eligible AT&T account)
$499.00 - 8GB iPhone 3Gb
$599.00 - 16GB iPhone 3G S
$699.00 - 32GB iPhone 3G S
That said, the real numbers prove your point better anyways. Just thought I'd point that out.
Exactly -- I worked this out with my fiancee. She was about to buy a new iPhone anyways so we signed her up for a new plan and I paid for the phone. She gets my 16GB iPhone 3G when the new one comes in and I get the shiny new 32GB iPhone 3G S and only paid $299 for it.
:P.
On a side note, all you clowns complaining about $499 for an upgrade price, for some reason my account didn't even qualify for that upgrade -- they wanted $699 from me, claiming I wasn't eligible for upgrade pricing until Dec 2009. $322 and change later and I've got a shiny new iPhone 3G S. It's not impossible. One of my co-workers got AT&T to provide him the $299 upgrade pricing just by calling, complaining, and threatening to cancel and pay the ETF. They sent him over to 'customer retention', who asked why he was cancelling and when he told them they offered him the upgrade at the $299 price...
Of course, he started at $499 -- not $699. I figured since my account was already screwed for some reason, I'd leave it be. Plus, if in December they reset my contract entirely for some reason (as the site shows it will), I'll have a free upgrade just in time for the next upgrade next year
I don't know about that -- telecines are done from the film itself, in the back room or projector room. The audio in those cases is either a direct pull from the soundtrack CDs that are loaded into the projector or are direct rips from the projector's output ports -- there is no reason to use a microphone to pick up the audio for a telecine if you already have access to the film itself, as it's likely you'd have access to a pure digital or at least direct analog copy of the audio.
...
This looks like they're trying to get cammers, but like the GGGGGGGP or whoever posted, after the fact is too late
You're using the minority and claiming it's the majority. Over the air signals comprise approximately 25-30 channels in low signal areas and 45 to 50 channels in areas where you have good signal reception. Those are the "free" entertainment you're referencing.
Out of a group of 400 or 500 channels, 25-30 or 45-50 doesn't represent the majority. The remaining 375 or 475 are channels that I have paid money to be watching -- and they're jamming 10 to 13 minutes of advertising into every 30 minute show these days.
Lastly, your "free" TV will be substantially LESS free come February 2009 when you'll need a converter box (e.g., need to purchase one, as in spend money, not free) to ensure your antenna's over-the-air reception translates into a format that is readable by your TV. While some newer sets will deal with this automatically, the people in general who rely on free, over-the-air television are likely the same people who will not have a brand new, HD set in their living room.
That said, I hate almost all commercials. Some of the more recent ones have at least been bearable, but frankly, if I'm spending >$100/mo on cable (Thanks, Comcast), I shouldn't be forced to spend 25 minutes of every hour watching craptacular advertisements for penis enlargement pills and viagra.
Do you think that using a bidet removes the necessity of toilet paper? I hope I don't ever fly next to you.
You're a fool if you imagine that this automated process is not redundant at several levels. NSI would be very stupid indeed were they to tie all of their finances or credit with a specific registrar to a _TIME BASED_ system that funneled down to a point of failure small enough that the /. crowd would be able to stop them from completing a process that could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Don't get me wrong, though. I'd like to believe that this would work. They really do deserve it.
I just don't think it's going to happen.
I've got karma to burn here, so I'm going to go against all odds and agree with the above troll post on several notes:
Tycho was wrong on several important issues that he raised:
In the original post, he says "Indeed, gamers lured by the promise of the $400 forty gig machine (or those who purchased the twenty-gig, as I did) don't even have the slots to use mods built in."
This is absolutely not the entire truth, if even really capable of being considered the truth at all. All models of the PS3 do come equipped with USB ports which can be used to transfer the mods. The only difference is that the >20GB models include 3 card readers; MemoryStick, SD, and CompactFlash, whereas the 20GB model does not. While it can lightly be argued that this makes it more of a hassle to users of the 20GB PS3, USB drives are ultimately more common than MemorySticks, SD cards, and CF media. Not to all people, but to most. Even still, with USB ports on all PS3 consoles, his statement that some users may not have the slots built in was incorrect.
Not content with just that mistake, he continues further by misconstruing a reply available here by Epic's Mark Rein:"One of our guys even used an iPod to transfer the files on to his PS3."
Rather than assuming (as I did) that Mark Rein's comment was meant to illustrate the wide range of storage media that the PS3 was capable of copying content from, Tycho assumes that Mark was making a comment about the ease of copying the files USING the iPod itself. While I am not Mark Rein and I cannot speak for him and my words are only my interpretation -- it sounds to me like Tycho misunderstood what Mark was saying by making that assumption. We all understand that installing Linux on an iPod is not easy -- not the task for every user. I don't think that was the point. The point was that a lot of storage options are available -- and all PS3 units have the ability to use mods.
Tycho is granted reprieve when he comes back with a carefully re-crafted main point of "The fact of the matter is that you can't play mods without additional hardware, or media, or both."
I overwhelmingly agree. While I did not expect Sony to put UT3 mods on their download site, I did expect Epic to pony up the servers to add an in-game downloader. I also am unsure as to why I can't use the Sony WWW browser to download the mods. Either of these would be preferable to the current method, however, Tycho didn't mention either. Matter of fact, Tycho provided very little in the way of constructive criticism. Maybe that's why I feel so compelled to point out his errors.
Lastly, Tycho has no reason to overreact about the licensing issues that Epic is facing by attempting to allow users to post their own created content out to the network. No one wants to do anything that will cause either the instability of the console or the instability of any servers. For the initial release, I'm sure Sony wants to make entirely sure that the so-called "cooking" aspect of the editor is checked from top to bottom. The last thing that Sony wants is a UT3 exploit that allows full kernel access and full RSX access to homebrew developers.
While Epic should have done their homework sooner, the fact that it is alleged to be a simple downloadable update to the editor is a stupid point to fixate on. Every program gets updates. Yes, Epic did say that end-users would be able to create mods for the PS3 version immediately upon its release and for that bold and outright misstatement they deserve a fairly decent amount of shame. That said, the fact that they're apparently working very diligently on releasing these tools to the public is commendable.
I, for one, am glad that they spent the last months leading to the PS3 release play-testing it as opposed to shuffling through licensing difficulties with the corporate a
You missed some of the point. Actually, you missed most of the meat of the point. The 77% market share and lack of separation is only as big issue an issue because Microsoft refuses to implement proper web standard compliance in their browsers, and that forces programmers (who want their site to be seen properly by IE users) to program non-spec compliant code in conjunction with the spec-proper code for the _real_ browsers on the internet.
If IE supported all current standards properly, users who switched away from it to other browsers would not see so much of a difference in web content, because they would be looking at a page which should render correctly in _all_ browsers, not just one. Does anyone but me remember what Microsoft's website looked like in Firefox 1.0 before they re-did it to make it compatible?
I rest my case.
I don't think this was the best time for Paramount to jump ship on the Blu-ray line. While they _may_ have looked at the numbers involved, units sold, etc., all of that data was over the last year or so. What they didn't really consider was that a lot of non-videophile (aka., people who would buy a specific HD-DVD / Blu-ray player) purchasers were going to start purchasing PS3s...
...
With Sony's recent price drop, the sales of their console have increased. As far as consoles go, this isn't a tremendous jump -- they're still trailing behind Microsoft and Nintendo as far as sales. As far as HD-Movie players go, however, this is quite a jump. According to 'figures' and sources., they are seeing up to a 135% increase in sales after their price drop. That's a lot of Blu-ray players on the market that weren't there a short time ago.
Personally, I'm pissed! I purchased a PS3 during the price drop and I'm ok with what Sony has to offer for the console and with what movies are presently out (though, admittedly, I'd like more on both fronts), but you'll notice I said 'ok', I didn't say I was a raving Sony fanboy. I think there could be more selection of movies and games -- and it saddens me that I will now not be able to own a 1080p copy of Transformers to watch on my 51" HDTV because some pockets were apparently lined.
I understand that I'm not the norm in the market -- a lot of people don't have HDTVs, and a lot of people that do don't have big-screened HDTVs, but even with that, I think that it's a big step backwards for Paramount to alienate my class of shopper.
Then again, I'm sure everyone who was alienated by the Betamax -> VHS move was saying the same thing then
True and on point, however, keep in mind that Checkers has a simple requirement for the 'winner' to 'win' -- they take over all of their opponent's pieces. As you are undoubtedly aware, Chess has a much more complex requirement for victory -- one that does not require all of the pieces to be removed. As such, the computer would need to calculate how to 'win' as opposed to how 'not to lose', as it does in Checkers.
If the computer doesn't calculate further than 8-12 moves into the future, or attempts to calculate based on possible "checkmate in 8 moves" positions, it would ultimately end up calculating nearly every possible move anyways, because a skilled player against a poor player can mate from a fresh board in under 8-12 moves. Thus, any possible configuration of pieces on the board would be plausible as a 'last 8-12 moves' position.
Also keep in mind that Checkers is a single piece duplicated many times -- they all move the same until a point (when they're crowned) and then there still are only two sets of possible moves after that. As I am again sure that you are undoubtedly aware, Chess pieces are all different and all move based on different patterns. While a Checker only has at most 4 possible spaces it can legally land on in a turn, the amount of moves available in Chess are almost infinitely higher.
So, you're right, you don't _have_ to evaluate every node because some will clearly not result in victory, but I think you're mistaken in thinking that the amount of moves would be significantly smaller. I'd wager it would be more CPU intensive to figure out those last '8-12 moves' (as there would be as many combinations of pieces available for those moves as there essentially would be to begin with), than it would be to just throw the CPU at it and let it crunch everything...
While I'm not an AI programmer, I am schooled in the method of 'brute force', which is all these types of 'solvers' apparently do.
I disagree. The porn industry is still doing very well. You can see the numbers here. (Yes, I know the _TITLE_ of the article is 'Internet Pornography Statistics', but if you read the f'ing thing, you'll see the VHS/DVD sales at the bottom. STILL RELEVANT.) While 2006 showed a metered drop in revenue of about $500m USD, the number of units still increased -- meaning that they're selling more porn, cheaper. Sounds like a competitive market to me.
You wouldn't have as much free porn on the internet if these sites / production companies weren't making some kind of money providing it. By your logic, there shouldn't even be porn DVDs now, since it's all free on the internet anyway. We all know that's not the case!
No, sir, I call BS on your post. If you'd ever installed Windows Server 2003, you'd know the following:
1) Firewall defaults to ON out of the box on a default install UNLESS you're installing it into an existing domain with a DC GPO that forces it to off. (read: if so, you set it up that way, stfu)
2) Machine does not allow incoming connections until you close the Manage Your Server dialog. It brings this fact to your attention no less than 3 times during the initial setup. (read: after first boot, OS configuration, server type setup, domain creation, role assignment, windows update -- unless you close the dialog without doing that, in which case, again, your fault, stfu)
3) Machine really does not want to allow incoming connections until you complete a Windows Update and does make you click OK about 3 times to enable incoming connections.
4) Did I yet mention that you have to explicitly close a dialog that says 'No Incoming Connections are allowed until you close this dialog.' before it will allow incoming connections? I wanted to make sure I mentioned that.
So, no. I've never, ever installed Windows 2003 Server and 'accidentally' had a network cable installed, only to find that within 45 seconds it was crippled, and neither have you, because it's not possible unless you personally clicked 'yes, allow incoming connections to my unpatched, non-updated machine, and hey, while you're at it, let me open firewall.cpl (or the firewall control panel applet for you non command-line users) and disable the firewall'. See, because that's what you would have had to have done to create a situation that could exhibit those results, in case you weren't aware. I am, because I've installed Windows Server 2003, and all flavors thereof, no less than 100 times.
Thanks for playing, game over.
Sierra and Dynamix had many, many edu-tainment titles:
Mixed Up Mother Goose, Mixed Up Fairy Tales, Pepper's Adventure's in Time, Quarky and Quasoo's Turbo Science, The Castle of Dr. Brain, The Island of Dr. Brain, The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain, EcoQuest 1 and 2 (to a degree), etc....
A lot of those games were really fun. I never played the 'mixed up' games, but I played the rest of them, and recently played the Dr. Brain games again because some of the challenges in those games (especially on the higher skill levels) are deceptively clever and can stump people of any age for at least a small amount of time.
Further back than that tho, I had edu-tainment titles on my C64 back in the early 80s. There was 'Cave of the Word Wizard' where you typed the word that the computer said for points (yes, said, as in spoke! 3 C64 3), there was a baseball game that involved answering simple math questions to hit an oncoming pitch, etc..
For what it's worth, honor decay was removed in the 2.0 patch and replaced with a better system that doesn't decay over time...
I run dual-7800 GT OC's (SLI) with the latest rev on Vista Business Premium (yeah, it was free from work, wanna fight about it?) and haven't had any problems what-so-ever.
I actually had many more problems on my HP ZD8000 laptop with it's ATI x600 Mobility and non-native 1440x900 panel and ATI's inability to stretch the display on anything that isn't 1440x900 without completely locking the gfx card.
Nice.
He wasn't talking about installing the games -- he was talking about making the boot disk. Windows 95 and 98 had the ability to create a bootdisk under the 'Boot Disk' option found in appwiz.cpl (Add/Remove Programs Control Panel Applet). It did it with a GUI, held your hand throughout the process, etc., true to Windows form.
/s' to make a boot disk unless they didn't know about the control panel applet, and that case is not the operating system's fault. As a side note, 'format /s' isn't a very difficult command -- nothing like trying to create a custom kernel package for your latest install of Debian from the source code. So, any argument that Windows 95 was 'difficult' in this aspect is moronic. I ran Slackware in 1995, and doing _anything_ in that OS was about as fun as gouging your eyeballs out with hot pokers.
So, no, Windows 95+ users never had to manually do a 'format
So, yes, mucking with your config.sys and autoexec.bat may have been somewhat difficult, but any computer user that used DOS / Win 3.11 was probably already intimately familiar with it, as they probably had to install QEMM or 386Max for extended memory support long before breaking the plastic wrap on their fresh, new copy of Windows 95, and anyone who remembers eras that long ago will remember that QEMM and 386Max (or any other memory manager, for that matter) were remarkably difficult to get working 100% without diving in up to the elbows in your config.sys, manually.
Lastly, DOS had 'memmaker', which was the closest thing to a GUI for managing your LOADHIGH vs LOAD statements in your config.sys -- theoretically taking away the necessity for end users to have to muck with their config.sys or autoexec.bat files. But, I digress.
I'm assuming you meant CGA graphics card? :) A CGI graphics card would be a strange device, indeed.
;)
On the nostalgia front, I still have an AMD K5-133 with a #9GXE64 (64 bit VLB-bus graphics card!) that plays 7th Guest and 11th Hour better than Windows
I disagree. In my opinion, if you look at Vista and look at all of these new security 'features', it seems more like they've made it easier for malware/spyware attacks with the UAC. Not because it is inherently easier (because it is not!) but because they are training the users to blindly click 'OK' to anything that the OS asks if they want their programs to function.
If Joe User sees a pop-up when he's trying to install some PopCap game that says 'This program needs authorization to run, please enter your password: ' and is forced to enter his password and click OK any time he wants to do anything important, the odds are he isn't going to check the dialog to find out what
Flash forward 6 months -- Joe User is now very accomplished at clicking OK to the UAC asking for permission to install, and during normal surfing or normal computer use, the dialog presents itself. As he is not knowledgeable enough to realize the information presented is indicative of a malware install, he enters his password and clicks OK, and the spyware/malware is installed.
The problem lies in the general user not knowing the difference between a good, functional application and a spyware/malware application. Hell, I've seen experienced technicians who don't know the difference, it's not difficult to imagine. Users want their computers to 'Just Work(TM)'. They are willing to click any OK button or check any checkbox to make sure this is true. The more dialogs they are presented with and click-through, they more they get trained to blindly click through dialogs without knowing their true meaning. More warnings doesn't necessarily equate to more security.
Take car alarms, for example. When they were introduced, it was not commonplace to hear a car alarm go off. If one went off, people looked around to see what was going on. Flash forward to now. People hear car alarms every day. No one drops what they're doing to see what's going on -- it's all about being desensitized to them as a whole.
To bring it around 'full-circle', providing a dialog that requests user authentication to do every-day tasks just desensitizes the general user to this type of dialog. While MS thinks that it provides them the information they need to determine whether or not the action should be allowed, in practice, the user is just going to click OK until they get back to what they were doing.