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PS3 Firmware Update 3.21 of preventing piracy by removing Linux.
- Thread starter Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
- Start date
It's interesting that the blog post is not marked as features post (they're burying it already) and it wasn't even linked from their twitter accounts. I hope people don't accidently upgrade their system unknowingly losing data in the process.
Some are; others are just in love with the very simple idea of not having the products they bought losing features over time.
Raist said:
Some are; others are just in love with the very simple idea of not having the products they bought losing features over time.
This thread is amazing.
There is only one party that is 100% reason for the removal of this feature. Taking it out on the hardware vendor who seeks to keep their system secure is utterly ridiculous.
The douchebag is not even close to getting past the locked SPE unless he has electron microscope and can physically read the root key off the memory
Buying the hardware does not mean you have a right to use it any which way you like. You agree to terms and conditions. That means you agree to display restrictions, region coding etc. You also agree that they can remove any feature. You agreed to the legal contract. Got a problem with that? Buy something else.
Before the usual Sony is anti-consumer horseshit is peddled about maybe you should go find out about Sony vs. Universal in the Supreme Court. It is the precedent which allows you to have a DVR, rip a CD or generally have any kind of back-up for personal consumption. That is more than any company has done in the last 50yrs for consumer rights. No they didn't fight for you, Morita-san fought for his company.
Sony is simply staying ahead of the game by reacting to the potential of a threat. They got in professionals to do the security this time and around. The PSP is a garbage. You don't make the most secure consumer electronics device of the last decade by waiting for someone to exploit an opening and then patching it. You patch it before it becomes an exploit. That is how you achieve security. There is no other way.
Sony/IBM/Toshiba have set the model for console security going forward and you can bet Microsoft will go down the same route with the secure processing vault via a locked core or co-processor. As long as protocols are kept in place the system will take a long time for random schmuck haxorz to get past.
I am 100% for firms protecting their intellectual property. It's not yours. It never was. It's their's and if they want to put it under lock and key then it is their right to do so.
There is only one party that is 100% reason for the removal of this feature. Taking it out on the hardware vendor who seeks to keep their system secure is utterly ridiculous.
The douchebag is not even close to getting past the locked SPE unless he has electron microscope and can physically read the root key off the memory
Buying the hardware does not mean you have a right to use it any which way you like. You agree to terms and conditions. That means you agree to display restrictions, region coding etc. You also agree that they can remove any feature. You agreed to the legal contract. Got a problem with that? Buy something else.
Before the usual Sony is anti-consumer horseshit is peddled about maybe you should go find out about Sony vs. Universal in the Supreme Court. It is the precedent which allows you to have a DVR, rip a CD or generally have any kind of back-up for personal consumption. That is more than any company has done in the last 50yrs for consumer rights. No they didn't fight for you, Morita-san fought for his company.
Sony is simply staying ahead of the game by reacting to the potential of a threat. They got in professionals to do the security this time and around. The PSP is a garbage. You don't make the most secure consumer electronics device of the last decade by waiting for someone to exploit an opening and then patching it. You patch it before it becomes an exploit. That is how you achieve security. There is no other way.
Sony/IBM/Toshiba have set the model for console security going forward and you can bet Microsoft will go down the same route with the secure processing vault via a locked core or co-processor. As long as protocols are kept in place the system will take a long time for random schmuck haxorz to get past.
I am 100% for firms protecting their intellectual property. It's not yours. It never was. It's their's and if they want to put it under lock and key then it is their right to do so.
Dragona Akehi
Retired
Now that charlequin's here he can explain all that stuff about EULAs. He's the smart one!
Nuh uh. Australia now has a law stating that all DVD and Bluray players must be region free, due to consumer rights being more important than corporate ones.
PS, it's my hardware. I own it.
Hi. Remember me?
avaya said:
Nuh uh. Australia now has a law stating that all DVD and Bluray players must be region free, due to consumer rights being more important than corporate ones.
PS, it's my hardware. I own it.
Hi. Remember me?
CartridgeBlower
Member
avaya said:
:lol :lol :lol
I bet Sony wishes all their customers were as 'loyal' as you.
You sound like the type of consumer who would never draw a line.
What if Sony found it in their best interests to remove Blu-Ray playback for movies because there was an exploit found that could hack the system?
Valkyr Junkie
Member
Dragona Akehi said:
I think the argument is that while you technically own a physical box, you only own a license for the software inside which can be modified at the discretion of the licensee.
avaya said:
So, in other words I should never buy something ever because it isn't mine? Gee, wonderful how the world decides to continuously get shittier by the day.
I paid for the hardware, thus I own the hardware. PSN and that service, is theirs and I'm happy to agree to the EULA for that. Taking out a feature of my hardware to protect their shit is stupid.
Dragona Akehi said:
Fair enough. If the law of the land is like that then can't say anything against that.
It is your hardware. But the software it runs is not your software.
Since it runs that software the very instance it boots it's theirs. You figure out to stop that software booting when you turn the machine on, it's all yours.
I do. No excuses though. Sony Music should have stayed the hell away from Bertlesmann Group.
So, anyone knows what kind of contract did sony had with Yellow Dog? If Linux is being used on Militar projects or universities and Yellow Dog has contracts with them to provide support to linux but there is not gonna be any more firmware updates that could fix some bugs on the ps3 <-> linux layer, would they be screwed?
ReyBrujo
Gold Member
The so called flaw exists in every piece of computing that converts code into electricity pulses (a tip: everywhere). If you have physical access to a machine, there is a risk of hacking, being it a console, phone, ATM or anything.DarkJC said:
And they did great. However, hacking done right will lead to features that are currently disabled (like free-region DVD playing, homebrew, etc). Note that I am not completely on the side of these features (there is a reason about why determined software can only be used in a determined region, or why you can't play determined files if you haven't paid for the codecs, etc), however it also prevents you from using the system in legal ways (like movies encoded with open source codecs, or playing movies you bought from different regions as long as you fulfill the viewer requirements in both reasons and the discs would be legal to reproduce in the country).Raist said:
Yet because the PS3 is susceptible to a physical attack to which every piece of hardware created in the past and surely in years to come they kill a whole feature. What if exploit were done though the Emotion Engine chip, would they just disable it through a firmware release?Raist said:
The only solution for piracy is direct downloading with server connection or a service similar to OnLive or iTunes. Yet people don't want these either. I am kind of surprised people are willing to give up features that easily. Spoon feeding comes to my mind.
avaya said:
Wrong. When you purchase something, it's yours. That's the difference between hardware (a PS3) and a service (XBL, PSN). Sony's on decent legal ground re: preventing PSN access to people who don't update since that's a service, but Blu-Rays...that's different. They're a lot more likely to eat it on the basis that continuing harm is done to those who can't watch future Blu-Rays without updating.
avaya said:
Wrong. Again, no company can attach continuing terms as a condition of sale in the US. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to modify cars with aftermarket parts, use third party controllers, or buy buttons from anyone but the original shirt manufacturer.
avaya said:
So wrong.
avaya said:
Okay, now I'm being trolled.
avaya said:
So you would have no issue with Sony locking game discs to a single console to prevent you from playing a game you might have stolen? Sure, you said you bought it used, but it's not showing up in Sony's point of sale system, so better safe than sorry. It's not your intellectual property, after all. It's their's [sic].
avaya said:
For all intents and purposes, the firmware and the hardware are one and the same. Sony does not offer for sale a PS3 without their firmware and they're actively preventing any other software from running on it; hence, it's part of the hardware as sold.
CartridgeBlower said:
Yeah I'm a douchebag for not wanting to see firms see their systems hacked to bits and investments go down the drain.
I do draw a line, but consumer sovreighty is not the absolute be all and end all.
In the case of the Blu-ray playback, if you hack a BD-ROM you more than likely have access to hack the entire system. They would just go down the route of Microsoft and beginning shutting down consoles that are using that exploit. Don't have a problem with that.
charlequin
Banned
avaya said:
"Intellectual property" is an extralegal fiction invented for the express purpose of extending a well-defined series of government-granted limited-monopoly privileges into all-encompassing legal control in perpetuity.
Valkyr Junkie said:
This is indeed the interpretation that companies with large monetary investments in copyrighted material have attempted to shoehorn into international law, yes.
Dragona Akehi said:
The ultra-short-and-sweet version is that regardless of whether the removal of this feature is legally protected for Sony under some principle, it's unlikely to be meaningfully protected for them specifically under the defense of "we said we might do it in the EULA," since they sell PS3s in jurisdictions where EULAs are unenforceable or potentially unenforceable (like, say, Canada and, currently, 9 of the 11 US Federal circuits.)
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
charlequin said:
whoa.
ReyBrujo said:
Yeah well that's wishful thinking. There's no such thing as "hacking done right", that's BS. As soon as it threatens the security of the whole system, not just harmless features, it's their right to prevent that.
Yeah, that's a big "what if". IF an exploit of PS2 BC chips was to be found and IF they were to disable BC because of that, then I'm sure you'd have much more complaining. People who don't give a shit about that get over the lame "omg consumer rights" argument because they absolutely don't give a shit about Linux support. On the other hand I'm pretty sure many people who scream that it's absolutely shameful don't give a shit about the OtherOS function. It's just for the sake of complaining/trolling.
I hardly even know what a Linux is but throw me in with the "this is crap" crowd!
I used ta look forward to firmware updates and all the good new stuffs they brought but ever since that 3.00 one they've just been crap. All of the ads, dumb larger xmb icons, unstoppable ticker, no more game start up chime or even the old system start up one, them erasing the old PS3 logo from all but the one on the physical system itself, pointless minis save area, trophys, dumb photo thingy, dumb bluray folder, what's new, home icon, and now this!
Its like they're arbitrarily turning my PS3 into some so much lamer then it used to be! Is my PS2 BC next on the chopping block?? Maybe they'll start blocking access to other PS3 region stores?! Or perhaps each PS3 will be locked to one user account at a time like the PSP! Where does it end??
I used ta look forward to firmware updates and all the good new stuffs they brought but ever since that 3.00 one they've just been crap. All of the ads, dumb larger xmb icons, unstoppable ticker, no more game start up chime or even the old system start up one, them erasing the old PS3 logo from all but the one on the physical system itself, pointless minis save area, trophys, dumb photo thingy, dumb bluray folder, what's new, home icon, and now this!
Its like they're arbitrarily turning my PS3 into some so much lamer then it used to be! Is my PS2 BC next on the chopping block?? Maybe they'll start blocking access to other PS3 region stores?! Or perhaps each PS3 will be locked to one user account at a time like the PSP! Where does it end??
tombstone said:
It can be argued that the GameOS is a service and all you purchased was the HyperVisor.
There are several updates that require you to install them to enable content and features. If you were right Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung et al have violated the law numerous times.
Dare you find a greater legal precendent than Sony-Universal when it comes to fair use. You will struggle.
Security is achieved by closing exploits as they highlighted. Not after they have been used. Sony can claim that this is an exploit. They are well within their rights to do what they did. If they weren't where are the lawsuits? Oh wait there are none.
Firmware and hardware are not the same thing. Sony is not preventing you from putting your own stuff on there. You can do that if you want. If you have the resources and you know the security. They just stopped you from doing that with their software, which you agreed to.
charlequin
Banned
BocoDragon said:
It's true! Copyright, patents, and trademarks are three entirely separate systems of temporarily-granted monopoly rights all fundamentally based on the underlying assumption that the government (as the designated actor for the broader interests of its citizenry) has the ability to restrict a natural right (the ability to freely copy an innovation or work created by another) by creating a legal right (the ability to have your creative works, branding, or inventions protected temporarily by law, within certain explicit bounds) which is beneficial to society as a whole (not to the owners of content alone.)
Companies say they are protecting their "intellectual property" because by analogizing copyright-holdings to physical property, they are encouraging bystanders to think of their rights as innate and relatively all-encompassing (like physical property rights) rather than granted by choice and heavily limited in order to bring about a specific predetermined goal (i.e. a balance between the interests of content producers and content consumers.)
Diablohead
Member
I think sony have wanted to weed out the function for a while now, taking it out of the slim just means that testing and shit is 1 step easier now without having to worry about it. Plus it also prevents the chances of using it to hack the system if possible.torontoml said:
ReyBrujo
Gold Member
My point has always been that there are other ways of fixing this. This puts a really bad precedent.Raist said:
It is not that big. They discovered piracy was a problem in the PSP and checked what would happen if they went fully digital with the PSPGo. It is a failure because people actually want to own the UMDs and not just have them in some kind of limbo somewhere.Raist said:
I am not against the idea of preventing something from being used illegally, but I am against cutting existing features of consoles (for example, Nintendo rolled a update to exchange MP3 for AAC support in the Photo Channel, but they let people choose which one to keep, and even if you update to AAC, you can always roll back to MP3 support if you originally had it, as far as I know).
I also signed up petitions for IBM to release the source code of OS/2 or at least to free up the API to let developers build a cloneRaist said:
And when Amazon deleted copies of 1984 because the seller didn't have the rights to do so (something the end user shouldn't have to know about, it is Amazon the one who should verify that). The future is digital downloading and remote execution, which implies full control by the operator of the service. The faster people are made aware of kill-off switches the faster companies will stop using them.So make a list of features that earlier versions of the console have and that don't anymore and you will start to understand my point of view. The Other OS feature was not a gift, people paid for it (even if it was a insignificant part of the total price).Diablohead said:
tombstone said:
Some car manufacturers WILL void your warranty if an aftermarket part caused "genuine" part failure. Not an uncommon practice.
As for the "most secure" bit, that may be a stretch but the Blu-Ray security schema is one of the most secure consumer level systems to come out in a decade.
Absolutely I would have an issue if I could not play the games on other PS3's (like Nintendo DSi software)
), but Sony, nor anyone else, is saying that. Protecting their intellectual property is different than limiting your use of licensed content.No, it's not the same. You may own the hardware, but you are receiving a user license for the software that the PS3 needs to boot. No different than the cable company not allowing you to access the firmware on your set-top-box so that new features can be added by the consumer.
charlequin
Banned
Raist said:
So, you would agree unquestioningly and without hesitation that some relatively representative list of the fruits of "hacking" games and electronic systems, say:
- Jailbreaking the iPhone
- Adding region-free capability to DVD and BRD players
- Fan-translation patches for games never officially released in a certain language
- Creating alternate firmware for music devices such as Rockbox that enables new features without providing any additional ability to use the hardware for piracy
- Unauthorized mods and fanmade levels for early PC games such as DooM
- Unofficial support patches produced for PC games
- Creating physical modifications of home console systems such as benheck's various mods
- Reverse-engineering systems such as Atari's cartridge lockout and Microsoft's peripheral lockout in order to sell unauthorized games and accessories
...consists entirely and solely of unambiguously bad things, all of which were immoral to attempt and all of which the original manufacturers should be considered well within their rights to prevent?
avaya said:
Well, sure, anything can be argued. The question is whether it can be reasonably argued without disingenuousness on the part of the one arguing it.
Fundamentally, any hair-splitting distinction between software and hardware of this sort is innately disingenuous. Software is merely a set of instructions that guide the operation of a device -- and any electronic device fundamentally relies on such instructions to function.
As a comparative example, all new cars sold today fundamentally require a software system -- a computer that manages fuel intake, temperature, emissions and other aspects of the car's functionality -- in order to turn on and perform their functionality. I think it would be widely agreed that a car manufacturer that had their dealerships patch these onboard computers to disable, I dunno, the stereo system in order to prevent the use of unauthorized aftermarket parts would be seen as behaving in a ludicrously inappropriate fashion (at very least) and very likely in violation of one or more laws as well.
I wouldn't be too sure about that. Sony has to make clear what they are offering and under what conditions you can use those features. They (at least in my country) are not allowed to say "you can play online". They have to tell you that you have to have internet. They must not say "Free Online Gaming", instead they also have to say that you have to pay for your internet.avaya said:
Linux (well, OtherOS, actually) is to be found on their homepage without those restrictions. It's just misleading (which is illegal over here). I'm sure they haven't thought about taking that feature away from their customers two years ago... that doesn't change the fact that they sold you a feature that is now restricted without telling you that it might be restricted in the future.
You can argue about whether OtherOS was advertised or not. I would say that it definitely was advertised. Mentioning it as one of the key features in an Interview is advertisement (for me at least).
corrosivefrost
Member
Diablohead said:
Hacking for hacking sake is harmless. Sony is probably concerned with the implications hacking would have for the eventual piracy of software. However, piracy is much more difficult on the PS3.
Those other consoles are using DVD media, so once hacked, piracy becomes readily available with the commonality of DVD burners these days (probably less so for 360 than Wii, as Wii games are smaller and can be burned to regular DVD media or booted off external USB drives instead of requiring DL discs).
Blu-ray burners are not cheap enough yet. External storage would get pricey. The cost of technology simply isn't low enough yet. Internet connections aren't fast enough in most places to offset the download of games that routinely clock in at over 20gb. With providers placing bandwidth caps on users these days, how much would it cost someone to download and upload PS3 games at will? Too much.
The worst concern Sony has from this, as far as I can figure, is that a hacked system might be able to boot ISO files on an external drive. Or somehow PSN games could be copied, since they are typically small. I don't know how easy this would be on a PS3, but on the 360 copying DLC/XBLA games seems to require a JTAG hack. The Wii is a different story... then again, the Wii seems to be a softmodding heaven.
So what's the benefit of removing it now instead of when/if it becomes a real problem? I think that's probably the better question.
ReyBrujo
Gold Member
Voiding warranty is legal as the product has been externally modified and haven't been certified by the manufacturer. However, it is not ilegal to modify your car (acknowledging you are breaking ties to the manufacturer).cRIPticon said:
However, I am sure courts would accept suits if the car failed for something that is not directly linked to the modifications done (bad brakes, or bad balance, for example).
charlequin
Banned
avaya said:
That's like saying "unicorns must be protected under the Endangered Species act, because there aren't almost any of them around!"
"Intellectual property" does not exist. Copyrighted material does not share any meaningful similarities, either de facto or de jure, with real property, and what legal protections it does have are fundamentally based on the idea that it is indeed very much unlike property.
As a result, the idea that a company is right to unquestioningly defend "their intellectual property" is both fundamentally kind of silly. It's right for a company to defend their copyrighted and patented material under what they believe to be an accurate understanding of their granted copyright and patent privileges, yes.
It also makes sense for a company to attempt to shift the legal balance by claiming additional privileges, but only in the same sense that it "makes sense" for a company to hide defects in its products or otherwise defraud their own customers -- it's an ethically wrong but potentially lucrative way to become more profitable.
Inasmuch as one defends the idea that by virtue of creating something, a company should hold absolute and unlimited power to dictate exactly how it is used throughout the world in perpetuity, one is confusing (whether deliberately or accidentally) what is beneficial to the company with what is right (i.e. well-supported as a moral standard of behavior.)
Raist said:
But that wasn't the argument. The argument was that the hardware was his. If Sony releases a game that carries their requirement of running a specific version of firmware to play it, that does not change the question of ownership. It is now a user licensing issue. You don't HAVE to play any future games and keep your Linux system in tact. It is completely your choice.
Lets assume that Sony has found something which would break the system such thatcRIPticon said:
they are in need to disable the OtherOS. Ok, no problem with this. But! Guess they can
fix the problem, wouldn't you agree that they should enable the feature back again
once it's fixed? Would be cool, but I guess we all know that this will never going to
happen.
Well, I understand the CBEA to its fullest, not only on paper but also practically by codingcRIPticon said:Absolutely incorrect
at the lowest level utilizing all the SPEs while tinkering around with the DMA engines (the
MFCs). I work with the system for three years now and have gone through each iteration of
IBMs Cell SDK up to the latest version. Having implemented a parallel Gauss-Seidel matrix
solver, I'm now about to implement a sparse linear matrix solver, which a bit more difficult
due to the non-linear memory access pattern of the underlying data structure.
Sure. But I wanted to do it on the PS3 for another purpose of mine.cRIPticon said:
I got you on this some posts ago.cRIPticon said:
The amount of people confusing intellectual property with real property in this thread is staggering.
The laws of physical property do not apply in any capacity to so-called "intellectual property". Sony is not within their legal right to restrict your ability to play or distribute anything; DRM is not a legal pratice, it is a business practice. Copyright laws serve to protect other entities from profiting off of their ideas. That's it.
The laws of physical property do not apply in any capacity to so-called "intellectual property". Sony is not within their legal right to restrict your ability to play or distribute anything; DRM is not a legal pratice, it is a business practice. Copyright laws serve to protect other entities from profiting off of their ideas. That's it.
charlequin said:
That's exactly what I said it is not. What I said is that as soon as it is a threat for the security of the whole system, they can close the door if they want to. Because saying the opposite is basically like saying "I swear, it was just for backing up my games!"
In other words, I'm not saying that it always is destined to ruin software sales, but assuming that it's only going to prevent "fair" and harmless hacking and nothing else is BS. It's a double edged sword, and if Sony estimates that it's a potential huge threat AND locking out OtherOS (which is not going to affect a huge number of consumers like some people here would like to believe) is the only safe way, I'd say it's fair enough.
Also there's nothing in your list that compares to a global security threat to a current gen system.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
The Faceless Master said:
Totally different issues. If company A screws a consumer and no one complains, then company B see this and screws the consumer in the exact same way but now they complain, then that is stupid on the consumers part for not complaining in the first place. I can understand why company B screwed the consumer and thought they could get away with it because company A has been screwing them for years with a smile on their face.
Here, consumers are getting screwed for the first time and complaining about it like they should be. If no one complained and they did this same thing with the PS4 the first question would be... why didn't you care the first time they did it?
I don't think people here have enough information to conclude what's the best way to tackle this problem. e.g., Is PSN under more probing and attack now because of geohot's work ? What is the worst case scenario for consumers and Sony should enough cheats and hacks happen ?
A lot of the examples cited above (e.g., Ben Heck modify his box) are well-contained problems. But in the digital world -- especially if Sony leans more towards a connected gaming experience -- things can get muddy. One gamers' action can affect many others.
I would wait until after the patch to see what's on the table. Afterall, the patch does not auto-apply.
A lot of the examples cited above (e.g., Ben Heck modify his box) are well-contained problems. But in the digital world -- especially if Sony leans more towards a connected gaming experience -- things can get muddy. One gamers' action can affect many others.
I would wait until after the patch to see what's on the table. Afterall, the patch does not auto-apply.
missile said:
If it's not a revenue producing endeavor, I would not expect so.
You, good sir/madam, need to get your hands on a full on CELL system, not the PS3
Very cool stuff and I understand why tinkering with the architecture is fun as I have been involved with many other, much larger SMP/MCA systems over the past 15+ years (think hundreds of cores/thousands of threads).Fair enough.
charlequin
Banned
Raist said:
I just wanted to get you clearly and officially on record as saying that Benjamin Heckendorn was unambiguously in the wrong morally for building a one-handed controller so that an injured Iraq war vet could continue to game after losing the use of his right hand.