RedNumberFive
Banned
jorma said:
ON the GAF scale:
Developers > Game Journalists > Publishers > Consumers
Gaffers have no trouble bending over and taking it as long as they get their fix.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
PS3 Firmware Update 3.21 of preventing piracy by removing Linux.
- Thread starter Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
- Start date
ON the GAF scale:
Developers > Game Journalists > Publishers > Consumers
Gaffers have no trouble bending over and taking it as long as they get their fix.
Quoting myself;
it would be wise to deactive other PSN accounts (share accounts) as well.
on some SSE assembler instructions / code fragments, it isn't that difficult to find
equivalent VMX instructions / code fragments producing the same result.
Technically, there is nothing that prevents porting x86 code over to the PPU of
the Cell processor.
As an additional note. If you plan to deactive your system from the PSN, thenmissile said:
it would be wise to deactive other PSN accounts (share accounts) as well.
Not a big hurdle if 90% of the code is written in a portable way. Even if they relygofreak said:
on some SSE assembler instructions / code fragments, it isn't that difficult to find
equivalent VMX instructions / code fragments producing the same result.
Technically, there is nothing that prevents porting x86 code over to the PPU of
the Cell processor.
DryvBy
Member
My thoughts on it:
While I don't use it, doesn't make it right to remove it. Fix the security hole in it. Or just leave it open. Most people are not going to "pirate" as much as you think. The machine is an expensive beast. In this economy, who's going to risk putting pirated stuff on it that will more than likely be bricked later by Sony.
The reason this worries me is what if in the future, they decide to do this to other features I might use but others don't? Like BC, which seems to be wanted but not mainstream used. I currently have the original PS3 and it has all the features. I don't want the stuff removed, even if I'm not using it at the time. We never know if another hacker will find a security hole in a PS2 save game (see Twilight Princess hack...). Should I lose BC because Sony doesn't feel like fixing the problem?
If we allow it now, we're basically saying, "Sure. Go ahead and do what YOU want. I'm the customer that paid money for all these features, but do what you will.". This is why we have such horrible DRM. We have servers shut down less than a year or right at that time (Hellgate London). We pay for something, we should be able to use it. This is just a form of entertainment. I, for one, am tired of having any corporation have me give them money, promise me something, and then take it back, but keep my money. It's the equivalent of corporate piracy. They're stealing from you, but let's face it: customers are too stupid to care besides a few minority.
Lastly, we didn't have this problem when it was the NES.
edit: Also, I think this is still an April Fool's prank. I noticed some people saying "but this isn't funny if it is April Fool's...". Well, pranks aren't always funny. There's just something fishy about the whole 4/1/10 date.
While I don't use it, doesn't make it right to remove it. Fix the security hole in it. Or just leave it open. Most people are not going to "pirate" as much as you think. The machine is an expensive beast. In this economy, who's going to risk putting pirated stuff on it that will more than likely be bricked later by Sony.
The reason this worries me is what if in the future, they decide to do this to other features I might use but others don't? Like BC, which seems to be wanted but not mainstream used. I currently have the original PS3 and it has all the features. I don't want the stuff removed, even if I'm not using it at the time. We never know if another hacker will find a security hole in a PS2 save game (see Twilight Princess hack...). Should I lose BC because Sony doesn't feel like fixing the problem?
If we allow it now, we're basically saying, "Sure. Go ahead and do what YOU want. I'm the customer that paid money for all these features, but do what you will.". This is why we have such horrible DRM. We have servers shut down less than a year or right at that time (Hellgate London). We pay for something, we should be able to use it. This is just a form of entertainment. I, for one, am tired of having any corporation have me give them money, promise me something, and then take it back, but keep my money. It's the equivalent of corporate piracy. They're stealing from you, but let's face it: customers are too stupid to care besides a few minority.
Lastly, we didn't have this problem when it was the NES.
edit: Also, I think this is still an April Fool's prank. I noticed some people saying "but this isn't funny if it is April Fool's...". Well, pranks aren't always funny. There's just something fishy about the whole 4/1/10 date.
gofreak said:
It's open source. The vast majority of audio and video format decoding and playback is handled via ffmpeg, which is written in C and quite portable. Understand that XBMC never handled video playback, older versions relied on mplayer, which is another open source playback software that uses ffmpeg as the base. mplayer used to be able to load windows codecs to play back certain video formats, but that was dropped a long time ago as open-source codecs for the major codecs were written. So if you wanted to play wmv files 5 years ago with mplayer, you probably needed a 32-bit x86, but that doesn't apply any more.
XBMC is just an interface. It's a pretty one, with lots of access to python scripts (python's very cross-platform), but it's just an interface.
However, it's an interface that happens to use OpenGL for some blending effects for menu transitions, and for video scaling, but the PS3 doesn't have RSX access, so no accelerated OpenGL. That's the only reason there never was a PS3 version.
And here's a Cell-accelerated version of OpenGL. Too bad progress on it's been very slow, even now it's still extremely buggy and not much faster than the PPC version. But with a little work, maybe it could handle XBMC? It was going to be something I worked on over the summer. Guess we'll never know now.
from 'PS3 Firmware 3.21 coming April 1st (no joke)' -- community.eu.playstation.com;
So the message is pretty clear.
Tridentmorph said:
So the message is pretty clear.
Musashi Wins!
FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
RedNumberFive said:
Without a doubt. Majority of people here accept anything over questioning "their company". Has always been that way.
Dr Bad Dude PHD
Banned
I hope they get the message in time!RavenFox said:
chubigans said:
Isn't the post regarding 3.21 via their blog pretty clear on why they're doing this? I don't think they have much else to say. It's not like they're going to change their mind, they've said they're doing this and said if you want to keep Linux on your PS3 to not install new firmwares but that that will affect your ability to play future PS3 games and Blu-rays.
CaseyTappy
Member
JudgeN said:
What ?
So if you don't take it bending over anytime they like you are anti company now :lol
DryvBy2 said:
The holes are at a hypervisor or GameOS level.
I think Sony's fear is that if one's found, they can patch it. But they've left open the door through which more could be found continually, over time.
So its pre-emptive as well as remedial, I think. Maybe overly pre-emptive? Sure.
It's nice to think they could have a perfectly secure hypervisor level and GameOS that could withstand any probing from the Linux side, and it's easy to say 'they should have had that' before allowing Linux to run. But there's no such thing as perfect security, and that their security lasted as long as it has suggests they relatively speaking did do a good job. They probably hoped that security was 'good enough' that the issue would never arise when they put Linux in (i.e. the issue of people exploring hypervisor or OS vulnerabilities successfully via Linux).
DryvBy2 said:
Hmmm.
DryvBy2 said:
I discussed this before with others, and I think it's a totally different ballgame when it comes to Sony's own software and own platform. We have plenty of precedent for what happens when people find ways to exploit vulnerabilities in Sony's own stuff - they patch patch patch. They've never cut out a feature of their own.
Unrelated also, but I think BC is a particularly unfortunate example given its revenue potential.
What they're doing with Linux is cutting out an independent tool they can't really control beyond allowing it or disallowing, that has turned out to enable people now at a very intimate, fundamental level to explore vulnerabilities in Sony's own software. It wasn't intended for that to happen, and they hoped they'd guarded 'enough' against that happening, but clearly now it's a reality. So they have to decide if they stand over it or not. If we got into a scenario where Sony 'just' patched holes in the hypervisor or gameos as they were found by people through Linux, you'd be in a somewhat strange scenario where in this cat and mouse between hackers and Sony, the hackers were using and benefitting from a tool Sony had handed to them on a plate. How foolish would Sony seem then? When it comes to exploit exploration via their own software or holes in their own software, they can at least control that and stop that exploration with an update...but they'd couldn't do that with Linux, and you'd have people more easily finding new holes on an ongoing basis because of something Sony's given them. It would be a slightly farcical scenario and would look pretty terrible from a publisher's point of view, for example.
I've projected a bit into a future chain of events, but you can understand why it's a future Sony would been keen to avoid.
Megadragon15
Member
JudgeN said:
CaseyTappy said:
I think you misunderstand, if your pissed about what a company is doing because they are impeding on your rights. I assume the appropriate response would be to stop giving them your money. I disapprove of Ubisoft new DRM for there PC games, so I didn't buy AC2 on PC and I also didn't buy on consoles till it hit $20 used. I don't see the point in being pissed on the internet and still buying products from them, to me that defeats the purpose. Its like when people got banned for xbox live and were PISSED but then turned around and bought another xbox. That is what microsoft wanted you to and you played right into there hands. The same thing applies here if your pissed about your rights being taken away don't reward them punish them by not buying anything from them.
CadetMahoney
Member
that's true, they can downplay and damage control corporate decision their masters make, but it will still be a negative bullet point for them at the end of the day.Musashi Wins! said:
JudgeN said:
Based on this decision, I will not buy another new PS3 game again. Or PSN game. But, to be honest, the last new PS3 game I bought was LittleBigPlanet when it released, and PixelJunkEden was the last PSN game I bought, also on release day. So clearly Sony isn't loosing too much by pissing me off. Oh well...
I have to admit, I am a little confused by the people in this thread who are upset about this decision, but then plan on going out and buying ANOTHER PS3.
Whilst I think you made good points gofreak; I hasten to add that, this is just asking for custom firmware development. Whereas before sony avoided anyone needing to have custom firmware. You've effectively given the homebrew community little choice but to go the custom firmware route. Which is entirely out of Sony's hands.
I'm sure Sony had a security think tank who warned them of this, just like they warned them about the Apocalyps3.
I'm sure Sony had a security think tank who warned them of this, just like they warned them about the Apocalyps3.
Ashes1396 said:
I know. But it's not like this wasn't the direction geohot, for example, was already going in. He says he had no intention of doing that, but his second to last blog post suggested otherwise. He can sit there and say 'I just wanted gpu access in Linux', but Sony probably saw where this was going, and he did then confirm that by showing his tinkering in that direction.
So what do you do then, if it's gonna happen with or without Linux access? It's a difficult problem.
harriet the spy
Member
jorma said:
If they are not open source, you are at least thieving the decoding + error correcting algorithms when you put them on a modded wii. Yes, it is usually a business to business thing to license these algorithms, but if nintendo didn't pay for them and you put them in there, you are stealing code. And for what's it's worth, you used to be able to buy these algorithms for windows, _as a consumer_, when they were not included in it (a few years ago, when you tried to play a dvd with wmp, that's what happened).
And stop saying 'blabla hate consumer rights'. This is as stupid an argument as saying 'why do pro-abortion people hate babies so much, it's so sad
". By choosing loaded terms and putting intentions in the arguments of people, you're just patting yourself in the back for being so smart and independent, and oh-not-bent-over, all under the watchful eye of loving mods who conveniently agree with you.I love consumer rights, i don't give a flying fuck about sony. I am not sure I want to see the ps3 hacked (though I am certainly pissed about the removal of the feature). Because it can lead to piracy. And because that might lead to diminished support of the platform, and open the floodgates to cheaters and somewhat change the demographics on the psn. I have played many times on xbla and hearing kiddies bragging about how they pirated such and such games. It's stupid, but it annoys me. (and no, i don't feel like muting everyone, thanks for suggesting).
And because Dragona is ban-happy on the subject: no i am not saying that people who want a hacked ps3 don't care about piracy or are pro-piracy or whatever.
VegaShinra
Junior Member
The clock is going to be ticking for another 12hrs.missile said:
Your argument is true but it doesn't work in practice. And I tell you that it's notJudgeN said:
always necessary to stop buying products from a company that pisses you off
at times. There are consumer rights, arn't there? Well, let's assume you need a
certain device (manufactured by only one company) to stay alive which has
some unnecessary flaws making your life much more difficult, would you stop
buying it?
Isn't the whole point of removing the option because of "security reasons"? If you can think of a list of features that could get exploited due to security reasons, then we could be worried. But I can't think of anything - letting a piece of hardware be open to installing whatever OS you like is naturally open to exploitation. I don't think there's anything else quite like that on the system that could be removed for security reasons.jepjepjep said:
missile said:
Of course you buy it because you need to live but this is entertainment none of it is vital. But right in some practices this doesn't work to well.
deepbrown said:
Hey people seem to think Sony will disable PS2 BC if an exploit is found in it and I would call that extreme thinking. So why not? If your going to have that kind of mindset then making a point by not buying from them shouldn't be to hard right?
missile said:
Ok this is pretty funny :lol
Segata Sanshiro
Member
How did you come to that conclusion?deepbrown said:
OgTheClever
Member
Not if it turns out to be an update which includes cross-game chat instead or somethinglupinko said:
DryvBy
Member
deepbrown said:
The problem is that if they advertise something, you should get that said feature as long as you have said product. I don't care about Linux whatsoever. I do care that they're taking features away because they don't want to fix it. They also sold it as a system that can do Linux AND gaming. So giving me the choice: Linux or Gaming... That's just wrong. It has everything to do with being a customer and not being a corporate tool that just Gomer Pyle's your rights and let's them do what they want to YOUR product that YOU (hopefully) paid for!
I know this isn't exactly the same, but let's say you buy a game. It's online only. A week later, they say "Well, we're closing the servers. A security breach could allow a hacker to get into your machine and kill it. Therfore, it would be safer for everyone to just not play our game. Thanks for your money though." It wouldn't shock me, how greedy devs/publishers are getting, that this isn't too far away...
