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[GSG Flash]

lolwut?

this post is ridiculous.

Not as ridiculous as your corporate ballwashing.

edit:

When you attack my post with a pointless post like:

"lolwut?

this post is ridiculous."

Without explaining your reasoning, you're going to get a pointless response attacking you (like the one above) back

 

[androvsky]

Yeah, fuck Geohot, his actions totally justify Sony's behaviour!

That's funny, I certainly don't recall saying anything of the sort, I'm as mad at Sony as anyone; neither geohot's moronic attention-getting stunts justify Sony's behavior, nor does Sony's idiotic knee-jerk reaction make geohot a hero now that he's going after CFW. Is my stance on the issue sufficiently clear now?

Now I remember why I've been avoiding these threads.

Did you even read his CFW update? He explicitly stated that you don't need to open up your PS3 to install it, all you need is your PS3 to be at 3.15 or earlier.

Yeah, I read it. We'll see. The hypervisor limits writes to the flash in OtherOS, so the only way to write to it is either with the hypervisor shut off (the geohot mod), or by correctly signing a previously decrypted firmware. If it's the latter, then we won't need OtherOS to run whatever software we want, the system will be pretty much busted wide open. Otherwise, I'll be curious as to how this is supposed to work.

Unless he's just altering the part of the firmware stored on the hard drive in newer systems, which is a) asking for trouble with having two different firmware versions installed, and b) completely useless for people with older systems (pre-40GB).

 

[JardeL]

What the hell has happened in last 4 hours? I can't sign-in anymore.

 

[grumble]

I'm not mad at Sony. I didn't use Linux, and don't give a damn if it's gone. I don't understand the outrage over its disappearance. It was a feature that almost no one used, and it was a potential security hole for piracy. What they did was fairly reasonable, though maybe ill-advised considering the hacker backlash that might follow. They've been burned badly with the PSP.

 

[nolookjones]

What the hell has happened in last 4 hours? I can't sign-in anymore.

same seems the dns thing is being blocked...oh well nothing that im really interested coming out soon anyways...

 

[missile]

... What was this? ...

It goes like this; 'Big companies don't give a single dime for their
customers, only their shareholders are of any interest, and as such do
amoral decisions from the perspective of a customer.'

No, that is true as you say. But Linux on the PS2 wasnt a feature in the PS2 that was used for exploits (maybe it was possible to use Linux on PS2 to exploit though, but i havnt heard of it at least). I also think that there were already modchips out for the PS2 when the Linux PS2 kits were sold as well if i am not mistaken. If it turned out that the Linux PS2 kit was the first thing that could be used to exploit the PS2, then i think that this Linux PS2 kit would have been pulled from the market to be honest.

The PS2 was hacked 12 month after release (1999). And the PS2 Linux Kit came
out 2002. However, I was addressing another point. Some people think that
Linux on PS3 makes sense only if there is a multi-billion dollar business
backing it up, which I proved wrong by pointing out how the PS2 Linux Kit
came about.

... Do you have any more info regarding this? I havnt heard about this before. I thought that the PS3 exploit was done via hardware hacking (by sending those 40ns pulses) and since it isnt possible to patch the OtherOS feature, Sony removed it. With "it isnt possible to patch the OtherOS feature" i mean that there wasnt a exploit in the OtherOS feature itself that was used, it was Linux itself that was used and the OtherOS feature just boots up Linux on the PS3, at least that is how i understood it

"I havnt heard...."

Why not check yourself?

Geohot already indicated how the exploit can be fixed, see;
Here's your silver platter.

1 geohot: well actually it's pretty simple
2 geohot: i allocate a piece of memory
3 geohot: using map_htab and write_htab, you can figure out the real address of the memory
4 geohot: which is a big win, and something the hv shouldn't allow
5 geohot: i fill the htab with tons of entries pointing to that piece of memory
6 geohot: and since i allocated it, i can map it read/write
7 geohot: then, i deallocate the memory
8 geohot: all those entries are set to invalid
9 geohot: well while it's setting entries invalid, i glitch the memory control bus
10 geohot: the cache writeback misses the memory
11 geohot: and i have entries allowing r/w to a piece of memory the hypervisor thinks is deallocated
12 geohot: then i create a virtual segment with the htab overlapping that piece of memory i have
13 geohot: write an entry into the virtual segment htab allowing r/w to the main segment htab
14 geohot: switch to virtual segment
15 geohot: write to main segment htab a r/w mapping of itself
16 geohot: switch back
17 geohot: PWNED
18 geohot: and would work if memory were encrypted or had ECC
19 geohot: the way i actually glitch the memory bus is really funny
20 geohot: i have a button on my FPGA board
21 geohot: that pulses low for 40ns
22 geohot: i set up the htab with the tons of entries
23 geohot: and spam press the button
24 geohot: right after i send the deallocate call

Line 10: The hypervisor does not check whether the writeback to memory was
successful or not. A simple read-after-write of said memory and the
hypervisor could check whether the given htab entry was indeed invalidated.

If you want to know more about how the exploit works, go over here. And if
you don't believe anything at all, you may step through the source code
yourself. xorloser has done a rewrite of geohot's exploit which is easier to
read and to understand compared to geohot's version.

Why "lol" and what do you mean with "well...."?

What feature(s) people miss from the XMB can variate from person to person, so we are probably different here as you say, that is true, nothing wrong with that I can think of things that i personally would like to see in the XMB, but i was just wondering which features that you personally mean are missing from the XMB when you said "There are so many things missing for the XMB." To me it sounded like you ment that there were maybe at least 10 things that you were missing from the XMB, so i wanted to ask

'lol' because everyone could list features that are missing. And it's quite
boring for me to list those features time and again. There was once a list on
the PS blog with about 20+ entries almost everyone agreed upon. For me it's
boring to talk about it, it's trivial. Sorry.

... You are right that i dont really use the PS3 browser a lot. I use the PS3 browser maybe.. 3-5 times each month or so in average. Do you use or have you used the PS3 broswer a lot? Could you then explain to me what you think is shitty about it if you have more experience with the PS3 broswer than what i have?

I don't even moan about that the PS3 browser doesn't support each and every
standard, but what bothers me the most is that the browser freezes a lot,
esp. if flash comes into play. And the browser has memory leaks without end.
Sometime I have to close all pages to free some memory, which doesn't help
either --> freeze. If I put the browser under heavy load (multiple tabs,
flash apps, ...) it crashes within minutes. And did I said that the browser
is slow and laggy?

... By the way, maybe you already know this, but there is already a real demo for the PS3 that is made by the demo scene. It is called "Linger in the Shadows". ...

I know about 'Linger in the Shadows', but that is not what I meant by saying
"... demo scene, graphics / math programming on the Cell & RSX processor".
All this stuff should run under the OtherOS and not the GameOS, such that
people can share binaries and source code.

 

[charlequin]

Considering said "hacker" had this to say

What, exactly, does that have to do with his ability or lack thereof to hack the PS3's firmware?

I don't care if anyone wants to talk shit about geohotz for his attitude or his decisions, I just think it's funny that even before we had any information about his hack the original thread about this was filled with people accusing him of lying about his progress and that this meme seems to have stuck around in this thread.

The passion runs both ways, though. People are a lot more passionate about this bit of corporate bumfucking than they are about a whole other bunch of similarly egregious corporate bumfuckery.

I would be pretty interested to see you demonstrate that. Me personally, I'm actually a lot less passionate about this one since I'm only observing it from a distance. :lol

 

[Argyle]

Line 10: The hypervisor does not check whether the writeback to memory was
successful or not. A simple read-after-write of said memory and the
hypervisor could check whether the given htab entry was indeed invalidated.

I have a feeling that implementing this check globally could have a significant impact on games already released. Although one common scenario is the game requesting one chunk of memory and then having the game allocate it to itself as needed, other games might hit the hypervisor hundreds or thousands of times per frame, and adding this paranoid check might not have been workable for many applications...

 

[dallow_bg]

Sucks the DNS thing doesn't work now, though I would have updated for 3D anyway when that feature becomes available as it is more important to me.

 

[Quasar]

I'm not mad at Sony. I didn't use Linux, and don't give a damn if it's gone. I don't understand the outrage over its disappearance. It was a feature that almost no one used, and it was a potential security hole for piracy. What they did was fairly reasonable, though maybe ill-advised considering the hacker backlash that might follow. They've been burned badly with the PSP.

Which is understandable. And I certainly don't want to see another platform destroyed like the PSP has been.

 

[iapetus]

I found this an interesting read. Can't wait for tomorrow's installment.

 

[mclem]

I'm not mad at Sony. I didn't use Linux, and don't give a damn if it's gone. I don't understand the outrage over its disappearance. It was a feature that almost no one used, and it was a potential security hole for piracy. What they did was fairly reasonable, though maybe ill-advised considering the hacker backlash that might follow. They've been burned badly with the PSP.

That's the problem; it was *always* a potential security hole. Nothing has significantly changed since the system was released. If OtherOS had never been offered in the first place, there would be no such problem. People aren't upset that they don't have OtherOS, they're upset at the bait-and-switch.

 

[gcubed]

Not as ridiculous as your corporate ballwashing.

edit:

When you attack my post with a pointless post like:

"lolwut?

this post is ridiculous."

Without explaining your reasoning, you're going to get a pointless response attacking you (like the one above) back

my corporate ballwashing?

in your post you bitch that sony blocked a loophole in getting around a firmware update? Seriously? Putting aside what the firmware update did, which you completely seem unable to do, your post is 100% utter ridiculousness. Its a perfectly valid move taken out of context of the insanity of the previous firmware update, that you use it as a launching point to rabble on about suing and other crap is what is silly

 

[iapetus]

What they did was fairly reasonable

I still can't get my head around this. What they did was most likely illegal under UK law. How the hell this can be twisted to 'reasonable' is beyond me. They took away my ability to use a feature I paid for because someone else might be able to run arbitrary unsigned code.

 

[dallow_bg]

I found this an interesting read. Can't wait for tomorrow's installment.

Wow, I hope he's able to backup and/or make images of his Linux partition or something as there's no way i'd rely on a machine that can suddenly die without warning as the cornerstone of my business.

 

[obonicus]

I would be pretty interested to see you demonstrate that. Me personally, I'm actually a lot less passionate about this one since I'm only observing it from a distance. :lol

It's not really demonstrable, My impression of GAF is that it's a place that considers voting with your wallet as dealing unfairly with corporations. This time around, we have calls for people to stand up for their consumer rights, to make a stand even if you're not directly affected by this. Which is absolutely correct, of course. I haven't seen as much of a concerted effort in all the other cases where DRM/online-only content has screwed us over, though. Maybe it's because iapetus did all the heavy lifting (and actually obtained some success) so people know what to do (while, say, actually not buying game/hardware X in those other cases seems too difficult).

 

[Kazuma Kiryu]

Not as ridiculous as your corporate ballwashing.

edit:

When you attack my post with a pointless post like:

"lolwut?

this post is ridiculous."

Without explaining your reasoning, you're going to get a pointless response attacking you (like the one above) back

before fw 3.21 you could connect to the psn with a proxy, but you weren't supposed to, since the ps3 didn't connect to the psn anymore if there was a fw update available.
more people started using it and sony blocked it.
you're not supposed to log into the psn without the latest firmware. previously, all checks for this were implemented on the ps3 side, but since a few (too many i believe) are using the bypass right now, sony implemented another one on the server side.

 

[iapetus]

Wow, I hope he's able to backup and/or make images of his Linux partition or something as there's no way i'd rely on a machine that can suddenly die without warning as the cornerstone of my business.

Nothing to stop him doing that - you can easily hook up an external hard drive or whatever other backup solution you like to the PS3. I'm not sure I'd use a PS3 as the cornerstone of my business at all (its strengths don't exactly lie in business apps, and any business that can't afford a cheap stand-alone PC for this sort of work probably deserves to go under).

 

[CadetMahoney]

Corporate ballwashing? What sorcery is this? I must add that to my common vernacular.

I'll tell you how we lose. We lose if it's determined that we never own the hardware and software we purchase - we only hold it under license and that license can be changed or revoked at any time. We lose if a company has the right to take away functionality that we paid for without compensation or consultation. We lose if companies can make any anti-consumer moves they like and get away with it because "Ooh! Pirates!". We lose if we reach the point that a lot of people like you seem to have reached where we honestly believe that anything large companies say or do must be right, and consumers should just suck it up.

Thank you, sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

 

[neorej]

I still can't get my head around this. What they did was most likely illegal under UK law. How the hell this can be twisted to 'reasonable' is beyond me. They took away my ability to use a feature I paid for because someone else might be able to run arbitrary unsigned code.

But it's typical how corporations tend to react to piracy: they defend themselves, without considering how this might affect the consumer. Hell, Sony even did this without considering EU-law.

I'm still in the process of contacting Sony, BTW, they're harder to get a hold on than a hooker on welfare-payday.

 

[obonicus]

But it's typical how corporations tend to react to piracy: they defend themselves, without considering how this might affect the consumer. Hell, Sony even did this without considering EU-law.

I wonder if this is true. Sony must have been considering this possibility ever since they decided not to go ahead with OtherOS on the slim. It's also likely that they thought the risk was worth taking -- how many people will actually try to go through EU, how many will press the issue like the guy in the link iapetus posted, how many refunds will Sony actually end up paying? I think we're talking about a tiny minority, even with iapetus' story making its rounds.

 

[GSG Flash]

my corporate ballwashing?

in your post you bitch that sony blocked a loophole in getting around a firmware update? Seriously? Putting aside what the firmware update did, which you completely seem unable to do, your post is 100% utter ridiculousness. Its a perfectly valid move taken out of context of the insanity of the previous firmware update, that you use it as a launching point to rabble on about suing and other crap is what is silly

Yes I'm bitching about it because Sony did nothing to block it until now. (read: It's been possible to use this workaround since FW 2.00, yet they feel fit to block it now to prevent anyone who wants to keep their product working in the same manner as when they bought it from doing so)

And I never said anything about suing, I said legal action, which for me forcing Sony to retract firmware 3.21 and prevent them from ever removing OtherOS would be good enough. Just because you enjoy getting ass raped by a corporation doesn't meant that everyone else does.

If Sony wasn't so fucking hard-on for going on a corporate anti-consumer powertrip, the correct response would have been to leave OtherOS in but then ban anyone from PSN that was accessing it with a CFW, if there was even ever going to be a CFW in the first place. Win-win for both sides, you didn't see MS remotely disabling the DVD drives of those consoles that had the vulnerable drives, MS took the appropriate response and banned hacked consoles from Live.

I found this an interesting read. Can't wait for tomorrow's installment.

Man, that guy really knows how to get his point across :lol
Hopefully something comes out of that.

Also, in one of the anti 3.21 facebook groups, some guy is claiming to have gotten a free copy of Heavy Rain as a result of bitching to Sony on the phone. If I can get a game out of this, that would be awesome (and appropriate compensation IMO)

 

[iapetus]

It's all a question of whether a company refuses a refund and someone goes after them legally and gets one. Until that happens, it's just a case of a lucky few getting some money back, and more people getting brushed off and giving up. Once there's a precedent for a company being taken to court and forced to pay up, that opens the floodgates for everyone - and hopefully gets back to Sony.

 

[iapetus]

Also, in one of the anti 3.21 facebook groups, some guy is claiming to have gotten a free copy of Heavy Rain as a result of bitching to Sony on the phone. If I can get a game out of this, that would be awesome (and appropriate compensation IMO)

I'm buying Heavy Rain (from Amazon, naturally) with my refund.

 

[neorej]

Managed to get though to customer support and it sounded like I wasn't the first one. After I mentioned 3.21 the guy on the other end immediatly told me to write a letter to customer services in that "I've been told to say this so I'll just drum it up"-tone.

 

[gcubed]

Yes I'm bitching about it because Sony did nothing to block it until now. (read: It's been possible to use this workaround since FW 2.00, yet they feel fit to block it now to prevent anyone who wants to keep their product working in the same manner as when they bought it from doing so)

And I never said anything about suing, I said legal action, which for me forcing Sony to retract firmware 3.21 and prevent them from ever removing OtherOS would be good enough. Just because you enjoy getting ass raped by a corporation doesn't meant that everyone else does.

If Sony wasn't so fucking hard-on for going on a corporate anti-consumer powertrip, the correct response would have been to leave OtherOS in but then ban anyone from PSN that was accessing it with a CFW, if there was even ever going to be a CFW in the first place. Win-win for both sides, you didn't see MS remotely disabling the DVD drives of those consoles that had the vulnerable drives, MS took the appropriate response and banned hacked consoles from Live.



Man, that guy really knows how to get his point across :lol
Hopefully something comes out of that.

Also, in one of the anti 3.21 facebook groups, some guy is claiming to have gotten a free copy of Heavy Rain as a result of bitching to Sony on the phone. If I can get a game out of this, that would be awesome (and appropriate compensation IMO)

again, we get to a point where you cant separate your seething hatred for 3.21 from a legitimate move by Sony to close a loophole. The reason why it was probably never closed before? Because only a tiny percentage of people knew about it. I never knew about it, i'm sure 98% of the people who used it before now didnt know about it. Once it got broadcast here and on engadget and other sites as a "workaround" you were actually expecting Sony, out of the goodness of their heart to leave it open?

Again, i'm separating the two actions in a manner that you seem unable to do. Thus, we can't have a legitimate conversation if you equate the two because you see red

It's all a question of whether a company refuses a refund and someone goes after them legally and gets one. Until that happens, it's just a case of a lucky few getting some money back, and more people getting brushed off and giving up. Once there's a precedent for a company being taken to court and forced to pay up, that opens the floodgates for everyone - and hopefully gets back to Sony.

agreed, i have no knowledge of EU law so i can't speak of anything on that side, but in the US you'd think that a class action attorney would be seeing dollar signs with this

 

[GSG Flash]

again, we get to a point where you cant separate your seething hatred for 3.21 from a legitimate move by Sony to close a loophole. The reason why it was probably never closed before? Because only a tiny percentage of people knew about it. I never knew about it, i'm sure 98% of the people who used it before now didnt know about it. Once it got broadcast here and on engadget and other sites as a "workaround" you were actually expecting Sony, out of the goodness of their heart to leave it open?

Again, i'm separating the two actions in a manner that you seem unable to do. Thus, we can't have a legitimate conversation if you equate the two because you see red

The reason why I can't separate the two is because blocking the bypass is a direct result of Sony's strict enforcement of 3.21 and punishment of users who wish to keep the Other OS option. It doesn't matter that hardly no one knew about the bypass before, the fact remains that the bypass was usable from FW 2.00 until now, that's almost two and a half years until it was finally addressed, obviously enforcing the PSN TOS didn't matter to Sony until 3.21 came along (and I highly doubt that Sony didn't know about this bypass before since the info was freely available on the net).

If the amount of people who use or care about Other OS is so minuscule and negligible, as all the pro Sony folks try to shove in our faces, then wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the amount of people using this bypass is minuscule and negligible as well?

 

[test_account]

It goes like this; 'Big companies don't give a single dime for their
customers, only their shareholders are of any interest, and as such do
amoral decisions from the perspective of a customer.'

But if the customers arent happy, then the consumers might buy less products from a certain company that they arent happy with, which means less income and/or profit for a comapny, which then means that the shareholders arent happy If a company only cares about their shareholders, then the company automaticly have to care about their consumers as well or else things wont go that good. In most cases (or maybe in all cases?) the consumers are after all the group that brings in the big money to companies, so i think that big companies care much about if their consumers are happy.

I also think that it is worth to mention that even if it is a big company, the company is being runned by people, and i think that most people who work for big companies are pretty much like you and me when it comes to being a person. I think most of them have symapthy for others, and "others" in this case would also include the company's consumers. The companies might not listen to everything the consumers say, but that doesnt necessarily means that they dont care about their consumers. To take another example, a parent might not give his/her child everything that the child wants, but the parent most likely still care about his/her child. But this is just my opinion What do you think about this?

The PS2 was hacked 12 month after release (1999). And the PS2 Linux Kit came
out 2002. However, I was addressing another point. Some people think that
Linux on PS3 makes sense only if there is a multi-billion dollar business
backing it up, which I proved wrong by pointing out how the PS2 Linux Kit
came about.

Ah ok, i see. I havnt read all posts in this thread, so unfortunately i missed that someone said something about this. Ye, that is true, Linux could fine be used even if it isnt a multi-billion dollar business that is backing it up indeed, i agree

"I havnt heard...."

Why not check yourself?

Indeed, i havnt heard of it, but that doesnt mean that i am saying that it isnt true if that is what you mean? =) I am just saying that havnt heard of it, that is why i asked you about it

I would have checked for myself if i knew where to check =) But since you mentioned that it was possible to fix the PS3 exploit by doing a fix to the PS3 hypervisor, i thought that it was easier to ask you

"Geohot already indicated how the exploit can be fixed, see;
Here's your silver platter.

Line 10: The hypervisor does not check whether the writeback to memory was
successful or not. A simple read-after-write of said memory and the
hypervisor could check whether the given htab entry was indeed invalidated.

If you want to know more about how the exploit works, go over here. And if
you don't believe anything at all, you may step through the source code
yourself. xorloser has done a rewrite of geohot's exploit which is easier to
read and to understand compared to geohot's version.

Thanks for the info! If is so easy (or at least it seems very easy to me) to fix the PS3 exploit without having to remove the OtherOS feature, why didnt Sony do this instead? Sony does after all know the PS3 hypervisor better than anyone else, so wouldnt Sony be able to see and fix this problem in the hypervisor without any big problems? I am not saying that it would be possible to fix/patch the PS3 hypervisor to stop the PS3 exploits just to underline that, but i am just wondering about this.

'lol' because everyone could list features that are missing. And it's quite
boring for me to list those features time and again. There was once a list on
the PS blog with about 20+ entries almost everyone agreed upon. For me it's
boring to talk about it, it's trivial. Sorry.

Ye, everyone can list features that are missing indeed, that is true as you say, but i was just wondering what features that you personally missed from the XMB, what is "lol" about that? If you mentioned earlier the features that you are missing from the XMB, then i didnt see this, sorry. But if you dont want to talk about it, no problem, i respect that I was just wondering what features that you personally felt that is missing from the XMB.

I don't even moan about that the PS3 browser doesn't support each and every
standard, but what bothers me the most is that the browser freezes a lot,
esp. if flash comes into play. And the browser has memory leaks without end.
Sometime I have to close all pages to free some memory, which doesn't help
either --> freeze. If I put the browser under heavy load (multiple tabs,
flash apps, ...) it crashes within minutes. And did I said that the browser
is slow and laggy?

Ah ok, i see, thanks for the info! I usually only have 1 browser window up at the same time on the PS3 browser. I havnt really tried to use the PS3 more with having several of web browser windows up and running at the same time etc. I mostly use it browse forums and sometimes check YouTube. That usually works fine for me, but i have had the PS3 browser freeze on me as well, i remembered that now when you mentioned it. Ye, the PS3 browser is indeed slower compared to a PC browser, but for my usual use for browsing forums and checking YouTube, the PS3 browser speed is ok fast enough at least

I know about 'Linger in the Shadows', but that is not what I meant by saying
"... demo scene, graphics / math programming on the Cell & RSX processor".
All this stuff should run under the OtherOS and not the GameOS, such that
people can share binaries and source code.

Ah ok, so you want to see Linux homebrew that takes advantage of the PS3 hardware? I understand, that is cool I wouldnt mind to see that as well


EDIT: I missed this quote earlier:

Sony Admits Wrong?


[Ref]


// A Facebook group
Removal of "Other OS" feature on PS3 is unacceptable!!

Interesting, but i think that the Sony guy probably didnt remembered the PS3 TOS that well (who is this guy he is calling by the way? The article only mentions "the Rep", but has it been known if this guy works for Sony's customer service or is it a guy who specifically works with the PS3?). The PS3 TOS does mentioned "cause some loss of functionality."

SYSTEM SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT (Version 1.3) FOR THE PlayStation®3 SYSTEM

From time to time, SCE may provide updates, upgrades or services to your PS3TM system to ensure it is functioning properly in accordance with SCE guidelines or provide you with new offerings. Some services may be provided automatically without notice when you are online, and others may be available to you through SCE’s online network or authorized channels. Without limitation, services may include the provision of the latest update or download of new release that may include security patches, and new or revised settings and features which may prevent access to pirated games, or use of unauthorized hardware or software in connection with the PS3TM system. Some services may change your current settings, cause a loss of data or content, or cause some loss of functionality.

By using or accessing the System Software, you agree to be bound by all current terms of this Agreement.

http://gamer.blorge.com/2010/04/04/...ainst-ps3-v3-21-does-not-hold-water-in-court/

I guess that it is possible to discuss what "some loss" is though, if it is removing a feature completely (that would be "some loss" when looking at all the PS3 feature as a whole) or if it is to limit some of the functionality to a feature.

EDIT 2: I am sorry for the very late edit here, but i forgot to add some text earlier.

 

[obonicus]

The reason why I can't separate the two is because blocking the bypass is a direct result of Sony's strict enforcement of 3.21 and punishment of users who wish to keep the Other OS option. It doesn't matter that hardly no one knew about the bypass before, the fact remains that the bypass was usable from FW 2.00 until now, that's almost two and a half years until it was finally addressed, obviously enforcing the PSN TOS didn't matter to Sony until 3.21 came along (and I highly doubt that Sony didn't know about this bypass before since the info was freely available on the net).

But take a step back. Why is it even reasonable to expect Sony not to eventually close this hole? There's no statute of limitations that I know of. They've always been clear about needing the latest firmware to access PSN. They've never said 'you can install firmware 3.21 OR use this DNS server'. The issue here is that a lot of people don't want to install 3.21 and remove a feature from their hardware, not that Sony restricts access to their system to consoles running the latest firmware.

If Sony had put up 3.21 and NOT removed OtherOS, but still disabled the DNS server, would it still be a dick move?

Likewise, for the sake of argument (and risking a strawman), let's elevate the infraction to something a lot more egregious: if, say, Microsoft could detect pirated discs being played, but didn't ban consoles for the first year or two, would it be a dick move/wrong of them to suddenly ban the consoles they had data on all at once?

If the amount of people who use or care about Other OS is so minuscule and negligible, as all the pro Sony folks try to shove in our faces, then wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the amount of people using this bypass is minuscule and negligible as well?

Why is that relevant, though? Should Sony forgive the small violations? The timing's no coincidence, of course; it's quite possible that there was no budget allocated for closing that hole, and as part of 'operation 3.21' suddenly there is.

 

[iapetus]

I guess that it is possible to discuss what "some loss" is though, if it is removing a feature completely (that would be "some loss" when looking at all the PS3 feature as a whole) or if it is to limit some of the functionality to a feature.

It's unnecessary to discuss it. The EU law on these things clearly states that this sort of license can't override your consumer rights.

 

[charlequin]

I haven't seen as much of a concerted effort in all the other cases where DRM/online-only content has screwed us over, though. Maybe it's because iapetus did all the heavy lifting (and actually obtained some success) so people know what to do (while, say, actually not buying game/hardware X in those other cases seems too difficult).

Well, this is the first thread I've seen on GAF where a company's bad behavior has actually overstepped its bounds in a way that someone was able to convincingly argue was actually illegal rather than just obnoxious.

"Voting with your wallet" is unfortunately a pretty bad mechanism for influencing corporate behavior (except when you have a product so completely execrable and insulting that absolutely no one wants it and it withers on the vine, like the PSP Go.)

 

[Inanna]

I'm not mad at Sony. I didn't use Linux, and don't give a damn if it's gone. I don't understand the outrage over its disappearance. It was a feature that almost no one used, and it was a potential security hole for piracy. What they did was fairly reasonable, though maybe ill-advised considering the hacker backlash that might follow. They've been burned badly with the PSP.

I feel the same way. Seeing everyone going batshit insane over this is a bit sad, though. I don't think people were this butthurt over BC removal. Sony has taken one feature away but they have added many more since the launch day, do you guys remember how PSN was back in the day? Have you people BEEN there since the beginning? It's come A LOOONNGG way since then!

 

[GSG Flash]

But take a step back. Why is it even reasonable to expect Sony not to eventually close this hole? There's no statute of limitations that I know of. They've always been clear about needing the latest firmware to access PSN. They've never said 'you can install firmware 3.21 OR use this DNS server'. The issue here is that a lot of people don't want to install 3.21 and remove a feature from their hardware, not that Sony restricts access to their system to consoles running the latest firmware.

If Sony had put up 3.21 and NOT removed OtherOS, but still disabled the DNS server, would it still be a dick move?

Likewise, for the sake of argument (and risking a strawman), let's elevate the infraction to something a lot more egregious: if, say, Microsoft could detect pirated discs being played, but didn't ban consoles for the first year or two, would it be a dick move/wrong of them to suddenly ban the consoles they had data on all at once?

Maybe you didn't understand my post, most of it was in response to gcubed saying that Sony blocking the bypass has no correlation to Firmware 3.21, and IMO you would have to be a complete dumbass to believe that.

Is it reasonable to expect Sony to close the bypass someday? Yes, them blocking it is not the dick move here, the dick move here is the timing of it all (although the biggest dick move of them all is FW 3.21). What exactly was stopping Sony from blocking the bypass in the past two years?

As for your MS argument, it doesn't work as MS did not remove any features that required a hacked console for consumers to retain while having the ability to access Live at the same time. (Because no matter how much you want to deny it, there is a correlation between the bypass block and firmware 3.21).

Why is that relevant, though? Should Sony forgive the small violations? The timing's no coincidence, of course; it's quite possible that there was no budget allocated for closing that hole, and as part of 'operation 3.21' suddenly there is.

No budget allocated? That doesn't even make sense and is a poor excuse either way, unless Sony is the most incompetent corporation out there, I'm sure they have a fulltime PSN network administrator whose job description includes maintaining the security and integrity of the service.

I feel the same way. Seeing everyone going batshit insane over this is a bit sad, though. I don't think people were this butthurt over BC removal. Sony has taken one feature away but they have added many more since the launch day, do you guys remember how PSN was back in the day? Have you people BEEN there since the beginning? It's come A LOOONNGG way since then!

If Sony removed BC from consoles that already have it, then you would see people going way further than 'batshit insane' (not that I see anyone going 'batshit insane', the only 'batshit insane' people here are the ones that are defending Sony).

I'd gladly have my console go back to the same way it was when I bought, including being able to access PSN and play any unreleased games, along with being able to install and use Other OS. I don't really give a shit about in game XMB or dynamic themes, and since those features were not part of the console I paid for, I wouldn't complain if they got removed.

 

[gcubed]

Maybe you didn't understand my post, most of it was in response to gcubed saying that Sony blocking the bypass has no correlation to Firmware 3.21, and IMO you would have to be a complete dumbass to believe that.

Is it reasonable to expect Sony to close the bypass someday? Yes, them blocking it is not the dick move here, the dick move here is the timing of it all (although the biggest dick move of them all is FW 3.21). What exactly was stopping Sony from blocking the bypass in the past two years?

As for your MS argument, it doesn't work as MS did not remove any features that required a hacked console for consumers to retain while having the ability to access Live at the same time. (Because no matter how much you want to deny it, there is a correlation between the bypass block and firmware 3.21).



No budget allocated? That doesn't even make sense and is a poor excuse either way, unless Sony is the most incompetent corporation out there, I'm sure they have a fulltime PSN network administrator whose job description includes maintaining the security and integrity of the service.



If Sony removed BC from consoles that already have it, then you would see people going way further than 'batshit insane' (not that I see anyone going 'batshit insane', the only 'batshit insane' people here are the ones that are defending Sony).

I'd gladly have my console go back to the same way it was when I bought, including being able to access PSN and play any unreleased games, along with being able to install and use Other OS. I don't really give a shit about in game XMB or dynamic themes, and since those features were not part of the console I paid for, I wouldn't complain if they got removed.

i didnt say (or mean if i did) that it had no correlation, i was arguing it from a point that divorces that move from the 3.21 move. You use the move of blocking the dns trick as a jumping off point to a lawsuit, when what they did, in no other context, is perfectly fine and acceptable by any and all standards. Obonicus got my point.

I'm sure there is an acceptable percentage of variation in the business world, with the large scale advertising of the workaround, one would assume that percentage of variation got skewed, and was then enough to take notice. I'm sure i'm in the wrong thread as i'm not arguing about 3.21, i just wanted to make a point on the DNS loophole. I shouldnt expect someone to be able to divorce the two when unfortunately it was the only way to get around a feature loss firmware.

 

[GSG Flash]

i didnt say (or mean if i did) that it had no correlation, i was arguing it from a point that divorces that move from the 3.21 move. You use the move of blocking the dns trick as a jumping off point to a lawsuit, when what they did, in no other context, is perfectly fine and acceptable by any and all standards. Obonicus got my point.

Actually the legal action part of my post was supposed to be a complete different thought from the bypass blocking rant. I supported legal action against Sony for this update from the moment this firmware was announced. Although I guess I am to blame for the confusion as I should have had it on a separate line.

 

[gcubed]

Actually the legal action part of my post was supposed to be a complete different thought from the bypass blocking rant. I supported legal action against Sony for this update from the moment this firmware was announced. Although I guess I am to blame for the confusion as I should have had it on a separate line.

its the internet, what else is there to do on it besides porn and arguing?

 

[obonicus]

Well, this is the first thread I've seen on GAF where a company's bad behavior has actually overstepped its bounds in a way that someone was able to convincingly argue was actually illegal rather than just obnoxious.

Sure, but isn't that part of the problem? 'This way of fucking us over is legal, so it's alright.' It's not alright. I'm not even saying people should be calling their congresspeople, but we don't even get genuine outrage in these cases. Someone you were arguing with pointed it out earlier; we can't expect corporations to behave morally so we need to enforce what we think is moral behavior through law.

"Voting with your wallet" is unfortunately a pretty bad mechanism for influencing corporate behavior (except when you have a product so completely execrable and insulting that absolutely no one wants it and it withers on the vine, like the PSP Go.)

It's still better than actually patronizing the product, though. Voting with your wallet fails because people have no consumer conscience, because somehow not buying a game is in fact a terribly difficult thing to do.

 

[Inanna]

I'd gladly have my console go back to the same way it was when I bought, including being able to access PSN and play any unreleased games, along with being able to install and use Other OS. I don't really give a shit about in game XMB or dynamic themes, and since those features were not part of the console I paid for, I wouldn't complain if they got removed.

Yes.. except that I'm NOT talking about Dynamic themes. I'm specifically talking about PSN.

 

[obonicus]

As for your MS argument, it doesn't work as MS did not remove any features that required a hacked console for consumers to retain while having the ability to access Live at the same time. (Because no matter how much you want to deny it, there is a correlation between the bypass block and firmware 3.21).

Please pay attention. That wasn't the question. The question is about whether you think there's actually a statute of limitations for these things. Your complaint is entirely because this happened at the same time as 3.21. Yes, and? Why is it a dick move? What exactly entitles people to use this DNS exploit? Keep in mind, this is an entirely different question than my asking what entitles people to keep OtherOS on their machines.

No budget allocated? That doesn't even make sense and is a poor excuse either way, unless Sony is the most incompetent corporation out there, I'm sure they have a fulltime PSN network administrator whose job description includes maintaining the security and integrity of the service.

Sure, but he might have other responsibilities and this one might have been dropped to the bottom of a list. Maybe it requires new development, which itself needs a budget that most likely would not be covered in the budget for the ongoing support.

And to be clear, it's not an excuse. Sony doesn't need an excuse to keep people with outdated firmware from connecting to PSN. And I certainly think that firmware 3.21 and blocking this server are related events. That doesn't make it a dick move. The dick move was removing OtherOS. Focus your outrage there.

 

[GSG Flash]

its the internet, what else is there to do on it besides porn and arguing?

Glad we got that cleared up

Sony are still assholes. I've been a pretty big Sony fan for the better part of my life, in our house we have all the Playstations, a PSP, a Sony Wega HDTV, our car's stereo deck is a Sony, 2 of the 4 cellphones I have ever bought are Sony Ericsson phones (including my current), hell, even my floppy drive in my computer is made by Sony. As you can see, we've spent thousands of dollars on Sony products (and that doesn't include the dozens of games), but this is the first time I actually really hate Sony for something, and it's something big enough for me to never buy another Sony product ever again.

If there's one thing I don't believe any corporation has a right to, it's taking away something from me after I've already purchased it, even if I never used it.

Please pay attention. That wasn't the question. The question is about whether you think there's actually a statute of limitations for these things. Your complaint is entirely because this happened at the same time as 3.21. Yes, and? Why is it a dick move? What exactly entitles people to use this DNS exploit? Keep in mind, this is an entirely different question than my asking what entitles people to keep OtherOS on their machines.

Did you even bother reading what I posted? I already said it's not unreasonable to expect Sony to block the bypass, and it's not even a dick move to remove it right after 3.21 is launched. However it's pretty clear that Sony is giving the middle finger to anyone who doesn't want to remove Other OS but still wants to play online by suddenly giving a shit about the bypass 2 years after its initial release, and that's why they're assholes.

Sure, but he might have other responsibilities and this one might have been dropped to the bottom of a list. Maybe it requires new development, which itself needs a budget that most likely would not be covered in the budget for the ongoing support.

And to be clear, it's not an excuse. Sony doesn't need an excuse to keep people with outdated firmware from connecting to PSN. And I certainly think that firmware 3.21 and blocking this server are related events. That doesn't make it a dick move. The dick move was removing OtherOS. Focus your outrage there.

All of this is, of course, assumptions. Who are we to say what responsibilities the PSN admin has or doesn't have?

When I accused it of being an excuse, I wasn't accusing Sony, I was accusing you of using it as an excuse for absolving Sony of sitting with their thumbs up their asses for two and a half years while people freely used the bypass.

As for my outrage, I can direct it anywhere I want thank you very much. And trust me, my outrage for 3.21 is far more than this stupid bypass, in fact I wouldn't even give a shit about this bypass if it wasn't for Sony in the first place.

 

[railGUN]

Yes.. except that I'm NOT talking about Dynamic themes. I'm specifically talking about PSN.

Upgrades to the PSN do not compensate consumers who purchased a PS3 that could specifically run Linux and play old and future release games and BR movies, and are now forced to pick between these "features" rather than continue to use all 3.

And giving the "option" to not upgrade is insulting.

 

[GSG Flash]

Yes.. except that I'm NOT talking about Dynamic themes. I'm specifically talking about PSN.

And?

Access to PSN is one of the features that was advertised when I bought the console and it was one of the things my PS3 had the ability to access when I took it out of the box, why should I have to choose between one advertised feature over another?

Like I said before, I wouldn't complain at all if Sony removes dynamic themes, or in game XMB or Home as I never paid for those features.

 

[dallow_bg]

DNS finally blocked because spoofing the check was hardly done by anyone before and no one really cared.

Now it became 'news' because of 3.21 as I finally saw it posted on tons of gaming sites and forums so Sony caught on.

 

[charlequin]

Sure, but isn't that part of the problem? 'This way of fucking us over is legal, so it's alright.' It's not alright.

Oh, I absolutely agree. I'm just noting the difference between what I usually do in these threads (rage briefly against the dying of the light, argue with some viral corporate shills who haven't gotten banhammered yet, get bored of the repetition and move on) and what I can do in this thread (actually be excited that someone has something useful to do about this particular instance of corporate tomfoolery.)

It's still better than actually patronizing the product, though. Voting with your wallet fails because people have no consumer conscience, because somehow not buying a game is in fact a terribly difficult thing to do.

Well, quite honestly, what are you supposed to do with the industry in the state it's in right now to use your purchasing patterns to send any kind of message?

• All three home consoles are shockingly bad in terms of brand-new or stubbornly retained ways to screw over the user -- Nintendo holding on for dear life to region-locking and building a horrible online content system that almost guarantees you will eventually lose content you've paid for; Microsoft basically eliminating the third-party accessory market and instituting thousands of horrendous nickel-and-dime schemes; Sony removing features, spitting on BC, and pricing their system at launch at an insulting amount -- so it's not like you can pick "the consumer-friendly one" and give them your money
• DD content is pretty much the best possible avenue for small developers, unique concepts, and games that don't need to cost $60, but all the DD services are DRM-laden and ultimately at the whim of the platform-holders
• Anti-used-sales schemes from publishers are ludicrously unfriendly to consumers, but it's not like giving your money to Gamestop is striking any kind of pro-consumer blow
• And so on, and so forth

The industry is a mess and without some kind of collective recognition of just how crappy it's gotten in these areas, it's likely to remain a mess in every direction. And unfortunately, if other industries are any indication, recognition of that type would take the form of drastically rising piracy rates combined with plummeting sales -- not something I'm necessarily looking to advocate for even if it might lead to a significant improvement in the long run like it's done in the music industry.

 

[test_account]

It's unnecessary to discuss it. The EU law on these things clearly states that this sort of license can't override your consumer rights.

Ye, that is true, i didnt mean to say anything against that But isnt TOS/EULAs more valid in the US when it comes to the law? I am under that impression at least. I was then mostly thinking that it might be possible to discuss what "some loss of functionality" could be, if this line describes if a whole feature could be removed or just a part of it

If someone in the US sues Sony over the removal of the OtherOS feature, and if Sony then says that it says in the PS3 EULA that they can remove features, and if the person who is suing could then say "it only says "some loss" in the PS3 EULA, not that a whole feature could be removed". I wonder if this arguement would hold up in court against what the PS3 EULA says.

EDIT: I added some text.

 

[AndyD]

Ye, that is true, i didnt mean to say anything against that But isnt TOS/EULAs more valid in the US when it comes to the law? I am under that impression at least. I was then mostly thinking that it might be possible to discuss what "some loss of functionality" could be, if this line describes if a whole feature could be removed or just a part of it

If someone in the US sues Sony over the removal of the OtherOS feature, and if Sony then says that it says in the PS3 EULA that they can remove features, and if the person who is suing could then say "it only says "some loss" in the PS3 EULA, not that a whole feature could be removed". I wonder if this arguement would hold up in court against what the PS3 EULA says.

EDIT: I added some text.

It likely would be in favor of Sony. "Some loss of features" does not refer to partial loss of one feature, but loss of some features. The other reading of it is pretty laughable I think.

 

[test_account]

It likely would be in favor of Sony. "Some loss of features" does not refer to partial loss of one feature, but loss of some features. The other reading of it is pretty laughable I think.

Ye, i also think that "some loss of features" is being referred to as features as a whole and not just the removal of some parts of a feature (like for example to remove the flash support for the PS3 browser, but still keep all the other features of the PS3 browser just to take one hypotetical example), i agree But from a legal point of view, i was just wondering if it was possible to describe "some loss of features" in another way. I guess that it is possible, but i guess that it totally depends on what the judge will say. But i do think that most people will understand "some loss of features" as a whole feature being removed though and not just a part or parts of a feature.

 

[AndyD]

Ye, i also think that "some loss of features" is being referred to as features as a whole and not just the removal of some parts of a feature (like for example to remove the flash support for the PS3 browser, but still keep all the other features of the PS3 browser just to take one hypotetical example), i agree But from a legal point of view, i was just wondering if it was possible to describe "some loss of features" in another way. I guess that it is possible, but i guess that it totally depends on what the judge will say. But i do think that most people will understand "some loss of features" as a whole feature being removed though and not just a part or parts of a feature.

A judge will likely look at the "plain meaning of the language". Which is why I said the more obvious, plainer, logical reading is likely the reading to be used and accepted by a court.

The other reading is also problematic and likely rejected because some features are not made up of sub features like your browser example. So then the language would only affect features that are divisible which makes no sense in the language as a whole.

And eve if used in your interpretation, it could still backfire against the customer. Since you would be allowed to reduce a feature, then no longer playing games which require PSN and/or 3.21fw would not be an issue if you choose to stick to old fw because it still plays old games which means it still functions as advertised (plays some games not necessarily all). Just like a browser is still a browser even if it does not display all internet content (no flash example). Or a bluray player is still a bluray player even if it does not show other regions' blurays (dragona may disagree).

But that is illogical really. The plain meaning of the words is what almost always gets enforced unless there is clear indication the intent was something else and the wording was in error.

 

[Version 3.0]

Oh, I absolutely agree. I'm just noting the difference between what I usually do in these threads (rage briefly against the dying of the light, argue with some viral corporate shills who haven't gotten banhammered yet, get bored of the repetition and move on) and what I can do in this thread (actually be excited that someone has something useful to do about this particular instance of corporate tomfoolery.)



Well, quite honestly, what are you supposed to do with the industry in the state it's in right now to use your purchasing patterns to send any kind of message?

• All three home consoles are shockingly bad in terms of brand-new or stubbornly retained ways to screw over the user -- Nintendo holding on for dear life to region-locking and building a horrible online content system that almost guarantees you will eventually lose content you've paid for; Microsoft basically eliminating the third-party accessory market and instituting thousands of horrendous nickel-and-dime schemes; Sony removing features, spitting on BC, and pricing their system at launch at an insulting amount -- so it's not like you can pick "the consumer-friendly one" and give them your money
• DD content is pretty much the best possible avenue for small developers, unique concepts, and games that don't need to cost $60, but all the DD services are DRM-laden and ultimately at the whim of the platform-holders
• Anti-used-sales schemes from publishers are ludicrously unfriendly to consumers, but it's not like giving your money to Gamestop is striking any kind of pro-consumer blow
• And so on, and so forth

The industry is a mess and without some kind of collective recognition of just how crappy it's gotten in these areas, it's likely to remain a mess in every direction. And unfortunately, if other industries are any indication, recognition of that type would take the form of drastically rising piracy rates combined with plummeting sales -- not something I'm necessarily looking to advocate for even if it might lead to a significant improvement in the long run like it's done in the music industry.

You deserve my tag more than I do. Your post sums up my feelings pretty succintly.

 

[test_account]

A judge will likely look at the "plain meaning of the language". Which is why I said the more obvious, plainer, logical reading is likely the reading to be used and accepted by a court.

The other reading is also problematic and likely rejected because some features are not made up of sub features like your browser example. So then the language would only affect features that are divisible which makes no sense in the language as a whole.

And eve if used in your interpretation, it could still backfire against the customer. Since you would be allowed to reduce a feature, then no longer playing games which require PSN and/or 3.21fw would not be an issue if you choose to stick to old fw because it still plays old games which means it still functions as advertised (plays some games not necessarily all). Just like a browser is still a browser even if it does not display all internet content (no flash example). Or a bluray player is still a bluray player even if it does not show other regions' blurays (dragona may disagree).

But that is illogical really. The plain meaning of the words is what almost always gets enforced unless there is clear indication the intent was something else and the wording was in error.

Ye, that is true, not all PS3 features are made up by sub features, so another reading of "some loss of features" would mean that not every feature could be changed indeed as you say. Maybe someone hope this in regards of the OtherOS feature, that the PS3 EULA could be understood in a way that it wasnt legal (at least after US law) to remove OtherOS feature? But i have no idea if anyone would do this though, it was just a thought that i had that i wanted to mention

But i think that you make good points And i agree that a judge would most likely look at "some loss of features" as mening every features and not just a part of a feature.