Gaming Your thoughts on Hotz v. SCEA?

[Rydian]

What ShadowSoldier's referring to is what geohot has done for other scenes, such as various iphone hacks (he made blackra1n, for one). He's won a $20,000 prize from Intel, for one.

Yeah he's a showboater, but people use him as a scapegoat all the time. Hell, just a few months ago I was fighting with people who claimed he never hacked anything. That's the extent to which people let themselves be led, and it's not right. Check shit out for yourself.

 

[lochoko]

In order to offer the OtherOS install, SCE would need to continue to maintain the OtherOS hypervisor drivers for any significant hardware changesObviously the costs are from continued development (they gotta' pay the people that code this shit), and they specifically mentioned maintaining the hypervisor drivers.


You are still ignoring the last bit of that sentence. Maintain drivers for any significant hardware changes. And again, just as a reminder, from the same article as above:

Please be assured that SCE is committed to continue the support for previously sold models that have the “Install Other OS” feature and that this feature will not be disabled in future firmware releases.

Next, direct from Sony's blog about the 3.21 update:

Sony Blog

The next system software update for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) system will be released on April 1, 2010 (JST), and will disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update.

Ref: Sony Blog

The proof is in the pudding, as one would say. Security concerns, announced after the Hotz attack, when prior, SCE was committed to continue to support Other OS for the phats.

A little off topic, but I called it: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/03/28/...#comment-375838

 

[Rydian]

You are still ignoring the last bit of that sentence. Maintain drivers for any significant hardware changes. And again, just as a reminder, from the same article as above:You're ignoring the fact that continued development on a feature costs money, period. I thought I made this clear in my last few posts.

To clarify, the driver/hardware line was the reason they took it out of the slims first, since it would have cost more money to develop within it than it was costing to maintain the current.
They were prioritizing, and they needed to cut out the biggest money drains first.

QUOTE(lochoko @ Feb 5 2011, 06:53 PM) The proof is in the pudding, as one would say. Security concerns, announced after the Hotz attack, when prior, SCE was committed to continue to support Other OS for the phats.

It's "security".
Not "geohot".

Find where they blame geohot and I'll believe they blamed geohot.

inb4 "they just don't want to name", they're suing him right now by name and online handle, along with various other well-known homebrew hackers, so I don't think that's their concern.

And if you want to talk about the timing, they didn't remove OtherOS retroactively until multiple months after geohot released his hack. If it was something they were actually concerned about, they would not have taken so long, and would have pressed for some something like a TRO, which they did very quickly for the dongle, and did within a week (accounting for lack of workdays) after the keys fiasco.

 

[lochoko]

You are still ignoring the last bit of that sentence. Maintain drivers for any significant hardware changes. And again, just as a reminder, from the same article as above:You're ignoring the fact that continued development on a feature costs money, period. I thought I made this clear in my last few posts.

To clarify, the driver/hardware line was the reason they took it out of the slims first, since it would have cost more money to develop within it than it was costing to maintain the current.
They were prioritizing, and they needed to cut out the biggest money drains first.

QUOTE(lochoko @ Feb 5 2011, 06:53 PM) The proof is in the pudding, as one would say. Security concerns, announced after the Hotz attack, when prior, SCE was committed to continue to support Other OS for the phats.

It's "security".
Not "geohot".

Find where they blame geohot and I'll believe they blamed geohot.

inb4 "they just don't want to name", they're suing him right now by name and online handle, along with various other well-known homebrew hackers, so I don't think that's their concern.

What development were they doing? They added no features to OtherOS, there were no bugs they were fixing, they were doing no work on OtherOS.

Of course they're naming GeoHot now, it's a law suit. If Sony didn't make any announcement about suing Hotz, Hotz himself would have. Before they didn't want to give any credit to Hotz's attack, which was crap at best and the only thing they would have had to fix. So yeah, you can say they removed it for cost reasons: They didn't want to fix the bug Hotz was exploiting, so they removed it, quoting security concerns. It would still be related to the Hotz attack.

And no, I'm not blaming Hotz to blame Hotz, I'm blaming Sony for being lazy and going against their word to support Other OS for the phats indefinitely. Cost or no, security or no, they removed a feature which was a selling point for me. I would have been using it as a Minecraft server if Linux still worked, but unfortunately I had to choose games or Linux and games won. I just buy used now when possible. I also buy 360 when possible.

Quick Edit: Sony (Well, the big 3) never announces what bugs/exploits their patching, just that they did. There have been many "security fixes" on the PSP, never once have they said "We fixed the buffer overflow that allowed people to run unsigned code." Why would this be any different?

 

[Rydian]

What development were they doing? They added no features to OtherOS, there were no bugs they were fixing, they were doing no work on OtherOS.I wasn't being that clear, I meant the firmware itself. OtherOS is a part of it, just take a look at all the work team fail0verflow has to do to get linux running on it again.

Of course they're naming GeoHot now, it's a law suit. If Sony didn't make any announcement about suing Hotz, Hotz himself would have.Was Sony the one who announced it? Court motions, while not always available free, are free to distribute, so it only takes one person to pay the fee and then start spreading the documents. But yeah, he would have announced it most likely.

QUOTE(lochoko @ Feb 5 2011, 07:19 PM)

Before they didn't want to give any credit to Hotz's attack, which was crap at best and the only thing they would have had to fix. So yeah, you can say they removed it for cost reasons: They didn't want to fix the bug Hotz was exploiting, so they removed it, quoting security concerns. It would still be related to the Hotz attack.

Check my last edit to the previous post, I don't think that's true. When Sony responds to a security threat they respond fast and hard, not a few months later. While OtherOS is ingrained with the firmware, all that would have been needed to keep a normal person from exploiting the hole is removing the option to run OtherOS from the menus (just like how they have the package install options and such locked away on retail firmwares now).

For something that's supposed to be so serious, the timing of their actions does not match anything else they've done. That's one of the big reasons I doubt the popular opinion. Precedent (and later actions as well) do not match up.

 

[lochoko]

For something that's supposed to be so serious, the timing of their actions does not match anything else they've done. That's one of the big reasons I doubt the popular opinion. Precedent (and later actions as well) do not match up.

Unless they had to decide how to proceed: Fix the bug or remove OtherOS completely, since there were hackers now trying to get more power to OtherOS.

One hand means they have to devote resources to OtherOS, i.e. Cost.

The other means they have to go back on their word.

It's sad to think they decided money was more important than their credibility.

I don't doubt it was a difficult decision, but I just feel they made the wrong one and the private key release was the result of it. I will 100% stand behind the belief that if Sony never removed OtherOS from the PS3 the state of the console would be nowhere near as bad as it is now.

 

[Wintrale]

I don't doubt it was a difficult decision, but I just feel they made the wrong one and the private key release was the result of it. I will 100% stand behind the belief that if Sony never removed OtherOS from the PS3 the state of the console would be nowhere near as bad as it is now.

Hackers hack. It's what they do. There was no provocation to hack the OtherOS feature, yet they did it anyway. If they hadn't tried hacking it, it wouldn't have been removed. They view anti-piracy as a challenge, but it's not like they'd stop hacking if there wasn't any - the original DS never had any anti-piracy at all, yet people still created flashcards to play pirated games. It's like a cycle that just makes companies more desperate to protect their devices from anti-piracy and hackers more desperate to break the anti-piracy by any means. If hackers stopped hacking, the costs of everything would be much lower - but that'll never happen. Why? 'Cause hackers who say they're strictly anti-piracy are telling a load of bollocks.

 

[Rydian]

Sony's been seen to push out a TRO in days, I don't think it'd take them a few months to decide to remove a feature. I think there's more to OtherOS's removal than geohot because their actions just don't match up.

I think team fail0verflow made a mistake releasing too much info, if they had done what they did with the Wii they could have slowed things down and Sony wouldn't have a clear case against them.

 

[Originality]

Hacking a system does not necessarily support piracy. They just want to get more access to the system's features. It's the coders who use those unlocked features to enable piracy that support piracy, and the pirates who demand games for free that really gets piracy going.

In the case of the DS, I would hazard that it was more of a business (enabling piracy) than an act of supporting piracy. Get the flashcards made cleaply in China, sell them for much more in the rest of the world, and the people behind it can make a fair profit. That's not helped public consciousness of piracy since "everybody does it" and "it's more convenient than buying hundreds of game carts and carrying them around".

Anywho, arguing about the ethics of hacking the PS3 is getting old now. Think ahead to the 3DS and NGP. Both Sony and Ninty believe the security on their devices will prove tough for hackers to breach, after learning the lessons of the last 6ish years. Try arguing about hacking them for a change.

 

[Magsor]

Someone wrote: i am out of this thread ; on the first page

Have a nice day

 

[Rydian]

Someone wrote: i am out of this thread ; on the first page

Have a nice day

The topic then and the topic now had a radical change.

Then it was inhumane cursing, now it's actual discussion.