PS3 security is "epic fail"

[billt]

As a PS3 owner, I think this is great news. Not because I want to play pirated copies of new games but because it opens up a new world for home brew apps. I wouldn't mind seeing something like XBMC or AROS (or MorphOS/OS4) ported. Gonna be interesting to see what programmers come up with.

Here's a 45 minutes talk about how they went about things
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/29/hackers-obtain-ps3-private-cryptography-key-due-to-epic-programm/


I look forward to being able to load a PS2 emulator so I don't have to have both machines hooked up. I have a PS3 slim, so they'd long since removed that feature.

Even if Hyperion would like to, I don't expect to see OS4 released for PS3 via this hack, as it exposes them to legal onslaught from Sony, which is a fight they likely do not want to go through.

[billt]

I have to say I dont like the attitude on here, of them coders and off other sites towards Sony, they make the ps3 its their product so they get to decide what should and shouldn't be allowed on it, if you don't like it, dont support them and get your self a cheap Linux box for all your home brew you could ask for.

I think the biggest irritant about all this is that Sony marketed PS3 as a Linux machine for so long, and then removed it from the older boxes that claimed to work with Linux when purchased. Like they said in the video, no one really bothered much with hacking the PS3 until Sony took away something that they bought it for, and was part of the machine when they bought it. When Sony (illegally?) removed an advertized feature, they're just trying to get it back. I see no foul in that.

[billt]

I agree with all this.  The standard BS argument is:"I bought it so I can do what I want with it".  No.  You bought hardware plus an agreement on what you could and could not do with that hardware.  Sony has the right to take steps that ensure the hardware is used as it intended, even if that means to add or remove features-like support for OtherOS.  You don't agree? Don't buy the hardware.

I'm surprised by such sentiment in an Amiga forum. We're the guys that put our motherboards into tower cases, doing a lot of work to make it happen. We have build yourself CPU accelerators, added PAL/NTSC switches to single mode computers, there's CHIP RAM addons like MegaChip, video flickerfixers like Indivision, and PCI busses like Prometheus and Mediator. If we're supposed to f-ing leave stuff the way it came from the factory, then there's a heck of a boatload of wrongdoing in our entire history.

If you want me to abide by some agreement to not tinker with the things I buy, then put it on the OUTSIDE of the friggin box so I know it before I pay up. If I don't get an opportunity to know such things until after I've paid, sorry, I really don't feel very strongly bound by it.

[billt]

All this hack does is give you pirating abilities though.

I disagree.

Did XBMC == piracy for Xbox?

Does Linux == piracy?

Do DIY games == piracy?

Would an AROS port == piracy?

This stuff does make piracy possible, yes, but it's not "All" there is.

[billt]

but it really unlikely AOS4 or MorphOS would be ported to this platform without the direct approval of Spny (whether the hack exists or not) as  this would open up Hyperion or the MorphOS development team to legal actions.

That's why I said AROS in my == piracy? list instead of OS4/MOS.

[billt]

In the US at least, under the DMCA it most likely is.

If it's legal to jailbreak an iphone, why not legal to also jailbreak a PS3?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/feds-ok-iphone-jailbreaking/

Every three years, the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office entertain proposed exemptions to the DMCA, passed in 1998. The act forbids circumventing encryption technology to copy or modify copyrighted works. In this instance, Apple claimed the DMCA protects the copyrighted  encryption built into the bootloader that starts up the iPhone OS operating system.

But the Copyright Office concluded that, “while a copyright owner might try to restrict the programs that can be run on a particular operating system, copyright law is not the vehicle for imposition of such restrictions.”

A federal appeals court came to the same conclusion last week in an unrelated dispute about “dongles,” or keys that grant access to software. “The owner’s technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing,” (.pdf) the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case concerning a software licensing flap between MGE UPS Systems and GE Consumer and Industrial.

[billt]

So

1.  you have doors with locks in your house, or your businesses has doors with locks to the premises, and when a thief breaks in its your fault, because you fitted locks?

2.  I see a fridge I want to buy in a retail shop.  i walk in and want it for less.  The seller says no.  I drive a truck through the stores front door, take the fridge and leave the sum of money I wanted to pay for it, and this is OK, because its the retailers fault for not selling the fridge at the price I wanted to pay for it.  Afteral its just the market "self-correcting".  Sure, try that in front of a Court.

It's more like if you bought a refridgerator with an icemaker feature included, and a few years later they force their way into your office, tell you sorry, they've decided that you are no longer allowed to make ice cubes even though you've peacefully enjoyed ice cubes for a long time, and forcefully remove the icemaker to take with them. The guys doing this want their icemaker back.

[billt]

gezz how many people here posting actually own a ps3 you have to update the software to log on to psn network always been that way

Then don't log in if you've messed with it. I never logged into anything with my old Xbox or PS2, never had a problem with having messed with them. If you want to be able to do stuff online, and you also want to mess with a machine, I think it's something to consider to have two of them. One to meddle with, and one to keep the way Sony/MS/Nintendo/whoever wants it to be.