Right, so I again DO blame Sony for putting out a product like that. Basically, if you make it such that you can hack the thing AND cause others grief then the blame is firmly on you and the developers of the games, as well as the network folks who run the network you are using. And if you can’t even patch the thing or lock out the hackers, well…I’ll just say that I would never buy a Sony product if all this is the case. Sheesh…sounds horrible.
-XT
Indirectly. Root level access to his OS allows him to play hacked games. The ability to play hacked games allows him to do whatever he wants within a given game once he has forced host. Fly. Infinite damage. See through walls. Etc.
I finished high school some time ago. Hell, I finished law school some time ago. But you would be amazed at how childish adults can get in a place like the Playstation Network. The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
To answer your question, this happened over a year ago. To be honest, I don’t think the guy actually called me anything when this happened, but being the recipient of unwarranted and excessive vitriol is an extremely common occurrence when you don’t mute everyone in a public lobby. You get used to ignoring it.
No. As mentioned above. Flying. Auto-aim. Invisibility. Seeing though walls. Infinite health. That sort of thing.
Like you say, the PC gaming world has had to deal with this forever. I honestly don’t see what makes the PS3 any special in that regards. Somehow, the PC world has managed to survive without decreeing that people running this or that app would be barred from the MP scene, much less banned from the MP scene of EVERY LAST GAME THEY OWN OMG11!!. Especially considering the PSN is not just a multiplayer layer - it’s also how PS3 players get software updates & patches (as well as firmware updates for their very consoles), purchase DLC, chat with friends and so forth.
Semi-Fake ETA: I see you’ve amended your statement. The problem there is that the PSN specifically is designed like shit and doesn’t seem to allow for such distinctions. Is that the jailbreaker’s fault, or Sony’s ? And if it’s Sony’s fault, shouldn’t they be expected to design a new one rather than sit on their haunches and claim whatever they do, they have a right to because fuck you, you clicked Yes ?
Emphasis mine.
The only way to make it such that you can NOT hack the thing, is to keep the hardware out of your hands. I don’t think this is practicable.
Which brings us back to the ethics/legal question – how do we prevent this while still allowing people to do what they wish with their own property?
It’s a toughie.
To be fair, the same problem exists for all hardware. As long as you need to have physical devices for each user, you’ll probably never get around it. The XBox and Wii can also be compromised, but the PS3 hack was particularly newsworthy because it was supposed to be the most secure of the bunch.
The bigger problem was the security issue with PSN. Maybe you can never really get around security issues surrounding physical hardware. But you should be able to avoid major security flaws in your (constantly being patched and updated) software.
Unless I’m mistaken, this particular (albeit GLARING) issue is specific to Modern Warfare, because in their great [del]spite of players everywhere[/del]wisdom Activision opted not to host any MP servers for their game and thus forced every MP game to be hosted by one of the players. No exceptions, no recourse. I’m not even sure you can run dedicated servers for your friends.
Which not only leads to performance issues (because, surprise, consoles designed to cut all corners except visual ones are not exceptional at running like dedicated game servers) but also this kind of security fuckery when someone finds a way to get admin privileges.
I’m not a big gamer, so please indulge me and fight my ignorance: I thought it was in the nature of console gaming that the games must be player-hosted and not server-hosted. I know the favored method for PCs is server hosting, and I know many PC gamers are steamed that Activision does not allow dedicated servers for their games. But I thought consoles were different; am I incorrect?
What’s wrong is a law that allows a company to dictate what I do with my personal property.
Yeah. It would be like buying a DVD and being told you could only watch it between noon and 9:00 PM.
Once you buy a physical object, you should be allowed to do whatever the fuck you want with it in the privacy of your own home with consenting adults. Not being “allowed” to tinker with an item that YOU BOUGHT totally undermines the entire concept of ownership.
People who own shares in the Green Bay Packers would disagree with you.
Hey, I BOUGHT a sophisticated printing press and a bunch of paper. Should I be allowed to make a pile of $100 bills? Why not? I own the paper (a physical object)! What if I cross my heart and promise never to try to spend it?
Or, hey, I BOUGHT a bunch of pseudoephedrine. Should I be “allowed” to tinker with it and turn it into crystal meth? What if I don’t intend on ingesting it or selling it? Would that totally undermine the entire concept of ownership?
My point is that black-and-white statements like the ones quoted above do not further the debate. There are lots of lots and lots of legitimate limitations on ownership and property rights.
Wouldn’t breaking the codes of the PS3, which would enable you to avoid copyright restrictions of video games, be a violation of the DMCA (at least in the US)? The DMCA says that even figuring out how to do it, even though you didn’t violate copyright yourself, is still illegal.
I think. IANAL.
Depends on the game. Some publishers host dedicated servers for their console games, some rely on peer to peer hosting. The latter is I guess more common since most console games are 2 to 4 player games at the most, FPS’s really being the only ones to call for more. But up to MW2 I believe most FPS games, at least the multi-platform ones, still relied on dedicated servers, console or not. AFAIK there was no distinction made between platforms, xbox and PC users happily called each other faggots on the same battlegrounds.
That said, I’m not really up to speed on these things either - last FPS I played online was *CounterStrike *beta 1.6. If you don’t have that reference, just know that it’s pretty Old School, that they don’t make 'em like these any more, that kids these days don’t know how good they have it and should get off my pixel lawn 
[QUOTE=Randy Seltzer]
Emphasis mine.
The only way to make it such that you can NOT hack the thing, is to keep the hardware out of your hands. I don’t think this is practicable.
Which brings us back to the ethics/legal question – how do we prevent this while still allowing people to do what they wish with their own property?
It’s a toughie.
[/QUOTE]
Sure, but this seems to go beyond a simple hack, since it’s being asserted in this thread that THERE IS NO FIX. And no WAY to fix it. And the hackage seems to be fairly epic, again based again on what folks are saying in this thread. If you are going to make something today that can be hacked in this way, and there is no way to fix a KNOW HACK, then that’s kind of a problem there.
[QUOTE=Great Antibob]
To be fair, the same problem exists for all hardware. As long as you need to have physical devices for each user, you’ll probably never get around it. The XBox and Wii can also be compromised, but the PS3 hack was particularly newsworthy because it was supposed to be the most secure of the bunch.
[/QUOTE]
Again, sure. Anything that is connected to a network is vulnerable…even Macs, contrary to popular belief. 
It’s not so much that someone hacked the thing, it’s that they were able to hack it in the way described, and that there is seemingly no fix for this. THAT is the problem, just based on what little I’ve seen in this thread.
Hackers are a reality. You have to plan on the fact that they are out there, and they WILL jailbreak, hack, penetrate and generally wreak havoc on any system you put out. And especially connected systems.
Agreed.
At any rate, I don’t blame the hackers for this sort of thing. If you CAN do it, then someone WILL do it. That’s, again, reality. It’s like griefing in an MMORPG…if someone can do something based on the rules you set, then you can bet someone will, and you need to be flexible enough to fix things you don’t anticipate and close major holes when they invariably pop up. I’m all for jailbreaking hardware or systems (though, as others have said, if you do that you have to be prepared to void warrantees and such…and you are on your own for tech support when issues crop up).
-XT
Here’s the thing, it’s POSSIBLE to make a system that deals with arbitrary mods, nobody can debate that. The thing is, what consoles do is say “here is a closed box system, you know what you’re getting” to the developers. They’re essentially promising initial conditions, they’re PROMISING the games will be executed in a universe where these mods do not need to be accounted for. Whether that’s good or bad is up to the consumer, if you don’t like the “closed world” mentality, then don’t buy the system.
Unlike the video game discs (as much as they like to pretend they’re simply a service), the Playstation Network is a service they provide, and whether or not you have this service entails whether or not they’ll support your product (with firmware etc). That means they can expect you to play by their rules. I don’t think Sony can be “expected” to not have rules that govern the use of their network to the exclusion of things they don’t like (assuming “things they don’t like” doesn’t include things like “Jews” or “women”). If a costumer wants to complain, then they can pursue a different service.
Now maybe you think it’s more important to allow a “open world” environment, and that’s fine! The thing is, Sony isn’t pretending it’s that kind of system, it’d be one thing if they were pretending that the PS3 was moddable and then banned you for modding it, but that’s not what they’re doing. There IS some wiggle room for disdain with the firmware bait and switch with the Linux mods as mentioned above, but I think it’s perfectly fair for them to revoke your PSN service from that console if you’re connecting with something they don’t like. It’s really not that much different from how on PC games with Punkbuster, or WoW’s Warden will ban you if you’re running a memory editing program in the background.
Of course, but allowing a business to govern my personal use of my property is not one of them.
The Packers are not solely my own personal property. They are shared. If I start a business with another party, we may choose to place rules on ownership. No one here is objecting to shareholder agreements.
If a company wants to rent me a computer with restrictions on how it is used, fine. If they want to co-own a computer with me with restrictions on how it is used, fine. To refuse to provide additional services if I don’t play by their rules is fine. However, to sell it to me and then sue me for using it in a way that displeases them is wrong.
But of course, maybe we all are just “renting” our software, our ebooks, our mp3 files. That’s bad enough without also making modifications a crime, although I do not believe Hotz was every charged with anything.
The Linux OS class action lawsuit was lost by the plaintiffs BTW. Basically the judge said even though it sucks and is not a good look from a marketing standpoint Sony have the right to do it.
It really does suck that PS3 linux users lost out due to actions of other people.
In Australia, modifying your PS3 was explicitly found to be legal. And it’s a good thing - Activision’s incompetence is no excuse for restricting other people’s rights to use their own property as they see fit.
Hotz was charged but he settled with the condition to never to mess with Sony firmware again. What I find interesting is people have this negative association with the word “hacking”. How is it a crime for someone to mess around with something they own. If they later on break the law then sure nab them on that, but before that happen it’s innocent till proven guilty.
This reminds me of the whole DVD region lock they had. Yeah I “hacked” firmware and that of my friends, do I deserve to be sued because I broke their security device designed in parts to stop piracy?
From geohot:
“Now until more information is revealed on the technicals, I can only speculate, but I bet Sony’s arrogance and misunderstanding of ownership put them in this position. Sony execs probably haughtily chuckled at the idea of threat modeling. Traditionally the trust boundary for a web service exists between the server and the client. But Sony believes they own the client too, so if they just put a trust boundary between the consumer and the client(can’t trust those pesky consumers), everything is good. Since everyone knows the PS3 is unhackable, why waste money adding pointless security between the client and the server? This arrogance undermines a basic security principle, never trust the client. It’s the same reason MW2 was covered in cheaters, Infinity Ward even admitted to the mistake of trusting Sony’s client. Sony needs to accept that they no longer own and control the PS3 when they sell it to you. Notice it’s only PSN that gave away all your personal data, not Xbox Live when the 360 was hacked, not iTunes when the iPhone was jailbroken, and not GMail when Android was rooted. Because other companies aren’t crazy.”