Arehexes said:
Sorry that was a rant, I just get sick of people attacking one company for doing X when other companies do it too but they just aren't in the spot light as much
No, you're right. And good points.
The.. problem is that the keys can't truly be used to cause Sony damages. That's unlike custom firmware on the psp (which they can't really patch, because of the way the system is designed), or mod-chips on the ps2. Which both have very obvious use of pirated disk-images before extra or custom-made programs. The hack doesn't provide that. It barely provides anything practical for using the low-level functions - and it doesn't expose the program-level logic. So it's not as simple as with cfw on, say, the Wii, the ds, the psp, etc. In fact, the hack and the "keys" can only be used to eventually, if you're extremely dedicated, figure out how to write your own interfaces for the hardware. This isn't done easily when you don't actually know what the architecture is like. And no one writes an OS from scratch in a weekend, to put it like that..
So there's two things - from a somewhat objective point of view, publishing the hack doesn't actually encourage piracy, or allow it, nowhere near the degree posting a cfw for the psp does. In fact, the backup solution that exists right now is not based on the hack. It's based on leaked sdk-info along with service-mode switches - which again is code that Sony owns and has constructed themselves (no doubt on a separate outsourced project from the rest of the system..).
Meanwhile, Sony doesn't actually try to protect their users from exploits, they simply remove functionality because it's expensive for them to satisfy their own paranoia. Obviously, it always is - and all content providers and publishers happily therefore spend money on fighting ghosts by sponsoring extra-legal "anti-piracy" outfits.
But this is of course a normal thing to do in software-development - but only Sony actually asks you to like it. That's probably what rubs some of us the wrong way.
Other than that, I agree Hotz appears to have blurted out a lot of stuff. I'm sure he did as well. But the point is that from "our" point of view, exposing the inner workings of the system like this isn't cause for concern. It's not breaking in, it's not creating keys or lock-pick sets. Instead it's creating a schema of a building in order to highlight fantastic security-solutions, and what parts of the building we want to go to.
Obviously - from Sony's perspective, that is dangerous. Since it means they lose control over how the system is used. On the other hand, legislation prevents anyone from using that knowledge in commercial products. And everyone, regardless of technical know-how, understands that if you are not actually able to pick the strong-boxes in the attic (the blu-ray encryption schemes, or the level 2 protection on the ps3) - then reverse-engineering in this case isn't conceivable to see turn up in a, say, Chinese copy, or anything like that. It's simply not going to happen.
The same is what happened with the iPhone jailbreak. Here that "product" isn't going to be possible to use with anything else. And it only exposes one particular system to user-level exploits that you have to install yourself. That's the limitation of a hack that actually is much more dangerous than "most hacks", because it allows rfid hacks on the low-level (thanks to Apple's abysmal security abstraction).
The difference is that Sony is not interested in having people fiddle around with the system, or figure out how to create interesting things with it. That's the issue we've been having from the beginning - it wasn't impossible for Sony to sponsor a gpu-array implementation in linux (and we did get access to map the graphics-ram, which helped a lot). But they didn't care for it. Same with linux and clever heads creating neat spu-code - they don't see the point. And I think they were just looking for an excuse to pull the plug on the project to save internal/close ps3 project costs. And that the linux-project was on the top of the list.
We have a similar proposition with the move-controller - it's an interesting kit. It's actually this 3d mouse pointer that lots and lots of people have tried to create before but failed at. I can instantly see a 3d desktop interface forming very quickly, and I hope that Anton and the rest at the development labs are serious about making a PC kit for the move one day.
But if all of that was possible to fiddle around with on the actual ps3 itself instead? That would be useful, as well as promote the system. But Sony doesn't want that. Instead, Sony is happy to remove functions, and expect their buyers to like them for it.
So those are the two problems here:
1. technically, the hack isn't as useful as advertised. Specially when it comes to piracy.
2. removing functions and services you thought you had paid for - and then expecting customers to take it up the rear afterwards no matter what - isn't how you sell or profile a product if you want to earn money (unless you sell crack, I guess).
..poor choice of words. I think we can all agree that it's "not illegal" to use the EULA in this way. But the idea that it has operative legal weight is arguable.
