So how are Geohot and the Sony hackers heros?
- Thread starter bdcjacko
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I disagree with you on the Geohotz thing. He wasn't in the right to jailbreak the PS3 because Sony removed the functionality for a reason. They would not remove such a huge selling point if there wasn't a good reason behind it (security things). Also, Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the other os functionality removed before the PS3 was released? So technically, the only thing they did was invest in something that they should have known wasn't finished completely and that not everything in the system was final.Agayek said:
Also, to make it clear, I have a seething hatred for Geohotz and everything he does. I am almost positive that at the root of almost any problem the ps3 has had this year, he sits.
Well, urmm thank you. It's nice to know I can have such a huge impact on people.solidsnake101023 said:You are my new heroRex Fallout said:that sums up my thoughts on the situation
If nobody has explained it yet, I will.
The central issue here is that Sony decided to remove the abillity to run any OS you wanted (like Linux) on your playstation console, a feature which a lot of people used and paid for. Sony did this claiming it was for security reasons and to stop hackers, when in reality it was because they felt it could be used to circumvent a lot of game protection and allow people to more easily play pirated games, and thus by doing it, they felt they could save a few bucks. When this outraged people, Sony basically pulled the whole TOS/EULA arguement, claiming that nobody actually owned their consoles, and pointed to their legal department which outraged users weren't going to be able to fight, despite several possible avenues of attack on the issue (which I won't get into).
Geohotz is a guy whose big claim to fame is that he found a way to restore the other OS functionality to the PS-3, so those who say wanted to run Linux, could choose to do so. He shared this information, and Sony pretty much blew a gasket that there was actually opposition to them stealing features from customers who paid for them.
As Sony was making noise with Geohotz, hacker groups like Anonymous got involved and pretty much said "this is wrong, if your going to do it, we're going to make you pay". Since Sony claimed that the removal of the other OS option was for security purposes, the attack not only took them down, but outed them as liars due to the simple fact that Sony really didn't have any security of note in place. Our information was always this vulnerable, you can't plug a leak when the whole system is a leak.
Like it or not, the only thing businesses care about is money, and the only way to cost them money and hurt them for things like this is through the customers. While it seems like the hackers have freaked people out, by all accounts we haven't actually seen this data has been used for anything on the scale it could have been. The rate of actual violations of data targeted by this attack seem to roughly coorespond with what would have happened anyway with the other services people are using. There are actually jokes about how your information is probably safer with Anonymous than with Sony.
At any rate, I hope this explains the issue fairly well.
Me, personally, I think it's a giant mess. I've always had mixed opinions about Anonymous, opposing them on things like defending Wikileaks, on the other hand I think Sony was so dead wrong here that I just can't bring myself to defend them. Sony pulled the whole "evil corperation with even more evil lawyers" thing in exploiting it's customers and got called on it for once.
Truthfully, one of the things that makes this whole situation interesting is that Sony could probably deal with a lot of it by just apologizing, and admitting it was wrong about the OS thing, and agreeing to not try and pull anything like that again. Of course being a huge, and incredibly arrogant, corperation it's not willing to do that.
I might sound like a favor the hackers, but really it strikes me as being a situation with a bunch of jerks on both sides in the final equasion, however given that Sony did something really wrong here, and the problem largely continues due to Sony not admitting that, I typically wind up viewing them as being more wrong if that makes sense. I mean we all knew Anonymous were a group of criminal jerks, and they both admit and relish in that role, Sony at least makes pretensions of being legitimate and yet sure wasn't acting like it.
I'm annoying about the PSN features not all being back yet myself, but when I look at Sony taking things away that I paid for, even if I didn't use them, it makes me pretty bloody angry.
If Sony relents on the issue, apologizes publically, and agrees to never do anything like this again, and the attacks continue I'll be on their side. Right now it's like a group of gang bangers and the mafia going at it.... from my perspective everyone involved is a scumbag, and I want to just be left alone. Pretty much I want everyone to just knock it off, Sony to give me back the OS option if I ever want it, and the hackers to stop messing with the online service I want to use.
It's hard to take a side, when there are no good guys, and it's all more a matter of "whose wrong the least".
The central issue here is that Sony decided to remove the abillity to run any OS you wanted (like Linux) on your playstation console, a feature which a lot of people used and paid for. Sony did this claiming it was for security reasons and to stop hackers, when in reality it was because they felt it could be used to circumvent a lot of game protection and allow people to more easily play pirated games, and thus by doing it, they felt they could save a few bucks. When this outraged people, Sony basically pulled the whole TOS/EULA arguement, claiming that nobody actually owned their consoles, and pointed to their legal department which outraged users weren't going to be able to fight, despite several possible avenues of attack on the issue (which I won't get into).
Geohotz is a guy whose big claim to fame is that he found a way to restore the other OS functionality to the PS-3, so those who say wanted to run Linux, could choose to do so. He shared this information, and Sony pretty much blew a gasket that there was actually opposition to them stealing features from customers who paid for them.
As Sony was making noise with Geohotz, hacker groups like Anonymous got involved and pretty much said "this is wrong, if your going to do it, we're going to make you pay". Since Sony claimed that the removal of the other OS option was for security purposes, the attack not only took them down, but outed them as liars due to the simple fact that Sony really didn't have any security of note in place. Our information was always this vulnerable, you can't plug a leak when the whole system is a leak.
Like it or not, the only thing businesses care about is money, and the only way to cost them money and hurt them for things like this is through the customers. While it seems like the hackers have freaked people out, by all accounts we haven't actually seen this data has been used for anything on the scale it could have been. The rate of actual violations of data targeted by this attack seem to roughly coorespond with what would have happened anyway with the other services people are using. There are actually jokes about how your information is probably safer with Anonymous than with Sony.
At any rate, I hope this explains the issue fairly well.
Me, personally, I think it's a giant mess. I've always had mixed opinions about Anonymous, opposing them on things like defending Wikileaks, on the other hand I think Sony was so dead wrong here that I just can't bring myself to defend them. Sony pulled the whole "evil corperation with even more evil lawyers" thing in exploiting it's customers and got called on it for once.
Truthfully, one of the things that makes this whole situation interesting is that Sony could probably deal with a lot of it by just apologizing, and admitting it was wrong about the OS thing, and agreeing to not try and pull anything like that again. Of course being a huge, and incredibly arrogant, corperation it's not willing to do that.
I might sound like a favor the hackers, but really it strikes me as being a situation with a bunch of jerks on both sides in the final equasion, however given that Sony did something really wrong here, and the problem largely continues due to Sony not admitting that, I typically wind up viewing them as being more wrong if that makes sense. I mean we all knew Anonymous were a group of criminal jerks, and they both admit and relish in that role, Sony at least makes pretensions of being legitimate and yet sure wasn't acting like it.
I'm annoying about the PSN features not all being back yet myself, but when I look at Sony taking things away that I paid for, even if I didn't use them, it makes me pretty bloody angry.
If Sony relents on the issue, apologizes publically, and agrees to never do anything like this again, and the attacks continue I'll be on their side. Right now it's like a group of gang bangers and the mafia going at it.... from my perspective everyone involved is a scumbag, and I want to just be left alone. Pretty much I want everyone to just knock it off, Sony to give me back the OS option if I ever want it, and the hackers to stop messing with the online service I want to use.
It's hard to take a side, when there are no good guys, and it's all more a matter of "whose wrong the least".
They're not. They're harming the employees of the company and everyone it serves while doing nothing to permanently damage the corporation that they see as evil. They've got god complexes and no sense of reality.
No, OtherOS was removed in a patch in 2010. I fully support the hacking of a system you own to restore something that was a selling point to you, and let's face it, anyone who would bother to hack their PS3 to restore this feature likely saw OtherOS as a selling point. That said, the people who took down the PSN are terrible, terrible people.kortin said:
I bought a PS3 a year after its release and it still had OtherOS for quite some time after that.kortin said:
By not installing the update you were denied access to both the PSN and online multiplayer. Either way, Sony is taking away features that I purchased. As for the official "security" reason the option was removed, it was because you could mount and image of a pirated game and play it. So, instead of banning people from using online services like a normal company(e.g. Microsoft) when pirated games were detected. Sony instead decides to remove the feature altogether.bahumat42 said:
The PS3 was released in November of 2006. Other OS was removed on April 1, 2010.kortin said:
That's 3.5 years where the functionality was intact and perfectly viable. The whole move was effectively like giving you a computer, then years later coming back and taking out the harddrive. They gutted functionality of the system that they had advertised for, and that had been on the market for years, all the way back to 2010.
I'm aware of why they did it, but they grossly violated consumer rights, not to mention the fact that it was a complete dick move. They removed a perfectly valid feature from the console, one that they had advertised for and been perfectly content to have in their systems since 2000 (the PS2 supported it, believe it or not), with very little in the way of recourse for the customer.
GeoHotz was perfectly valid in removing that block. He's also not responsible for the people who then used it to pirate. Just like we do not hold weapons manufacturers responsible for shootings. The fact of the matter is, he did nothing more than restore the console to its original, superior, state. Thus, he is "in the right".
Geohot: Douchebag hacker who HAD a valid point, but then lost if because of his douchy attitude, and the fact that he didn't actually fight his point in court where it mattered.
PSN hackers: ...How can ANYONE call these guys heroes? They hacked the online for a console, preventing gamers from using it, all because they wanted to have their 5 minutes of fame and wave their...uhh...lower anatomy at Sony. They hurt innocent normal people just so they could "level up their internet cocks" as Yatzee put it. That's NOT OK. I hope those hackers suffer a virus that makes their PCs blow up in their faces.
PSN hackers: ...How can ANYONE call these guys heroes? They hacked the online for a console, preventing gamers from using it, all because they wanted to have their 5 minutes of fame and wave their...uhh...lower anatomy at Sony. They hurt innocent normal people just so they could "level up their internet cocks" as Yatzee put it. That's NOT OK. I hope those hackers suffer a virus that makes their PCs blow up in their faces.
Hmm, well I have only had my Ps3 for a year now, so I didn't know for sure.Agayek said:
Regardless, I firmly believe that Geohotz is the root of all recent problems for the ps3 and will continue to hate him for it. No matter how right he was for restoring functionality that had already been in the system.
GeoHot was supposed to be a hero because companies make their bed in the grey area surround TOS's and he was going to keep up a lawsuit until it came to a definitive end and ended up creating a precedent for future cases that would keep companies from forbidding costumers from doing lawful things the parent company didn't approve of to products they've legitimately purchased. Of course since he backed out it won't happen (although since he backed out it probably wouldn't anyway). I pity the folks who donated him money expecting that since they pretty much paid for the people who told him to settle.
The Sony hackers are heroes when you have received sufficient brain damage. Or are a scam artist who just bought a bunch of credit card information for quite cheap.
The Sony hackers are heroes when you have received sufficient brain damage. Or are a scam artist who just bought a bunch of credit card information for quite cheap.
The fact that it's Other OS is almost completely irrelevant to the debate.bahumat42 said:
The fact of the matter is, Sony removed a feature that their customers paid for, because they felt like it. If this behavior is tolerated, it would not be much of a stretch for them to remove the ability to play Blu-Ray disks, unless you pay them to unlock it, or any of a variety of other silly things. At the end of the day, Sony removed a feature from a product customers had already paid for, without serious repercussion. That is very much a problem.
Not everyone agrees with Sony's (or any company's) way of running the show, with their rules and their strictness toward breaking the rules. There always is this rebelious part of people that wants to stand up to "the man" (notice the I put it in quotes). Hotz and these hackers were the ones who ballsed up, so they're idolizing them for something they probably wanted to happen.
And that.HerbertTheHamster said:
They removed it for security reasons, and to prevent piracy, which is a completely valid reason people are just up in arms for the sake of bitching. You can argue all you want but you are wrong, Sony has every right to do anything in their power to prevent piracy and loss of profits. And don't give me any of that "Sony is a greedy mega-corporation" bullshit, it's called capitalism, they make a product that people want, they have every right to make money of it.Agayek said: