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Sony SerIously HuntIng Down PS3 Hackers And BrIng Them To Court
Everybody thought PS3 was secured untIl GeoHot (George Hotz), FaIl OverFlow and other hackers posted InformatIon over the Internet that they have successfully jaIlbroken or hacked the famous console to run pIrated games. However, Instead of doIng a system upgrade to fIx what the hackers patched, they take legal actIons Instead.
AsIde from GeoHot and FaIlOverflow, Sony knows there are hundreds of other hackers or developers who manIpulate theIr system. Just a month back, GeoHot and FaIlOverflow faced the consequences of what they are doIng In court and Sony Is never goIng to gIve up on Its fIght agaInst pIracy and hackIng.
A relIable source told the medIa that the company Is goIng to subpoena varIous sItes to reveal the IdentIty of the fIrmware developers and technology geeks who contInue on postIng InformatIon and tutorIal on how to jaIlbreak or hack PS3. Among the sItes whIch are about to be Issued subpoena are YouTube, xxx-Scene, Paypal, TwItter, Slashdot, and a lot more.
Moreover, Kmeaw, who has developed the fIrst ever workIng fIrmware that Is compatIble wIth 3.55, has also been Included In the subpoena. Graf Chokolo, who Is currently workIng on brIngIng back LInux (prevIously Other OS) functIonalItIes, Is also among the people to be brought to the court.
ThIs Is goIng to be a ‘never-say-dIe’ fIght for Sony agaInst the ‘black-ops’ people behInd the hackIng and jaIlbreakIng of PS3. Even If Sony be successful In stoppIng people from touchIng Sony’s PS3 fIrmwares, It does not take away the fact that theIr famous console’s vulnerabIlItIes have been dIvulged.
WIll Sony’s actIon be enough to stop pIracy, hackIng and jaIlbreakIng of PS3?
Please leave your comments, suggestIons or questIon In the boxes provIded below.
Please Gamble Responsibly
Mr Hotz is to blame for the removal of OtherOS. He is also to blame for any inbound piracy. He might not advocate it, but he has opened the doors enough to allow the pirates in.
Sony are just defending themselves. I think their tactics are heavy handed, but they have lost lots of money on the PS3. They are just starting to make some cash and this happens.
If Geocock had left the PS3 alone, we’d still have otheros.
blah blah blah, the tone of this article is so tired. When the jailbreak was first announced, I was excited, but then the cheaters invaded thanks to the jailbreak ruining online gameplay for multiple games or unlocking every trophy in a game at the push of a button, last but not least the piracy started.
Do I think people should be able to do “whatever” they want with the hardware they purchased? Yes within limits. Even with a windows or mac computer, you’re able to do anything you want, but once you cross the line of pirating software, the publishers/developers etc have a right to protect themselves.
The video game industry does not finance itself, it is built on revenue generated by paying customers, not freeloaders. As a fan of multiple game developers, I actually don’t want to see their bottom line get hurt by piracy, So yeah, i’m rooting for Sony here in the same way i’d Root for Microsoft or Nintendo to protect themselves.
People have been trying to break the ps3’s security for piracy since day one of release, there was no reason to break the security back then.. OtherOS was still there.. speaking of OtherOS, I have yet to see the hackers return this functionality. All i’ve seen is rampant piracy and cheaters. This does not benefit gamers, or anyone really. Whose side are you on? The game developers or the pirates, you can’t be on both.
Its about time someone took a stand against piracy.
If these hackers really wanted to have other OS back why didn’t they approach Sony formally. Why not apply to be proper legit developers. If they really have the skills to make the PS3 better, why not do it by the book and help make the experience better (and more secure) for everyone. I think their actions were very selfish,childish, and naive. I back Sony personally.
I dont think it worked out to be as bad as people thought it would. We will see in the next few months but so far i think its just a small portion of ps3 owners that care to do this. The only bad thing so far is modern warfare 2 is unplayable now online but that just means future games wont just be relying on ps3 security lik black ops.
Sony has lost so much ground over the past decade because they fail to cater the customer needs. Instead they have tried to force the market to adopt standards that do not appeal to consumers such as Memorystick, and UMD.
Sony reacts to bad market share by abandoning those unpopular formats and leave customers that used them stranded and unsupported (Example PSP Go). As a result the user base declines.
When Sony stopped backwards compatibility with PS2 they lost the opportunity to take their giant customer base along on the journey in PS3. Today they rank dead last or at best a distant 2nd in a market they once dominated.
As with portable Audio and TV’s Sony has been out performed by the industry and Financially Sony is left with only 20% of their former year 2000 market capitalisation…
The consumer certainly loses with Sony but the biggest loser of them all is the Sony shareholder. Both have become increasingly weary.
As the old wounded tiger dies he scratches & snarls ever more and dreams of past days when he had power…but no more.
RIP Sony.
@george:
Actually OtherOS has been returned in the form of AsBestOS and Graf_Chokolo is working on another version which you should have known from reading the article. There are also several homebrew applications that do not “enable piracy” such as file managers, FTP servers, and even a few (not very good) games. The only reason there’s not more right now is because the scene is still in its infancy. There are indeed great things to come that will have nothing to do with piracy. Just take a look at the Wii scene. There are so many great homebrew apps for it that piracy is just an afterthought. Just give it some time.
By the way, Ive got a few other points to make.
1) This article is a bit misleading. Geohot did not enable piracy with his custom firmware any more than Sony enabled the system to get hacked in the first place, but it is possible to hack (obviously) just as it is possible to code an app to run on Geohot’s firmware to play pirated games.
2)You should blame the cheating on the cheaters, not the so called “jailbreak”. (Where did they get that stupid term anyway)
3)Windows and Mac software (including the OSs themselves which cost a hella lot more than games) is pirated all the time and you don’t see them suing people out the a**. Fact is, Sony is suing people because they compromised their precious security and made it easy for others to do so.
4)Piracy is a part of technology culture. It’s here to stay. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe every game console up to the PS3 has had games pirated. Heck, you can download the entire library of Nintendo DS games from rom sites but do you see that impacting DS game sales? If piracy hurt game sales as much as people let on, there would practically be no gaming industry.
5)Even when OtherOS was still there, there were reasons to hack the console. OtherOS was limited hardware access to the what the hypervisor allowed. With OtherOS coming back we will have full access to the PS3 hardware.
6)There are more than two sides to this. You left out the hackers and hombrew developers. If you want to group anyone together make it cheaters and pirates.