Sony Update Bricks Playstations 510
Stoobalou writes "A controversial update which was seeded by Sony in order to remove the ability to run Linux on the Playstation 3 games console has caused a storm of complaints.
The 3.21 firmware upgrade, which removes the security hole provided by the 'Install Other OS' widget used by lots of educational institutions and hackers alike, also removes the console's ability to play games... turning it into a very expensive doorstop."
Haven't Installed it (Score:3, Informative)
Definition of 'Brick'? (Score:5, Informative)
The article doesnt describe bricking. It barely describes real problems. It describes (rather vaguely) sluggish internet and third party controllers not working. And it never actually shows or links to actual complaints. The only real information in the article is that people who dont install the update can't connect to PSN, which is standard for these updates.
D
Re:Haven't Installed it (Score:5, Informative)
It's fine if you want to play games. And the update is required if you want to play online games.
Both my and my flatmate's PS3 went through the update with no problems. It only becomes a "very expensive doorstop" if you don't use it to play games, or watch DVDs and blu-rays, the article is a bit flamebaitish because we already knew this would happen, and the update has a page which specifically informs you about the removal of the Other OS feature and then confirms (I think twice) that you really want to go through with it.
Re:No issues here (Score:5, Informative)
Your Linux partition is still there, you just can't make use of the space reserved for it anymore. The only way to recover the space is to do a back up, format, and restore.
Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Informative)
"put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective"
That's fraud, also, I think they print the serial of the PS3 on the receipt so they wont match when returning it.
Re:Haven't Installed it (Score:5, Informative)
TFA explained that the update tended to stop the affected units from doing anything useful - eg. playing games, connecting to the Internet. Which I'm sure does have the side effect that installing an alternate OS will no longer work, but I don't think this is quite how most people interpreted Sony's original description.
The article says that is the case for people who have not installed the update. That has been the case every time Sony releases an update (apart from a couple of non essential updates such as the one that updated the slideshow facility). It is not news.
The only real bit of news in there is that some people are experiencing infinite loops in the update process, which does suck.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Informative)
Not only that, it's primarily fat PS3's that are bricking. I don't think they sell those anymore.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:3, Informative)
So is there any console or other electronic gadget you can buy nowadays which does not include forced locked own firmware updates that has the possibility of breaking it?
The Nokia N900 is such a device.
It is one of the few devices you truly own and where the vendor will not dictate what you are allowed to install.
When a new firmware update is available you get a notification asking you if you would like to install it or not, nothing is forced onto you.
But don't get me wrong, The N900 is not perfect. It is a new device with a new OS and some of the applications reflect that. The E-Mail client, for example, is a piece of crap without proper IMAP support and spell checking. The webbrowser on the other hand is pretty cool and works very well.
While E-Mail client can be fixed later on or replaced by installing another package there is one flaw which everyone has to live with. The N900 does not support USB Host-mode/OTG so it is impossible to connect an external USB Harddrive to it or a USB to Network adapter.
So yes there are devices out there which don't shove the penis of the CEO up your behind but you have to look around a bit to find them.
Re:This always happens (Score:3, Informative)
Over the life of my PS3, updates have commonly caused severe issues. I've had to reformat the hard drive several times and I even had to send it in to be "repaired" after updating. Sony really needs to work on not breaking their own system.
I have owned a PS3 for years and have never once had a problem with their updates.
Out of curiosity, are you doing anything "weird" with your PS3, such as running other OSs or anything?
Re:Par for the course? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, that part of the table is wrong (IMO it should read 12 months or whatever). However, this warrants some explanation.
Since the advent of drive modifications and consoles with signed executables, piracy has split into two camps: drive modification, and software modification. The latter implies homebrew and always piggybacks on homebrew, and is mostly what I refer to in my GP post. However, drive modifications are a different story. They mostly appeared when drive firmware patches delivered via homebrew on the GameCube were ported by modchip manufacturers to be delivered via an alternate serial port on the drive. The GC/Wii's drives are outsourced to Matshita, and they didn't bother to fix the hole in the GameCube. Paraphrasing tmbinc, "The GameCube had a connector on the drive board that might as well have been labeled 'insert modchip here'. With the Wii, they fixed this problem by removing the old connector... and replacing it with a new one".
Therefore, it is safe to say that DVD (drive) piracy on the Wii was there from the very beginning - not because the modchip makers are good, but because modchips were trivially ported over from the GameCube. On the other hand, softmod piracy on the Wii started, as usual, by piggybacking on homebrew.
The reason that drive mods are popular is because manufacturers have neglected that part of console security - they made their software secure, but didn't properly secure the drive. If you can convince a drive that a burned game is legit, then there's nothing that the console software can do about it. In order to fix this, you need to improve drive security and couple it to system security.
The Wii is the worst example - the drive bus is in plaintext and unauthenticated. This is why HDD-to-drive physical adapters are coming out from modchip makers.
The 360 is better, but the drives are essentially off-the-shelf PC drives. Although they're trying hard to detect and ban mods, and there's some crypto going on, the drives are still pretty insecure.
The PS3 is different; as far as I know, the BD drive is custom, secure, and much better coupled to the system.
So, to conclude and better explain things: the PS3 avoided commercial drivechips by having good drive security (something sorely lacking on other consoles), and avoided noncommercial software piracy by removing the incentive for homebrewers to hack the system (which will inevitably happen otherwise, as has been proven time and time again).
Re:Par for the course? (Score:3, Informative)
All PS3 games that ship on disc ship on Blu-ray.
Yes but all PS3 owners, have a Bluray Reader.
Dump the thing across the network if you have to
Re:Par for the course? (Score:2, Informative)
Duh!
It have survived the challenge for over 3 years now!
And even hen the hack seems to be anything but trivial. Lots of hardware modification needed to crack open it's armor.
Personally I'm not using the OtherOS, however I have always planned on trying it. It's the principle of the matte that I'm upset about.
Had Sony not been lazy they could have locked down the OtherOS, and have users agree to an additional EULA which just specifies that the OtherOS feature may not be used to access the Hypervisor and circumvent the security, and attempting to do so will permanently disable the OtherOS feature on that machine alone. The Security system should be able to detect these attempts, if only Sony would get off their fat asses and fix it.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:3, Informative)
No, there are two words to explain that: Other OS. Check out this table [marcansoft.com] (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks). Every console post-PS2 was hacked for homebrew, and then those hacks were abused for piracy. The PS3 comes with homebrew, therefore there is little motivation to crack the native system. Pro-piracy people are rarely good hackers, and need homebrew to piggyback on.
This is just plain BS. Piracy on modern consoles (at least in the case of the Xbox 360 and Wii) involve bypassing the DVD drive's built in security check. This really has nothing to do with homebrew and you can, in fact, run homebrew on either system without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs. So your statement that pro-piracy people are a) rarely good hackers and b) are piggybacking on homebrew is complete crap.
Get your facts straight before commenting on something you obviously know nothing about.
You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.
I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that ... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated [youtube.com] used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda [flickr.com], and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit [wiibrew.org] that ultimately did not require hardware modification.
It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.