Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Businesses PlayStation (Games) Sony The Courts Games Your Rights Online

Sony Halts Sales of PS3 Jailbreak Dongle 179

An anonymous reader tips news that "Online Australian retailer Quantronics has been ordered by the Federal Court of Australia, Victoria District Registry on the 26 August 2010 to halt PS JailBreak PS3 modchip sales and distribution." The court order (.DOC) indicates this injunction will hold until a hearing on August 31. Another reader points out related news that a German website claims to have reverse engineered the hack, finding it to be a newly-developed exploit rather than a clone of Sony's JIG module (original in German). Sony has already been banning users of the modchip when detected.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Sony Halts Sales of PS3 Jailbreak Dongle

Comments Filter:
  • by WrongSizeGlass ( 838941 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @10:42AM (#33393314)
    Sorry Sony, but you can't stop it now. Next stop: "Jail Break City, where people who bought your crap can enjoy it how they want".
    • Re:Sorry Sony ... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MozeeToby ( 1163751 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @10:45AM (#33393370)

      Jail Break City, where people who bought your crap can enjoy it how they want

      Unless of course if 'they want' to log into the PSN or play on Sony's servers. Just saying, there's plenty that Sony can do, especially since this is the only hack available and it can apparently be detected server side.

      • I bought my PS3 just to be a media center. Plays my DVDs, my Blu-Ray discs, and my Netflix Watch It Now. I could care less if I get banned from PSN. That's what my Xbox360 and Gold account is for =)

  • Fuck you, Sony (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @10:44AM (#33393344) Homepage

    I still buy your consoles and games beause I enjoy them...I can't escape that. However, I will NEVER forgive you for what you did to Lik Sang [kotaku.com]. You will forever be bastards because of that.

    Oh, and guess what? I buy all your games USED.

    • by thijsh ( 910751 )
      I loved Lik Sang too! :'-(
      It's one of the reasons (among many) I have no PlayStation anymore...
      • Didn't pretty much every game console maker sue them at one point or another? Sony's just the ones who finally killed them.
    • Re:Fuck you, Sony (Score:4, Insightful)

      by WankersRevenge ( 452399 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @11:05AM (#33393640)
      It's a sad state of affairs when buying a used game is considered a subversive activity. Every time one of these idiot developers starts talking about how consumers are basically stealing from them for buying a used game I want to hit them in the mouth with a two by four. Here's a thought ... price your games cheaper. When an entertainment product is well over the bar of an impulse buy, then the used market isn't your real problem.

      The funny thing ... I left PC gaming because I hated being on the upgrade treadmill. These days, I find myself playing PC games more often because I get more from money. Who would have thought that consumers reward companies that produce a good value?
      • Re:Fuck you, Sony (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FauxPasIII ( 75900 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @11:29AM (#33393950)

        When all the costs of bringing your product to market are front-loaded, and all the revenue then comes from enforcing artificial scarcity of reproducing the finished product, you're in a very different world from selling manufactured goods. Same thing comes up with pharmaceuticals. I'm not sure what the solution is, but it's certainly an interesting problem.

        • Pharmaceuticals is a bit different. They couldn't afford to do things any differently. I suppose the government could pay all the R&D costs and then have the companies be basically just service organizations. Doing the research and producing the ultimate medications on a sort of generic basis. But under the current circumstances there isn't much choice involved.

          Console companies on the other hand, have a choice, they don't have to use the system as a loss leader and make it up on the content. In fact
        • "Same thing comes up with pharmaceuticals."

          "Have some crack, kid!"

        • Game development is no different from Movies, TV shows, Books, Magazines or any number of other products. Just because the cost is front heavy, and the return is effectively only useful in a short window, doesn't make the first sale doctrine any less important. I can buy a book when it comes out, at full price. Read it, and then sell it again. Why should a video game be any different?
          • Games absolutely are different than movies at least, which have a theater period where there can not be a used market (outside of bootlegging, I suppose) to recoup their initial investment before the DVD sales begin. Games don't have that.

      • Re:Fuck you, Sony (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Fallingcow ( 213461 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @11:30AM (#33393964) Homepage

        They got their portion of the used sale already; the ability to sell it a game secondhand is valuable, and priced in to the original sale price.

        If developers (or distributors) think the ability re-sale is worth more than they're getting for it now, they should raise their prices and see whether consumers agree.

      • Not to come across as a corporate shill, but the price of games has not changed over the last 10+ years. Well actually they've *come down* since the atari days. The problem is with games' exponentially rising budgets the industry can't sustain itself. People won't even accept price increases to keep up with inflation. They think games that give them tens of hours of game time and fun are far too expensive relative to a $10-15 movie that gives them less than 2 hours of immersion.

        Think about it. $50 sp

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Think about it. $50 spent on a Nintendo game in 1985 (and there were often costlier games) would cost $98.37 today. Looking at a more recent period of time, a $50 PS1 game would in '95 cost 69.71 today. And yet the uproar over the bump up to $60 for current generation games was immense.

          Physical costs have also plummeted. And the industry has moved to disc-based games. Development platforms cost less (adjusted for inflation.)

          The problem is with games' exponentially rising budgets the industry can't sustain itself.

          Which comes from people trying to one-up each other. It's a bubble, just like the housing market. The industry is doing this to itself.

          As you say, Nintendo saw the writing on the wall and sidestepped the competition. They were agile and continue to make good money. That Sony and Microsoft can't do this isn't really the consumer's fault--yet game devs treat consum

          • Nintendo has the ability to pull an apple though, that is, they have legions of fans who will buy anything with their name on it, regardless of the consoles ability. the name, plus killer marketing, means they can ship a turd and still sell a million copies. Since most of their major games are first party, they also get huge amounts of cash from those.

            On the flip side, Sony and Ms's biggest tend to be third party games, which are less profitable. they also don't have the same name power that Nintendo
        • I concede that the price of games hasn't kept up with inflation. Though it is not fair to bring that up without mentioning that in most of North America the working wage hasn't kept up with inflation either. So we actually have less disposable income than we did in the late 90's.
      • Re:Fuck you, Sony (Score:5, Insightful)

        by canajin56 ( 660655 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @02:39PM (#33396652)

        Yeah, that's basically why I have a permenant boycott of Bioware going on. See, the extra weapons and levels for Mass Effect 2 if you buy it new, that's obnoxious. But, they put a used game salesman character onto the Citadel, who chuckles about what a killing he makes, while the starving developers go out of business. They're not content with always on DRM locking out features if you try to install your game on a second 360, they have to kick us in the balls and spit in our faces, too.

        It's not just devs, either. Apparently the folks at Penny Arcade believe that buying a used game is actually worse than pirating, because with piracy you are at least not giving money to anybody, but with a used game you are both stealing AND giving money to a leech.

        I asked them why selling a used game should be a crime, but lending a friend a game or a book, which they often portray in their comics, is acceptable. No answer. In publishing "both sides" they only publish comments in agreement, or comments "backing up" used games as evil, but a necessary evil for those on a budget. I also pointed them in the direction of a huge piracy mill that's stealing millions of copies of their precious anthologies. [torontopubliclibrary.ca] No idea their take on that, but I bet they are contacting their lawyers! Their other blazing hypocracy is that their child's play charity donates games and systems to children's wards across the country. Each child doesn't need to pay for their own copy, the developer only gets paid ONCE (a condition they decry as black market theft) and yet, more than one child gets to play. Outrageous.

        • I don't read PA regularly, but I'm going to have to ask for a citation of your claim that they are anti-used-game-sales. That's not something I've ever noticed them taking a stance on directly, but if anything I'd expect them to support it.

          So... link please?

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Apparently the folks at Penny Arcade believe that buying a used game is actually worse than pirating, because with piracy you are at least not giving money to anybody, but with a used game you are both stealing AND giving money to a leech.

          I don't quite know where you got that from.

          Oh wait, I get it. I see http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/8/25/ [slashdot.org] what you mean. However, I feel you're not reading it with an open mind.

          Tycho states the following.

          If I am purchasing games in order to reward their creators, and to ensure that more of these ingenious contraptions are produced, I honestly can't figure out how buying a used game was any better than piracy. From the perspective of a developer, they are almost certainly synonymous.

          I can see why you'd construe that to mean "PENNY ARCADE HAET PIRATE AND U R PIRATE." (Yes, yes, I know mocking his position by portraying him as a braying idiot is infantile. I do it anyhow.) However, if you pay attention to his words he states that "If" you purchase games to reward their creators, then it

      • But if you just wait a few months, many/most of the games are cheap new. While I'm "still" buying PS2 games, I will eventually get a PS3, and am seeing PS3 games already in the low $20s in ads. (The Greatest Hits seemed to be stuck at $30 for quite a long time, but now going down to the common $20 price, like the PS2 older-and-Greatest-Hits versions price.)

      • 2x4 huh... I was thinking a used copy of war and peace. Or maybe just start throwing the "horror" section of a used book store at them one by one.

        Game developers are pretty much the only assholes out there that can actually say out loud that "first sale" doctrine is 'theft'. The interesting bit here, will be when someone sues them for it, and wins. I'm guessing it won't be too much longer. A nice little class action would go a long ways to put game publishers and developers back in their place. I'll
      • Here's the bit that makes me laugh. Games company mouthwhores make a statement saying (paraphrased) "Fuck you, used games traders, you God damn thieves", Penny Arcade kicks of a debate to air the issues, it hits Slashdot and we slap our throbbing opinions on the table, and... 99% of used game traders don't give a Goddamn. 99% of them don't know we're talking about this, don't know there even is a debate, and wouldn't care even if they did know.

        So, I guess "Fuck you, Sony" is the implicit position of 99%

    • by MBCook ( 132727 )

      Sony has lost a lot of credibility in my eyes due to recent experiences.

      I bought a PS3 a few months ago, and it's quite a nice machine... but it has some really odd decisions. You have to have the system on to charge the controllers by plugging them into the system. If you plug them into your laptop instead, they seem to unregister with the system and you have to pair them back up.

      Then I decided to buy a game from PSN. I needed the latest firmware, which took a few minutes to download and a few minutes to

      • by Pojut ( 1027544 )

        Honestly, we don't really use our PS3 for gaming too much. We own 5 disc-based games for it, and have downloaded three from the PSN (compared to about 15 for the Wii with countless downloads, and about 30 for the 360 with countless downloads).

        No, our PS3 is used primarily as a media center. It's a decent gaming machine, but it's a fantastic media center. Of course, TVersity puts the 360 and the PS3 on equal footing in regards to media, but using just the consoles themselves, the PS3 is vastly superior fo

      • by Jim Hall ( 2985 )

        If you're going to copy/paste your troll posts, at least do yourself the courtesy of updating the games you claim to play. As it is, I don't believe a word you say here. For example, Patapon 2 [wikipedia.org] was released well over a year ago (North America: May 2009) and not "a few months ago" like your post implies. And I know you're in North America, because Patapon 2 was download-only for NA only. So there.

        As for the rest of your troll:

        Sony has lost a lot of credibility in my eyes due to recent experiences. I bought a PS3 a few months ago, and it's quite a nice machine... but it has some really odd decisions. You have to have the system on to charge the controllers by plugging them into the system. If you plug them into your laptop instead, they seem to unregister with the system and you have to pair them back up.

        I call bullshit on this one. I often charge my PS3 controllers using the USB port on

        • by MBCook ( 132727 )

          It's not a troll, and it's not a copy and paste. I wrote "Then I saw a game on sale for my PSP that I wanted to play", and that's what happened. When Patapon 2 came out, I didn't bother, and hadn't gotten around to playing it. The price drop to $8 was on the Playstation blog [playstation.com]) on the 16th as a "Back to School" deal.

          My PS3 controller seems to pair with my MacBook Pro 2010 when I plug it in, or at least lose it's PS3 pairing. It's perfectly reproducible for me.

          My internet connection is a 6Mbps (see later in

    • I still buy your consoles and games beause I enjoy them...I can't escape that.

      You are a pathetic excuse for a human being. Fuck you for helping Sony continue to be evil. You are partly responsible for Sony killing this modchip. You will be partly responsible for the next Lik-Sang.

      Oh, and guess what? I buy all your games USED.

      At least that's something. You have to also only buy them when nobody else is buying them, though, or else you will just lead someone to a new sale when they could otherwise have been satisfied with used. The only way to make sure not to produce profit for Sony is to not even buy a PS3 until the PS4 comes ou

  • France (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @10:44AM (#33393346) Journal

    They should relocate to France. French courts have already ruled circumvention devices legal [tomsguide.com] when there is no other way to run your own software on your machine.

    • Re:France (Score:5, Funny)

      by Monkeedude1212 ( 1560403 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @10:51AM (#33393470) Journal

      Yeah but then you have to learn French, and you're also stuck living in France.

      Some things just aren't worth it, mate.

      • Re:France (Score:4, Interesting)

        by debile ( 812761 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @11:10AM (#33393706)

        Universal health care, cure French girls, good restaurants, great culture (ok ok immigration problems but hey, habla espagnol?)

        France is not as bad as depicted, especially when you compare CURRENT standards of living in the US, not the ones that were true 5-10 years ago

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          Universal health care, cure French girls,

          Why? Are they sick?

          • by Surt ( 22457 )

            Universal health care, cure French girls,

            Why? Are they sick?

            Nah, cure in the baking sense, because if you don't, you really don't want to cannibalize one. Too many diseases, plus you really need to get all that hair off to make them at all appetizing.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Giometrix ( 932993 )

          Universal health care, cure French girls, good restaurants, great culture (ok ok immigration problems but hey, habla espagnol?)

          France is not as bad as depicted, especially when you compare CURRENT standards of living in the US, not the ones that were true 5-10 years ago

          Except that based on other comments he's made, I don't think he's American, so it's irrelevant what American standards are...

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          Oh I know, I just like to hate on the French because I am Canadian, thus forced to try and learn the language for half a dozen years of my life despite whether I want to or not (and they're forced to try English whether they want to or not, so its a mutual dislike for each other). I wouldn't normally hold a grudge but the drivers in Quebec (mostly Montreal though) are quite possibly the worst drivers on the planet. The stop sign is just a suggestion over there.

          None of that really has anything to do with Fra

          • in fact, I think the French don't like Quebec either, for butchering their language..

            As I assume the Brits aren't huge fans of Texans.

            When I was in highschool I went to France with my remedial Canadian school system "French" (every useless noun you could ever learn, but not enough verbs to have a proper conversation). I was able to understand the French people no problem. They speak clear, slow, enunciate.. honestly it's a beautiful language.

            Now compare that to the Québécois. Messy, fast, slurred with lots and lots of slang. To me it's like ear rape by comparison. They're shov

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by negRo_slim ( 636783 )

          Universal health care, cure French girls, good restaurants, great culture (ok ok immigration problems but hey, habla espagnol?)

          You forgot the massive [guardian.co.uk] amount of intolerance. [voanews.com]

      • At least the French are friendly to Nuclear Power. Bonjour, Comment êtes-vous?
    • They should relocate to France. French courts have already ruled circumvention devices legal when there is no other way to run your own software on your machine.

      How would they help? Sony is blocking the importation of them into Australia, and will do so in any other country that lets them (US for sure, and likely most of Europe and Canada as well).

      Besides, Sony will continue to ban people from PSN when they detect it, simply because it violates the PSN ToS. And yes, that's ToS, not EULA, as PSN is not a

  • WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ironhandx ( 1762146 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @10:50AM (#33393454)

    Right, so Sony had almost exactly what they wanted in regards to control over their system. Then they decided that "almost" wasn't good enough and now they're knee deep in the shit storm they started and trying to litigate their way out of it. Its costing them in company rep and in their pocket books with legal fees.

    I hope the industry learns something from this, but sadly it probably won't.

    • Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Surt ( 22457 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @10:56AM (#33393512) Homepage Journal

      I'm 100% sure they'll learn the lesson: you can successfully stop widespread distribution of hacks that jailbreak your system, and laugh all the way to the bank when no one cares and buys your system at christmas anyway.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You sir are a clueless cretin if you actually believe this dongle wouldn't be on sales had it not been for Sony removing OtherOS.

      This dongle is for piracy, nothing else....

      Simple as that, it does not allow you to boot Linux, and has no legitimate purpose. The backup excuse does not wash either, as Blu-Ray disks are not scratchable like DVD is.

      • Re:WTF? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Swarley ( 1795754 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @11:19AM (#33393822)

        Blu-ray discs are TOTALLY scratchable. Worse than DVDs actually. Netflix released their data on it and found that Blu-ray discs are damaged far more often than DVDs suffering the same treatment in their envelopes and by their customers. Other than that, I mostly agree with you. Backups is code for piracy for 99.5% of the people claiming it as fair use. Especially considering Sony has been pretty progressive lately about releasing formerly disc only games as pure download and install versions. It's not much, but it's progress...

        • If I were willing to lay down the coin for a PSJailbreak, I know of a few games in my collection that would immediately get run through the Backup Manager if only because they have "unpleasant" load times and being on a HDD would vastly improve them. The lack of any other homebrew at this point makes it less attractive though, and by the time there is significant other homebrew it'll be cloned and cheap.

          It's actually a bummer that it's not a reverse engineered JIG stick though -- if it were it would be ess

        • by PRMan ( 959735 )

          Actually, as a Netflix subscriber, I can tell you that the big problem with Blu-Ray discs is not scratches (they are actually more resilient to a scratch than DVD, presumably because of even greater error correction), but they get a ¼" crack near the edge when they go through the postal sorter.

          I have had about 15 discs that I have had to return because of this problem. The Netflix rep said that our post office was one of the worst offenders at putting the discs through the machine which they have cont

      • by X.25 ( 255792 )

        You sir are a clueless cretin if you actually believe this dongle wouldn't be on sales had it not been for Sony removing OtherOS.

        This dongle is for piracy, nothing else....

        Simple as that, it does not allow you to boot Linux, and has no legitimate purpose. The backup excuse does not wash either, as Blu-Ray disks are not scratchable like DVD is.

        You can eat a dick. You don't tell me what the fuck I do with my console, that I paid with my own money. If I want to fucking burn it, I will. If I want to insert a PSJailbreak in it, I will.

        And you go and fuck yourself, along with your "I know what's best for you" logic.

        • You don't tell me what the fuck I do with my console, that I paid with my own money. If I want to fucking burn it, I will. If I want to insert a PSJailbreak in it, I will.

          Go ahead, nobody's going to stop you from sticking whatever you want wherever you want. Sony is preventing the distribution of a device that solely exists to pirate games that they make money on. I don't know what type of work you do, but if someone started selling a device that would allow them to obtain your product without paying you any money you would damn sure do everything you could to stop it.

          Do whatever you want with your PS3. If you've got one of these things, go ahead and do whatever you want

    • by mlts ( 1038732 ) *

      Devil advocate here:

      Has Sony lost any real battles fought over the PS/3? A guy found a way to the hypervisor, so they zapped the Other OS feature. Someone else has a jailbreak dongle which got stomped out of existence.

      I don't see anywhere in this matter where Sony is out any significant profits whatsoever. So far, having the most locked down platform with no usable cracks happening for almost five years, and when one does appear, siccing the lawyers and nuking it from orbit gets rid of it, seems to be a

      • Except for the fact that sony has lost an absolute truckload of money on the PS3 in general. These little bits are just adding insult to injury.

        http://kotaku.com/5018899/sony-lost-over-3-billion-to-ps3-cost-pricing-imbalance [kotaku.com]

        3 billion and thats from back in 2008. The thing only started turning a profit q2 2010 so tack on whatever was lost in the in between time, and sony is still lagging as the 3rd most popular console on a contest field of 3. This is the furthest thing from a successful business model.

        • by mlts ( 1038732 ) *

          True, but they have lost nothing for having such a locked down platform. The fact that they have had -zero- piracy on the PS3 for years is something which draws the PC gaming companies to their platform like flies to fresh meat.

          Unfortunately, these days, there is nothing a company will lose by having a locked down platform and everything to gain. Which is ironic. One of the reasons Sony lost the MP3 player game is because they had such Draconian DRM. This caused people to flee from Sony to first Creativ

          • The thing you're missing is that the consumers are still flocking to the systems with less DRM. Sure Sony maintains a market share, mostly through virtue of its locked down platform attracting developers, but I would argue locking it down more when they reached an equilibrium that could eventually push more publishers onto their platform and have them maintain consumer market share only puts them in a position where they have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

            A 100% secure gaming system with awesome gr

            • I always thought PS3 titles were decent with their DRM. It's there, but most of it works pretty passively behind the scenes and I don't have too deal with it. I think people are turning away from troublesome DRM that makes legitimate copies hard to play (like EA and Blizzard requiring constant connection to a server). If I put a PS3 game into my PS3, it just works. That functionality is really attractive.

              If their DRM starts to get too nutty then I can see the situation you describe developing. I've ne

              • Some of the PS3 titles are already shipping with that sort of DRM though, X360 titles as well.

                Basically though, a lot of these folks don't realize that people want their modern consoles to play old games, and theres a good sized market that want to run NES/SNES etc emulators, I happen to be one of them. Obviously not everyone is going to be a part of this market, but you lose that market when the system is as locked down as the PS3 and you lose any word of mouth and get some negative word of mouth advertisi

    • What will the industry learn? That it can't stop a few pirates who weren't buying the games anyway, but they can scare the general public into not breaking the law?

      You guys always act like this sort of shit kills companies but you utterly miss the fact that 99.9999% of the population doesn't give a flying fuck about nerd rage against the machine.

      From your perspective, Sony lost. From their perspective, they won.

      As long as it stays a relatively low occurrence crime committed by a tiny select few of the pop

      • I'm not really limiting my options, I haven't purchased a Sony product since my PS2 years ago for multiple reasons, not just this sort of thing.

        I realize that Sony thinks they won, but they really haven't. They've lost money on the console and whatever you may think about the "slashdot rage" it will translate into more negative PR and more lost sales when they really really need to make their platform more popular, not less.

        They've already lost a small fortune on the PS3 though so you're probably right and

  • iTunes and Palm Pre (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @10:55AM (#33393510)
    This reminds me of the situation with iTunes and the Palm Pre. Basically, the Palm Pre had a USB interface that claimed there was an Apple iPod, so that iTunes would transfer music to the device. Then Apple added code to iTunes to detect devices that _claimed_ to be Apple iPods, but were not actually Apple iPods, so this Palm Pre feature broke, and after another round of changing the Palm Pre interface and Apple again detecting it, Palm gave up.

    Now this article proves that a USB device under control of an attacker is a possible attack vector. Which means that Apple was quite right, for security reasons, to refuse connection to dodgy devices. Of course this attack is slightly different; seems they first attacked the USB system software itself by plugging in intentionally broken USB devices, but it is quite conceivable that iTunes could be attacked by a USB device pretending to be an iPod (presumably anything that doesn't pretend to be an iPod, like the broken USB devices in this attack, would never make it to the iTunes software).
    • by Animaether ( 411575 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @11:07AM (#33393660) Journal

      the Palm Pre had a USB interface that claimed there was an Apple iPod, so that iTunes would transfer music to the device. Then Apple added code to iTunes to detect devices that _claimed_ to be Apple iPods, but were not actually Apple iPods, so this Palm Pre feature broke, and after another round of changing the Palm Pre interface and Apple again detecting it, Palm gave up.

      Palm 'gave up' because the USB peeps told them to quit using Apple's IDs, which is against regulations - in response to Palm saying Apple were abusing the USB conformation specs by using portions of it as an access rights mechanism. There's no technical reason Palm couldn't have added whatever Apple ended up checking next to their device and had seamless sync continuing with iTunes; the game of cat & mouse would have left ever-fewer options with ultimately Palm as the winner. But that win would come at the cost of being kicked out of the USB club and then they'd have bigger problems to worry about.

      As for the rest of your post.. yes - that's why Company X is quite right to only accept Company X keyboards, mice and webcams, and Microsoft-approved external drives, printers, scanners, etc. to connect to their computers and/or interface with their software. You know.. for security reasons.

      • As for the rest of your post.. yes - that's why Company X is quite right to only accept Company X keyboards, mice and webcams, and Microsoft-approved external drives, printers, scanners, etc. to connect to their computers and/or interface with their software. You know.. for security reasons.

        That's not what Apple did. They only accepted devices that claimed to be Apple iPods when they were indeed Apple iPods. You would have a point if the Palm Pre claimed it was a Palm Pre and was rejected; it would be absolutely fine if Apple rejected any device that identifies itself as an Epson scanner, for example, but wasn't actually an Epson scanner. In the case of the iPod, Apple isn't selling music with DRM anymore, but I'm sure their old contracts are still intact that don't allow them to download DRM'

        • That's not what Apple did.

          Except that it is exactly what Apple did and does.

          They only accepted devices that claimed to be Apple iPods when they were indeed Apple iPods.

          No - initially they merely accepted devices for iTunes built-in synching that claimed to be an iPod or iPhone (I'm not sure what the status of the iPad would be in all this).
          It's only when Palm decided to make the Pre claim to be an iPod or iPhone (I believe it was an iPhone) that Apple added another check so that it had to be an -Apple- iPod

      • Is there some USB rule against doing this in software? Say, creating a driver that shows the OS a USB-attached "iPod" that's actually a pass-through to an attached Palm? Same result, but the device no longer reports itself as an iPod.

        Or, if that's frowned upon, make the driver be capable of pretending to be whatever the user wants it to be, and if the user happens to put in the code for an iPod that, after the release of this driver, is available on a dozen forums and how-to pages via a quick and obvious

  • Too late, Sony (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 27, 2010 @11:01AM (#33393592)

    The device has already been reverse engineered [psx-scene.com]. Expect clones very soon from countries whose courts won't kneel before you.

    • So it's a stack smash in the USB code? And Sony have already suspended distribution? I'm guessing that there'll be a patch for this within days, if there isn't already one ...
  • There's something I haven't been able to find out about the mod device. If you have an old PS3 that's backwards compatible with PS2 games will the modchip allow you to play PS2 games off a hard drive?
  • by AnAdventurer ( 1548515 ) on Friday August 27, 2010 @01:01PM (#33395248)
    Why is it that I can own a M4 carbine upper with an 11 inch barrel and do not need a NFA short barrel tax stamp as long as it is not installed on a M4 lower, but it's 10 kinds of law violation to sell a dongle that can jailbreak some specific computer platform? This planet make no sense what's so ever. I am going back to my veal fattening pen and watch some sitcoms.
    • Why is it that I can own a M4 carbine upper with an 11 inch barrel and do not need a NFA short barrel tax stamp as long as it is not installed on a M4 lower, but it's 10 kinds of law violation to sell a dongle that can jailbreak some specific computer platform? This planet make no sense what's so ever. I am going back to my veal fattening pen and watch some sitcoms.

      Actually the two examples might be better related than you expect... regardless, "copyright infringement" is easy to pull off, a federal crime and some corporations are tenaciously lobbying to protect their source of easy money. They perverse the law and the public perception of it.

      Now the NFA is just bullshit, but as much as politicians preach gun laws to get the vote there's not nearly as much lobbying on the topic. I mean, plenty are talking about abolishing guns and others are talking about abolishing n

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by couchslug ( 175151 )

      You know the answer to that, it's called the "National Rifle Association".

      Many geeks rant about freedom, but NRA members VOTE and won't hesitate to hammer the shit out of politicians who oppose them. THAT has worked for the NRA for more than one hundred years, and why I'm a life member.

    • Because when you bought the gun parts, you didn't agree to use them in a specific way, as the owner dictates.

      When you buy a Sony product, you do agree to play be the rules they dictate.

      Theres nothing wrong with the planet or the laws, only the people walking on it who keep buying things they don't like.

      • I could be wrong, but I don't think you're required to sign an agreement limiting your use of the hardware before purchasing a PS3.

    • Hey, lucky you can own an M4 carbine. In my country (Australia, surprise surprise) you can't :(

  • The device seems impressive at a glance, particularly with the unbreakable vault that the PS3 has appeared to be, but it has little merit as an actual tool for breaking open the system and so far only seems to serve the purpose of copying games to play without the disk.

    It's probably not even a stepping stone to a real hack. It does show that people are trying and this will certainly lead to a hack that doesn't involve buying something so the sources can't be eliminated with just a letter from an attorney.

    • by Khyber ( 864651 )

      "The device seems impressive at a glance, particularly with the unbreakable vault that the PS3 has appeared to be, but it has little merit as an actual tool for breaking open the system and so far only seems to serve the purpose of copying games to play without the disk."

      Once you're in factory repair mode, you can do ANYTHING you want. Load customized firmware, whatever.

      Which means this is the next step to full unlocking of the PS3.

The computer is to the information industry roughly what the central power station is to the electrical industry. -- Peter Drucker

Working...