Gaming Sony's Response to Hackers During the PS2 Era

[xfcrowman]

I have been following the PS3 scene for a few months now (since I bought a PS3 in Jan.), and I have been surprised at how aggressive Sony has been with security researchers that have broken PS3 security so that Linux/homebrew are possible (Fail0verflow, Geohot, Graf_Chokolo).

Equally surprising to me is the fact that they have done nothing to those that have enabled piracy on the PS3 (Waninkoko, Kmeaw, Wutangrza, and possibly others).

Prior to my interest in the PS3 scene, I have followed the Wii scene for several years now and the response of Nintendo to homebrew/piracy has been quite different. I have also softmodded my Xbox & PS2, but I did this when those scenes were "dead" (less active).

My question to all of you is this: was Sony this aggressive with hackers during the era of the PS2, or alternatively, with the PSP? If so, how did hackers adapt to Sony's attempts to thwart the development of homebrew/piracy?

I think that the response of Sony to security researchers has been quite troubling and may lead to a new era in console hacking in which hackers need to release their work anonymously or release their work in countries with laws that are not favorable to corporations.

 

[CherrySkitty]

For example what country? =O

 

[xfcrowman]

For example what country? =O

Unfortunately I'm not a legal expert, but I going to guess that countries like China and Russia (where Kmeaw is located) are ideal places to release exploits/homebrew/piracy apps. In the case of China, I know that there is tons of copyright infringement/corporate espionage etc, and little or any enforcement.

I apologize if I offended anyone from those countries. As I said, I'm not a legal expert and this is all just speculation.

I guess I can say that the US and Germany are not good places to release this info, judging by what happened to Geohot and Graf.

 

[Recorderdude]

There is some suspicion about just why dark alex left the PSP scene, sony may have either threatened him or paid him off, and IIRC some PS2 inviduals (UPLOADERS) got sued from uploading to torrents, but pretty much, they weren't AS agressive as now because piracy was a lot harder and more expensive back then (For higher net speeds anyway). Sony already recognized the piracy war on PSP was lost, they're just focusing on PS3 now to ensure they don't lose that too.

And as for nowadays, they REALLY don't care about people pirating PSX, PS2 and PSP games, and don't feel it worthwhile to spend all the money to sue PSP release groups/uploaders as of now. They're just banning pirates from PSN. Now, for PS3, they're still in hot pursuit.

 

[doyama]

Things are much different now than they were in the PS2 era.

-The PS2 mod was a 30+ wire mod and required a lot of skill to install
* The PS3 requires a small dongle to work and is basically idiot proof

- Copied PS2 games were hard to come by unless you had a local Chinatown or something
* PS3 games are easily available as torrents, nzb, or whatever. Also you can rip games you rent/borrow.
(on a side note is the fact that we don't pay the pirates for games anymore a morally good or bad thing.... its weird)

- The PS2 had no online component
* PS3 relies heavily on online content for gameplay, as well as a revenue stream (DLC, movies, etc)

- The PS2 was making money hand over fist but had other divisions making money too
* The PS3 is the ONLY thing that Sony is remotely making money on. Protecting that revenue stream is of critical importance.

Basically it boils down to 2 things. First its easy to do these hacks. Second the hacks directly impact their revenue stream.

As to why MS has not pursued the same action. Firstly the hypervisor has never been broken except for one very minor iteration. Other than that the security on the xbxo360 is pretty solid. The only issue right now is copied games being used on Xbox live. MS doesn't care though for a few reason. Firstly Xbox live is a paid service, so even if you copy games, they are still making money because of your xbox live account. Second they know that you can't use 99% of the xbox without live. So unless someone comes up with an xbox hack that allows you to log into xbox live for free, MS will not really take a very agressive approach to things. Modding an xbox actually doesn't impact MS. It impacts devs and publishers who miss out on a game sale, but MS still makes money on the console you bought, and on the xbox live account you bought. If any hack appeared that cut into those 2 revenue streams, MS would be on them so fast it woudln't be funny.

 

[xfcrowman]

Things are much different now than they were in the PS2 era.

-The PS2 mod was a 30+ wire mod and required a lot of skill to install
* The PS3 requires a small dongle to work and is basically idiot proof

What about softmodding options like free mcboot? Did those exist during the PS2 era, or only after the newest gen consoles were released?


QUOTE- The PS2 had no online component
* PS3 relies heavily on online content for gameplay, as well as a revenue stream (DLC, movies, etc)

- The PS2 was making money hand over fist but had other divisions making money too
* The PS3 is the ONLY thing that Sony is remotely making money on. Protecting that revenue stream is of critical importance.

Basically it boils down to 2 things. First its easy to do these hacks. Second the hacks directly impact their revenue stream.

These are likely reasons for why Sony is so aggressive against those who modify the PS3. It may also be a major reason for the difference in how Nintendo and Sony have responded to console modding. Perhaps Nintendo is less aggressive because it is the dominant console of this generation and it is raking in piles of cash, so the losses from piracy are small in relation to their profits.

However, it is still shocking to me that both of these corporations have ignored the people that have enabled piracy. Revenue lost from piracy is much greater than revenue lost from homebrew (if any revenue is even lost from homebrew), so why attack people like geohot, graf, and fail0verflow?

 

[Recorderdude]

However, it is still shocking to me that both of these corporations have ignored the people that have enabled piracy. Revenue lost from piracy is much greater than revenue lost from homebrew (if any revenue is even lost from homebrew), so why attack people like geohot, graf, and fail0verflow?

Because Sony doesn't see the difference between "homebrew" and "piracy", they just find the biggest names in the scene (E.G. Egohot and graf) and go after them.

 

[flo]

In order to take legal actions against someone you need to do that according to the laws in that country. People that got sued are citizens of countries where modding , circumventing security are illegal
Waninkoko lives in Spain , right ? Happens that modchips are LEGAL in Spain ...He created a CFW which enabled piracy but we haven't heard ofhim on the news, did we ? Sony wants publcity ,it's a scare tactics

 

[xfcrowman]

Because Sony doesn't see the difference between "homebrew" and "piracy", they just find the biggest names in the scene (E.G. Egohot and graf) and go after them.

I guess they don't, but how could they be so stupid? You don't need a degree in market research to figure out that revenue lost from piracy will always be higher, so go after the pirates. I'm glad that they are not doing this, but at the moment I am playing devil's advocate and thinking about this issue from Sony's perspective.

QUOTE(flo @ Apr 12 2011, 03:14 PM) In order to take legal actions against someone you need to do that according to the laws in that country. People that got sued are citizens of countries where modding , circumventing security are illegal
Waninkoko lives in Spain , right ? Happens that modchips are LEGAL in Spain ...He created a CFW which enabled piracy but we haven't heard ofhim on the news, did we ? Sony wants publcity ,it's a scare tactics

I guess Spain is a good country for releasing this stuff, then

. You may be right - they could be going after people like geohot as a scare tactic and to get publicity. However, to me it makes more sense to reduce publicity. Once journalists start publishing articles explaining that you can softmod a console, any idiot can find these articles, do an internet search, read up on softmodding, and be on their way to pirating.

 

[Originality]

- The PS2 had no online component
* PS3 relies heavily on online content for gameplay, as well as a revenue stream (DLC, movies, etc)

Phantasy Star Online on PS2, DC, GC and PC would like to disagree with you. It did have an online component... just a very underdeveloped one via the HDD/network extention for the fat PS2s.

 

[doyama]

What about softmodding options like free mcboot? Did those exist during the PS2 era, or only after the newest gen consoles were released?

Free Mcboot came in pretty late in the PS2 cycle. At it's apex the best mod solution was to combine a mod chip with HDLoader. Softmods didn't come into play until the PS2 was pretty much replaced by the PS3. *sigh* I kinds miss my old PS2! I had it all, PS2 phat with the network attachment for HDLoader. Imported Japanese Guncon2's that nearly got me strip searched at Chicago airport. Good times!

QUOTEThese are likely reasons for why Sony is so aggressive against those who modify the PS3. It may also be a major reason for the difference in how Nintendo and Sony have responded to console modding. Perhaps Nintendo is less aggressive because it is the dominant console of this generation and it is raking in piles of cash, so the losses from piracy are small in relation to their profits.

However, it is still shocking to me that both of these corporations have ignored the people that have enabled piracy. Revenue lost from piracy is much greater than revenue lost from homebrew (if any revenue is even lost from homebrew), so why attack people like geohot, graf, and fail0verflow?

Remember Nintendo makes money on each console it makes, plus on every game cartridge MANUFACTURED. Those are its main revenue streams. Until companies stop making cartridges, piracy really doesn't pose too much of a threat on its systems. Recall that even the HBC on the Wii which is almost as brain dead to install as you can get, has only an install base of 1% of all Wii users. You can assume that most handhelds and console markets have a piracy rate world wide about that range. It's probably skewed in regions like China/Russia for obvious reasons.

 

[doyama]

- The PS2 had no online component
* PS3 relies heavily on online content for gameplay, as well as a revenue stream (DLC, movies, etc)

Phantasy Star Online on PS2, DC, GC and PC would like to disagree with you. It did have an online component... just a very underdeveloped one via the HDD/network extention for the fat PS2s.

A handful of games does not make for an overall strategy. The fact you can fit the number of them on one hand is evidence of that.

For all intents an purposes the PS2 did not have any online component like PSN which ties into a revenue stream. There's a reason why the PS2 slims didn't have the HD/network attachment

 

[Joktan]

- The PS2 had no online component
* PS3 relies heavily on online content for gameplay, as well as a revenue stream (DLC, movies, etc)

Phantasy Star Online on PS2, DC, GC and PC would like to disagree with you. It did have an online component... just a very underdeveloped one via the HDD/network extention for the fat PS2s.

also resident evil outbreak i think it was had 4 player online.

 

[DarkLG]

I really think Nintendo isn't aggressive because well the Wii,for example, really doesn't rely much on online services. Xbox make money from conso0le sales and online so they aren't affected by piracy either.

 

[Joe88]

There's a reason why the PS2 slims didn't have the HD/network attachment

the network cable is built in and there is an hdd attachment (soldering is required)

http://www.modchipstore.com/XCM-HD-Connect-PS2-16272.html

 

[FAST6191]

The PS2 was hacked somewhat anonymously up until the late stage so that probably made some things a bit different. They did however go after several mod chip importers/installers (the "modding services" you might see on some modding shops are actually far less popular than they once were) and attempt to secure several rulings on the matter (sadly this was before the rise of the pic and atmel crowd) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/06/aussie_chipmod/

I mainly came here to link up http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/02/s...innovators.html though.

 

[Cyan]

Sony became more aggressive on the PS2 era, they started suing sellers.
The most known case is Lik-Sank, who was forced to close after being sued by Sony multiple times and loosing too many money.
They were selling modchips (sony made them stop), and last because they "exported" Sony's consoles all over the world while Sony put a region lock.

Maybe the first time they sued someone was the Bleem! company.

 

[xfcrowman]

Some more news related to this topic: Graf_Chokolo was raided by Sony again.

 

[stinkoman]

Proportionally, yeah. Remember Lik-Sang? Lik-Sang was pretty much the biggest online grey-area electronics store online until Sony shut it down. If they could they'd do the same to everyone selling PS3 hacks.

 

[godreborn]

I hate sony more than any other company due to the fact that they believe they r above everyone and everything. maybe developers should cease with the world war II shooters, and make one in which u infiltrate sony headquarters and Tretton could play the role of fuhrer!