Mobile scene vs console scene

[andrew weeks]

Hi everyone

I saw few weeks ago the release of the IOS 8.3 jaibreak.Apple is well know for its restricted conmpatibility with non apple things. However, compared 3ds and vita, the progress of the jaibreak is waaay faster. Is it mostly because of the difference in terms on demand and amount of people working on the scene, or because technical diferences (hardware, architecture etc)?

sorry for my poor english

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Both, generally.

There's an infinitely higher demand for things like an iOS jailbreak than there are console hacks, and the hackers who do deal with things like iOS already know, in general, how iOS itself works so they know where to poke and prod to get things working. The general ins and outs of iOS haven't changed much at all over the years, so finding vulnerabilities don't take nearly as much time as something new would.

For game consoles, in comparison to iOS jailbreaks, there's very little demand. While it might seem like everyone and their dog has a hacked XYZ, most hacked consoles are generally considered the minority of all consoles owned. There's also the fact that when a company releases a new handheld like the Vita or the 3DS, we have absolutely 0 idea on how the software works, how tough the security is, whether we can do this or that with this method or that method etc etc. It's always new hardware with new security methods to keep us out, and with low demand and 0 knowledge...things take time. That's generally why DS mode was so easy to break on the 3DS, or PSP mode on the Vita, we knew about those 2 systems and we knew their vulnerabilities.

 

[andrew weeks]

Well it is true that many people wait until certain mobile or tablet is hacked to buy it, but is that really a reason for not changing , like you say, the ins and out of every new device to prevent piracy?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Well first of all, it'd take a lot of time, money, and work to simply change how everything works for the sake of preventing hacks. More money than, in most cases, they'd lose out to something like piracy. Secondly, changing everything like that would simply cause incompatibility issues with software developed with the old system in mind. It'd be developmental suicide to go and rework everything in a software update just to stop some people from hacking whatever. Fragmenting your userbase like that would be silly and counterproductive.