You would think that Sony, of all companies, would know better than to overreact to a DRM issue -- given its experience with the infamous CD rootkit a few years back. However, the company can't seem to resist making itself look foolish. Beyond seeking to gag the guy who figured out how to get around Sony's digital locks on the PS3 to re-enable the "Other OS" functionality that Sony remotely disabled, it's now sending DMCA takedowns to GitHub (and possibly others) ordering them to remove repositories of code around such cracks (found via Slashdot). I'm really curious how Sony and its lawyers could possibly think all of this is a good idea. It's not like any of these efforts will actually slow down or stop these cracks getting out there and used. In fact, all it does is call that much more attention to these hacks, and convince more people to either get involved or just to use them.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201101 ... hack.shtml

Sony launching a failboat? Unthinkable...

Can we use real mallets on Sony devices?

The word "Sisyphean" comes to mind.

Allegedly the latest firmware version (3.65) isn't vulnerable to 'root key' problem - somehow Sony have managed to change the key without breaking the entire system. So the hackers may well get through again soon, but they'll have to find another vector to do it with. In theory the number of possible vectors is finite, so if Sony fix each one after the hackers find it, eventually there won't be any left and the PS3 will be effectively secure - the hackers effectively having helped to Sony's security testing 'in the field' as it were. Whether that's likely to happen inside the machine's useful lifespan and whether users will put up with possibly frequent firmware updates are the big questions...

Jon

And if Sony run out of new ways to secure the PS3 then they might abandon development.

You don't need to. They fall apart by themselves. My Sony laptop only lasted six months of rig/helicopter abuse before it stopped working. My last one from Tiny lasted over five years.

Sony's latest PS3 firmware gaffe: no hard drive upgrades

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011 ... ssible.ars

I had a Tiny PC before they went bust years ago. It was a great machine.

You were lucky then. Tiny were infamous for buying a large batch of machines from IBM, where IBM has worked out there was a 1 in 3 failure rate on the units (and sold them as such, it wasn't economical for them to test them all), and Tiny just stuck the whole lot straight into the shops without any QC at all.

I bought a Tiny in 2000, never had any problems other than user error.

I had mine custom built. So it had to be tested.

I did buy a Tiny PC in 97. The memory on the graphics card went within a year, but they replaced it without any issues.
But like a said, the laptop I bought in 2004 lasted years of abuse before it became unusable.

Latest PS3 firmware 'a minor drawback' - hacker

Sony released PS3 firmware update 3.56 late last month in a bid to shut out hackers following serious console security breaches, but 'a respected voice in the homebrew scene' has told our pals at Edge that it was too little, too late on the platform holder's part.


"3.56 was more of a patch to save what's left to be saved," said Mathieu Hervais. "Indeed Sony fixed everything that could have been fixed. The reality though is that this is only a minor drawback."

George Hotz, famed for cracking the iPhone and making way for the infamous Jailbreak, decrypted the PS3's root key and published it on the net last month, a move Sony tried to counter with firmware 3.56.

According to Edge, the new firmware includes updated security keys, including the random element that was absent from the original ones, which lead to the system being compromised.

But Hervais told the site: "New keys were introduced in the 3.56 Firmware and code that is not whitelisted is now forced to use those keys. However, since the boot chain integrity is compromised it's always possible to reprogram externally the NAND/NOR chips (where the firmware code is written to) to run unsigned code again.

"No matter what they do, a 3.56 (and onward) custom firmware is possible on all PlayStation 3 consoles manufactured so far. The people Sony hired made several kindergarten mistakes while implementing their security."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/28 ... ck-hacker/

We'll see when one appears I suppose. They're hardly likely to say "Sony pwned us. We're utter noobs really." are they...

I can't for the life of me remember which current-gen console it was, but I do remember a bunch of hackers essentially saying, 'Look, we can't be arsed with the cat and mouse game any more.' So they quit