Closed PSP

So teh PSP has been haxored. Didn't take long, did it? Although, while the UMD has been ripped, it can't be burned. Yet.

That's the thing with this stuff - surely the combined numbers of hackers will always best the small numbers of developers? Why spend money on locks, when there are more picks than locks? Doesn't make sense, does it. It's also a real shame that:

He pointed out that Sony has taken measures against this [running software direct from the memory stick] - since although the PSP is capable of running software off the Memory Stick, it uses a different format to UMD software, and the device will only run software that has been cryptographically signed by Sony itself.

Open and/or free always bests closed and/or expensive. Sony should have learned this when they chose ATRAC over mp3 - and look how much that cost them: far more than pirates ever could have. I guess this means no homebrew games running off the sticks then. *pout*

Comments

[jonasyorg]

your position is a naive one.

"That's the thing with this stuff - surely the combined numbers of hackers will always best the small numbers of developers?"

I agree that hacker ingenuity is an important factor and seemingly limitless, but adding things like a requirement of digital signatures significantly increases the bar such that half the decent hackers will even stop right there because they know that the only way they're going to be able to break it is if there's a flaw in the implementation, because the technology itself is sound.

"Why spend money on locks, when there are more picks than locks? Doesn't make sense, does it."

WHAT the HELL are you talking about?!?!?! Do you not lock your house? your car? your computer? Have you ever heard of the concept of low hanging fruit? Those who have no locks are broken in to far before the person with the weak lock...the 10 second rule applies to blogging too...stop, wait 10 seconds before you type...geez

"Open and/or free always bests closed and/or expensive"

Sorry, stating your personal opinion as fact doesn't make it true.

"Sony should have learned this when they chose ATRAC over mp3 - and look how much that cost them: far more than pirates ever could have"

you really have no basis for this assertion, but you are getting closer to a reasonable point that I might agree with. however you neglect that mp3 is a proprietary encoding technique :P hehe nice.

requiring signed code to run applications on a platform that you already completely control is a far cry from chosing an in house format over the prevailing industry.

jesus christ, I really thought that boingboing was linking to something decent, but what do we have here but a poorly thought out post that I had to waste my time debating...dammmit

[chris green]

This signing of executables has been the norm since the first post-genesis generation.

[Paul]

jonasyorg is a bit too hasty with his comment. His own comments are poorly thought out and don't make sense. He attacks you for the,

"Sony should have learned this when they chose ATRAC over mp3 - and look how much that cost them: far more than pirates ever could have"

with this argument,

"you really have no basis for this assertion, but you are getting closer to a reasonable point that I might agree with. however you neglect that mp3 is a proprietary encoding technique :P hehe nice."

But before stating that he states this little jewel,

"WHAT the HELL are you talking about?!?!?! Do you not lock your house? your car? your computer? Have you ever heard of the concept of low hanging fruit? Those who have no locks are broken in to far before the person with the weak lock...the 10 second rule applies to blogging too...stop, wait 10 seconds before you type...geez"

Now let me get this straight. You actually think that burglars that want to break into a house are going to be fazed by a weak lock. If a buglar with some skill wants to get into a place with a lock for any reason, he will be able to get in. The same goes for the hacker. Any hacker with skill that wants to break the code, will be able to with some time and effort. The lock does not matter. Locking your home is to make you feel safe. It doesn't actually make you safe from someone who has skill and motivation to getting in.

Sorry, I can't stand know it all's.

[Owen]

>It doesn't actually make you safe from someone who has skill and motivation to getting in.

I don't know, I have the motivation to steal my neighboors TV, but not the skills to pick his lock. His $20 deadbolt will keep me out. If I go to starbucks and want to use the bathroom, leaving my laptop on a table unlocks is a bad idea. Locking my laptop to a table will help prevent it from being stolen--sure one could use a bic pen to pick the lock, but most people don't know how and so it'll greatly reduce the chance of it being stolen. It's likely there's a casual thief in the cafe, but it's unlikely there's a thief with the knowledge to pick the lock. Most people who pirate games fall in the second category. They want games for free, but they don't have the technical knowledge to pick a lock. This type of protection will discourage many people from pirating games.

Signing games won't prevent people from creating their own games, but it will make it illegal (thanks to the DMCA) hence impossible to sell. Since they give the gadget away at a large loss, they need to make back their money on selling licenses for games. This is different than a MP3 player where they make all their money up front and have no reason to care what you do with the device. As far as I know, all consoles have some sort of copy protection built in, so unfortunately, this isn't much of a suprise.

[Yonderbox]

Hmmm, I guess the air's getting a little rarified here. What I'm hearing is: Locks don't stop criminals, so don't bother. Carry that a little (just a little) farther, and you've got "Why bother locking anything, since sooner or later a master criminal will crack it. Please tell all those PKI people they can go home now.

[LiamM]

Comparing hacking the PSP to locks is a bad analogy becaus e in the analogy of locks the reason a locked door provides security is because of the wealth of other doors that may have weaker or no locks. With hacking the PSP you only have 1 lock .... if you want whats on the other side you have to get past the lock so someone will theres no possibility of moving on to a PSP without a lock. The long and short is that the chance of being broken into if noone locked thier door is the same as if everyone locked thier door for this analogy to work there has to be an easier but similar target.

[Paul]

Maybe I should have gone into more detail. Locks are excellent at keeping people who have no idea how to pick locks out of your place or car or whatever you are locking. This is why I lock my home. However, say a friend I had some falling out with starts posting on his blog that my back door can be easily opened if you follow these steps. So now every Ton, Dick, and Harry can get into my place going past the lock without me taking some other procedure to stop it. That is what Sony will have to take. I believe the analogy is correct because the inability to use home made software is a lock or block into something you want. The hakcing tools being the pick, allows you entrance to what you want.

I could be wrong on this. I could also go into more detail. But all in all Sony is fighting this the wrong way. It is fighting the customer here and concludes that all thier customers should be punished for what a few people might do with it's merchandise. That has never sat well with me.

[Cory Doctorow]

The difference between a real lock and a lock like this one is this: if I pick the lock to your house, I get access to your house. If I pick the lock on a PSP game, everyone in the world gets access to every PSP game, just as once Jon Lech Johansen broke the lock on DVDs, it was only a short matter of time before every DVD was ripped and online.

A break on a PSP lock is more like a ballpoint-pen break for Kyroptonite locks: once that sploit existed, the security value of ALL Kryptonite locks fell practically to zero.

[Alice]

I should state that I don't believe the majority of people are thieves. I also don't think weak locks, in a world where (as Cory says) one hacker means the job is done for everyone, are worth spending developer money on.

How much did it cost Sony to develop the UMD and the Memory Stick, is the question, compared to how much money they will lose from pirated games?

How much value do I gain from being able to run homebrew games from the Memory Stick, or video formats of my choice, than just mp4 and Sony-signed products?

How valuable is the open, free internet compared to closed, proprietary offerings?

I would be using my PSP as a portable play station (taking it literally) if I could play as I wanted. As it is, I play a bit of WipeOut and fiddle around with a bit of video, mainly for work purposes.

A.

p.s. - BoingBoing Update says:
"Update: Tim sez, 'A crafty hacker on the ps2dev forums has homebrewed a psp binary using ps2 dev tools. He also figured out an exploit to run it off memory stick! Homebrew psp sooner not later!' "

[acb]

Preventing users from running unauthorised code on game consoles is an inevitable consequence of the video-game business model (subsidise consoles, make the money back by taking a cut of each title published). If anyone can publish any software for a PSP without paying Sony the license fees, the business model collapses. This business model, in turn, remains in force as consumers are more likely to buy a cheap console and more expensive games later on than to buy an expensive console even if the games are cheap.

[Hanibal Lechter]

Stealing is always cheaper than working for something.

[Alice]

I'm not advocating stealing. I'm advocating open standards so that things like Memory Sticks can be used to run file types of the consumer's choice. Like homebrew.

I'm advocating experimenting with new business models rather than chucking bazillions of dollars down the DRM toilet when a cracker will make that spend pointless within .. hmm.. a few weeks of launch.

What's the point? Why not spend the money on building environments that can be supported via advertising, product placement, subscription or micropayments? Or experimenting? Or R&D?

It's like marketing, a hidden cost to the consumer. We pay for that DRM development, you know. We don't HAVE to, but by buying the products, we do.

I could go on, but I probably shouldn't ..

[Robert]

> like homebrew

Homebrew makes up %0.00001 of Sony's market, and %0.000000 or Sony's profits on PSP. No one cares about homebrew.

PS, sorry about all those trackbacks, I'm surprised the trackback protocol let's you do that... I thought if I resubmitted the same URL it would update the old one. I guess not. :-)

[Alice]

The internet was built on homebrew, and people got very, very rich from it. They still do. Monetising user-generated content? Selling 'sell-thru' services? Taking a cut from a transaction? Advertising around free content?

So many business models that they're not yet experimenting with, that may prove to be more lucrative than spending money on DRM that gets broken in three weeks.

And now I'm done.

[Kelt]

I would like to see Sony trust the customers a little more.

[Foo]

"Low hanging fruit" are homosexuals who got the short end of the stick, n'est pas?

Whoa did this post ever turn out to be wrong....

[tech84]

man i love the psp, i even made a blog about it... =)