4 ms·

Yeah, hobbyists like the US Air Force Research Lab (I imagine, I don't have any info to suggest they actually had to literally jailbreak their PS3s in order to

by yebyen 4y ago

Yeah, hobbyists like the US Air Force Research Lab (I imagine, I don't have any info to suggest they actually had to literally jailbreak their PS3s in order to build their supercomputer, but just making a jab) If it's good enough for the USAF, it should be good enough for hobbyists to have a go around with it!

frozenlettuce 4y ago
Oil & gas companies as well, for their drilling and prospecting simulations.
- yebyen 4y ago
  Seriously a bit miffed at the characterization of people who have bought a piece of hardware to install Free and Open Source Software on it (and then been absolutely rugged by the manufacturer) as "pirates out to save/make money, and hobbyists too" Every business I have ever worked at has either been built almost exclusively on Open Source software, or a bank that ran almost exclusively on Microsoft. We're not just pirates and hobbyists!
lapser 4y ago
I think USAF and other companies were likely part of the reason Sony removed Linux support. Generally, a PS3 was a lot cheaper than the equivalent PC/server. Sony typically sells consoles at a loss and makes profits from the game sales. The likes of USAF, researchers, and other companies were buying PS3s in bulk, and using OtherOS functionality without utilizing the primary use of PS3s: games. Often these projects didn't need any GPU power, and OtherOS had nearly full access to the CPU (iirc it had access to the main PPE and 7 out of 8 SPEs). Thus, Sony likely was not making enough money from the consoles USAF et al. bought.
- yebyen 4y ago
  IMO that is Sony's problem, selling special purpose hardware that could be general purpose but locking it down so that your business model is secure... after the point of sale... seems a bit sneaky. I enjoyed many hours of gaming on the PS2 and I bought it (in part) because I would be able to install Linux on it. I still managed to become a Linux guy today, in spite of the rug by Sony, and I suppose there's nothing overtly wrong with clarifying with an update that the primary intended use of your product is in fact its primary intended use, but as a hobbyist (dang it, now I've gone and done that again)...
  - kmeisthax 4y ago
    There was actually a class-action lawsuit about this, but Sony played a lot of games to keep the rationale for locking out OtherOS out of the discovery process. It wound up being just another one of those kinds of settlements - i.e. a large-sounding number being awarded to so many plaintiffs in the class that its basically pennies per person. My guess is that they don't want to say the quiet part out loud: i.e. they took away OtherOS because they weren't getting the tariff exemptions they wanted and they don't actually want people using these devices for non-royalty-bearing activities (e.g. piracy and homebrew).
- dylan604 4y ago
  Now, if only someone could figure out how to make a printer useful in ways other than putting ink to paper in the same manner
  - ygjb 4y ago
    idk, after 20 years of experience in the security field, I have seen more than one enterprise printer put to other uses by bad guys :P
    - dylan604 4y ago
      Bad guys playing Doom by chance?
      - ygjb 4y ago
        As fun as things like that are, AFAIK most of those types of PoC exploits are done using SOHO printers. There are two specific cases I am thinking of, one where a pile of extremely confidential data was captured by pulling documents that had been sent to a printer for printing or faxing; in that case it was an insider who was copying docs they shouldn't have access to. In the other case it was a pretty nifty attack where the attacker was able to pivot using credentials taken from a printer to access other systems. There are also several publicly available tools that can be used to pop printers, and use them for other bad things, but it's not an area I have spent much time in other than from a blue team/IR perspective. Printers, like alot of other hardware, are usually poorly maintained, but at least patching has mostly gotten easier and most infrastructure scanning tools will report vulnerabilities and weaknesses in them now.
      - dredmorbius 4y ago
        I suspect Monopoly is a better game model.
- monocasa 4y ago
  Sony loved those labs. They were pushing an idea at the time that it was legally not a game console but instead a general purpose computer, which helped them with import tariffs in a lot of jurisdictions. It's also great marketing. "You can have the power of a super computer under your TV".
- webinvest 4y ago
  Source regarding USAF having PSPs?
  - yebyen 4y ago
    Just google USAF PS3, it was called the Condor Cluster and it was big news in 2010 when the PS3 was still new. It has also been covered more recently. The USAF also has Kubernetes in F-22s from what I understand now
  - lapser 4y ago
    Wikipedia has a list[0]. Obviously this doesn't include the unknown ones. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster

by yebyen 4y ago

frozenlettuce 4y ago

Oil & gas companies as well, for their drilling and prospecting simulations.

yebyen 4y ago
Seriously a bit miffed at the characterization of people who have bought a piece of hardware to install Free and Open Source Software on it (and then been absolutely rugged by the manufacturer) as "pirates out to save/make money, and hobbyists too" Every business I have ever worked at has either been built almost exclusively on Open Source software, or a bank that ran almost exclusively on Microsoft. We're not just pirates and hobbyists!

lapser 4y ago

I think USAF and other companies were likely part of the reason Sony removed Linux support. Generally, a PS3 was a lot cheaper than the equivalent PC/server. Sony typically sells consoles at a loss and makes profits from the game sales. The likes of USAF, researchers, and other companies were buying PS3s in bulk, and using OtherOS functionality without utilizing the primary use of PS3s: games. Often these projects didn't need any GPU power, and OtherOS had nearly full access to the CPU (iirc it had access to the main PPE and 7 out of 8 SPEs). Thus, Sony likely was not making enough money from the consoles USAF et al. bought.

yebyen 4y ago
IMO that is Sony's problem, selling special purpose hardware that could be general purpose but locking it down so that your business model is secure... after the point of sale... seems a bit sneaky. I enjoyed many hours of gaming on the PS2 and I bought it (in part) because I would be able to install Linux on it. I still managed to become a Linux guy today, in spite of the rug by Sony, and I suppose there's nothing overtly wrong with clarifying with an update that the primary intended use of your product is in fact its primary intended use, but as a hobbyist (dang it, now I've gone and done that again)...
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  There was actually a class-action lawsuit about this, but Sony played a lot of games to keep the rationale for locking out OtherOS out of the discovery process. It wound up being just another one of those kinds of settlements - i.e. a large-sounding number being awarded to so many plaintiffs in the class that its basically pennies per person. My guess is that they don't want to say the quiet part out loud: i.e. they took away OtherOS because they weren't getting the tariff exemptions they wanted and they don't actually want people using these devices for non-royalty-bearing activities (e.g. piracy and homebrew).
dylan604 4y ago
Now, if only someone could figure out how to make a printer useful in ways other than putting ink to paper in the same manner
- ygjb 4y ago
  idk, after 20 years of experience in the security field, I have seen more than one enterprise printer put to other uses by bad guys :P
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Bad guys playing Doom by chance?
    - ygjb 4y ago
      As fun as things like that are, AFAIK most of those types of PoC exploits are done using SOHO printers. There are two specific cases I am thinking of, one where a pile of extremely confidential data was captured by pulling documents that had been sent to a printer for printing or faxing; in that case it was an insider who was copying docs they shouldn't have access to. In the other case it was a pretty nifty attack where the attacker was able to pivot using credentials taken from a printer to access other systems. There are also several publicly available tools that can be used to pop printers, and use them for other bad things, but it's not an area I have spent much time in other than from a blue team/IR perspective. Printers, like alot of other hardware, are usually poorly maintained, but at least patching has mostly gotten easier and most infrastructure scanning tools will report vulnerabilities and weaknesses in them now.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      I suspect Monopoly is a better game model.
monocasa 4y ago
Sony loved those labs. They were pushing an idea at the time that it was legally not a game console but instead a general purpose computer, which helped them with import tariffs in a lot of jurisdictions. It's also great marketing. "You can have the power of a super computer under your TV".
webinvest 4y ago
Source regarding USAF having PSPs?
- yebyen 4y ago
  Just google USAF PS3, it was called the Condor Cluster and it was big news in 2010 when the PS3 was still new. It has also been covered more recently. The USAF also has Kubernetes in F-22s from what I understand now
- lapser 4y ago
  Wikipedia has a list[0]. Obviously this doesn't include the unknown ones. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster