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I remember it very differently. They disabled Linux because it got jailbroken and that was how they jailbroke it. If they didn't jailbreak the PS3 they wouldn'

I remember it very differently. They disabled Linux because it got jailbroken and that was how they jailbroke it. If they didn't jailbreak the PS3 they wouldn't have disabled Linux. I think it was GeoHot who cracked it, I think it was because they used the same cryptographic key for all machines or something like that. This isn't a story of how taking away freedom from users resulted in piracy, this is a story of how piracy took freedoms away from uesrs.

skyyler 4y ago
Your memory may not be as good as you remember. This history wiki doesn't seem to imply any causality between the jailbreak and the removal of OtherOS. https://atunnic.gitbook.io/tnpsh-wiki/welcome-to-wiki/ps3-history https://atunnic.gitbook.io/tnpsh-wiki/welcome-to-wiki/ps3-hi... September 1st [3.00]: The PS3 slim is released, the first model without OtherOS. December 26th [3.15]: GeoHot pulls information from the USB bus regarding the Cell processor's SPI port and a theoretical attack vector. January 22nd [3.15]: GeoHot gains full access to the system memory and processor. April 1st [3.21]: OtherOS is removed from all PS3s. August 19th [3.41]: PS Jailbreak dongle is announced and confirmed working.
ralfd 4y ago
I tried to google it, but on hn there wasn't much discussion about it. 13 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225990 > This has to be in direct response to George Hotz (geohot)'s PS3 exploits. Edit: I found: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1227084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1227084 > This appears to be in response to the announcements of PS3 hypervisor exploits that rely on the use of OtherOS (specifically, Linux), since in the past Sony has insisted that they had no plans to ever deprecate Linux support, let alone force it in this manner: https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-oss-dev/2009-August/006965.html https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-oss-dev/2009-August/0...
thomastjeffery 4y ago
1. Sony having a predictable reaction to piracy is not (and would not be) the same as "piracy took freedoms away from users". 2. You got your facts/timeline wrong. GeoHot didn't publish his hack until after OtherOS was disabled.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  > 2. You got your facts/timeline wrong. GeoHot didn't publish his hack until after OtherOS was disabled. Turns out I really don't. The other person posted the timeline. GeoHot pulled it because they allowed OtherOS. They obivously found out some how, removed it and then GeoHot announced the bug. Maybe GeoHot did responsible disclosure?
  - brirec 4y ago
    Oh my, no, there wasn’t any “responsible disclosure,” but rather some serious animosity from Sony. They sued Geohot, and won an injunction against him hacking on any Sony products.
    - brirec 4y ago
      Thinking back on it, I don’t think geohot ever even disclosed the specifics of the bug, or publicly released any PoC before Sony sent the lawyers after him, and he was legally (and morally) prevented from hacking on Sony products after
altruios 4y ago
No... This is a story to a company overreacting and taking away freedoms because someone gave people too much freedom and the company didn't like that.

skyyler 4y ago

Your memory may not be as good as you remember. This history wiki doesn't seem to imply any causality between the jailbreak and the removal of OtherOS. https://atunnic.gitbook.io/tnpsh-wiki/welcome-to-wiki/ps3-history https://atunnic.gitbook.io/tnpsh-wiki/welcome-to-wiki/ps3-hi... September 1st [3.00]: The PS3 slim is released, the first model without OtherOS. December 26th [3.15]: GeoHot pulls information from the USB bus regarding the Cell processor's SPI port and a theoretical attack vector. January 22nd [3.15]: GeoHot gains full access to the system memory and processor. April 1st [3.21]: OtherOS is removed from all PS3s. August 19th [3.41]: PS Jailbreak dongle is announced and confirmed working.

ralfd 4y ago

I tried to google it, but on hn there wasn't much discussion about it. 13 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225990 > This has to be in direct response to George Hotz (geohot)'s PS3 exploits. Edit: I found: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1227084 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1227084 > This appears to be in response to the announcements of PS3 hypervisor exploits that rely on the use of OtherOS (specifically, Linux), since in the past Sony has insisted that they had no plans to ever deprecate Linux support, let alone force it in this manner: https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-oss-dev/2009-August/006965.html https://lists.ozlabs.org/pipermail/cbe-oss-dev/2009-August/0...

thomastjeffery 4y ago

1. Sony having a predictable reaction to piracy is not (and would not be) the same as "piracy took freedoms away from users". 2. You got your facts/timeline wrong. GeoHot didn't publish his hack until after OtherOS was disabled.

that_guy_iain 4y ago
> 2. You got your facts/timeline wrong. GeoHot didn't publish his hack until after OtherOS was disabled. Turns out I really don't. The other person posted the timeline. GeoHot pulled it because they allowed OtherOS. They obivously found out some how, removed it and then GeoHot announced the bug. Maybe GeoHot did responsible disclosure?
- brirec 4y ago
  Oh my, no, there wasn’t any “responsible disclosure,” but rather some serious animosity from Sony. They sued Geohot, and won an injunction against him hacking on any Sony products.
  - brirec 4y ago
    Thinking back on it, I don’t think geohot ever even disclosed the specifics of the bug, or publicly released any PoC before Sony sent the lawyers after him, and he was legally (and morally) prevented from hacking on Sony products after

altruios 4y ago

No... This is a story to a company overreacting and taking away freedoms because someone gave people too much freedom and the company didn't like that.