4 ms·

This has always been the hacker spirit. Make things designed to do one thing do another thing. If it's against the hardware maker's intentions or just completel

This has always been the hacker spirit. Make things designed to do one thing do another thing. If it's against the hardware maker's intentions or just completely outside their expectation, even better!

tw04 7mo ago
I don't think he's making a comment on the hacker spirit. He's making a comment on the fact that it has somehow become not just commmon, but accepted that a vendor can tell us and force us to use something in the way they want. Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head screwdriver, but the manufacturer told you that you could never, ever, under any circumstances use it to pry something open. It was stricly to be used for installing or removing screws. We would all laugh that vendor out of the room and tell them they're insane. Somehow we stopped doing that with all sorts of newer technologies.
- irishcoffee 7mo ago
  Clearly, no “we” did not, as evidenced by running Linux on a ps5.
  - tw04 7mo ago
    So society laughed at Sony for restricting the OS on the PS5 and refused to buy it? Because I'm pretty sure one person going through a ridiculous effort to install linux isn't reflective of society rejecting the restriction. 92.2M units sold, as of today 1 unit? running Linux.
    - irishcoffee 7mo ago
      “Society rejecting the restriction” huh? Someone proved you wrong, you need more than one person to do it now? Goal posts, moved. Not everything needs to have political, teenage angst applied to it.
      - tw04 7mo ago
        Political teenage angst? Is English not your native language? One person taking an action isn’t reflective of society collectively rejecting something. This isn’t an opinion up for debate. 90M+ consoles sold is proof society has completely accepted the idea of a locked ecosystem with hardware they don’t get to control.
        irishcoffee 7mo ago
        You’re bitching about society accepting something. Teenage angst. You’re nailing it.
        piva00 7mo ago
        You are quite grating on how you reply to people. Be more respectful, even more when insulting someone as having "teenage angst" while acting like someone suffering from teenage angst when replying.
    - dylan604 7mo ago
      > as of today 1 unit? running Linux. I think you are misinterpreting that number. It would be better read as "as of today, the first PS5 running Linux". There were people running racks of PS3s as Linux servers back in the day not as gaming stations but compute using its hardware. People will do crazy things. Do not write them off.
      - Uvix 7mo ago
        Those PS3s were sold with official Linux support, so running racks of them wasn't quite as crazy as it might have sounded at first.
        dylan604 7mo ago
        Until Sony revoked the ability to do that, so people went back in to hack them so they could go back to running Linux
        musicale 7mo ago
        They shut it down due to (likely valid) concerns that it could potentially be leveraged to jailbreak the regular PS3 OS and/or run unlicensed commercial games.
        3form 7mo ago
        The former being a fairly weak argument, and the latter I can't say I understand at all. Why would they care whether your software is licensed?
        musicale 7mo ago
        You omitted the important "commercial" part. The reason they care whether your commercial software is licensed is that their business model is charging for software licenses for that software. Once there were indications that people were very much interested in, and working on, running rips of commercial games on PS3 Linux, and/or leveraging OtherOS to jailbreak a stock PS3, it was basically game over for OtherOS/PS3 Linux, in spite of the fact that it had been advertised on the box (of the original "fat" PS3) as a feature of the system. Piracy (in the running unlicensed commercial games/copyright infringement sense) had long been the killer app for jailbreaking, including mod chips (and other schemes for playing CD-R "backups") for the PS1 and PS2, as well as PSP jailbreaks and custom firmware; homebrew notwithstanding, the most popular use was playing commercial games without paying for them. Sony also nerfed the original 5-console installation (aka "game sharing") for PSN games after players organized public game sharing web sites to split the cost of games 5 ways. "No one could have predicted this!" as they (don't) say.
- mschuster91 7mo ago
  > Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head screwdriver, but the manufacturer told you that you could never, ever, under any circumstances use it to pry something open. It was stricly to be used for installing or removing screws. Try filing a warranty claim if it bends, the manufacturer will go and tell you to kick rocks.
  - figassis 7mo ago
    That is fine, they're not required to support unexpected use cases. Not the same as forbidding you from using it as you see fit. It's simple really, they can do what they want with their resources, you can do what you want with yours, especially those you paid for.
    - LoganDark 7mo ago
      But you only have a license to use the screwdriver, it's still their property. You aren't entitled to free use of someone else's property, of course. Just because it's in your possession doesn't mean it's yours! (This is supposed to be satire but feels scarily accurate anyway.)
      - knollimar 7mo ago
        Everytime I use an Autodesk product (6days a week) I lament this court case. The whole set of software IP rules seems like mental gymnastics to justify a career (that I like, support, and benefit from) rather than rules that come from axioms or ethics that make sense.
    - jonhohle 7mo ago
      Isn’t OP doing just that? A few more hoops through, but it’s not like Sony is going to sue… oh, wait, if he tells anyone else how to do it they might.
- basilgohar 7mo ago
  I totally understand. But I think these artificial restrictions inspire that rebellious spirit in hackers to circumvent and see what's possible.
- lopis 7mo ago
  But this has always been the case. The circumvention protections certainly became more sophisticated as hardware and software evolved.
  - advael 7mo ago
    Yes, now they involve calling the cops to enforce a law that microsoft lawyers wrote and then sent lobbyists to bully or trick most of the world into signing. The corruption of the rule of law in modern nation-states into effectively brutal mafia-style enforcement of otherwise untenable business models certainly has facilitated quite a shift in the hardware multinationals use to secure their various unfathomably excessive bags
- TurkTurkleton 7mo ago
  > it has somehow become not just commmon, but accepted that a vendor can tell us and force us to use something in the way they want. The PS5 is a games console and is marketed as such, not a general-purpose computer. Of course they want, and "force", you to use it to play PS5 games. I have a hard time seeing this as coercive when computers still exist, even if architecturally a PS5 is virtually identical to a general-purpose computer in most of the ways that matter, because at least since the Fairchild Channel F, it's always been the case that consoles are just constrained computers. > Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head screwdriver, but the manufacturer told you that you could never, ever, under any circumstances use it to pry something open. It was stricly to be used for installing or removing screws. > We would all laugh that vendor out of the room and tell them they're insane. Somehow we stopped doing that with all sorts of newer technologies. Imagine, for instance, if that flat head screwdriver had a means to prevent you from using it to pry things open. Some kind of magical negative mass in the handle that kicks in to cancel out leverage but not torque, or an explosive charge that blows your hand off if more than a certain amount of force is applied non-rotationally, or something. It might seem a little less risible then, and you would probably just opt to buy a screwdriver that doesn't have such restrictions (especially if those restrictions were explosively enforced). Like, I get it. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the argument that we should be able to do whatever we want with hardware that we own. At the same time, being upset about the PS5 making it impossible to run arbitrary software without hacking feels a little like being upset that your washing machine doesn't clean your dirty dishes as well as it cleans your dirty laundry: it's not made for that, and it's not really reasonable to expect it to be able to do that well if at all.
  - MarsIronPI 7mo ago
    > At the same time, being upset about the PS5 making it impossible to run arbitrary software without hacking feels a little like being upset that your washing machine doesn't clean your dirty dishes as well as it cleans your dirty laundry: it's not made for that, and it's not really reasonable to expect it to be able to do that well if at all. Except that's so completely not like what's going on with modern hardware. They're taking general purpose computers and restricting you from doing general purpose computing on them. Like, a dishwasher is made to wash dishes. It has a shape and a design made for washing dishes. You would need to make physical modifications to get it to wash clothes. This is like taking a machine that could wash both dishes and clothes and intentionally stopping it from washing clothes. This is not OK. This needs to stop. Soon they'll come for our general-purpose computing with "features" for DRM.

tw04 7mo ago

I don't think he's making a comment on the hacker spirit. He's making a comment on the fact that it has somehow become not just commmon, but accepted that a vendor can tell us and force us to use something in the way they want. Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head screwdriver, but the manufacturer told you that you could never, ever, under any circumstances use it to pry something open. It was stricly to be used for installing or removing screws. We would all laugh that vendor out of the room and tell them they're insane. Somehow we stopped doing that with all sorts of newer technologies.

irishcoffee 7mo ago
Clearly, no “we” did not, as evidenced by running Linux on a ps5.
- tw04 7mo ago
  So society laughed at Sony for restricting the OS on the PS5 and refused to buy it? Because I'm pretty sure one person going through a ridiculous effort to install linux isn't reflective of society rejecting the restriction. 92.2M units sold, as of today 1 unit? running Linux.
  - irishcoffee 7mo ago
    “Society rejecting the restriction” huh? Someone proved you wrong, you need more than one person to do it now? Goal posts, moved. Not everything needs to have political, teenage angst applied to it.
    - tw04 7mo ago
      Political teenage angst? Is English not your native language? One person taking an action isn’t reflective of society collectively rejecting something. This isn’t an opinion up for debate. 90M+ consoles sold is proof society has completely accepted the idea of a locked ecosystem with hardware they don’t get to control.
      - irishcoffee 7mo ago
        You’re bitching about society accepting something. Teenage angst. You’re nailing it.
        piva00 7mo ago
        You are quite grating on how you reply to people. Be more respectful, even more when insulting someone as having "teenage angst" while acting like someone suffering from teenage angst when replying.
  - dylan604 7mo ago
    > as of today 1 unit? running Linux. I think you are misinterpreting that number. It would be better read as "as of today, the first PS5 running Linux". There were people running racks of PS3s as Linux servers back in the day not as gaming stations but compute using its hardware. People will do crazy things. Do not write them off.
    - Uvix 7mo ago
      Those PS3s were sold with official Linux support, so running racks of them wasn't quite as crazy as it might have sounded at first.
      - dylan604 7mo ago
        Until Sony revoked the ability to do that, so people went back in to hack them so they could go back to running Linux
        musicale 7mo ago
        They shut it down due to (likely valid) concerns that it could potentially be leveraged to jailbreak the regular PS3 OS and/or run unlicensed commercial games.
        3form 7mo ago
        The former being a fairly weak argument, and the latter I can't say I understand at all. Why would they care whether your software is licensed?
        musicale 7mo ago
        You omitted the important "commercial" part. The reason they care whether your commercial software is licensed is that their business model is charging for software licenses for that software. Once there were indications that people were very much interested in, and working on, running rips of commercial games on PS3 Linux, and/or leveraging OtherOS to jailbreak a stock PS3, it was basically game over for OtherOS/PS3 Linux, in spite of the fact that it had been advertised on the box (of the original "fat" PS3) as a feature of the system. Piracy (in the running unlicensed commercial games/copyright infringement sense) had long been the killer app for jailbreaking, including mod chips (and other schemes for playing CD-R "backups") for the PS1 and PS2, as well as PSP jailbreaks and custom firmware; homebrew notwithstanding, the most popular use was playing commercial games without paying for them. Sony also nerfed the original 5-console installation (aka "game sharing") for PSN games after players organized public game sharing web sites to split the cost of games 5 ways. "No one could have predicted this!" as they (don't) say.
mschuster91 7mo ago
> Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head screwdriver, but the manufacturer told you that you could never, ever, under any circumstances use it to pry something open. It was stricly to be used for installing or removing screws. Try filing a warranty claim if it bends, the manufacturer will go and tell you to kick rocks.
- figassis 7mo ago
  That is fine, they're not required to support unexpected use cases. Not the same as forbidding you from using it as you see fit. It's simple really, they can do what they want with their resources, you can do what you want with yours, especially those you paid for.
  - LoganDark 7mo ago
    But you only have a license to use the screwdriver, it's still their property. You aren't entitled to free use of someone else's property, of course. Just because it's in your possession doesn't mean it's yours! (This is supposed to be satire but feels scarily accurate anyway.)
    - knollimar 7mo ago
      Everytime I use an Autodesk product (6days a week) I lament this court case. The whole set of software IP rules seems like mental gymnastics to justify a career (that I like, support, and benefit from) rather than rules that come from axioms or ethics that make sense.
  - jonhohle 7mo ago
    Isn’t OP doing just that? A few more hoops through, but it’s not like Sony is going to sue… oh, wait, if he tells anyone else how to do it they might.
basilgohar 7mo ago
I totally understand. But I think these artificial restrictions inspire that rebellious spirit in hackers to circumvent and see what's possible.
lopis 7mo ago
But this has always been the case. The circumvention protections certainly became more sophisticated as hardware and software evolved.
- advael 7mo ago
  Yes, now they involve calling the cops to enforce a law that microsoft lawyers wrote and then sent lobbyists to bully or trick most of the world into signing. The corruption of the rule of law in modern nation-states into effectively brutal mafia-style enforcement of otherwise untenable business models certainly has facilitated quite a shift in the hardware multinationals use to secure their various unfathomably excessive bags
TurkTurkleton 7mo ago
> it has somehow become not just commmon, but accepted that a vendor can tell us and force us to use something in the way they want. The PS5 is a games console and is marketed as such, not a general-purpose computer. Of course they want, and "force", you to use it to play PS5 games. I have a hard time seeing this as coercive when computers still exist, even if architecturally a PS5 is virtually identical to a general-purpose computer in most of the ways that matter, because at least since the Fairchild Channel F, it's always been the case that consoles are just constrained computers. > Imagine, for instance, if you bought a flat head screwdriver, but the manufacturer told you that you could never, ever, under any circumstances use it to pry something open. It was stricly to be used for installing or removing screws. > We would all laugh that vendor out of the room and tell them they're insane. Somehow we stopped doing that with all sorts of newer technologies. Imagine, for instance, if that flat head screwdriver had a means to prevent you from using it to pry things open. Some kind of magical negative mass in the handle that kicks in to cancel out leverage but not torque, or an explosive charge that blows your hand off if more than a certain amount of force is applied non-rotationally, or something. It might seem a little less risible then, and you would probably just opt to buy a screwdriver that doesn't have such restrictions (especially if those restrictions were explosively enforced). Like, I get it. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the argument that we should be able to do whatever we want with hardware that we own. At the same time, being upset about the PS5 making it impossible to run arbitrary software without hacking feels a little like being upset that your washing machine doesn't clean your dirty dishes as well as it cleans your dirty laundry: it's not made for that, and it's not really reasonable to expect it to be able to do that well if at all.
- MarsIronPI 7mo ago
  > At the same time, being upset about the PS5 making it impossible to run arbitrary software without hacking feels a little like being upset that your washing machine doesn't clean your dirty dishes as well as it cleans your dirty laundry: it's not made for that, and it's not really reasonable to expect it to be able to do that well if at all. Except that's so completely not like what's going on with modern hardware. They're taking general purpose computers and restricting you from doing general purpose computing on them. Like, a dishwasher is made to wash dishes. It has a shape and a design made for washing dishes. You would need to make physical modifications to get it to wash clothes. This is like taking a machine that could wash both dishes and clothes and intentionally stopping it from washing clothes. This is not OK. This needs to stop. Soon they'll come for our general-purpose computing with "features" for DRM.