3 ms·

This was compared to software that ships with all the features but requires a serial number to unlock the good ones. However I think this is different, and I t

by habosa 14y ago

This was compared to software that ships with all the features but requires a serial number to unlock the good ones. However I think this is different, and I think modifying hardware in this way is considerably more moral than using keygens to unlock software. It's hard to exactly state why I feel that this hardware mod is entirely moral behavior while software piracy is not but it's hard to put my finger on the right words. I think it's possibly something to do with Locke's notion of property rights and how one has an ownership claim to that which he created by his own labor. Am I the only one that feels this way? Sorry to ramble.

damian2000 14y ago
Agreed - you've spent your dollars on an actual physical device. Then find out you've paid for the same components as a professional model, but can't use it. An article here on Wired is on the same subject ... http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/03/you-dont-own-your-cellphones-or-your-cars http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/03/you-dont-own-your-cellp...
Amadou 14y ago
If this hack well and truly only modifies the PCI ID, then it follows that all of the performance difference is in the drivers - maybe with different firmware downloads on initialization, or maybe just the API exposed to applications. How would you feel about a binary patch that modified the driver to treat a card with the low-end PCI ID as if it were a high-end card?
- habosa 14y ago
  I think although the effect is the same, it's not as justified. For one, you can distribute a patch to people who do not have to do any "labor" to get the same effect as the hardware mod. You can't distribute a hardware mod to others. Also, with software I feel there is an implicit trust agreement. Photoshop is just a different series of 1s and 0s than GIMP and both are just a different sequence of 1s and 0s than what exists on the empty, fragmented parts of your hard drive. However as a society we have agreed to pay for our copy of these binary sequences and this is the entire software market. We've also, mostly, agreed not to give the software we buy away to everyone else just because it's technologically possible. However I don't think the same social contract exists for hardware. It might be part of the hacker spirit but hardware modifications are encouraged and often celebrated. People who make their BMWs drive faster than they should or make Blu Ray lasers into lightsabers are applauded in a much different way than software pirates. Again, I can't really explain the cultural distinction but I'm very aware of its existence and that's why I can't see any objection to this Nvidia hack.
luke_s 14y ago
No, your not the only one to feel that way. In fact, until you explicitly pointed it out I wouldn't have thought at all that what this guy was doing was the moral equivalent of using a keygen to unlock features he has not paid for. I think its the physicality of what he has done that causes this. To me it 'feels' like somebody modifying a thing he had bought to make it more useful - we do this all the time without any moral qualms, such as modifying a pair of jeans so they fit you better. Or you can pull apart cheap AA batteries to get more expensive watch batteries contained inside [1]. Nobody would dare claim such behaviour is immoral. Yet somehow what this guy has done is skirting a moral boundary and using a keygen is widely considered 'wrong'. 1 - http://www.howtogeek.com/95390/hack-apart-a-12v-battery-for-free-watch-batteries-video/ http://www.howtogeek.com/95390/hack-apart-a-12v-battery-for-...
hayksaakian 14y ago
This makes sense because "buying" software is different than "buying" hardware. When you buy (a license to use) software, (at least nowadays), you're paying for the right to use the software, not the actual bits on the disc/file. When you buy hardware, you're paying for the materials and manufacturing effort that produced a physical thing. Given that mass reproducing hardware is non-trivial compared to software, there is often little/no/paper-thin DRM on hardware. Thus the OP could modify his graphics card. On the other hand, look at cell phones. Given their legal connection to a service contract that is enforced with SIM cards, providers have a convenient form of DRM to enforce limitations on modifications.
- greggman 14y ago
  While you might have a right to mod the hardware you bought you probably don't have a licence to use different drivers?
smalley 14y ago
If you own the hardware and you did not have to sign a contract to purchase it you're probably more than within your rights to modify the hardware to your liking (some exceptions to the rule do exist for things like circumventing copyright laws, modifying equipment to function in a manner harmful to others like operating a high energy transmitter in an emergency band etc). What you're not getting when you hack your hardware to perform outside its bounds is the guarantee from the company. For example if you're sold a processor for $X dollars clocked at 2 GHz you're receiving an implicit guarantee that for Y years the product will be capable of performing every advertised combination of operations correctly. If you have a problem with this processor it is then reasonable for you to seek support for your problem/design etc. If you notice you can run this processor at 2.5GHz which would normally cost more money and for your application nothing appears to glitch you're welcome to do so. If you later encounter issues with occasional incorrect calculations you pretty much gave up the right to complain about that issue. A similar example might be bolts for spacecraft. Many of the bolts for these spacecraft cost 100x more than the incredibly similar bolts one could obtain at a hardware store and often times may come from a very similar production line. The reason the spacecraft bolts cost more is because they've specified a very rigid set of minimum tolerances they require and stringent tracking requirements (if a bolt fails on one part of a spacecraft you may be able to get a list of every other bolt made in that lot, get the reference samples to test and find every individual location they were placed on that and other craft). It's not necessarily that the bolts cost substantially more to make but they do cost somewhat more to verify or select each piece from the line to meet the requirements. Even though hardware store customers might be able to buy bolts with spacecraft quality performance they just didn't pay to ALWAYS get bolts with spacecraft quality performance. That said being a hardware person I'm not sure I feel the same way about software as many of the people here. It sort of feels like the primary argument is "hardware modification feels hard to me so its different". To me it seems like where it would be acceptable to modify a piece of hardware I own I should be able to open a debugger or disassembler and patch my software to enable any feature that's inherently part of the product (or new features if I wanted to add them). Now if that breaks updates, causes me to lose work or leads to problems I'd expect to be on my own like I would with hardware. I'm sure my opinion isn't particularly popular, but changing a resistor and changing an if( premium ) to if( true ) just really don't seem all that different from where I am.
TheAnimus 14y ago
I used to modify my printer cartridges so that they didn't cost me a fortune for all my university printing. Some might suggest Epson sell the printer at such a low price because they expect to earn money from the ink.

by habosa 14y ago

damian2000 14y ago

Agreed - you've spent your dollars on an actual physical device. Then find out you've paid for the same components as a professional model, but can't use it. An article here on Wired is on the same subject ... http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/03/you-dont-own-your-cellphones-or-your-cars http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/03/you-dont-own-your-cellp...

Amadou 14y ago

If this hack well and truly only modifies the PCI ID, then it follows that all of the performance difference is in the drivers - maybe with different firmware downloads on initialization, or maybe just the API exposed to applications. How would you feel about a binary patch that modified the driver to treat a card with the low-end PCI ID as if it were a high-end card?

habosa 14y ago
I think although the effect is the same, it's not as justified. For one, you can distribute a patch to people who do not have to do any "labor" to get the same effect as the hardware mod. You can't distribute a hardware mod to others. Also, with software I feel there is an implicit trust agreement. Photoshop is just a different series of 1s and 0s than GIMP and both are just a different sequence of 1s and 0s than what exists on the empty, fragmented parts of your hard drive. However as a society we have agreed to pay for our copy of these binary sequences and this is the entire software market. We've also, mostly, agreed not to give the software we buy away to everyone else just because it's technologically possible. However I don't think the same social contract exists for hardware. It might be part of the hacker spirit but hardware modifications are encouraged and often celebrated. People who make their BMWs drive faster than they should or make Blu Ray lasers into lightsabers are applauded in a much different way than software pirates. Again, I can't really explain the cultural distinction but I'm very aware of its existence and that's why I can't see any objection to this Nvidia hack.

luke_s 14y ago

No, your not the only one to feel that way. In fact, until you explicitly pointed it out I wouldn't have thought at all that what this guy was doing was the moral equivalent of using a keygen to unlock features he has not paid for. I think its the physicality of what he has done that causes this. To me it 'feels' like somebody modifying a thing he had bought to make it more useful - we do this all the time without any moral qualms, such as modifying a pair of jeans so they fit you better. Or you can pull apart cheap AA batteries to get more expensive watch batteries contained inside [1]. Nobody would dare claim such behaviour is immoral. Yet somehow what this guy has done is skirting a moral boundary and using a keygen is widely considered 'wrong'. 1 - http://www.howtogeek.com/95390/hack-apart-a-12v-battery-for-free-watch-batteries-video/ http://www.howtogeek.com/95390/hack-apart-a-12v-battery-for-...

hayksaakian 14y ago

This makes sense because "buying" software is different than "buying" hardware. When you buy (a license to use) software, (at least nowadays), you're paying for the right to use the software, not the actual bits on the disc/file. When you buy hardware, you're paying for the materials and manufacturing effort that produced a physical thing. Given that mass reproducing hardware is non-trivial compared to software, there is often little/no/paper-thin DRM on hardware. Thus the OP could modify his graphics card. On the other hand, look at cell phones. Given their legal connection to a service contract that is enforced with SIM cards, providers have a convenient form of DRM to enforce limitations on modifications.

greggman 14y ago
While you might have a right to mod the hardware you bought you probably don't have a licence to use different drivers?

smalley 14y ago

If you own the hardware and you did not have to sign a contract to purchase it you're probably more than within your rights to modify the hardware to your liking (some exceptions to the rule do exist for things like circumventing copyright laws, modifying equipment to function in a manner harmful to others like operating a high energy transmitter in an emergency band etc). What you're not getting when you hack your hardware to perform outside its bounds is the guarantee from the company. For example if you're sold a processor for $X dollars clocked at 2 GHz you're receiving an implicit guarantee that for Y years the product will be capable of performing every advertised combination of operations correctly. If you have a problem with this processor it is then reasonable for you to seek support for your problem/design etc. If you notice you can run this processor at 2.5GHz which would normally cost more money and for your application nothing appears to glitch you're welcome to do so. If you later encounter issues with occasional incorrect calculations you pretty much gave up the right to complain about that issue. A similar example might be bolts for spacecraft. Many of the bolts for these spacecraft cost 100x more than the incredibly similar bolts one could obtain at a hardware store and often times may come from a very similar production line. The reason the spacecraft bolts cost more is because they've specified a very rigid set of minimum tolerances they require and stringent tracking requirements (if a bolt fails on one part of a spacecraft you may be able to get a list of every other bolt made in that lot, get the reference samples to test and find every individual location they were placed on that and other craft). It's not necessarily that the bolts cost substantially more to make but they do cost somewhat more to verify or select each piece from the line to meet the requirements. Even though hardware store customers might be able to buy bolts with spacecraft quality performance they just didn't pay to ALWAYS get bolts with spacecraft quality performance. That said being a hardware person I'm not sure I feel the same way about software as many of the people here. It sort of feels like the primary argument is "hardware modification feels hard to me so its different". To me it seems like where it would be acceptable to modify a piece of hardware I own I should be able to open a debugger or disassembler and patch my software to enable any feature that's inherently part of the product (or new features if I wanted to add them). Now if that breaks updates, causes me to lose work or leads to problems I'd expect to be on my own like I would with hardware. I'm sure my opinion isn't particularly popular, but changing a resistor and changing an if( premium ) to if( true ) just really don't seem all that different from where I am.

TheAnimus 14y ago

I used to modify my printer cartridges so that they didn't cost me a fortune for all my university printing. Some might suggest Epson sell the printer at such a low price because they expect to earn money from the ink.