The Ugly Truth About Hackers

Recently, Sony slammed the door on Linux on the PS3, which ironically invited in a slew of hackers salivating for a challenge. The hacker community claimed taking functionality away was a call to arms. They wanted to retaliate against the corporate bad guys like in The Matrix.

But what about those other game systems they've hacked? What did Xbox 360, PSP, Wii, or the DS ever do to them? Remove any features? No. Nothing. Yet they are among the most heavily pirated systems right now.

So are these hackers really looking out for the best interests of the consumers? Maybe. But mostly not. It certainly justifies their actions in the public arena and garners them support. But the reason behind hacking is a simple truth that is not much discussed. Considering that the legality of it all lies in favor with Sony, who are the intellectual and copyright holders, hackers are committing felony by taking away profits from them and account for untold losses in sales. That is why hackers take on the Robin Hood persona in order to gain endorsement and validation from the public.

This is not to say that the existence of hackers is devoid of any benefit. Far from it. Now I'm not talking about getting free games here, although the public mistakenly perceives that as the sole purpose of hackers. It is not. It may be a small motivating force and the impact is undeniably enormous, but believe or not, hackers do what they do for deeper reasons. They are not here for the freeloaders. Their work does open the door to piracy, the negative consequences of which are constantly portrayed in the media, but hackers themselves do not profit from piracy.

For some hackers, their reward is notoriety. There may be those out there that honestly want to rally against corporate greed. But let's lay out the truth -- the simple and greatest motivation for hacking is simply the challenge and experience they get from cracking these seemingly unhackable systems. These accomplishments may translate into real jobs with the very same game companies they've "rebelled" against.

Hackers (a broad term I'll use to include homebrew programmers) provide an unheralded service to game companies that isn't readily nor officially recognized. They are the world's ultimate beta-testers, bug-finders, innovators, and super computer programmers that normal and legal avenues of talent search will not find. Corporate job head hunters can't post hacking skills in their job descriptions, but they sure can scour the internet (and essentially the world) for the 1 or 5th percentile of super intelligent programming geniuses and recruit them for work at Sony, MS, or Nintendo.

The ugly truth is that hackers have advanced the game industry. For all the damages they've done, they have repaid it by dragging game corporations into the digital age. Where would downloadable games and DLC be, without the homebrew and emulation scene? Where will voice chat, friends lists, and all those other features you've grown to love on Xbox LIVE be without the hackers? Save states were a common feature on emulators long before PSP finally implemented their version in a recent firmware update.

Does Sony have a right to take away features from PS3? Some may say yes -- a necessary evil to combat piracy. Low game sales kills your favorite game studios and independents. Microsoft regularly takes out the ban hammer instead of stripping any functionality though. It is certainly within each corporation's power to protect themselves however they see fit, but morally it is a gray area and may be a legal issue in of itself, one that likely will never be challenged in the court of law in a civil action suit, but does damage their credibility with consumers. Will taking out Linux work? No. What they have done is issue a challenge to hackers. Any everybody loves a challenge!

http://www.ps3informer.com/playstation-3/news/the-ugly-truth-about-hackers-012335.php

Nice article, I especially liked "So are these hackers really looking out for the best interests of the consumers? Maybe. But mostly not."  - nicely put! 

yup lol

Nice

Yeap, 100% agree

For the old days



Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...

Damn kids. They're all alike.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?

I am a hacker, enter my world...

Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...

Damn underachiever. They're all alike.

I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."

Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass.. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...

Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.

And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...

Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...

You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

by
+++The Mentor+++
Written January 8, 1986

Not all hackers are bad. We just like to run cheats and other homebrew things. It helps with games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl or NSMBWii.

50 times that number just like free games.  Even the hackers who don't have piracy as their main purpose must know what the main impact of their actions will be.  "but but I wanted more freedom with teh hardware!"  Well, if the hacking has other harmful effects as well, I support lawsuit after lawsuit directed at them, harrassing and bankrupting them.

Yeah well everything in this world seems to have bad things that happen even when the thing done was for good. if some idiot wants to pirate and be a jackass then that is his fault.

Euphoria14 said: The Ugly Truth About Hackers   Recently, Sony slammed the door on Linux on the PS3, which ironically invited in a slew of hackers salivating for a challenge. The hacker community claimed taking functionality away was a call to arms. They wanted to retaliate against the corporate bad guys like in The Matrix. But what about those other game systems they've hacked? What did Xbox 360, PSP, Wii, or the DS ever do to them? Remove any features? No. Nothing. Yet they are among the most heavily pirated systems right now. So are these hackers really looking out for the best interests of the consumers? Maybe. But mostly not. It certainly justifies their actions in the public arena and garners them support. But the reason behind hacking is a simple truth that is not much discussed. Considering that the legality of it all lies in favor with Sony, who are the intellectual and copyright holders, hackers are committing felony by taking away profits from them and account for untold losses in sales. That is why hackers take on the Robin Hood persona in order to gain endorsement and validation from the public. This is not to say that the existence of hackers is devoid of any benefit. Far from it. Now I'm not talking about getting free games here, although the public mistakenly perceives that as the sole purpose of hackers. It is not. It may be a small motivating force and the impact is undeniably enormous, but believe or not, hackers do what they do for deeper reasons. They are not here for the freeloaders. Their work does open the door to piracy, the negative consequences of which are constantly portrayed in the media, but hackers themselves do not profit from piracy. For some hackers, their reward is notoriety. There may be those out there that honestly want to rally against corporate greed. But let's lay out the truth -- the simple and greatest motivation for hacking is simply the challenge and experience they get from cracking these seemingly unhackable systems. These accomplishments may translate into real jobs with the very same game companies they've "rebelled" against. Hackers (a broad term I'll use to include homebrew programmers) provide an unheralded service to game companies that isn't readily nor officially recognized. They are the world's ultimate beta-testers, bug-finders, innovators, and super computer programmers that normal and legal avenues of talent search will not find. Corporate job head hunters can't post hacking skills in their job descriptions, but they sure can scour the internet (and essentially the world) for the 1 or 5th percentile of super intelligent programming geniuses and recruit them for work at Sony, MS, or Nintendo. The ugly truth is that hackers have advanced the game industry. For all the damages they've done, they have repaid it by dragging game corporations into the digital age. Where would downloadable games and DLC be, without the homebrew and emulation scene? Where will voice chat, friends lists, and all those other features you've grown to love on Xbox LIVE be without the hackers? Save states were a common feature on emulators long before PSP finally implemented their version in a recent firmware update. Does Sony have a right to take away features from PS3? Some may say yes -- a necessary evil to combat piracy. Low game sales kills your favorite game studios and independents. Microsoft regularly takes out the ban hammer instead of stripping any functionality though. It is certainly within each corporation's power to protect themselves however they see fit, but morally it is a gray area and may be a legal issue in of itself, one that likely will never be challenged in the court of law in a civil action suit, but does damage their credibility with consumers. Will taking out Linux work? No. What they have done is issue a challenge to hackers. Any everybody loves a challenge!     http://www.ps3informer.com/playstation-3/news/the-ugly-truth-about-hackers-012335.php

here's a little chart:

well this hacker seem's to think So!

The PS3, like the Xbox360, depends on a hypervisor for security enforcement. Unlike the 360, the PS3 allows users to run ordinary Linux if they wish, but it still runs under management by the hypervisor. The hypervisor does not allow the Linux kernel to access various devices, such as the GPU. If a way was found to compromise the hypervisor, direct access to the hardware is possible, and other less privileged code could be monitored and controlled by the attacker.

the counter?

It remains to be seen what security measures Sony has taken to address a hypervisor compromise. One countermeasure would be to lock down the OtherOS environment, since the attack depends on the ability to manipulate low-level OS memory structures. They could be using a simpler hypervisor than the GameOS side (say, one that just prevents access to the GPU). Perhaps the SPEs have a disable bit that turns off the hardware decryption unit, and the hypervisor does this before booting OtherOS.

what did geohot have to say about this:

Check out my latest blog post, I don’t think they have lines of defense past the hypervisor.

Comment by George Hotz — February 13, 2010

yes they do:

One countermeasure would be to lock down the OtherOS environment, since the attack depends on the ability to manipulate low-level OS memory structures.

an geohot knows this.