Anonymous targets SONY
The folks at Anonymous, an internet brethren horde of hackers, are about to bring it to Sony. George "GeoHot" Hotz cracked the Ps3 before some terms and conditions were changed, angering Sony as the crack tutorial was up on Youtube allowing viewers to crack their own Ps3s. My question is: are the folks at Anonymous being too harsh by threatening to shut down the servers?
http://techland.time.com/2011/04/05/playstation-v…
Just the video:
....or does Sony deserve some threshing?
Anonymous seems to only know how to do DDOS attacks and using Google to track down information about people.
Just a bunch of kids from 4chan who try to use fancy words to sound scary, at least that's what it seems like.
ANT, for someone with such a strong libertarian bent, I'm really surprised you'd back Sony here. The issue is pretty simple in my opinion; when I buy something, I own it. I don't care what DRM you stick on it, because fuck your DRM. I will do whatever the fuck I want with it, and that includes hacking your root code. The PS3 itself (and all consoles) should be illegal, because Sony (and other makers) sell them as loss leaders that create consumer lock in, classic anticompetitive behaviour. This, not piracy, is why the PC gaming industry has been gutted.
Arguing that without IP we would not have any content is a bunch of bullshit. Shakespeare didn't rely on IP. Chess was not copyrighted. Coco Channel did not rely on IP law. IP is corporate welfare; there is no reason Disney should still be profiting off Cinderella; that does not encourage innovation, it only increases the contributions to the Senators on the relevant committees.
I'd love to see Sony's servers taken down.
consoles are absolutely not loss leaders... microsoft's entertainment division has profit margin hovering around 18%. that division had $636MM of operating income in 4q alone dude. really nice profits.
consoles should be illegal? um...
That's because MSFT sells the 360 at a loss (as does Sony with the PS3), and recoups that money on sales of games and accessories. Once a consumer has sunk $200 in to a console, he will buy games to make it worth his investment, and is unlikely to suddenly switch to a competing platform. You should understand the industry before you start arguing.
This thought process is just mornic, in your mind everything should be free because someone can copy it and make it free. So using your thought process I can go in and copy the pitch book you spent hours and hours making and offer the same thing to a client and basicly fucking you over, but thats ok because I can make copies of your work.
I mean, if you think that the value that banks provide to clients is contained in a pitch book, go right ahead.
The point that ends the discussion for me.
If you buy something, you now own it. You can do with it, whatever you like. Throw it into a lake, burn it, give it to your neighbour, whatever the fuck you want.
I can understand SONY banning people from their online service, because they are breaching the T&Cs of the online service.
But going after people, because they do what they like with their property in their own home? That's bullshit.
The particular person never agreed to the new Terms and Conditions. He signed a different version and did not abide by the current guidelines. Not sure if that skews anything as ignorance can't always be an excuse on the one hand, yet the person never agreed to it in the first place.
But why should there be a guarantee I can make money off writing a book? The reason print media is dying is not because it is giving away its content online; it is because the internet makes content of equal or greater value accesible from people who are willing to create it for free. When the NYT paywall starts locking me out, I will simply stop reading NYT articles; I can get as good or better content and analysis elsewhere for free. At the end of the day, the Grey Lady is just another collection of bits.
I understand your point, that no one will undertake expensive works if they are not protected, although Radiohead still made money releasing an album for free. I would concede that there is some utility to be had in IP law, but the current system goes way too far. Simply look at the frivolous lawsuits tech companies are throwing at each other over cellular technology, purely as an offensive weapon. Sony took it too far when they went after GeoHot.
The reason I am in favour of taking down Sony's servers is because I'm in favour of a little revolution from time to time; I imagine you'd prefer launching a DDoS attack on Sony to a mob storming the jail, killing the bailiff, and carrying off GeoHot, but the two are based on the same idea. And there is a long history of attacking a company for exercising its legal rights to monopoly; you might want to reference the Boston Tea Party, or look at some of the causes of the English Civil War.
Yeah, Drexel is right. The money is made on the software and accessories. Maybe towards the end of the systems life you will see a modest profit, but it is a lot like cell phone companies subsidizing the phone to make money on the contract.
While I am happy to call Anon moronic, I would hesitate to call Drexel moronic.
Free can go both ways: China, as stated above is in desparate need of property laws. On the other hand, the reason that the PC became totally dominant over Apple in computing is that programming for DOS was open source and distributed freely in the early days of personal computers while Apple retained a closed architecture. People liked being able to play around with it and created countless apps: innovation exploded at an exponential rate, while Apple struggled to maintain a minority market share. This is the basic worldview driving anon.
That having been said, they are not a formal organization, just an informal group not so different than the pickup game in the park on Saturday afternoons. This round of attacks is particularly amateurish......which leads me to suspect that the heavy hitters are still fighting the wikileaks battle and tormenting gov't admins in MENA, while the script kiddies are jumping on the 'stick it to the man' battle. Sony was within its rights to sue, but going after the IP of people visiting the website is a big no no, so I cast my vote for anon this round.
Free is different in that case, DOSS was written that way. The kernel at the core of the PS3 OS was not. So in reality cracking their software is illegal. When you buy software you dont buy the software you buy the rights to use it, same goes for music, movies ect ect.
That is not such a clear cut issue at all. Sony is currently also acting butthurt over Amazon's cloud-based streaming of user owned music, because they have somehow decided this is not a permitted use. It is shit like this that is going to kill the idea of cloud computing; the reason the tech industry is so hot on the idea is not because it is a better technology (have you ever used Google Docs?), but because it will give them more control over content, and the ability to lock everything down more effectively, because the user will never truly own it.
I've said it before, and I will say it again; when I buy something, I own it. No matter how big your T&C disclaimer is, I am not going to read it, and I am not going to abide by it.
I really admire Anon for this Sony attack and for Operation Payback and their wikileaks battle. ^_^ Days like this I wish I had stuck it out with computer science. I had always wonder what Anon did for their day jobs. From reading this thread, it seems they have jobs at "Facebook, Apple, AT&T, Verizon, National Semiconductor, Viacom". I remember the thick stack of CVs these companies had at their recruitment tables. I brought my CV, if nothing more than to get the cute toys. Cute toy for CV; fair trade. And I'd get a chance at a cool job somewhere in that mix.
I also admire Anon for their technical ability. I don't know the first thing about launching a ddos attack.
I agree with Drexel that if I buy a console I should be able to do what I want with it, whether it be smash it in the backyard with a hammer or pick it apart using a youtube guide video. Back in the day, my friends and I used to take apart radios and other oddities, and put them together again to see how they worked; no one stopped us then.
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