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Liliputing reports
Hacker group fail0verflow recently showed off a PlayStation 4 running Linux[1] at the Console Hacking 2015 conference, marking the first time someone has managed to install a full-blown, desktop operating system on the game console.
Although others have tinkered with the PS4 in the past, including a Brazilian hacker group that used a Raspberry Pi to break into Sony's Orbis operating system, fail0verflow is the first group to successfully install a full version of Linux on the PS4.
Sony's flagship gaming console has had a tumultuous relationship with the DIY community. The third-generation PlayStation came stock with "OtherOS", which was a feature that allowed users to upload Linux to the operating system, which the company eventually removed.
The PS4 has been much less hacker-friendly in the 2 years since the console launched... at least until now. Fail0verflow took advantage of an exploit found by another hacker earlier this year, which allowed them to get around Sony's content protections.
They fiddled with a WebKit bug discovered by the programmer to trick the browser into freeing the processes from the core of the operating system. This hack essentially turns the PS4 into a fully operational PC.
[...] The group noted that some of the differences between the PS4 operating system and a PC are "crazy" and some are "batshit crazy". Oh, and the Marvell Tech engineers that designed the PS4's southbridge chip were "smoking some really good stuff".
[1] The nugget is an embedded video in an iframe, apparently. Link to the video
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Sunday January 03 2016, @06:13AM
If Sony would just open up the hardware entirely, release specs and APIs, everything they could legally do, would their sales go up or down? Their traditional market would be unaffected. They're not interested in hacking their console anyway and never will be. They'll buy hardware and software as always. So there's no loss of money there. A small amount of people might choose a PS4 over another game console because they might be interested in these features. And finally some people would buy hardware (but likely no software) just to use it as a general purpose computing device. They might even buy some games.
Cryptographic protections on software and online services means there's no danger to Sony's sales or online experience for paying customers. This is just something people say without thinking it through, and unfortunately a lot of people believe it including all the way up to the Sony executives and their teams of lawyers.
There's no business reason not to open up your hardware. There's no secrets worth protecting that won't get out anyway. There's no competitive advantage to be lost. There's no degradation of brand or service. There's just a prideful, spiteful, stubborn, customer-mistrusting, litigious, covetous, corporate culture that is loathe to ever give anything away for free even if they can get back more than they "give up" which is just imaginary property anyway.
...but try convincing the lawyers of that. Oh well. Linux will be gone from the PS4 in the next firmware patch anyway, but good on this team for trying. They do it for fun, and that's not something Sony can take away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @06:18AM
They did not disclose the exploit used. You are supposed to find your own.
However, once you find an exploit, their patches will help you run Linux.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 03 2016, @06:26AM
Jews (who run SONY, in case you didn't know) are 60% spite and 40% greed. That's why they will make lots of money from you but not any more than they need knowing that you paid them to get screwed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @06:41AM
Dude come on...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Hirai [wikipedia.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 03 2016, @07:09AM
https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/ [wikileaks.org]
https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/?q=jew&mfrom=&mto=&title=¬itle=&date=&nofrom=¬o=&count=50&sort=0#searchresult [wikileaks.org]
There was one I wish I could find, the one where the person literally gets their kid into an Ivy League university totally disregarding the proper admissions process, and the Jew at the other end says, "Okay! Done!"
But "ivy league" of course.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Sunday January 03 2016, @07:31AM
I thought the hardware was a loss leader - so they lose money on every console sold. They make it back on the games (which, one presumes, do not run on linux).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @08:11AM
Whose fault is that?
To me, that sounds like bad planning on the part of the vendor.
...and it's not like there is a dearth of readily-available cross-platform toolkits. [wikipedia.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @09:03AM
You obviously have some entitlement complex, thinking that whatever product a vendor puts out, they HAVE to facilitate you to do whatever you want with it.
Well, obviously, you do, physically after you bought the machine. But guess what, the vendor have no obligation to make it easy, or even possible, for you to run whatever software (including pirated games or other OS) on the machine.
It is not "bad planning" or "fault" on anyone's part, it is a business decision the vendor chose to rely on various hardware and software feature so that the product can only do some things (like playing official games) and not others (like installing custom software). You being pissed by that decision in no way makes it good or bad. Just don't buy the product if you don't like it.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday January 03 2016, @11:23AM
You obviously have some entitlement complex, thinking that whatever product a vendor puts out, they HAVE to facilitate you to do whatever you want with it.
If they REALLY want me to give them my hard earned - yes.
You being pissed by that decision in no way makes it good or bad. Just don't buy the product if you don't like it.
So the customer isn't always right [wikipedia.org]? Even if the manufacturer (not the vendor) decides to change bargain [wikipedia.org] after you paid your money?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Sunday January 03 2016, @11:55AM
You are discussing two different things here. For new play-stations it is totally legit for the vendor to sell them without an OtherOS feature, and to change the firmware closing holes, as well as it is for you not to buy it.
For PS3 it was an advertised feature, and it is of course NOT legit to remove it after the sale.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday January 03 2016, @12:25PM
ou are discussing two different things here. For new play-stations it is totally legit for the vendor to sell them without an OtherOS feature, and to change the firmware closing holes, as well as it is for you not to buy it.
For PS3 it was an advertised feature, and it is of course NOT legit to remove it after the sale.
Agree, two points, I should have made it clearer.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 03 2016, @01:33PM
If you bought a car, and were pleasantly surprised to find that it exceeded your expectations in performance and handling, and got better fuel mileage than advertised, you would think that you got a great bargain.
If you took that car in to the shop for it's first scheduled maintenance, and the mechs screwed with the performance, the handling, and borked the fuel mileage, would you be pissed? Would the auto maker have the right to screw your car up? I don't even specify that they made a dog of your car, they just turned everything DOWN to specs. After driving a sweet ride for a few months, it turns into an average blechhh. Are you going to be happy?
It is, after all, YOUR CAR - you paid for it, and it no longer belongs to Ford, Chrysler, or GM.
Why do so many of you bleat like good little phanbois for the corporations? At least half of you are lying, and the rest have got to be lizard people.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @10:59AM
I'd be happy to save them from a loss and only buy from them a game which run on Linux. But... noooo... they want that loss so badly.
Whose fault it is, then?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday January 03 2016, @11:03AM
I thought the hardware was a loss leader - so they lose money on every console sold...
Which will only be viable if they make a really good profit somewhere else...
They make it back on the games (which, one presumes, do not run on linux).
...so that they would save money by porting their games to Linux and not making hardware.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @11:57AM
"If Sony would just open up the hardware entirely, release specs and APIs, everything they could legally do, would their sales go up or down?"
It would change into the standard PC market. Is this good or bad? Let's take a look.
1. Gaming PC hardware beats the shit out of the PS4 already. You're not likely going to get new people buying PS4 hardware/software if they're serious gamers.
2. Their traditional market WILL be affected - it WILL go down. Believe it or not there are people out there that only consider buying shit if there's absolutely no way to get it otherwise. "If it's free why pay for it." A fully opened system would be hackable to let people download and play PS4 games rather thtn spending 80+ bucks for the core game plus another 5-200 dollars worth of DLC. Even if a person was willing to pay the 80 bucks for the base game, you will have a MUCH harder time selling the DLC when people will start making and releasing their own mods/additions to games.
3. An open PS4 would mean Sony would have no way to force devs/publishers to pay their licensing fees to release games on the PS4. This might, or might not, cause a drop from the 80 dollar price tag - as pubs/devs can always just keep the excess cash for themselves. And as we've seen with digital releases which have far less costs associated with them... the bar won't be coming down so to speak. Either way, Sony themselves will be making less money from the loss of all licensing fees. They'll also lose control over what can or can not be released on the system resulting in...
4. ... introduction of malware/viruses/trojans/etc on the platform. This makes it as "secure" (or lack thereof) as a normal PC, making people wonder why they're bothering with the hardware instead of getting a stronger, upgradable PC.
So as you can see, I think your idea is off the mark. Additionally less full fledged software will be released on the hardware when it's opened up as the only reason publishers add a lot of money to their development costs to make console ports is because the console is a walled garden with low to no piracy. Even if that's a fantasy thought up in people's minds, that fantasy will go to the CEOs and more importantly the shareholders, who will prevent any development on the hardware because they will believe the incorrect assumption that 1 pirated download = 1 definite loss of sale.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Sunday January 03 2016, @12:01PM
According to http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Hacker-fuehren-Linux-auf-PlayStation-4-aus-3057276.html [heise.de] this already happened. The hole was only in firmware 1.76, current version is 3.11
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hyperturtle on Sunday January 03 2016, @04:46PM
I would make the effort to install the Steam OS on it. I think that would greatly offend Sony, to see their consoles used to participate in a competing ecosystem while simutaneously shutting their own marketplace out of all future transactions on that hardware.
The cost of freedom is often expensive. The cost of subsidized hardware and cell phones is often due to the expectations that regular use will provide revenues to the parent company doing the subsidizing.
Allowing Linux is expensive if the hardware pricing did not consider it as part of the costs of doing business.
(Score: 2) by julian on Sunday January 03 2016, @10:08PM
OK so you install SteamOS (Linux) on your new PS4 and never buy anything else from Sony. What have you gained for yourself?
-You lose access to all PS4 games
-You can't play multiplayer with other PS4 owners (except the tiny minority running Linux, which essentially is equivalent to the current Linux userbase on traditional PCs)
-You can't access Playstation Network
-You're subjected to the, let's be honest with ourselves, inferior performance of Linux compared to what Sony is capable of achieving with their own OS and development tools.
-You'll get no help from Sony supporting your machine when it breaks
You also had to have the time, and not insignificant technical savvy, to install Linux and get it working. Very few people will choose to do this, which is why it's not a threat to Sony's business. I still would like the option, but I know most people don't care, or even understand how, to install an alternative OS on any computing device.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday January 04 2016, @05:12AM
You will get steam sales. And that is not just a huge difference - there close to 11k titles that running from anywhere beween 50% to 90% discounted rates. Even if you combined all of your PS4 titles you will be saving more than that by just installing SteamOS.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday January 06 2016, @12:32AM
If you are an engineer, you disappoint me!
I have gained for myself exactly what you described -- membership into a very tiny and elite club of people that can complain that no games run well on linux on hardware designed for that very specific purpose.
Mainstream linux has been making great strides in regular x86 hardware (steam OS being one of the chief efforts among them); this helps put things into perspective that there is more to being an elitest than simply having elite hardware. We have to achieve something so cool that it is pointless.
I hope I don't need to provide examples of cool things that have no practical commercial impact.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Sunday January 03 2016, @11:58PM
insightful? Really mods? Let this old greybeard explain how the console market REALLY works, gather round childrens...you see the consoles are sold on what is called the Razor and blade model [investopedia.com] which means they lose money on every unit sold and ONLY make a profit when the buyer purchases enough games......wanna guess what those that used the OtherOS did NOT buy? That's right childrens they did NOT buy games for the thing and Sony bled like a stuck hog until they removed that functionality!
So if you wanna argue they should open up the tech AFTER the console life ends? I'd agree with you 110%. If you are arguing it should be open now while they are still selling the units? That is not only crazy, it would be downright financial suicide for the company!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by julian on Monday January 04 2016, @12:13AM
Sony started to break even on hardware sales in 2013. They probably make a profit per unit now, as manufacturing costs decrease over time. Also, there are simply not enough people interested in hacking their hardware for it to make much of a difference either way--and many of them will also buy games.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday January 04 2016, @06:56AM
Citation please? Because the PS3 AFAIK has NEVER broke even (thanks to the cell processor, which was a turkey that was never really used anywhere else) and the PS4 was released in Nov 2013 so I seriously doubt it was profitable at launch, or even breaking even, as the only company I know of that did that with consoles at release was Nintendo before the Wii U.
Also I kinda doubt that with 2 companies competing over the same APU which is being manufactured by a fabless company (which means they really have no control on production or output) that they are getting the economies of scale required to drop the price low enough for it to be making money OOTB, especially with the cost of GDDR-5 and the rest of the BOM factored in.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.