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from the imagine-a-beowulf-cluster...oh-never-mind! dept.
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: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @06:15AM
Google definition
If the free software movement is full of zealots, then so is the copyright industry.
The OtherOS fiasco convinced me that free and proprietary software does not mix well: for the same reason.
With free software, you want to be sure you are in control of your machine. Any proprietary software "taints" it, leaving open the possibly that your data is tampered or leaked to third parties.
Similarly, Sony and Apple do not want free software running on their machines. Any free software "taints' it, leaving open the possibility that you can make lossless copies (which is how general-purpose computers work).
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday January 04 2016, @08:53PM
That's the understatement of 2016.
Sony doesn't believe in free software, because it doesn't believe in free hardware. We almost need a version of Glass-Steagall to prevent intellectual property portfolio owners (owners that are not directly creators of content) from getting anywhere near hardware, distribution (Internet), and cryptographic systems to protect content. The government is wholly and irreparably corrupt, so it also goes without saying we need a law to prevent regulatory capture by Sony as well. Sony's position is really simple: You have our copyrighted content?! You fucking slimy piece of shit (yes, we see you waiving the receipt), don't you dare even think for one second about thinking of doing *anything* with that content without seeing if you need to pay us first! You are REQUIRED to run ALL of our software without modifications on OUR hardware so we can be sure you're not a dirty stinking fucking pirate!! Ohhh, and we love you, and keep buying our overpriced shit. Love Sony.
Apple never believed in anything close to freedom. Jobs was very clear about how he felt the world of computing should be: It's my fucking world, you're the passengers on the trains I build, and the Internet is merely my train yard to do what I want to do. That's more or less verbatim too. I can't remember the interview, but that was me paraphrasing how Jobs felt about personal computing. Meaning, he felt personal computing wasn't about freedom at all, but merely the activities we undertake to enjoy *his* products, *his* world, and *his* application stores. He refactored the Internet away from being free exchanges of data amongst machines, to be roads no longer free to just any travel, but only free to travel via his trains, and their modes of operation.
Free computing has been under attack the moment executives and marketing departments got serious about it, and saw potentials beyond the business use cases that built computing in the first place. Bill Gates ended up doing far more for free computing, and that's mind blowing quite frankly.
The road towards free computing, via FOSS and Open Source, is mutually exclusive with the interests of executives, marketers, and shareholders. In a very real sense, our battle is about a lot more than freedom in computing. It's our freedom in cyberspace, which we are quickly and painfully finding out, does have very tangible effects in our real world, aka, Meatspace. When computing is free, there are no manufactured and artificial reasons for upgrades or extra purchases. When computing is free, there are no captured audiences powerless to change their fate, but free groups of people ready, and more than willing, to exchange information, ideas, and *code*. When computing is free, executives, marketers, and shareholders cry bitterly like little bitches that their worlds are no longer free, our economy is no longer based on freedom and its poster child Capitalism. Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My, indeed.
Free computing is the only path to our mutual survival at this point if we all don't want to be just heads of cattle to governments and corporations, or as it increasingly is, just corporations with great influence.
The greatest idiocy is that Sony isn't forced to acknowledge (regardless of their freely chosen loss leader business model) that hardware belongs to the consumer that paid for it, and they can do whatever they want with it. This is a fundamental ethical fact beyond reproach, including weak arguments that the economy would suffer, or that Sony would make less money. I've never heard anything close to a decent ethical argument that Sony, or Apple for that matter, can maintain control over a hard product after the point of sale. That's utterly ridiculous, and the first place we can start. Yet all the arguments around here are business ones, and not ethical ones...
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.