Sony, digging their hole deeper

I haven't posted much about my ongoing displeasure with Sony's PS3 shenanigans, and nothing since August of last year... mostly because developments I've seen have had that icky "pirate aftertaste" about them, and I held out some sliver of hope, however small, that Sony might see (or be forced to see, thanks to the class-action lawsuit against them) the error of their ways. That hope is pretty well gone, since they seem to have lost even the basic concept of how the Internet works, now that they're trying to sue a group of hackers, including foreign nationals, in a California court... not for monetary damages, but just to get them to stop posting how to jailbreak your PS3 (link).

For those of you less-obsessed than I, here's a brief rundown of how we've gotten to where we are today: Sony's first-generation "fat" PS3 consoles came with an "Other OS" option, useful for hobbyists (such as myself) who wanted to play with things like Linux on their consoles... in part, at least, this option was likely included to help dodge tariffs on importing dedicated videogame consoles. Years down the road, Sony releases redesigned "slim" PS3 consoles that lack this feature. All fine and well, until April of last year, when Sony retroactively removes Other OS from the fat consoles, in response to a hacker working out how to access some hardware Sony didn't intend Other OS to have access to, alleging security concerns.

In removing Other OS, Sony managed to annoy some of the most technically-savvy customers they had, including people who don't like being told there are arbitrary limits on what they can do with hardware they purchased. First, somebody came up with a USB dongle that used, if I recall properly, a Sony-provided "service mode" to let you install programs on your PS3, bypassing their security checks that way... Sony made relatively quick work of that problem by getting the dongles seized by customs through court order. More recently, hackers have discovered a "master key" Sony uses to verify software as valid for install, posting video proof and key details on the Internet... details that Sony apparently can't fix without breaking their own systems.

So, for those of you so inclined, with PS3 systems of any age... the details are now out there to install whatever you want or can find on your PS3, and I don't expect that to change, no matter what legal tactics Sony employs, because the details are "in the wild" on the Internet. Myself, I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to large corporations in US courts... since Sony started the legal ball rolling today, I'm willing to wait for a bit and verify that this does, in fact, fall under the jailbreaking exception of the DMCA. If it does, by that time, I'm sure the tools will be available to back up my current firmware and programs (just to be on the safe side), then wipe my PS3 clean and see what fun I can find in the way of operating systems, media center software, and the like. This should be fun to watch, from here on out.