Friday, September 24, 2004
George Lucas comes into your house and smashes your X-Box
From boingboing:
The new Star Wars bonus DVD erases elements of your Xbox's firmware without informing you or giving you a chance to decline. This is apparently deliberate, as part of an "anti-piracy" effort aimed at punishing people who play the Star Wars DVD bonus disk in a modded Xbox. The 'StarWars Trilogy DVD' (video/movie DVD) has an 'Extra Special Features Disc'. If you try to launch this on your Xbox it will automaticly update your dashboard ... NO confirmation will be asked. The bonus disc has extra features including a documentary on the star wars saga, footage from the making of all three films and a preview demo of the new 'StarWars Battlefront' Xbox game (that's why there's a default.xbe, dashupdate.xbe and update.xbe on the disc). This information can be important for some people with older bioses (booting xboxdash.xbe), people using exploits or simply those who don't want their dash upgraded.
Lucas put malicious Xbox trojan on Star Wars DVD
Link (via Gizmodo) posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:45:57 AM permalink |
By al -
10:53 a.m. |
Comments:
Malicious trojan? Oh that's rich.
Splinter Cell and some other Xbox games released before the Star Wars Battlefront demo contain updates. All without you knowing. Most Xbox Live games do this to get your configuration up to date.
Mod your box, face the risks. If MS and Sony were more concerned with piracy, they'd pull a Nintendo.
Splinter Cell and some other Xbox games released before the Star Wars Battlefront demo contain updates. All without you knowing. Most Xbox Live games do this to get your configuration up to date.
Mod your box, face the risks. If MS and Sony were more concerned with piracy, they'd pull a Nintendo.
I dunno, it just seems like if you bought a CD and put it in your computer to listen to it, and a piece of code runs which deletes your mp3 collection.
I would ask why the entertainment industry hates its customers.
I would ask why the entertainment industry hates its customers.
I take issue with the sensationalization of the article. George Lucas, I hate him for other piddly fanboy reasons. But I doubt he specifically went out and told his lackey programmers to do Microsoft's bidding. So this makes it more 'news'?
It's old news and MS has every right to do it. Similar to the original Playstation cat and mouse. I had an older generation mod chip. They started putting out games that detect the chip. Mod makers started making new chips. I have a Gameboy Advance flash card. So far they haven't added code to the Gameboy to overwrite my card.
I only use the GBA to play home brew roms. And yes I was being a good little citizen and using my PS purely as a media center correct? Right... I steal. I make no excuses about it. I don't try to rationalize it. The old, "I'm not doing anyone any harm" excuse. They're big boys. I'm just making a 'copy'.
Heck, there's even viable pay for download services. Do I use em? Nope. Now what % of the people that mod their consoles _don't_ pirate? I'm not saying I'm never gonna buy another mod chip. I am saying to the self-righteous: own the fuck up.
It's old news and MS has every right to do it. Similar to the original Playstation cat and mouse. I had an older generation mod chip. They started putting out games that detect the chip. Mod makers started making new chips. I have a Gameboy Advance flash card. So far they haven't added code to the Gameboy to overwrite my card.
I only use the GBA to play home brew roms. And yes I was being a good little citizen and using my PS purely as a media center correct? Right... I steal. I make no excuses about it. I don't try to rationalize it. The old, "I'm not doing anyone any harm" excuse. They're big boys. I'm just making a 'copy'.
Heck, there's even viable pay for download services. Do I use em? Nope. Now what % of the people that mod their consoles _don't_ pirate? I'm not saying I'm never gonna buy another mod chip. I am saying to the self-righteous: own the fuck up.
A valid comparison would be if you bought a CD player only capable of playing legally bought media. You modify it to play (sometimes) illegal stuff and you load up an RIAA CD that wipes your valid goodies.
In the case of the Xbox none of your media on the HD is erased and you can reload any hacked or original copy of the dashboard.
In the case of the Xbox none of your media on the HD is erased and you can reload any hacked or original copy of the dashboard.
I'm not saying Microsoft or LucasFilm don't have a right to do this. They may or may not, but not telling anyone about it makes this iffy. Any company has a right to make shitty products. But the rest of us have every right to point them out when they do, that's all.
This sums up my thoughts fairly well: LinkComputer industry to entertainment industry: we lied (right on!)
This amazing open letter to the entertainment industry, signed by the computer industry, is a nigh-perfect expression of what constitutes a successful approach to Internet technology. And it made me laugh my ass off.
We lied to you. In the golden 80s and 90s we told you micropayments and content protection would work; that you would be able to charge minuscule amounts of money whenever someone listened to your music or watched your movie. We told you untruths which we well knew would never work - after all, we would've never used them ourselves. Instead, we wrote things like Kazaa and Gnutella, and all other evil P2P applications to get the stuff free.
We told you these things so that you would finance the things we really wanted to build, not the things that you wanted to be built. We knew all along that DRM schemes do not work, and we knew that whatever we create can be broken by us. We don't care anymore, because your money made us bigger than you.
Look at us: every year, we churn out more computer games than your entire industry is worth. You know how we do it? We like our customers. We don't treat them like potential criminals, and try to make our products do less. We invent new things like online role-playing -games, where the money does not come from duplication of bits (which cannot be stopped, regardless of your DRM scheme) but from providing experiences that the people want.
We saw that you were old and weak. So we took advantage of it: told you things that you wanted to hear so we could kick you in the head in twenty years. Some of us told you that the future is going to be interactive - what did you do? You started to think how to make interactive movies (CD-I, anyone?), which is not what it really means, while we wrote games and tried to understand the new mediums, not how to bolt it on onto old things.
We lied to you. And we apologize for that, but it was for the greater good. So we're not the least bit sorry.
Signed: The Computer Industry
This amazing open letter to the entertainment industry, signed by the computer industry, is a nigh-perfect expression of what constitutes a successful approach to Internet technology. And it made me laugh my ass off.
We lied to you. In the golden 80s and 90s we told you micropayments and content protection would work; that you would be able to charge minuscule amounts of money whenever someone listened to your music or watched your movie. We told you untruths which we well knew would never work - after all, we would've never used them ourselves. Instead, we wrote things like Kazaa and Gnutella, and all other evil P2P applications to get the stuff free.
We told you these things so that you would finance the things we really wanted to build, not the things that you wanted to be built. We knew all along that DRM schemes do not work, and we knew that whatever we create can be broken by us. We don't care anymore, because your money made us bigger than you.
Look at us: every year, we churn out more computer games than your entire industry is worth. You know how we do it? We like our customers. We don't treat them like potential criminals, and try to make our products do less. We invent new things like online role-playing -games, where the money does not come from duplication of bits (which cannot be stopped, regardless of your DRM scheme) but from providing experiences that the people want.
We saw that you were old and weak. So we took advantage of it: told you things that you wanted to hear so we could kick you in the head in twenty years. Some of us told you that the future is going to be interactive - what did you do? You started to think how to make interactive movies (CD-I, anyone?), which is not what it really means, while we wrote games and tried to understand the new mediums, not how to bolt it on onto old things.
We lied to you. And we apologize for that, but it was for the greater good. So we're not the least bit sorry.
Signed: The Computer Industry
I'm sick of this Xbox bad mouthing. I was on that bandwagon before I woke up from my nonsensical bias. Owning and playing all 3 consoles is proof of that. I'd hardly classify it as a shitty product, that's opinion.
Nothing's shady. There was a really good discussion on Penny Arcade when the dashboard issue first popped up. I'm too lazy to go digging. :)
My StarChoice satellite interface changed without informing me. OH Noes they haxxored my cablez!111!!11 It's a (slightly) nicer interface. I didn't magically lose any channels.
Also most MMO's charge a subscription fee. MMO's were created by developers who I assume like a paycheck every now and again. Xbox Live is quite popular and it charges a fee. I'm all for your rights to be clever and steal shit, but don't expect a pat on the back or make me listen to you when your scheme is thwarted. 'You' being the collective you of course.
I usually like anything I can get free. I'm not naive enough to think at the other end someone might get hurt. The world still runs on the monetary system last I checked.
Nothing's shady. There was a really good discussion on Penny Arcade when the dashboard issue first popped up. I'm too lazy to go digging. :)
My StarChoice satellite interface changed without informing me. OH Noes they haxxored my cablez!111!!11 It's a (slightly) nicer interface. I didn't magically lose any channels.
Also most MMO's charge a subscription fee. MMO's were created by developers who I assume like a paycheck every now and again. Xbox Live is quite popular and it charges a fee. I'm all for your rights to be clever and steal shit, but don't expect a pat on the back or make me listen to you when your scheme is thwarted. 'You' being the collective you of course.
I usually like anything I can get free. I'm not naive enough to think at the other end someone might get hurt. The world still runs on the monetary system last I checked.
Not bashing x-box specifically. I find it just as reprensible when software companies pull this crap on PCs as well.
Doing something to a user's system without telling him or her is _always_ a bad way to go if you want to keep people's business and goodwill. (goodwill is a recognized asset that does affect a company's value.)
Region-coding in DVD players is another example of entertainment companies slapping handcuffs on their customers as a way of controlling the market.
And the critical thing is that no one has ever actually been driven out of business because of software copying. (piracy is a term created by Bill Gates which implies violent theft and hijacking, not teh same thing, so I don't use that term.) There will always be a proportional number of people who will buy something because it's easier and more straightforward. As soon as buying it becomes less straightforward then people wlil stop. People never bothered with any of the various DRM ebook schemes because they made the process too complicated. But when Cory Doctorow gave away his books for free it _increased_ his sales numbers.
All of this is ignoring the fact that there are quite a few neat uses for modded x-boxes that don't involve copied games.
Post a Comment
Doing something to a user's system without telling him or her is _always_ a bad way to go if you want to keep people's business and goodwill. (goodwill is a recognized asset that does affect a company's value.)
Region-coding in DVD players is another example of entertainment companies slapping handcuffs on their customers as a way of controlling the market.
And the critical thing is that no one has ever actually been driven out of business because of software copying. (piracy is a term created by Bill Gates which implies violent theft and hijacking, not teh same thing, so I don't use that term.) There will always be a proportional number of people who will buy something because it's easier and more straightforward. As soon as buying it becomes less straightforward then people wlil stop. People never bothered with any of the various DRM ebook schemes because they made the process too complicated. But when Cory Doctorow gave away his books for free it _increased_ his sales numbers.
All of this is ignoring the fact that there are quite a few neat uses for modded x-boxes that don't involve copied games.
