This is a contributed article and does not necessarily reflect the views of TheSixthAxis or its editorial team.
I am a software developer. I got my first computer in 1982 (I was 2 years old) – a VIC-20 with 3.5k of RAM. In those days, computers came with manuals which taught you how to program in BASIC. The systems were not locked down and anyone could learn to program without any extra purchase or licensing. Most of the machines also let you program in assembler, and as 1990 rolled around, C compilers became freely available as 16-bit machines came into force.
In those days, people often wrote games for fun. One person could stretch the ability of the machine to the limit, and no modeling or complex graphics or sound was required. The very important point is, many if not all of today’s best programmers taught themselves at home on their 8-bit computers. They did not come from Universities.
If those machines hadn’t existed in an open architecture, we would not have the games we have today. I strongly believe that. We would also not have an internet that is mature as it is, or many other programs and devices we now take for granted. Ask almost any game developer how he or she got started, and they will most likely say, in the 1980s, on their home computer.
For hobbyists, and people who want to tinker in this day and age, setting up is complicated and expensive. Programming is a lot more tricky than it used to be, and the development tools are insanely complex for a beginner. Unlike in the old days, it is also extremely difficult to do anything unless you are programming for a popular platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) because everything is locked down.
Some of you may remember when PS1 was released, you could buy a home development kit called Net Yaroze. It wasn’t a full-blown product to let you develop commercial games – it was for homebrew hobbyists. It did not have a significant impact on the level of pirated PlayStation 1 games and was available throughout the lifetime of the console.
If you want to get your foot in the door of something other than writing Windows applications and you have a healthy interest in proprietary platforms, the PS3 was a very compelling purchase. You could do something completely different: learn to program basic assembler using the Cell architecture. IBM published a free SDK (software development kit) especially for PS3 users wanting to experiment with this, and have a large collection of tutorials on their web site. For me, that is an excellent precedent to set to young programmers in this era of encrypted filesystems, locked down custom application install and DRM craziness.
There is no doubt in my mind that PS3 has already been reverse-engineered plenty of times by bright minds. GeoHot made a stupid mistake by going public.
While GeoHot was naïve to post his work on his blog, I have to take issue with the people telling him he’s an asshole and that he should be sued. It’s very important to realise that genuine hackers (not the people who steal Warcraft accounts) are the backbone that created much of this industry in the first place, including the internet, and the PS3’s security.
In order to improve the security of a device, it has to be tested and pushed. Smart companies always hire the hackers – which is what Sony should do at this point – and I have proof.
Page 2: My time at News Corporation
Page 3: Why saying “it will blow over” is bad for you