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February 27th, 2007, 12:12 Posted By: Cloudhunter
via BBC
Fanjita of the noobz team has had an interview on BBC World service radio.
Listen to it here: Hacker teams unlock PSP or a link to an MP3 here.
If you don't want to listen to it, I took the liberty of writing a transcript for it:
Presenter: Computer hackers have appeared to have scored a strike in the battle against the industry giants. They’ve found a way to unlock Sony’s handheld games console, the playstation portable, or PSP. The PSP is sold with its own built-in software which is known as firmware. This controls how the console operates. The firmware “locks” many of the PSP’s capabilities so that enthusiasts can’t write their own programs for it. It also prevents the PSP from running pirated games or films. But now, inevitably you might say, hackers have found a way round the locks and controls. David Court, (Fanjita) professional programmer, part time hacker is among those who’ve unlocked the PSP. He joins us now from Edinburgh in Scotland. David Court, why did you want to do it?
Fanjita: Well it’s quite simple. We were just frustrated by the fact that having bought this 200 pounds console, it wasn’t possible to do what we wanted with it.
Presenter: But one of the reasons that these sort of limits are put on is to stop piracy, it’s to make sure that you only run games that are legitimately bought and paid for, for instance.
Fanjita: Indeed and that is a very important thing to bear in mind. The aim here was definitely not to allow piracy of software. Working as a professional programmer myself, piracy is a thing that is quite dear to my heart. If I was to go around pirating software, then I’m going round pirating from my colleagues.
Presenter: So you don’t see yourself as some sort of modern day digital pirate then?
Fanjita: Absolutely not, absolutely not. The aim here was just to enable running of legitimate and personally developed software that would basically unlock the capabilities of the machine.
Presenter: But hang on a minute, this is a machine that Sony have designed and invested lots of money into, don’t they have the right to restrict what you can and can’t on it?
Fanjita: I don’t believe they have the right to restrict what you can do with a piece of equipment that you bought outright. If it was rented from them, then fair enough. But the fact that I’ve paid 200 pounds for a piece of electrical equipment that I then can only do what they tell me to do, that to me is frustrating.
Presenter: But what’s the difference between that and the sort of agreements you sign when you buy a bit of software.
Fanjita: Well, I think that’s the key difference, where’s the agreement, on the actual hardware? If there was an agreement like that, would people agree?
Presenter: So, you’ve got this machine, you’ve unlocked it, what is it that you are now going to be able to do what the rest of us who have got them in their plain ordinary form can’t do?
Fanjita: Well there is a whole wealth of things. It opens it up to this sort of “bedroom” industry of people churning out games, and all sorts of other creative things that they otherwise would not be allowed to do.
Presenter: But why not use a computer then, because the PSP doesn’t even have a keyboard?
Fanjita: That’s correct, but then again, most computers aren’t as portable. If you are sitting on a bus, it’s nice to be able to pop this thing out of your pocket and just play a simple game on it or something. More than that of course, there’s all sorts of other exciting applications that are opened up. For instance, there’s a guy that has written what’s effectively a Sat-Nav application for the PSP, that was something that was promised by Sony from the first day of the PSP. It took them about two years to come out with this thing, this guy beat them by about a year.
Presenter: But I guess this is a bit like all the arguments that go on about the free software that you can, or can’t download from the web. It’s sort of about people’s intellectual property rights and sort of about what people can and can’t do with something they’ve bought. There are going to be fights like this over and over again aren’t there?
Fanjita: Sure, sure, and I think it’s important for the industry to realize that restraining people in this sort of way, is something that they are going to object to.
Presenter: Ok. David Court, Professional programmer, thanks very much indeed.
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