The Power of the Hacking Community

narramissic writes "In the world of business software, vendors routinely offer tools to help developers customize applications. Not so in the consumer space, where TiVo and Xbox are notable exceptions. This article offers and interesting look at what companies have to gain — and lose — by embracing the hacker community. From the article: 'One example is TiVo Inc., founded in 1997 to develop digital video technology that allows users to record TV shows. TiVo, based on Linux, is an extensible platform, and from its early days the company welcomed hackers and professional developers. "When we first came out no one knew what DVR was," said Richard Bullwinkle, vice president of products at entertainment networking company Mediabolic Inc., and formerly a senior member of TiVo's product marketing team. "So we made it hacker friendly."'"

Gaming mod community

[HappySqurriel]

Much like the modding community with Videogames, if you produce an excellent product that is highly 'hackable' you will benefit from higher sales based off of free work others have done for you; at the same time though, if you produce an average or bad product that is highly 'hackable' few people will notice it ever existed.

Basically, make your product good first then worry about whether you want people to modify it or not.

Re:Gaming mod community

[Jacek Poplawski]

Doom and Sims are perfect examples of this.

Re:Gaming mod community

[Apocalypse111]

Even better - Half-Life. Remember, CounterStrike used to be just a lowly user-made mod for the original HL.

Re:

[MrNormS]

or Half-Life 2 and Garry's Mod for a more recent example.

Re:

[jrmiller84]

Very true, those guys now work for Valve if I remember correctly.

Re:

[cciRRus]

And now... many are playing the mod (map actually) DotA [wikipedia.org] on Warcraft III. It may be the next big hit.

Re:Gaming mod community

[hitmark]

doom? hardly hackable (out of the box at least) compared to quake ;)

the game itself was a mess of epic proportions. but it had this built in programming language called quakeC.

in many ways ID did a stupid thing when they moved to visual-C++ and similar for quake2, as i believe a lot of people modded quake because the tools where available free of charge.

hell, try out the original firearms mod for quake. its basically a gun customization mod where you can try out different real life guns in their various incarnations. just the M4 have clip, barrel, stock and sight mods, with 3+ variants for each locations.

the later games have had limited weapon slots. i believe that quake had no such limitations...

nothing like firing up the old beast with a new binary and get some insane rendering effects ;)

and when you can play a real time warhammer 40000 mod thats 99% faithful to the rules (using dice checks to see if you hit and so on) it just shows what people where doing back then.

still, it appears that recently there are mods like garrys mod (or something like that) for hl2, and a kind of real time nethack for doom3 (complete with random level layouts) that shows people are going back to creativity with the recent games.

In other words...

[Wilson_6500]

"When we first came out no one knew what DVR was.... So we made it hacker friendly."

Basically, they aimed it squarely at the "early adopter" segment so that they would spread the word.

Xbox hacking

[PHPee]

I'm trying my best not to sound like a Microsoft hater, but the summary/article makes it sound like Microsoft embraces the hacking community with open arms. In the article, reference is made to XNA, which is a framework Microsoft released that allows developers to create games for Windows and the Xbox 360. However, in order to develop for the 360, you need to pay to subscribe to their "XNA Creators Club". XNA also comes with a bunch of restrictions pertaining to the distribution of games created with it.

I don't really see this as "hacking" compared to all the independent work that's been done on the original Xbox. There, you see things like Xbox Media Center [xboxmediacenter.de], which is something I would consider a cool and useful hack, made by a community of like-minded hobbyists.

The Tivo part of the article was a much better example of the power of the hacking community.

Re:

[Enderandrew]

I firmly agree. Microsoft will never let this software on the 360, nor do they care for it on the original XBox. I know they want to combat piracy of games, but they should embrace and offer digital signatures for quality homebrew applications.

Microsoft has not embraced the hacker movement in the least, and while there is a lot of anti-Sony sentiment right now, I personally respect Sony for allowing Linux on the PS3 from day one.

I see it the other way...

[JMZero]

While it's great that Sony allows Linux to run, it does so without GPU support. This is a fairly major blow to anyone considering writing games for the thing - enough of a blow that I think PS3 Linux will end up being as exciting as PS2 Linux was (which is to say "not very exciting at all"). Sure there will be media players and what not, but without some tools (and GPU support) from Sony there's not going to be a lot of great games. And that's kind of a bad sign for a console.

In the other corner, I think

Re:

[Enderandrew]

Actually both Sony and MS are providing a means for indie developers to distribute their games via their online service. MS has provided XNA, but makes you pay a subscription to even consider trying to get your game noticed, and how you get it digitally signed and distributed is still unclear.

Sony released fl0w as a downloadable game via their service, and is actively trying to recruit indie developers as well.

The XNA is designed more for fairly large developers to easily develop a game for the XBox and Wi

Re:

[JMZero]

The XNA is designed more for fairly large developers to easily develop a game for the XBox and Windows simultaneously without going through the usual channels to get dev XBoxes.

I guess it might be "more" for somebody else - but XNA is certainly also targetted at hobbyists. For $99 a year, I can do XBox development. I can write a "real" game using most of the features of the console (minus networking for now). How I distribute that is currently up in the air, but I can get it running. And if I can never

Re:

[Enderandrew]

Sony has said that they eventually want to support homebrew games, they just haven't come forward with details.

In my opinion, that is the biggest problem with the PS3 right now. (not to fly tangental airlines)

Launch PS3 games aren't that superior to the 360 counterparts, and the sixaxis functionality is hardly used. Why? Because 360 developers got dev kits very early on. The PS3 developers were kept in the dark for ages, and then got dev kits at the last second. Less than a month away from launch, Beth

Re:

[JMZero]

I agree about BlueRay. I hear a lot of people trashing HD in general - saying it doesn't make much difference and you can't get content easily and it'll be replaced and what not.

All I know is I've watched BlueRay movies on a PS3 and a good projector and it's unreal-super-amazing time. The whole HD thing hasn't seemed to sell yet, but I think we're reaching a tipping point where there's enough content, enough people who've been impressed by it, and it's cheap enough that it goes crazy (like DVD did). And

Re:Xbox hacking

[JMZero]

Meh - at least there's some "legitimate" way to do development. I've done hobby development for a bunch of platforms, but it's never really been fully above board (ie. to develop for the Nintendo DS I flashed my firmware and used a gray-market flash cartridge). With very few exceptions (Dreamcast) it's always been difficult to distribute homebrew console apps. At least with the 360 there's the intimation that eventually there'll be a workable distribution path. In the meantime, getting started with XNA is free and it works pretty well (from my very limited testing).

While the 360 isn't exactly "designed to be hackable", I think MS deserves some credit for giving developers anything. Any fiddling I do with XNA and the 360 is more than I'd be doing with a Wii.

(Also, it's worth noting that the built-in media player on the 360 works pretty good (though it means an extra step of transcoding via VLC). I watch TV shows off my computer using it all the time. This was a big factor in me purchasing the thing as now I have only one device hooked up to the projector and it plays DVD's, games, and content from the computer. My wife is much happier with this setup.)

Re:

[Lost Engineer]

Also, it's worth noting that the built-in media player on the 360 works pretty good

This is one of the things that gets lost in the console wars. Try watching movies on your Wii.

Re:

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

FWIW, the FreeBSD project recently commited a new geom_xbox360 class to the development tree. I don't have any experience with it (just been reading the mailing list), but it provides access to the hard disk through the GEOM system.

Glad to hear that someone's been hacking the DS. I own the old and new revisions and have considered trying to write an application to drive my home stereo setup (which is connected to a server via an RS-232 link) via the touchscreen. It would be sweet to hit a button on the

Re:

[Statecraftsman]

I agree with your point that hacking many platforms is difficult but that people are doing it is probably the best way to improve the hackability of future platforms. If hardware vendors see hackability as a desired feature, they will enable it. My original reason for replying was just to counter the impression that running homebrew on the DS(including http://dslinux.org/ [dslinux.org]) no longer requires flashing the firmware or taking the chance that you'll brick your hardware. The latest NoPass devices, let you run a

Re:

[KUHurdler]

I've purchased 2 (used) xboxes just so I can run XBMC. I still have never owned (or played) a game on either of them. I'm not sure why MS would ever try to cater to my desires.

XBMC rules, if something similar could run on xbox360 (and could decode HD files), I would buy it in a heartbeat.

AMEN!

[BLKMGK]

I run XBMC on my XBOX - bought for thatpurpose - and hacked two more as holiday gifts for friends, both with XBMC. I and they do run some XBOX games on them but the primary purpose for me is media. In fact I will be modding another soon for my other TV.

The XBOX360 is interesting but until it's hacked to run 3rd party unsigned code I won't be buying one. Media Extender crap won't cut it and I know Microsoft will never release features like XBMC has. I could care less about pirating games for it - which can b

Ehhhh

[Devv]

If you make some thing too easy to hack, people will call you when they break things," Baldwin said. Then, the vendor loses money when the help desk aids users sort though problems, he noted. "You have to achieve a balance, it's hard to know where to set the dial," Bullwinkle said.

And having a forum where the hackers meet won't solve this problem. If it would be a problem the forum would be spammed with questions about it until a "set it right" tutorial is posted and stickied.

Oblig.

[r_jensen11]

So how often do Dell and Microsoft get calls because some script kiddie broke someone else's computer?

Sounds familiar...

[sammy baby]

"When we first came out no one knew what DVR was," said Richard Bullwinkle, vice president of products at entertainment networking company Mediabolic Inc., and formerly a senior member of TiVo's product marketing team. "So we made it hacker friendly."'"

"Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a brand new consumer electronics must-have out of this hat!"

"Aw, that trick never works!"

*ROOOOAR!*

"I gotta get a new hat!"

Re:

[shotgunsaint]

Props for the Rocky and Bullwinkle refrence. If I had mod points, I'd give you one. MOD PARENT UP!!! RECOGNIZE THE BULLWINKLE!

Re:

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

WTF, who modded that offtopic? Rocky and Bullwinkle rocks! I used to get up at like six in the morning when I was little to watch that show.

No kidding

[ricree]

Sony Corp. has been too strict about preventing users from playing around with hacks into products like the PlayStation Portable, Bullwinkle and other panelists agreed. Even though the PSP modding community has had to fight Sony every step of the way, they've still been able to do some pretty cool things. COuld you imagine what might have happened if they actually had been able to just do what they wanted, or even been encouraged by Sony? There might actually be a reason for someone to buy one of them.

Hmm...an interesting thought.

[Pojut]

Say a company created a console with the sole intent of KNOWING people were going to hack it. I can udnerstand the companies wanting to prevent people from playing downloaded ISO's, but that's not what I'm referring to. I'm refering to the Xbox DVR or Linux Box, things like that.

If word gets out into the hacking community that the new Gametron 3000 is designed in such a way to ENCOURAGE people to muck with the innards...well, it might do something good.

Take the PS3 for example. Nearly every discussion on the PS3 has the fact that linux is easily loaded to it popping up. It's a shame there is so much negative thinking about the system...in fact, in retrospect, the PS2 was rather simple as well.

HDAdvance + Network Adapter + 200 gig hard drive = fun. Add in a flip top, and it's even more fun. (Altho sony seemed to learn from that mistake by making a slot-loading mechanism this time)

Something that I find to be funny, and something I have noticed few people think about: a PC or laptop is basically a tool that is sold that encourages people to fuck with it...it's a blank slate, a universal tool to be done with whatever someone wants. No restrictions, no nothing (unless of course you are trying to overclock most brand name computers).

Interesting to think about things like that...

Re:Hmm...an interesting thought.

[MBCook]

They exist. They are not nearly as advanced as even the PS1 in most respects, but they exist.

The X Games Station [xgamestation.com] was the first that I know of. Not terrifically powerful, but there, and designed by Andre LaMothe.

Then there is the recently released HYDRA [wikipedia.org] (which I can't find the official link for) which is based on the Parallax Propeller chip which is like the Cell in that it has 8 SPEs so it's very multiprocessor but you can do all sorts of interesting things. Obviously, it's no where near as powerful though. This was also designed by Andre LaMothe.

Re:

[Pojut]

oooo, thank you. I was unaware that these were even around... ::evil grin:: who am I kidding, I can barely do VB...I can put together a PCB no problem, but if you ask me to program anything more than hello world, forget it lol.

Still, thanks for the links, should make for some interesting reading

Re:

[MBCook]

They both come with books that explain exactly how EVERYTHING works. The XGS uses a SX-Key processor so you can program it in ASM or even C and such. The Propeller processor in the HYDRA can be programmed in it's ASM or a special language they made to make development easy to teach and learn but powerful called Spin that is based on Pascal, IIRC.

No better way to learn how stuff works than programming the metal. I learned a TON when I used to experiment with programming GBA games on how consoles worked.

Re:

[Lodragandraoidh]

...something I have noticed few people think about: a PC or laptop is basically a tool that is sold that encourages people to fuck with it...it's a blank slate, a universal tool to be done with whatever someone wants.

A PC (and I'm not talking about an OEM model for the grandma - I am talking about a purpose built game box) by definition makes the best gaming system:

1. You can upgrade it.
2. It can handle complex controls via keyboard mapping and add-on controllers (for, say flight simulation and other comp

Re:

[FleaPlus]

Say a company created a console with the sole intent of KNOWING people were going to hack it. I can udnerstand the companies wanting to prevent people from playing downloaded ISO's, but that's not what I'm referring to. I'm refering to the Xbox DVR or Linux Box, things like that.

If word gets out into the hacking community that the new Gametron 3000 is designed in such a way to ENCOURAGE people to muck with the innards...well, it might do something good.

It isn't a console, but the GP2X linux-based portable d

Re:

[cadu]

There is one that's gaining status out there and was made with hacking in mind: the handheld *GP2X*

Pros:

- This thing is made from the start to be homebrew-friendly
- Runs a small ARM linux distro
- 200mhz (overclock-able) ARM9 + another 200mhz arm9 used for things like decoding video on the fly (but people managed to put asm code directly onto the second core, making it essentially a sound processor or a mini-GL implementation)
- People ported python+pygame onto it
- ... (etc etc etc loads of fun)
- runs on 2 AA

Hacking is just that, a hack.

[fatnicky]

No one these days considers hacking a legitimate business concern or strategy. If one did, then aside from defining a broad and inefficient standard of what hacking consists of, a guy would certainly run his budget dry trying to either patch every known issue or simply become consumable fodder for his competition. What we need is less of the Kevin Mitnik ideals and more of the "let me introduce you to PMITA prison if you break the law". Jus sayin...

Actually your wrong Irobot created such a product

[technoextreme]

Irobot just recently released their newest product called the Create. Essentially it is a stripped down Rhoomba created for the sole purpose of building off of it. A blank slate if you will to do whatever you want to with it. Now mind you this came out after four different generations of robots but it seems like an acceptance by a company that people want to hack them and that they could sell something solely for that purpose.

Re:

[deathy_epl+ccs]

No one these days considers hacking a legitimate business concern or strategy. If one did, then aside from defining a broad and inefficient standard of what hacking consists of, a guy would certainly run his budget dry trying to either patch every known issue or simply become consumable fodder for his competition.What we need is less of the Kevin Mitnik ideals and more of the "let me introduce you to PMITA prison if you break the law".Jus sayin...

I could be wrong, but you appear to misunderstand the use of the term "hacking" used in this article. Perhaps the term "homebrew development" might more correctly define the meaning of the article without confusing the issue by using the term "hack."

iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs needs to read this. Anyone here have his email address?

Re:iPhone

[93,000]

[e-mail]

You're welcome.

Re:

[Zaurus]

Nah, he wasn't at Apple when email became commonplace, so since "sjobs" had already been taken, he chose:

[e-mail]

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

[e-mail]

Mutual Respect

[twistedsymphony]

I think another important aspect in this... and keeping with the TiVo/Xbox theme. TiVo embrased the hacking community, they made their product hackable, and that gained TiVo a lot of respect from the hackers. So while TiVo makes some money from the fact that you have to buy a subscription to their TV listings the hacking community has pretty much ignored trying to screw over TiVo by circumventing the paying for the service. TiVo is happy, and the hackers are happy and the consumer gets a powerful and customizable product.

On the Xbox, the Xbox Linux people pushed and asked nicely for an official distro so they could customize the box. Microsoft refused and as a result the security holes were all blown way out into the open. MS didn't embrace the hacking community, they resisted it and as a result not only is their product hacked it's also insecure and allows games to be pirated very easily. The hacking community satisfied themselves regardless of MS's blessing, and MS isn't happy because their console has been exploited. I'm sure customers would also be more satisfied with the Xbox if it allowed some of the hacked features to be available legally as well.

The moral of the story: Hackers will get their way regardless, if you resist them you'll only end up disappointed, but if you embrace them you might wind up with a superior product and it's not like you'd be loosing anything because your sh*t would get hacked regardless of your choice.

Tivo breaks intent of GPL; hostile to hackers.

[ChaosDiscord]

The entire point of the GPL is that hackers can modify and replace GPLed software. Tivo's hardware refuses to run modified Linux kernels, ignoring the intent of the the license they agreed to. It may be legal, but it's not morally right, and it certainly is the opposite of "embracing the hacker community." That same community that gave them the operating system they built upon. It's an insult.

Re:Tivo breaks intent of GPL; hostile to hackers.

[novus ordo]

I agree that it's an insult to include Tivo as a hackable platform. Tivo gave rise to the term Tivoization [wikipedia.org] and Tivo is *the* main reason for GPLv3. In comparison, Neuros [neurostechnology.com] is a much better example of a hackable platform than Tivo.

Completely agree - the article is crap!

[BLKMGK]

They make it sound like TIVO offers some huge help for hackers. In the beginning I'm pretty sure some arm twisting had to be done to even get them to post the changes they made to source per the GPL requirement. Even if that's not true look at what we have today - S2.5 boxes and S3 boxes. The S2.5 requires a hardware mod to the SMT PROM in order to modify the software signatures so modified kernels can be run. The S3, last I checked Dealdatabase, has yet to be hacked! Why? Because they have seriously locked

Kasp3r the friendly Hackzor

[QueePWNzor]

Helping find hacks is now a real thing. People can now get paid, too. By making it hackable, they can get the knowledge without having to pay big bucks. It allows for flexability, and both the companies and hackers can fix it far more easily. I approve!

Re:

[choongiri]

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:

[another_fanboy]

Overuse of a word? Inconceivable!

Computer industry learned this long ago...

[jo42]

The computer industry learned this lesson long ago with the Apple ][ and IBM PC. Everything was documented - even the source to the BIOS was available. This allowed for 3rd parties to easily create software and hardware for them. People bought the machines and then all the add ons. Somewhere along the way, this lesson was completely forgotten. The various gaming consoles and the Apple iPhone being perfect examples.

In particluar:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The computer industry learned this lesson long ago with the Apple ][ and IBM PC. Everything was documented - even the source to the BIOS was available. This allowed for 3rd parties to easily create software and hardware for them.

In particular, they learned it anew when Apple follwed the open Apple ][ with the closed Lisa and initially-closed MAC, at which poiont IBM's very-open PC and the clone army took over most of the market.

Pity about Apple then

[mustafap]

A very timely posting.

I was very excited yesterday when I heard the news of the Apple iPhone. At last! A phone I can actually control, a have my own software running on! I can integrate into voice mail and SMS!

Not to be. Apple have, perhaps, given in to the airtime providers who want to lock us into old, expensive ways of working. While "Ring Tones" is a multi billion dollar business our mobile phones are going to remain retarded.

I wonder if some one will create a phone that frees us from these chains, and then shows an advert in the superbowl of a 1984 style advert... like, er, Apple?

What a pity.

Re:

[evil_Tak]

http://www.openmoko.com/ [openmoko.com]

Re:

[mustafap]

Thanks for the link. It looks crap, but I guess Steve can't be everywhere :o)

Re:

[yandros]

Sadly, it is kind of crap -- no WiFi, slow USB, little storage. You'll have to use external memory cards, which is probably a good thing, since you'll want to plug them in and put stuff on them using a real machine, instead of anything built into the phone.

Also, they've been delayed again for ``hardware issues''.

Honestly, I despair of ever seeing a decent hackable hardware device that's very portable and has both decent-speed and large-coverage communication options. For my own part, I gave in a few mon

Re:

[SUROK]

i completly agree, who even downloads rigtones anyway.. just put an mp3 on your phone. i have a gig of music on my phone and i can use what ever i want as my ringtone.. just using usb to transfer stuff to my phone via miniusb

Re:

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I _really_ don't understand the appeal of ringtones. Who the f cares what the ringer sounds like? The dang things shouldn't even _be_ ringing audibly in most situations anyway. JFC!

At first I just thought I was being slightly eccentric with my disdain for popular American culture, now I'm beginning to wonder if it's just to keep my sanity.

Liability issue?

[TheWoozle]

When I think of the earliest consumer electronics, I think of TVs and vacuum-tube radios, both of which have high-voltage components. Take the case off either, and a stray touch with a screwdriver can have "electrifying" results.

I'm guessing that the culture of closed consumer electronics systems started with early fears of liability if people tried to modify their electronics. Not that that stopped anybody (myself included).

Re:

[aeschenkarnos]

The electronics industry actually predates today's culture of quivering, trembling, pants-wetting terror of anything that might even hint at liability. Have a look in electronics magazines from the 60's: "Hey kids! Build your own Tesla Coil in your back yard!"

WRT54G

[Metasquares]

The Linksys WRT54G is an excellent example of what could be gained by making your products "hacker-friendly" (for the original, "good" meaning of hacker).

Re:

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I have one at home and it works great. However, I've heard that Linksys modified the newer models such that they're not as hackable as they used to be. ISTR hearing something about them now running something other than Linux kernel.

Re:

[Metasquares]

The newer models run VxWorks and have about half the RAM, but you can still run the "micro" version of DD-WRT on them.

Re:

[yandros]

They also sell a `Linux Friendly' version, the WRT54GL [linksys.com]. It's generally about $10 more than the VxWorks version (which has less memory, as you mentioned).

Not quite!

[BLKMGK]

The WRT54G and GS were NOT "hacker friendly". Do a little reading - when those boxes came out Linksys didn't say Boo about themrunning Linux. It wasn't until someone downloaded one of their firmware "updates" that they figured out it was a compressed Linux Distro! Afterwards all hell broke loose as Linksys tried to NOT honor the GPL. In the end they were not only forced to honor the GPL for the WRT54 but for several other devices too once folks started looking HARD at their firmware.

The new WRT54 boxes run

Selling hardware at a loss?

[Myself]

Contrast the iOpener [linux-hacker.net], which was a little web terminal sold at a loss with the plan of recouping the cost by selling service subscriptions. But rather than following the cellphone model, where the hardware is only discounted if you sign up for service, they just trusted that nobody would buy the hardware without also buying service.

When hackers realized it was a generic PC and started buying them en masse, iOpener responded by smearing glue on the circuit board, changing the BIOS, and generally sticking their head in the sand. Linksys got it right with the WRT54GL: sell the good hardware directly to hackers at a fair price.

Today, iOpener is but a sad little footnote in the annals of hardware-hacker history, while the WRT54G(L) is riding high.

Every once in a while, I get angry at hackers who aim to make Xbox or PSP hardware more useful by imbuing it with software that doesn't suck. "Why would you aid the enemy by embracing their hacker-hostile business?", I agonize. Then I remember that those game systems are sold at a loss. Awesome. :)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

...until Linksys basically discontinued the WRT54G as we knew it, making it hacker-unfriendly, then re-releasing the GL version for $20-30 more than you could get it initially.

Meanwhile, Buffalo Tech makes the WHM-G54(-/S), which is more or less the exact same hardware as the GL in a slightly different form factor, for cheaper than the non-L version of the Linksys router.

Re:

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

...until Linksys basically discontinued the WRT54G as we knew it, making it hacker-unfriendly, then re-releasing the GL version for $20-30 more than you could get it initially.

To their credit, this is actually fairly common in the electronics industry. You start by selling a device (possibly at a loss) with expensive parts, in order to just get your product onto the market. Shortly after you've released the original product, you create a new revision using cheaper components and recapture the profits you lost on the first revision. The fact that Linksys continues to produce the WRT54GL version at all shows that they understand the value of being hacker-friendly.

IOpener was FAR worse thanthat!

[BLKMGK]

A little story... I went down to Circuit City to buy one of those but they were out of stock. I paid for it anyway and used my credit card. Weeks went by and I got a letter in the mail from IOpener that stated that they had AMENEDED their licensing. I could "still purchase" their device but that if I did so and didn't sign up for their service in X days my CREDIT CARD would be billed something like $350!

Now, HOW did they get my ADDRESS? HOW did they get my CREDIT CARD number? Why it seems that Circuit City

Re:IOpener was FAR worse than that!

[yandros]

Years ago, when the IOpener first came out, I was moving into a new place. I ordered two of the devices, hoping one of them would be suitable for my parents (and planning on hacking the other one). As I didn't yet have home network yet (installations were slow in those days), but I did have a phone line, I signed up for the IOpener network service, tried it out, and after a short while cancelled it. They weren't terribly happy, but I did manage to cancel the service without too much trouble.

Then, about

Dreambox DVB set-top boxes / DVRs

[znark]

One of the interesting hackable Linux-based products on the European market (available in America, too, but only as a sat receiver version) is the Dreambox family of digital set-top boxes and PVRs [wikipedia.org].

Dreamboxes are DVB set-top boxes [wikipedia.org] that can, depending on the model, ...

• ...receive over-the-air (DVB-T [wikipedia.org]) terrestrial digital broadcasts (better known with the moniker "Freeview" [wikipedia.org] in the UK)
• ...and/or satellite broadcasts (DVB-S [wikipedia.org])
• ...and/or digital cable (DVB-C [wikipedia.org])

...and record the MPEG-2 Transport Stream data either to an internal HDD, or to a network share (NFS, CIFS), without restrictions. The better models have two tuners, so you can record from two MUXes simultaneously. The firmware images are Linux-based and typically have a web interface, telnet server, ssh server, busybox shell, samba server, etc. There are various unofficial, enhanced firmware images for the various Dreambox models - with user-written plugins, etc. - and a thriving (if a bit too diverse and decentralized) user community [google.com].

The manufacturer (Dream Multimedia GmbH [dream-multimedia-tv.de]) is supportive of unofficial development. (Hackability is one of the main selling points of their whole set-top box product range.)

Misleading Summary

[mpapet]

In case you didn't know Tivo is at least one of the parties to blame for starting a GPL V3 by creating a novel way to simultaneously privatize a Linux-based OS and keep it out of the hands of hackers. It's called tivoization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization [wikipedia.org] and it's a novel form of theft.

The summary is propaganda at best.

How Microsoft got Big

[BillGatesLoveChild]

In the good ole days hardware makers would bend over backwards to attract programmers to their platforms. Now many of them (Hi Steve) are intent on locking us out.

One reason Microsoft got soooo big was they made it easy to get the Windows+DirectX+whatever-else SDK and didn't charge use the usual license fees or royalties that the (commercially unsuccessful) vendors did. This is one difference between Jobs and Gates.

are you kidding me?

[drumvudu]

This guys name is really Dick Bullwinkle? I'm never gonna stop laughing...

TiVo And ReplayTV

[erexx23]

"When we first came out no one knew what DVR was," said Richard Bullwinkle

Then I have no idea what my ReplayTV is, why I keep using it or even what I am using it for... ungh...
Can I re-invent the wheel too?

Maybe I'll just make it look different and give it a new spiffy name.
Q: What's a TiVo?
A: Its like a ReplayTV.
Oh, OK!

Let the first guy get sued into oblivion and then I'll get my chance to claim it all for myself.

My life for you!
bumpity, bump, bump...

hacking

[wenko]

Its true...companies can benefit...look at the ever-so-hackable WRT54G and GL Linksys released another version that supported being hacked...they made a lot of money from "hackers" Alll tho they have lost money on other hacks such as the Linksys PAP2 which sells for next to nothing...this is costing Vonage more than its costing Linksys but you get the point

Re:

[Lagmo]

Indeed Linksys(and hence Cisco) does seem to have embraced the enhusiast modding community the NLSU2 is quite popular too.
I think the cases used in the article are poor examples of 'hacker' friendly hardware & companies. Companies like Linksys, Dream Multimedia and Gamepark(GP2X) seem much more dedicated to allowing free access to their hardware.
A lot of game developers saw the potential a long time ago and we have quite a few good games that are still great today because of it. Only thing that can be

The I-Opener Lesson

[hduff]

And if you make hackable hardware and _don't_ embrace the hacker community, you can share all the success of the ahref=http://fastolfe.net/2006/iopener/faqrel=url2 html-21081 [slashdot.org]http://fastolfe.net/2006/iopener/faq> I-Opener

TI Calculators

[generationxyu]

When TI started putting out graphing calculators, especially the TI-82 and TI-85, they were a relatively closed platform. They had a BASIC dialect for writing programs in, but it was essentially useless for writing anything longer than the quadratic formula. When you can only see seven lines of code, and you only have one letter variables and no comments, it's not exactly aimed at structured programming. They ran on Z80 processors, had a decent amount of RAM, and everything else... but no one could figur

Re:

[Drantin]

What they did on the 85 was modify a backup file (.85b) that was on their PC and replace the memory address of the first entry on the Recall menu to point to their ASM program rather than a BASIC app... This was done independantly in several places, but no BASIC app was AFAIK ever involved in the actual running of the ASM...

Also interesting for the 85 was a seldom used compiler someone made that took the Hex representation of an ASM instruction and converted it to machine code... fun times...

Re:

[generationxyu]

I never had an 85, so I can't attest to how they did it (but google 85-hack.txt and you should find it). But on the 82 they inserted a 1x1 matrix variable into the backup, with the element being stored at $IMPORTANT_ADDRESS. Then they had a BASIC program called A which stored a value in that element. TI-OS would use the address stored in $IMPORTANT_ADDRESS as a key-handling routine, so you ran A, which put some address in $IMPORTANT_ADDRESS, and then pressed a key, and TI-OS would jump to that address (w

Re:

[Drantin]

Ah... that's right... it was the custom menu, not the recall menu... been too long and my brother broke my 85 years ago...