Microsoft Encouraging Hacking?

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
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Microsoft looks to have a shift in policy concerning hardware hackers. MS has recruited George “Geohot” Hotz to take a crack at a Windows 7 phone and see what he can make of it. You may know the name from the Sony PS3 legal wrangling.

It may seem counterintuitive compared to the strategies of their rival companies, but Microsoft appears to be trying to win over gamers with more lenient policies regarding hardware hackers.
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Or maybe they are trying to recruit a very talented young man.
 
overall good for MS. Software makers have thrown out EULAs out there, showing that we really don't own software we buy, but they'll have a hard time arguing we don't own the hardware we buy.
 
Hopefully they can develop a hacker community similar to the one Palm fostered by making their webOS completely open from the start. One where people have made it easy to modify your OS almost every single way you could want, look of things, the way things work, adding functions, side loading of apps, overclock your hardware, and most importantly for the OS provider - a community of modders completely against piracy.
 
sfsuphysics said:
overall good for MS. Software makers have thrown out EULAs out there, showing that we really don't own software we buy, but they'll have a hard time arguing we don't own the hardware we buy.
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DirecTV actually does that already. You have to buy the receiver hardware, agree to a 2 year contract to get the hardware, you have to pay a monthly fee per receiver (that you've already bought), and then if you cancel even 10 years later you have to return the receiver to them because at cancellation all your equipment reverts to being DirecTVs again.
 
Pretty sure he'll find a way to hack it and then tell MS so they can patch it up. Then once they're done with him then he'll find another way to hack it and then release it for the general public.
 
When I was growing up there were news stories about MS hiring hackers they stopped doing about the time they started outsourcing.
 
Ualdayan said:
DirecTV actually does that already. You have to buy the receiver hardware, agree to a 2 year contract to get the hardware, you have to pay a monthly fee per receiver (that you've already bought), and then if you cancel even 10 years later you have to return the receiver to them because at cancellation all your equipment reverts to being DirecTVs again.
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Sounds like the phone companies of old, how they would 'rent' you all of your actual phones. Super shitty practice.......
 
Ualdayan said:
DirecTV actually does that already. You have to buy the receiver hardware, agree to a 2 year contract to get the hardware, you have to pay a monthly fee per receiver (that you've already bought), and then if you cancel even 10 years later you have to return the receiver to them because at cancellation all your equipment reverts to being DirecTVs again.
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Well there's a bit of a difference between leasing/renting and buying. You might think you're buying their receiver, but you're not, just because you give them money they usually say something like "connection fee" or something other silly. I'm not arguing on the point of it sucks, I'm just saying that's what it's considered.

however if you buy a Wii, Xbox, PS3, whatever it should be yours to do with as you wish in any way. Unfortunately the DMCA (I believe) makes it illegal to circumvent any sort of encryption, which usually is required to do anything with it.
 
wonder what ms would do if they totaly open up the 360 in the same way as ps3 is right now and geohotz releases stuff for it then. they'd lawyer faster than sony
 
Yaka said:
wonder what ms would do if they totaly open up the 360 in the same way as ps3 is right now and geohotz releases stuff for it then. they'd lawyer faster than sony
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That's the point, they rather have the guy hack their stuff "legitimately" in-house than just wait for him and his peers to do it anyway on their own. And like someone said with skills like that the guy is probably a good hire anyways.
 
This guy really is talented at what he does. Any company would be foolish to pass up hiring him.
 
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