Sony thinks it’s a good idea to track your DNA to prevent piracy
Website playstationlifestyle.net uncovered recently a Sony patent that describes a system to track your fingerprints, iris, and dna in order to prevent hacking and piracy, as well as for targeted advertising purpose. Sounds like a great idea… not.
Your Identity and your privacy are today the major assets giant tech companies fight to control. Google has proven that targeted advertising is a very profitable business, and all companies want their share of the loot on your personal information. Beyond this, companies like Sony, that sell digital products, are spending considerable amounts of money to protect their products from piracy, through the use of malware DRMs.
In and “ideal” world, DRMs would recognize the person who paid for some specific digital content, and let that person use the digital content on whatever hardware they want, whenever they want. This was, actually, the promise of DRMs and of the cloud. But practically, what DRMs actually are today is a strong limitation in how you can use your purchased content, which is usually restricted to a few devices (it used to be 5 for Sony, it is now 2), a few allowed copies (something that goes against the law of many countries), and is in general a major pain in the a##. People who bought Ubisoft games recently might know what I am talking about. Bottom line is, DRMs are not doing what they are supposed to do.
Sony think they might have a solution, by providing a patent which proposes to recognize a user through biometrics, such as their fingerprints, iris, or DNA. Such a system they say, would allow to create a system such as “By associating content with an authorized user, each download may be made unique so that only the authorized user (e.g., one who has paid for the content) will be able to access it. Such a technique may be used to prevent hacking or copying to steal music, software, video games or other copyrighted content“.
In other parts of the patent, Sony explain: “the invention can be used to prevent unauthorized sharing of online accounts. A biometric identifier, such as a fingerprint ID, that is generated during ordinary use of the online content allows the content server to determine whether a user attempting to access an online account is the user associated with that account.”
Sony also mentions improvements to targeted advertising, when your device (potentially your console) knows who is actually currently using it.
Well, I’m all for the possibility to play the content I purchased everywhere I want. But storing my DNA on the servers of the number 1 target of hackers worldwide is definitely not the solution to that. How about we simply get rid of DRMs, and let people enjoy the content they purchased however they want? Last time I checked, selling mp3s without DRM seemed to work pretty well for companies like Apple and Amazon (Affiliate link). HumbleBundle is doing great with DRM free video games, etc…
Hopefully, this is one of those patents that get filled but never used… How about you, would you like Sony to play with your biometric information? Do you think hacks in the future will require you to alter your DNA with the help of radioactive injections?
Source playstationLifestyle.net, thanks to @Bobo_PK and @KaKaRoToKS
depends on if you have the runs, and or explosive diarhea. lol. plus how many porcelian pings you have during your throne use. they measure the pings like sonar. cant finish reply gotta go gonns hsve accident and dont have on depends.
No more public restrooms, gotta go back home and log-in to your toilet.
Okay so…spend 200 million dollars for handheld devices that scan DNA. Then saved about 50k because it prevented pirating. Brilliant!
Is Sony degrading from bad to worse ?
To be honest, I did have VHBL on my vita(through MHFU) but I decided to remove the exploit since VHBL isn’t ready. I use my regular PSP for all that instead since it’s simple and more easy to use. Besides, Monster Hunter is a good game. But things like this is causing disruptions for all players since they need to shutdown PSN for them to patch up the mess you made. And now stuff like this DNA tracking for PIRACY? You should of stayed with the PSP because the VITA isn’t worth it. I’m going to assume when you first saw the VITA you thought Haaaaaaaaax(Not to be confused with Dr.Hax). To summarize, the VITA is fine without all this homebrew. You already conquered PSP. I’d leave it there.
I think you might be confused about what vhbl can and cant do. Vhbl is definitely “ready” on the mh exploit. What exactly are you expecting from vhbl that it isn’t providing? Also, psn maintenance has nothing to do with vhbl
Don’t worry people, its taken Sony 6+ years to develop a console which isn’t the size of my house and which doesn’t have the heat output of a dying star, therefore I don’t think that there is any danger of them developing this before the human race has evolved into an ethereal species with no physical manifestation to track.
The time taken to download and install the system updates would have to be measured in eons.
If they do it, I will swear off Sony and switch to another brand that does not do that. That is just not right.
No I’m sorry, to heck with Sony. George Orwell’s “1984” anyone? I won’t touch a Sony product with a 10ft pole and while I’m at it the same goes for Apple.
If this becomes the norm for DRM; TV will be my only source
of entertainment…
This *** is going too far…
The person who even thought of this should be shot.
The biggest envasion of privacy you could do to a person
just so a company doesnt lose $5? what next, hair samples to
be able to buy a DVD player?
i’m in love with steam and i’m happy with it.
steam only requires an username and a password and thats all. i can travel to another country, can go to a friend, could login there with my account and can play my games without limitations..
well. i cannot resell my games but at least i know that i can download them as often as i want, where i want.
(each humblebundle pops out steam keys aswell)