Sony Can Access Your Device Even When You Aren’t Signed In To PSN. Is It Legal?
Sony may have more access to your PlayStation devices than you may know. I encountered something very interesting on my PS Vita, and to be honest with you, I’m not sure if it is legal. Here’s the story.
I had just woken up and got out of bed. My PS Vita was left on overnight and I needed to check my email. so, I put two and two together and figured I should just check it on my Vita. When I tapped the power button to take it out of stand-by mode, I was greeted with to notifications. Both said “The LiveArea screen has been refreshed” one for Video and one for the PSN store. I’m pretty sure you all have gotten it before. It looked like this:
When I saw this, I stood there for a moment and furrowed my brow. I’m a bit paranoid when it comes to companies monitoring what I do, so I only sign into PSN when I have to (by the way why in the frick do you have to be signed in to PSN to use TuneIn and Crackle?). How could my PSN Store LiveArea be refreshed when I wasn’t signed in?
That is the end of my story, now lets get into the speculations. Yes, for those of you that are wondering, my wifi was turned on. Even so, does Sony have any right to access the device that they sold to me, and made a profit off of? I have come up with some possible ways for this disrespectful, unauthorized occurrence.
The first one, how does Sony know I even have a PSN account? How do they even know there is something there to update? They don’t. Then how is it possible for them to do this. Here is what I think, either I am not actually signed out of PSN when it shows I am signed out, or Sony spyware installed on my Vita. I guess that last one seems a bit bogus, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Another, and much more likely possibility is has a database of the IPs of all of the Vita’s out there with a PSN account, and they just send out updates to those ones. They were thinking, “oh yeah we could just send these systems stuff and no one will ever know!”. One little flaw, Sony was expecting that people always stayed signed in to PSN.
I was not signed in.
Well, if it is any of these, (or anything else for that matter) I’m not sure if it is allowed. Since when were people able to send stuff to your devices, legally, without your permission? In this case I don’t really care, I kind of like it when my LiveArea screens are up to date, but to think that Sony has the ability to do this makes me feel violated. Yes, hit below the belt kind of violated.
Yes, this was on my PS Vita, but if Sony can do it there, why not on PS3s and PS4s? I’m gonna set up some proxies now people! In the comments, tell me some of your ideas of how Sony was able to commit this appalling act. That’s all for now from me, The Jay Doctor . I you’d like, I can be followed and contacted on Twitter @The_Jay_Doctor.
WOAH
It could also be that if the Vita uses the DB on the memory card to store information abiut every app on the Vita, then Sony could just be pushing updates to each Vita that has been connected to the PSN store at some point in time to ensure that the catalog stays updated. This wod relieve stress on their own servers by having a portion of the catalogue place on individual Vitas. Doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re being spied or that Sony is collecting information about you.
That’s a good point you have there
it is legal. read the eula, “3. SERVICES AND UPDATES; THIRD PARTY AGREEMENTS AND CONTENT”
http://www.scei.co.jp/psvita-eula/psvita_eula_engb.html
EULA’s Do not override the law.
If sony had a bit saying, “You agree to supply your first born child for undisclosable reasons”.
Would you still say its legal and point out that part of the EULA?
not only becouse its in on the eula, manual o contract it means that is legal ¬¬
I think you are completely wrong about this..
The live area for the PlayStation Store is a part of the PS Vita’s FW as is the Store itself..
The live area is Automatically updated as its meant to with the latest Apps and Games or even older ones just to display on the live area of that particular live area its for…
It is not updating anything that you own.. We (PS Vita users) apparently do not own the Vita’s Firmware..
This is the same as the PS3 as it does do the same thing with the icons when you have the Store icon highlighted..
Please correct me if im wrong..
I think that too. the PS Vita FW is looking for the update, it knows you have an account you’re just not signed in.
so Sony is not actively in your PSVita doing something to make it happen.
Yes you’re wrong. The Vita itself checks on the outside to update all the little circles of all your apps if your system is connected to wifi (like mine is connected to wifi even in sleep mode) and it does this even if you don’t have a PSN account cnfigured. It’s in the firmware to do this periodically.
exactly. btw if they want to spy you, they could add extra library on every game and send secret data at the same time the said game sending data.
The psn app jus refresh…
That’s a really good way of putting it that does make sense, but do you think on planet spying cronyism…that that’s any kind of an accident lol? With all due respect, snowden leaks etc. prove entirely otherwise, that they are so spying it’s insane!
This echoes the concerns I had 2 years ago when I called Sony’s customer service regarding their “content Manager Assistant” needing to be constantly connected to their servers even when I was copying personal files (photos, music…) from and to my Vita.
At the time they “assured me no personal data was collected”…
http://wololo.net/2011/12/29/ps-vita-content-manager-and-security-concerns/
Ikr. Shoutout to Virtous Flame
Your personal data is so being collected lol. It’s not even a question there’s 0 doubt. I know the gaming outlets are supposed to be looked down on because they keep people distracted from reality and whatnot…pish posh…pokemon on psp was the shiznit!!! And with articles like this, it proves the integrity of this outlet that I swear I check…EVERY…DAY LOL.
And actually ya know….most mornings I check here before I even check infowars….I swear… someone hack me and see if I’m telling the truth lol. So yeah I really do like this place and thanks for being here all of you guys, doing what you guys do. Your good people.
its more like the vita is pulling from an update page on its own, as it does turn on and checks
Maybe it’s only the “ads” on the PS Store start screen?
The one with the images of what’s new/hot right now
Still, they are connecting without ‘permission’
Maybe you should disconnect from the internet then. If it’s the wifi only version, why stay online 24/7?
Actually you have to give it permission to update liveareas
Bingo!
I do think that the psvita does not disconnect when standby, maybe the psn goes into a not available mode, but still connected.
Jam_Hank was not blurred very good
I’m pretty sure when you buy a vita you’re not actually buying the vita – you’re just buying permission to use it while ownership stays with sony or some other Business BS they pull out. So it is legal… but to me it ain’t moral
You own the hardware but the software is theirs
Yeah, and that goes with all software including OS, apps, programs or whatever. You are only purchasing the license to use it. And buying a disk is merely a method of distribution for that software. You pay for the license.
(soz forgot about mentioning hardware is yours haha that would be even worse) I meant the vita bios and stuffffz.
So would this make vita emulation (or any nextgen console emulation) illegal since the bios you’re using on emulators are never yours? whoa… then again.. who cares.. if you don’t let us buy it (or falsely promise it), then we’ll find a way around it, regardless of whatever consequences sony or any other big guy will try to throw at us.
I think vita send information to sony for update contents.
nowadays many application stores(steam, apple App Store, google playstore) doing that process.
PSN is another application store. so it find updates from network, and refresh there information even you don’t sign in.
I think if you sign in, then PSN will store data in your db, and if you sign out, then it will stored as templory guest. because, store every signed out device takes huge storage.
This assertion is silly/stupid. Software can poll for updates without having to be logged in to anything. Sony is not “accessing” your device any more than Microsoft “accesses” your computer when your operating system performs nightly or weekly system updates. There’s a difference between polling/phone home mechanisms and what you allege.
Of course if you cannot tolerate that, the fix is simple: don’t connect your vita (ps3, ps4, computer, etc etc) to the internet.
O_o surely you read your ToA? it DID explicitly stated something in regard to that. I’m certain it did.
unless most of you just simply kept clicking on agree without reading it…
to use PSN, you’re required not to modify the OS or the devices. doing so violate the agreement.
I Yes, it is legal. But is it right? The issue isn’t the updates, that is legal, but the fact that they have that kind of access.
Pretty sure this is just part of the “Automatic Updates”, which you can simply disable if you so please.
http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/psvita/settings/autoupdate.html
Im guessing its just like an email app that pushes notifications as it gets it, i also have turned on my vita and seen messages from friends in psn even if not signed in.
That’s because you have it set in to auto-update, in which it signs into PSN and then updates via notifications or depending on your settings, patches and pushed downloads and such. That is an automatic feature via PLUS, and some non-Plus, but still built in, features. This isn’t news. It’s just ignorance.
Now that you bring this up this has happened to me as well. Didn’t register at first for some reason, I’m not signed into PSN all that often either.
From what I gather, there’s no personal information gathered from this ‘spyware’, it’s just sending new data to a specified location, end of story. I don’t think a PSN account is even really needed to put this into effect. If you’re paranoid over that, then you’d e pretty much doomed if you knew some of the crazy stuff your computer picks up, lol.
Unless you have auto update ticked, you are on the wrong train. It was mentioned that the latest software has that option pre-ticked. Also it’s not impossible to have a database of mac addresses with psn id’s. This can be done every time you sign in on a device automatically.
You have it backwards. They aren’t accessing your device, your device is accessing theirs. Just like how you can update PS3 games without being signed into PSN.
And we’ve known PSN devices can upload date to Sony for years, right down to what games you play (which hackers found unnerving cause it told Sony) and what TV you use.
Also, jam_hank wasn’t blurred out enough
This is probably why people prefer PC gaming. Because there’s no one that is monitoring your PC. It is an open platform.
except for all the countless malware that exists in Windows
and the NSA, nothing misses the NSA xD
oh and if by open platform you mean poppa microsoft deciding what to do with your computer, then yeah, you got a nice idea of “open platform”
Not sure if lol….
They mine all the data they can.. Proccesed with algorithms… and then they know what the can sell us next …. if you don’t want to speculate any more about what they can monitor and what they can’t think about this…
Probably yes! I think it would be very possible that even most PC motherboards have a back door installed… reverse the PC beep speaker on there to function as a microphone… voila every poor human soul on the planet is monitored.. sick ***… enjoy while it lasts…
Imo, the title is hugely misleading. The article ended up being more speculation than fact, while the title makes it seem like pure fact.
this post has no sense!!!!
what are you talking about!
the psvita knows that you have a psn account so it checks for updates if the wifi is on.
sony does not need to access your device to update the store or something else manually.
even if you are signed off, the psvita knows that you have a psn account and your fw is up to date, so it updates the live area automatically
these are common checks that EVERY device does when an internet connection is found and your device has the permissions to download the updated stuff, nothing more….
Or you now maybe you forgot to disable liva area refresh from the settings app
And BTW the Vita simply checks for any updates intervals
*** you Sony
Hold your horses, if you look to much into something you’re going down the line of a confirmation bias.
The live area in the PS store is basically one big ad banner, no different to PS3’s ‘what’s new’ section. It doesn’t need PSN to update, just a internet connection which you clearly have.
its a conspiracy
I would think someone who has as thick a tinfoil hat as you, would properly blur out your psn name from the screenshot…
“The LiveArea screen has been refreshed" one for Video
Video……
VIDEO…………
OH NO THEY”RE WATCHING MY P- i mean HENTAI WHEN I”M SLEEPING
Do you have this setting on?
Settings > System > Auto-Start Settings > “Refresh LiveArea Screen”
“Another, and much more likely possibility is has a database of the IPs of all of the Vita’s out there with a PSN account, and they just send out updates to those ones.”
IPs don’t work like that. Not only is it not a “much more likely possibility”, it’s ridiculous. IPs aren’t static, they change. Often, if you turn off wifi on your vita and back on, you’ll have a different IP than you did. If you go to someone else’s house and use wifi there, you’ll have a different IP. While they might be able to push things like that to your vita, they don’t have a “database of IPs.” Having a database of IP addresses is largely useless. It does have its uses, but this is not one of them.
What I think is that your device just went and got the updates. You don’t need to be logged in to do that. If there’s something outdated, it will refresh itself. It doesn’t check with PSN, it just goes and gets the new content.
When I say this, keep in mind that I’ve never used a Vita before and it’s all speculation. The last half of it, anyway.
Sorry guys for the stupid irrelevant posting of mine. I promise to bring you something useful, very soon. (btw, who said jam_hank was me?)
It’s okay. As long as you learned something from it.
Being a responsible publisher means getting all the facts before making an assertion.
You said it in the photo’s caption o_O
“I was not signed in.”
I don’t have much of a problem with the article itself, but with the way it was presented. Had you presented it (specially in the title) as pure speculation rather than laying it out as fact, it would have opened a great topic for discussion (which has already been into every Vita’s owner’s head for a while).
The way you presented it was like “this is the truth people”, which caused negative reaction, much different that if it were “is this the truth people?”, which would have allowed users to dump their brain.
I would be more surprise indeed if my Vita does not even connected to the internet or in Flight Mode, the contents from LiveArea actually are automatically updated.
Well i’ts more like backwards, your device access sony’s servers. There’s no way they can initiate a connection to it without properly forwarded ports at the wifi AP/router. Still, they could do whatever they want everytime the vita contacts them.
It’s like windows update, and while there is a way to turn it off it is legal I think.
and this is why I always have airplane mode always on …
I’m pretty sure this is covered in the Elua you agreed to.
This article is kinda useless and unpostworthyful imo
even when you are not connected to internet
This happened to me as well. Weird thing is I had both wifi and my 3g turned off. My vita was powered off all night. I woke up, read this, then turned it on to find the same message.
Shot I guess my 3g was on. I could have sworn I turned it off but after a 5th of EnJ I don’t remember much.
It is easy for you to disable that refresh live area just go into system settings and disable automatic update for firmware and the refresh live area among other things.
Sony is planning on eating your babies