hyedipin

With the hacks and a lot of people fiddling around PSP, and with it being the first revision of an O/S running the PSP, I can see that there will be a lot of viruses being developed for PSP soon enough.

The major reason Sony has hidden the browser must be in order to avoid getting viruses or any malicious scripts installing themselves on PSP or infecting the o/s and causing SONY to be busy with support calls and replacing the unit.

radish28

This year alone theres going to be many new viruses for handheld electronics. Not only the PSP but also PocketPC's, Cell Phones, etc...

imported_little_beat

I don't have a PSP myself, so I wonder if it has flash ROM and a capability to do hard resets just like on PPCs. If it has, viruses are not such a horrible problem.

hyedipin

PPC & Cell Phones are a lot different than PSP.

Think PSP like Game Boy (although a lot more advanced) it is made for certain types.

IT is easier to develop games/software, etc.. for cellphones & ppc, but I hope PSP is much more closed. I wouldn't like to see a lot of tools and software for PSP, you want compatibility and expendability, get a PPC, better yet, get Axim. heh

dr_jared88

Viruses make me so mad. Like really, how fun is it to ruin other peoples stuff. I guess some corrupt people find it ammusing otherwise there would be no viruses but hopefully sony can keep this under control and prevent viruses.

DanmanX

I really wouldn't worry about virii at this point...you're more likely to get one on a PC much more than a PSP w/ limited internet support.

mrp04

probably not. The psp menu doesn't run stuff programs on startup like windows and cell phones. You really cant make a virus for it. A game boots off the UMD, and doesn't load programs off the memory card (which is the only place you can store your own stuff). And because the memory card is the only place where your own stuff (or anything else saveable) can be stored, if they somehow made a virus, just remove the card and delete it on your computer and your good to go.

makarman

Well, it's very hard to get a virus on such a device with an unheard-of web browser that probably won't fully support the Javascript, etc. that allows viruses to be installed. It's not going to be Internet Explorer. It's not going to be plagued by security loopholes because it'll be so basic.

Anyway, lucky for me, I've never gotten a virus on any device I've ever owned. Spyware/adware yes, it's unavoidable when you don't know much about it, but viruses no. Unless you use crummy e-mail without any spam filtering and/or go on illegal websites, if you have much common sense, you're not going to get any viruses.

Anyway, as mrp04 said, it'd probably be pretty danged easy to erase any viruses if you have a memory stick reader. Since I have a memory stick reader, I shouldn't have a problem.

mrp04

but, how will the PSP run anything off the memory stick without the user knowing? the only way to run something is if the user makes the psp run it

makarman

Originally Posted by mrp04

but, how will the PSP run anything off the memory stick without the user knowing? the only way to run something is if the user makes the psp run it

Very true. The operating system isn't particularly advanced and it doesn't look like the kind of thing that a virus could attack. Sometimes, a crummy OS is better than a full-featured OS. If only corrupt people weren't amused by screwing up people's stuff...

Eddyisgreat

Originally Posted by dr_jared88

Viruses make me so mad. Like really, how fun is it to ruin other peoples stuff.

Bragging rights, status quota in the hacker community, the list goes on.

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hyedipin

everything on PSP runs over instructions, such as spin, stop, eject, etc...
anything with instructions, although not necesarrily destructing, it can still be in form of a virus.

someone said above, what fun is it to damage peoples' stuff, well, how do you think antivirus s/w developers survive? If their s/w was the best out there, it is thanks to the virus developers. Still to some point same people as antivirus s/w makers.
Even the doctors won't heal you @ the same visit and will ask for follow ups, don't get me wrong, but that's the way, people has to survive. Dentists, if there was no tooth decay, what will all those dentists do?

radish28

virii aren't only about messing up an electronic device but also just exploiting security holes so that developers can fix them. How many recent PC viruses actually corrupt large amounts of data? Not many (large scale ones at least)

hyedipin

you're right.
that's what I was trying to point out.

They might as well be used to just point out vulnerabilities as well as bugs & weirdness.

mrp04

yeah, but those wont really need fixing if the user has to run the "virus", they would be interesting, and would help toward homebrew application development.