PS Vita / Ps TV About the Enso Leak: From Team molecule's own YifanLu

[STLcardsWS]

We already discussed this @STLcardsWS, we disagreed then & we disagree now. The end rarely justifies the means.

Like I said back then, we don't have all the data we need to discuss this issue properly but "assuming" that the decision not to include a brew was based on real licensing & ethical concerns, not guided by personal petty motivations or whatever, I see nothing wrong with temporary removing titles from the service pending answers.
No brews has been removed from the world, they are still available in plenty of places for those who want to get them.

Exactly, we do not have all the information, but VitaDB is a service that is purposely not putting out homebrew it once had, not because it was dangerous because there is a theory and assumption that has not been backed up by facts to this point and VitaDB has the choice, but when taking those choices i think it takes the service to a personal route. Which i think for a service such as that, that is not good for the community.

What the overall goal of a community? To make the most out our consoles and devices? I just will not understanding hiding things that have other useful elements besides functions that are suspected to be copied. This does not move idea's and a scene forward .. Which the issue at hand has to be zoomed out to get a look at the big picture of a community.

We (I) went a bit off track with VitaDB but i was comparing how removing things is never a good thing. Even SilicaAndPina apps unless they pose a danger, i do not think they should be blocked or removed and that's why i compared it to VitaDB.

I understand and agree that code stealing and theft of a project is not something to take lightly and these things are out there. Your only hurting the end user's of the community at this point. .

Just my opinion no less or more important then anyone else's.

I actually told the bloggers who wrote about his 'apps' on wololo too, so I'm not pointing fingers at just you. The reason I didn't say anything is because I assumed people would be against me. Now that his true face has been revealed (again), I took my chances.

Your suggesting i do things like that, but at the same time your worried if people would be against yourself if you have. That hardly seems fair.

No matter what you do someone will not like it, i just do what best for the community as a whole. That's all you can do.

 

[bguerville]

In any case, we are debating this publicly & obviously staff members happen to hold different views about the problem, nobody can accuse psx-place to be biased or whatever about any of the topic mentioned in this thread...
It would also be totally unfair at this point to point the finger at @STLcardsWS for anything, he reported news, that is his job, he also shared his opinion about it, but just like any member is able to do by posting in the thread..
People choose to agree or to disagree, @STLcardsWS is neither leading nor misleading them in anyway...

 

[Joel16]

In any case, we are debating this publicly & obviously staff members happen to hold different views about the problem, nobody can accuse psx-place to be biased or whatever about any of the topic mentioned in this thread...
It would also be totally unfair at this point to point the finger at @STLcardsWS for anything, he reported news, that is his job, he also shared his opinion about it, but just like any member is able to do by posting in the thread..
People choose to agree or to disagree, @STLcardsWS is neither leading nor misleading them in anyway...

Why do you think I'm pointing fingers at STL? I wasn't saying anything to just him. What I've told you guys is something I've already discussed with other scene sites such as wololo. I already said that, and no I'm not being biased toward anyone. That little kid seems to have some issues in the head (even Yifan himself said he seems like that sort of kid). Since you guys seem to only respect what the huge hackers say, well Yifan himself said the kid seemed like the person who is crying for attention, so don't come all at me just because I shared my opinion.

Eh, I'm done here.

 

[bguerville]

I actually told the bloggers who wrote about his 'apps' on wololo too, so I'm not pointing fingers at just you. The reason I didn't say anything is because I assumed people would be against me.

Why do you think I'm pointing fingers at STL? I wasn't saying anything to just him.

Sorry but this does not come out of nowhere... Those 2 quotes are basically saying that you deem him among others responsible for something. "not pointing the finger at just him" means "pointing the finger at him also"...
If it's not at all what you meant then sorry for a legitimate misunderstanding over language.

And another thing, I am not sure whether you are trying to be insulting here but I find the following comment out of line.

Since you guys seem to only respect what the huge hackers say...

In the same post you first say you never accused STLcardsWS to be biased and then you accuse us all to be biased, believing people because of who they are & not because of what they say..?
Who are those huge hackers who, alone, have our respect anyway? Sorry but I don't have the slightest clue as to who or what you are referring here...

Oh.. And I am done too...

 

[DeViL303]

Well, I can see this from both sides. I think the disputed releases can be and should be reported on, but maybe there should be a note put in the articles (on all sites) saying something like "we are not linking to this app here as it is in violation of blah blah blah". Doing it this way would achieve a few things, People get the news and also get the info about the closed source problem, then they can make their own mind up if they want to go looking for the app. As well as that it puts like a "bad mark" on releases that are done like this and reduces the amount of people who will try them out, so it would/should have the effect of discouraging releases like that.

Could go one step further in a case like this though, where a dev has done malicious things and threatened malicious things, then rather than take his "known safe" stuff down, a warning could be put on his stuff, saying something to the effect of "this dev has acted improperly in the past, be aware of this, especially when updating his apps" . I don't know. If it was me I probably wouldn't remove stuff from XMBPD, unless it was unsafe, but I might add a warning in a case like this.

 

[STLcardsWS]

Why do you think I'm pointing fingers at STL? I wasn't saying anything to just him. What I've told you guys is something I've already discussed with other scene sites such as wololo. I already said that, and no I'm not being biased toward anyone. That little kid seems to have some issues in the head (even Yifan himself said he seems like that sort of kid). Since you guys seem to only respect what the huge hackers say, well Yifan himself said the kid seemed like the person who is crying for attention, so don't come all at me just because I shared my opinion.

Eh, I'm done here.

I do not think we are all coming at you, I have disagree and agreed on certain points with yourself bguerville &
DeViL303 . I do not think anyone shares quite the same view and that what makes these discussion great as we are all on the same side to do best for the community, we just see things differently and discussions like this are great because now we see where everyone comes from. We are on same side , i think you know (or should) that we have respected everyone's opinions and no matter if your small or big we give all projects the respect they deserve and i think you know that firsthand.

If we all agreed it would get boring,

 

[STLcardsWS]

Well, I can see this from both sides. I think the disputed releases can be and should be reported on, but maybe there should be a note put in the articles (on all sites) saying something like "we are not linking to this app here as it is in violation of blah blah blah". Doing it this way would achieve a few things, People get the news and also get the info about the closed source problem, then they can make their own mind up if they want to go looking for the app. As well as that it puts like a "bad mark" on releases that are done like this and reduces the amount of people who will try them out, so it would/should have the effect of discouraging releases like that.

Could go one step further in a case like this though, where a dev has done malicious things and threatened malicious things, then rather than take his "known safe" stuff down, a warning could be put on his stuff, saying something to the effect of "this dev has acted improperly in the past, be aware of this, especially when updating his apps" . I don't know. If it was me I probably wouldn't remove stuff from XMBPD, unless it was unsafe, but I might add a warning in a case like this.

Did the leak make the homebrew itself any more unsafe??

Unless something he has released is not Open (https://github.com/SilicaAndPina?tab=repositories) I do not see the need to retroactivily put a warning on something due a leak of something unrelated to those homebrew , Now if something is closed I overlooked then perhaps a warning is needed. but it was a leak that sounded the alarm then i see no need.

I was aware of the first entrance in to the vita community and did not think i wold give the guy any time of day after i learned that, but there were several good people in the scene who told me good things about him, I was still reluctant and then after seeing some things he released I decided he should get a 2nd chance. Which sometimes a 2nd chance is the worse thing in the world and other times guys really prove themselves and give back after making mistakes. I seen it both ways in this community. For his Homebrew (other then the code claims) as far as being safe he has lived up to that 2nd chance.

Now the leak a bad and stupid move and does shed more light on himself and does raise caution on him as a person in this community there is no doubt there, but the releases are there, is there any dangerous code anyone has reported? Is there a closed source project we need to place a warning on? if not(?), then i do not see much reason to apply any warnings..

hypothetical example(s):
You release alot of homebrew, Many people love it, you leak something later down the road ..
--Should all that old homebrew / Releases have a warning and/or removed from the community?

What if rinnegatamante (or anyone who has made alot of great homebrew) and they then leak something.
--A few leaks we erase the scene and put warnings on everything. If there is a need that is one thing but i truly see no need. but open to opinions and other sides always.

 

[bguerville]

It's obviously not a simple matter because there are various issues at hand here.
We are talking about leaking, closing source, violating licenses & other ethical issues all at the same time when usually they are separate problems...
Leaking has nothing to do with reusing other people's work without credit or closing the source to hide something...
The kid in question has not lived up to the 2nd chance he was given by the community so he deserves to feel bad about it however let's be fair & balanced, IF he released projects for the community that were unquestionably sound, then for those projects at least, he did good & we should give him that much...
Now of course, if it turned out that his projects are ethically questionable it would be another story altogether...

I believe that we basically all agree on the basics for each of the issues mentioned in this thread even though we may hold different views on how to address them...

 

[DeViL303]

@STLcardsWS Yeah I was not referring to the leaking really when I mentioned the warnings, it was more the malicious card formatting software and the threats to leak (what he thought was) another devs info that was shared in private in a dump that I thought should be made known. The leaking was not such a big deal on its own, as in it wasn't like it was really hard to get Enso if you wanted it anyway, and its not like the leak caused something to get patched etc.

There are two things, 1. the closed source issue, and 2. acting improperly, For no.1 one thing that could be noted in those articles is the fact that the release is closed source, and if there are claims that open source code has been used, (that cant be verified or have been verified) then that could be noted too. For no.2 its a bit different, I suppose there is a fine line between a dev you don't report on at all, and one who has acted improperly, so this situation will probably not really come up again.

In your hypothetical I would not say a warning was not required of course, but this is different when its multiple things, for example if one of his apps has a built in update feature, then it could maybe do some damage if he decides to push a malicious update, even if its not an automatic update it wouldn't be good . This is a bigger problem for the Vita in particular as there is no unbricking method.

 

[STLcardsWS]

@STLcardsWS Yeah I was not referring to the leaking really when I mentioned the warnings, it was more the malicious card formatting software and the threats to leak (what he thought was) another devs info that was shared in private in a dump that I thought should be made known. The leaking was not such a big deal on its own, as in it wasn't like it was really hard to get Enso if you wanted it anyway, and its not like the leak caused something to get patched etc.

There are two things, 1. the closed source issue, and 2. acting improperly, For no.1 one thing that could be noted in those articles is the fact that the release is closed source, and if there are claims that open source code has been used, (that cant be verified or have been verified) then that could be noted too. For no.2 its a bit different, I suppose there is a fine line between a dev you don't report on at all, and one who has acted improperly, so this situation will probably not really come up again.

In your hypothetical I would not say a warning was not required of course, but this is different when its multiple things, for example if one of his apps has a built in update feature, then it could maybe do some damage if he decides to push a malicious update, even if its not an automatic update it wouldn't be good . This is a bigger problem for the Vita in particular as there is no unbricking method.

Do we know his apps have that? The Open ones we obviously can see, are there any closed apps that ANYONE would caution user's about? That is the question here.. Because the ones we can see are clearly safe i do not see a need for warnings.

I have followed the scenes very closely but the past few months i have been very busy at times and not following everything , so if you guys see something that needs a warning we will apply it, but if its something that we can see clearly is clean (open source)i no reason to add any type of warning IMO (as the warning does not pertain to the release or its functionality). But if there is a closed sourced release that needs a warning let it be know (anyone).

 

[DeViL303]

Do we know his apps have that? The Open ones we obviously can see, are there any closed apps that ANYONE would caution user's about? That is the question here.. Because the ones we can see are clearly safe i do not see a need for warnings.

Well I wasn't saying his other apps are dangerous, but potentially his releases can be and have been malicious, So i think it would be ok to put warnings on all his releases because of that, don't forget this wasn't a mistake on his part, if he had made a mistake due to not testing then that would not be so bad, but when its done purposely its different. The reason I see it like that is I don't think there was any thread on here warning users about Silicaandpina in when he made his formatter in the first place, maybe there was and i missed it as i wasn't following the Vita scene that closely? Even if there was a warning thread put up months ago, it would be buried by now, so then users who see this guys latest releases have no way to know he is dodgy. But anyway I think enough of a deal has been made now and everyone knows the story in this case so its not a problem anymore.


As for whether he used others code or not I don't know, am I just saying if there were claims of that, and it was a closed source release, then that should be noted for users maybe, but that is a separate issue.

 

[STLcardsWS]

Well I wasn't saying his other apps are dangerous, but potentially his releases can be and have been malicious, So i think it would be ok to put warnings on all his releases because of that, don't forget this wasn't a mistake on his part, if he had made a mistake due to not testing then that would not be so bad, but when its done purposely its different. The reason I see it like that is I don't think there was any thread on here warning users about Silicaandpina in when he made his formatter in the first place, maybe there was and i missed it as i wasn't following the Vita scene that closely? Even if there was a warning thread put up months ago, it would be buried by now, so then users who see this guys latest releases have no way to know he is dodgy. But anyway I think enough of a deal has been made now and everyone knows the story in this case so its not a problem anymore.


As for whether he used others code or not I don't know, am I just saying if there were claims of that, and it was a closed source release, then that should be noted for users maybe, but that is a separate issue.

I think everyone expects a bit to much from a single person.

If there is no thread of there needs to be a warning. Every single person is allowed to make a thread about it. Why does everyone look to me.??? Yes what he did was an absolute asshole move and i did not think he was worth a look after that, but there was several well known and respected people of the community who vouched and said good things about him. He was given a chance to prove himself. From there all was okay NO ONE was saying anything then the leak happened and seems like things that should of been said beforehand come out later,..

If warnings were needed, the community would of demanded them back then not retroactively and when the release itself is no danger i feel no warning are needed for the releases itself, the dev yes there is a very strong case, but the news is reporting the release and so much the developer. You think we can vouch for every single developer that has a released in the homebrew community (we cover the scene). We try and make sure all releases are safe and i think We have one of the best track records for that, We have more then likely put more warnings out then anyone be it releases or people. I do get busy and will miss things and not follow something.

I feel like finger are being pointed but i would say where was the threads and warnings if many of you felt this badly about him before the leak.?

This is a community it takes many people to do things and not getting on you at all with this but just in general i get tired of everyone looking to me for solutions. I learned a long time ago no matter what move or decision you make someone always has an issue with it, That is why i choose to try and do best for the community with decisions, most times they are the best sometimes you learn from mistakes but doing the best for the community is always the intent.

Not against warning about him or educating people of the situations, but i am against applying warnings to homebrew that is safe Bad look for a community and a scene when you have warnings on homebrew we can see is safe. so not against warnings, but not on unaffected homebrew.

 

[atreyu187]

I was the one who spoke for him and I spoke to him prior. Telling him about our unspoken motto of it being a Dramafree-Place.

While some of his apps are part of others apps like the registry editor which scares some off due to it's potential danger, his account switching app is end user friendly for even noobs so I see it's place. Much easier then the ones prior.

It's kinda like Rebug it is an AIO FW as it can be any type you may need but there are users that simply don't want them all even though it doesn't hurt anything being there and not activate. I have found a few of his apps useful and still use them till this day. His experience in coding is fine by me, it's his actions that have a negative impact.

 

[DeViL303]

Sorry if it seemed like I was pointing at you STL, I never meant you should have made a thread, that was not my point. My point was I feel someone should have in a situation like this, Someone who had followed the situation and knew about it. I might well have done it myself if I had realised what had happened and that he was a member here and it was known and he had admitted it etc, but I barely heard about the formatter at the time and assumed it was released anonymously like most malicious software, its only now looking back that I think it was mad he got away with that without even a mention. Imagine if I just come onto the PS3 scene and one of my first releases is something that purposely formats or corrupts the internal HDD.

Personally I dont care if his stuff gets a warning, I will stay away from it anyway, The reason I initially posted in this thread was so his name was mentioned as nobody here was going to do it, because it seems mad to me that he got away without being called out here for his first fk up, so if he also got away with this too without his name being mentioned anywhere other than twitter, then there would inevitably end up being people who never know what happened, now its been discussed here at least and I mentioned his name.

 

[atreyu187]

The formatter was written by him but it was released as an app called "Bad Memory Card" and was a POC that one could write to a game cart like MV 3 which has grw0:/ access. Upon inserting it would format your data via a URI call. He wasn't the one that pushed it out there as Harry Potter.

Someone took his app and posted a video on YouTube with a link to the app. I still have the original "Bad Memory Card" app along with the rest of his apps he made prior to the ToS violation in which Mega pulled all his stuff due to hosting Vita SDK files.

It was traced back to him as he puts his name inside all his stuff I assume as an ego thing like we used to see dev_habib instead of dev_blind. All he did was make the app and it got traced back to him due him leaving his name in the app.

I saw the release and the VPK is only 2mb and anyone that thought it was a full game is a moron anyhow. Pirates were so eager to play anything they jumped right on it. That was right after Pixelbutts dump of Adventure Time Warner found to be bootable as it came from a Test Kit with fself files.

So there is the story, he wrote the app but he wasn't the one that pushed it out as a game unless he made a totally new ID and YouTube account. His Twitter where he releases apps has a link to his then Mega account with all his work even the "Bad Memory Card" app. It now points to his GDrive account. I'm not making excuses for him as what he did was fooked up. But he isn't even the guy that removed the CID check. That was another Vita dev I spoke up for and is a well know dev due to his work in the Gekihen contest. He passed it to him hoping he would keep it to himself. Molecule know who passed it to him but he hasn't been publicly shunned. He is just as guilty in my eyes if not more for sharing with someone after agreeing to Team Molecule's terms. I'm not gonna out him but I know he reads this forum and will see this. But due to those two I will never suggest another for anything after this.