I've been saying this for years... Why does google capitulate to idiots when it can simply... literally... ignore them

Shoot them all - preferably with small caliber rounds, many times... Heck, a blunderbuss loaded of bits of broken beer bottle would work nicely.

I don't watch it - but they just assume I've pirated it and watched it.

Can't we all just get along?!?

Your box might be connecting to Sony's network, mine would have a rather hard time given that it's not attached to the lan and the firewall still contains rules expressly forbidding it's access to the internet from the days that it was.

I didn't pay $700 for a box I can't pull apart and put back together to whistle dixie if I so choose - I can pull apart a $200 electric projection screen controller and place a new chip in it overriding the functions of the original design and manufacture (as well as significantly increasing it's feature set - I know you ask "what more can a screen do but go up and down?"... I answer "usb & exact positioning"), why the hell can't I do the same with my $700 PS3?

If Sony wanted me to give them control over their device they should have had me lease it... or at the very least presented a contract at the time I was presenting money - not once the sale had taken place.

Given that more people lost their lives in gun related violence, medical accidents OR motor vehicle accidents (individually, not combined) in that same year (and every year since then) then were lost in combined incidents that made up 9/11... Given the number of civilians the US has killed in the process of retaliating... Given the steps backwards the US has taken in it's other freedoms and rights in fear and retaliation...

Yeh I actually believe the long term issues stemming from rights erosion (some of which people have fought and died for too don't forget) is at least as significant... if not more insidious because you don't even seem to notice it - or care... until one day your door won't unlock for you because a server somewhere has deemed your key invalid.

If you're in one of the few places Sony is making this offer - good for you, I'm yet to see any news of credit protection or monitoring for customers outside of the US.

it was clearly marketed because I got wind of it - and if you knew the life I live (no tv, no radio, don't read the news paper) you'd understand that it's some pretty potent marketing if it's going to reach me.

My decision to purchase a PS3 (the only console I've ever purchased) came as a direct result of it having OtherOS and giving me something to play with.

As far as I'm concerned, Sony sold me a 4 legged table to eat breakfast off and do my homework on, then snuck into my house late one night and chopped off one of the legs leaving a note saying that the 4th leg was a security risk and the table still holds breakfast even if it might not hold books.

Still not enough to make me upgrade my PS3 from 3.15

Seriously - anyone else would have blamed piracy and people downloading episodes from countries that played the shows 6 months ago...

I'm working on my letters, two, one directly to Sony, and one to Harvey Norman.

I suck at letter writing... and I hate it so damn much... but I feel strongly enough about this.

A positive sign for Australians is the state of things in the UK, when I mentioned this to the ACCC they were very interested (I suspect being a Commonwealth country there's some influence here)

I've never been a fan of consoles, I've never been a fan of Sony - I bought one console since the days of the Sega Megadrive (Genesis for some of you), the PS3, because it offered the freedom of Linux.

In fact, out side of that console, and the 5 or so games, and one blu-ray movie I own, I don't think I've ever bought another Sony product.

Now you can be sure until the end of days every time I pick something up to buy I will go over the food chain in my head to see if Sony is part of that purchase.

To answer your question, I put to you a question.

What evidence did we have when we laid down $700 on an original PS3 which was marketed with "OtherOS" on the box that they would remove "OtherOS" later?

OtherOS was sandboxed and meant to be secure...

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Just because streaming is via dnla doesn't mean it's secure and can't be used to load an exploit into the ps3 by some form of attack.
  - Security excuse

Just because there's DRM supported in the protocol doesn't mean it stops anyone from playing pirated media.
  - Security excuse

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Really it's not that hard to imagine - if they feel free and safe removing a feature that was on the marketing material - then why not another?

Any port or protocol that allows interaction with the device provides an attack vector to break into it.

Never say never, if one of the best vetted lumps of code on earth (OpenSSH) can be hacked for remote access then any code can.

Value is a perception - and as install other OS was half the reason I purchased it, it's half my value.

The PS3 sux as a web browser, I own 4 games, I use MythTV as a media client, and I own 1 blu-ray movie.

I've had the PS3 for years.

Besides, how long is it until Sony decide to remove media client because of security?

So... I want half my money back as this will be disabling HALF the functionality of my PS3.