PS Vita Content Manager Concerns by Wololo

The PS Vita Content Manager has been in the spotlight lately. PS Vita developer Wololo brings news via his blog relating to some concerns he has had and also to clear up a few misinterpretations by some websites.

A few days ago I posted my concerns about the Content Manager tool, a tool that is compulsory to install and use if you want to copy files from and to your vita. Some people said I was paranoid (see my answer to that at the end of the article), and others shared my concerns and started digging. Interestingly enough, that article gathered almost as much attention as my much more spectacular (in my opinion) video of a Megadrive emulator running on the vita.

Some sites took my words out of context and said that I had proof Sony is spying on us when we copy files. This is not true, I dont have any proof, just lots of concerns. Because of that I decided to call Sonys customer service in order to get more information. Read along.

First of all, a piece of relatively good news: some users on French site psvitagen mentioned that it is possible to copy Movies and Music without being connected to the internet, through the dedicated Music and Movie sections of the vita. I confirmed this is true, so movies, music and pictures can still be copied to the vita even without an internet connection. The internet connection is however, as far as I can tell, required to copy anything else, which, given the limited possibilities of the vita, basically means PSP/Vita games and/or savedata.

In theory and from what I saw so far, the internet connection is probably used for two things: check for new versions of the firmware (an update was enforced on me if I wanted to keep using the content manager 2 days ago), and possibly do some DRM verifications. Thats the theory, and is somewhat confirmed by some early investigations of the binary by dev Hykem. So, when you copy it to your vita, Sony checks that your Vita game or your Sony-purchased movie is actually ok to play on your vita, to make sure you didnt steal it or copied it from a friends computer. Fair enough (although I would question why this check needs to be done there, rather than directly on the vita). But what happens for content that does not require any Sony drm check is my concern. Even though its possible to copy them without an internet connection, does Sony gather any information on my music, my pictures, or my movies (and how about my games savedata, which do require the internet connection while being transferred) ? Do they collect filenames, id3 tag, or exif information? Probably not, but more transparency on the subject would definitely be welcome. This is not about hacking here, this is about sending private information to a company that has proven regularly that they cannot be trusted with our data.

So ,full of concerns, I decided to call Sonys customer service today (actually my wife did it for me…). The person we talked to, as expected, wasnt a technical person and therefore had close to no information on this. She was aware that an internet connection is required, and mentioned to us that this is written on the manual. We explained that we knew that, and that we have an internet connection (it usually takes time when calling a customer service to explain that you dont have a technical problem using the software, but an ethical one) , but wed like to disconnect it when it is not necessary, because we dont see the point in being connected to Sonys server when we transfer files between two pieces of hardware we own (at which point my wife added: especially given what happened to your company recently, were a bit concerned about our private information. Hehe, thats why I love her ). Understanding our concern the person at the customer service contacted somebody more technical to get more information on the subject. She then came back to us and told us this was in place to make sure that the computer running the content manager is correctly associated to the Vita. She didnt have any technical details to share about the firmware upgrade or the DRM verifications, but she guaranteed us that no personal data was being transferred. She also gave us her name (which I wont share here) in case we have more questions on the subject (but dont ask me to call them more, first its not a free call, and second I already felt super bad to have my wife spend 30 boring minutes on the phone for me because of my new toy)

(one thing Id like to say is that every time I contacted Sonys customer service, their answers were fairly fast and accurate. They usually give me bad news, but theyre doing their best to help. The only time they were completely wrong was when my PSP 1000 stopped accepting connecting to Media Go. They told me it was because the PSP was a Japanese PSP, and I was trying to connect to the European store. I knew this wasnt true since I had no problem doing the exact same thing with two other PSPs. The real cause was probably that Sony had banned my console for some reason. Anwyays overall thumbs up for the efficiency of the customer service)

So, thats the official answer, but Im sure some of us will pass the PC parts of the Content Manager through their microscopes to confirm if this is true. But at least now I have some official information from Sony, which is, in a way, positive. Nevertheless, it does not statisfy my curiosity on some of the files found by Hykem, (such as Mp3Promoter.suprx, png_promoter.suprx, etc…) so Im sure many people will want to learn more about this thing.

Source: wololo.net

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