BBC interviews Dark_AleX and Fanjita |
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While the PSP homebrew scene prides itself on being a huge multi-cultured community of people from all over the globe, the big majority of people who own a PSP have never tried out homebrew. Funny as it may sound, it is a fact that the homebrew community is nothing more than a niche area which generally doesn't receive much mainstream coverage apart from dedicated PSP homebrew sites.
Because of that very reason, we were pleasantly surprised to find a very nice article over at BBC covering the PSP homebrew scene. Now we'll be frank here. Generally, when any mainstream site/news agency decides to cover the homebrew scene, we tend to read it for entertainment purposes because reporters generally don't know what they're talking about. Either that, or they only have statements from the big corporations which means that their "research" is generally biased toward the bigwigs. This is precisely the reason why we found this article a pleasant surprise.
Now rather than trying to describe the article itself, we'll quote parts of it here:
Fanjita - real name David Court - is very different from the popular hacker stereotype of the socially inept teenaged geek working all night in his bedroom. A married man of 34, he is an accomplished professional programmer who writes server software for large telecommunications companies for a living. He spends an hour or two a night hacking PSP software in his Edinburgh home, and is also a martial arts enthusiast.
Dark Alex fits much more comfortably into the hacker mould. A student from Spain, his hacker moniker derives from his real name, Alejandro, and a liking for all things gothic, he says. His interests are Japanese Manga comics and cats, but PSP hacking is his main hobby.
The article is actually peppered around with statements from Fanjita and Dark_AleX, the two people who're the faces of the PSP homebrew scene right now. That reason alone is enough to force any homebrew lover to go over and check it out.
Thanks to Reggie for the heads up!
Update: This morning at 07:50 GMT, the BBC World Service Radio had a chance to talk with Fanjita over the phone. The interview was telecast live on radio and the internet. At the bottom, we've linked the file so you can download it as an MP3. If you want to listen to the original stream, you can do so from the linked page.
Download: Fanjita's interview by the BBC (audio)
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Comments [refresh]
Nice too know that someone is given these guys a chance to talk about them selves. Instead of people just saying what they want about them and not giving them props for what they have done. You guys are the best in everything you do in the psp seen. Keep up the good work.
Homebrew developers get famous !
That´s cool! They have to invite them to a TV-Show, though!
BTW: 1st
wasn´t the first one....
Cool, I hope that these homebrew communities will get a little bigger now.
And not to forget, all thanks to Fanjita and Dark_Alex for making this all possible :)
Fanjita... 34 years old... uh didn't expect that the 3.03 downgrader author was that old, but thanks anyway, for not forgetting 3.03 users to the homebrew scene :)
**going to read the article** Have fun all homebrew coders :)
It was me that was first hehe.
exactly, I like what Dax said on the pirate thing, really sensible, I myself don't really like piracy, but need a way to see if a games worth paying £30 for (I'm broke, sob) so open edition really helps.
not one bad comment about any of the teams, the reporter even went as far as to say you cant do any of this if u buy a psp with latest firmware.
they must be feeling good now, theyll be as famous as sony themselves soon
Fanjita is from Edinburgh - who would have guessed that (NOT ME)
I knew he lived in edinburgh, a 4 hour drive from me. Anyway, British impartial media FTW!!!!
haha, 20 min drive from me.
Since i am from Glasgow.
It is good to see that they are progressing up the ranks of the community and reaching other peope around the world.
Score
What a great article!! It's about time the true geniuses of the PSP receive some credit :) Happy day
Worth a read.
an intellectual first post. Wtf is wrong here. And yeah, its nice that BBC did this, people might start to see them as people instead of just downgrade/homebrew makers
i thought that everyone on the internet is american but i was proved wrong XD
i wonder if it will get on the TV
Great to see them getting this level of coverage... Just a little shame Edison Carter didn't get a mention for finding the original GTA exploit...
Would be very cool if it got onto TV...
Reading what DAX had to say about this just makes me apprciate what he's done more. He's practically a celebrity in the PSP community and it's cool reading what he has to say. Don't get me wrong Fanjita is cool too, but he's dealt more with PSP's that are not 1.5, while I constantly use Open Editions so I'm always knowing about DAX more.
Way to go man.
nice sarcasm there...
Haha, Nice, And Keep Up The Good Work Guys :)
lol now wouldnt that suk if u lived next to them and didnt not noticed until now
or better yet friends with them n didnt notice the they were the greatest hacker of the psp
Props to all three teams for all of their great accomplishments . If you ask me, because of what they have made the PSP capable of doing, it is the best console to own right now. Thanks especially to Dark Alex for the amazing Open Edition.
acctually, i dont want the homebrew scene to get bigger. Think what it means. A bunch of newbies asking "How do i played homebrews??!?". I'de rather keep the relativly small community we have now.
i kinda knew he was scottis cos only we eould have names like that ,im scottish too lol
^
im from paisley and would definetly take you for a pint to say cheers for all your good work keep it up
has anyone heard from him recently or has he quit the homebrew scene?
So in other words, slow day at BBC, so they decided to throw these guys a bone. Haha.
Its great to see Fanjita, Dark_Alex and Team C+D getting so much publicity on the BBC site.
Well done guys ;)
For two people who are so talented with Coding the PSP,
WHY OH WHY did they mention there real Names,
How Stupid was that, SONY are going to take both of them to the Cleaners, you wait, they will be SUED for alot of Money, for what they have done!!! Maybe Imprisoned!!!!
Don't expect anymore Updates now People!!!!
yes i thought making a good first post would make people do the same. Instead of FIRST POST! crap. I really love the PSP I have and the 15 psps that i have customized for all of my family and friends because of these Devs. Keep up the good work all of you in the Homebrew seen.
Is there a mistake? :
"Anyone buying a new PSP with this firmware installed will be therefore be unable to unlock their console - at least until Noobz, Team C+D and Dark Alex and his crew find another exploit and the whole cat-and-mouse game played by Sony and the hacker teams repeats itself."
Which firmware do they mean? I thought every FW (I know 1.51 and 1.52 can't) can be downgraded or hacked?
I truly enjoyed this article. It was a good read. Too bad team tOc didnt make it :( lol
Anyway, glad to see that the homebrew scene is being brought out into the media as a way to enhance the PSP instead as a monster that will break it.
I hope we get more articles like this from QJ instead of spamming the front page. Thanks for providing this article QJ.
;)
Also, its evident that other people enjoyed this article too. Notice that there were no 1st!11!!!111!!! posts. Articles like these make people want to make real posts and give their opinion, instead of spamming the comments.
You missed team C+D in the tags, they are mentioned also. What about them
hmmm... I don't think sony would do that if they are smart. Cuz people realy investigate how they can fully use products wich they will buy, and when they investigate the psp abilities, and see that there are no exploits and other goodies, the wont buy a psp. So SONY, for you own sake, don't take out Dark_AleX, he is your "mole"
Was that supose to be mean? Cause thats not very nice. These guys do very good work and diserve the reconition for it all. So please if this was supose to be mean then keep it to your self.
No they wont get imptisoned or anything cause they arnt doing anything illegal right? Piracy is illegal, they arnt doing that. I can understand Dark alex maybe is on the line but not Fanjita, and any way they only know Dax's first name... Thats my 2 cents.
I was the first poster and i thought it would be a good idea to make a good one. Instead of FIRST POST! crap. I hate it when they do that. Just post a good and thats it. Thanks again.
that was amazing hope it gets on tv.... *drools*
interesting..i thought these two were from US or something..lmao
dark alex - alejandro the gothic lol
Any thing higher than 3.03 can't be downgraded, although I don't think any psp will come with them installed for quite some time.
If they just read the F'ing README. then they wouldnt have to ask any questions.
if dark alex lieks metal music then he just might be my best firend lol
dotn preach and sin my frind what makes u any different huh ur ignorance distgusts me do u really pay any attention to things outside of ur contry of course not u pay attention to dumb crap on the computer if u dont like america then stay out and keep ur friends out 2 we are nto ehre to be ur friends we are jsut here and how we choose to live is fine with dummies liek u around the world why not? and for the record when it comes to self centered biggitist people much like ur selrf ignorance is bliss viva la america
i think its about time that bbc and so on start reports on this
an i think now since the news is on the bbc that Click (a bbc programme will report on it
That could get annoying, but if we get a big enough following we might get support from sony, or at least having them compete with homebrew guys instead of trying to make it hard for us
@ p0stal_sean
Ffs...your comment was soo booring and soo hard to read I just couldn't be arsed to hear what you had to say.
What about Booster? he should have been interviewed too.
LongLive DAX
...reported that WTC-7 collapsed a whole 20 minutes before it was demolished by controlled demolition.(WTC-7 was the third building on 9/11 to be demolished, and wasn't hit by a plane)They were reading a scripted report, and I guess they didn't know it was scripted. Watch this news clip from the BBC- http://prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/260207building7.htm After, watch a documentary and face the fact that criminal elements within our own gvmt, carried out the attacks http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4026073566596731782&q=improbable+collapse
Dark_Alex osi lees esto, domas quiero decir que soy un gran fanatico de ti. me encanta todos los firmwares que haces. es bien que ahora te estan dando entrevistas esta gente de noticas corriente. espero que un dia tu seas bien famoso for todo el mundo por que tu lo mereces todo por tu buen trabajo.
Long Live Hombrew!
what about booster, edisoncarter, toc2ra, and many other guys
if we see them on tv, everybody will want to have a custom psp, then everybody would bu psp or get their psp customized, then they'll get tired with some games prices, then piracy and customizing begins
I CANT WAIT THAT FOR HAPPEN!!!1!
could you imagine everybody using custom! yeahhh!
[but that would make my custom psp not so unique... and as they said... homebrew people is less than the others... if they were informed, things like these informs people!... I wouldnt be a member of homebrew community if it werent for a mispelling error that took me to a psp hacks site, i if didnt wrote that adress wrong, I wouldnt know that the psp could be customized]
maybe this site could get a coverage on a tv show then visits could increase...
Shocker said, What about Booster? he should have been interviewed too. Apparently I don't think he would want this. BOOSTER has some problems with Sony. Sony gave a cease and desist order to BOOSTER because of his famous Devhook. Devhook allowed emulation of the latest firmware and so there was no reason to upgrade. And BOOSTER had a website which he used to host his Devhook but Sony closed this page and Sony asked the owners of the site to tell them when BOOSTER came online. Anyways, as you've seen in the article, they talk about the developers real name and BBC actually meet these developers. BOOSTER might have not wanted to go for an interview because then BBC would know BOOSTER's location and Sony might ask for this location. And just imagine your BOOSTER, and you hear the doorbell ring. And guess who it is. It's Sony telling you to meet them in court. Sony would obviously try and sue BOOSTER, and actually, they would win. Devhook is an illegal program that allows you to load ISO/CSO which is illegal. And because of BOOSTER, there's no need to upgrade anymore. BOOSTER started the whole emulation of firmware and because of BOOSTER, we have custom firmware as well. Though this thing about BOOSTER not being interviewed is just an idea. But the thing about us having custom firmware because of BOOSTER is true. BOOSTER started the idea of being able to still load homebrew and use the features of the latest firmware and being able to load ISOs/CSOs. Dark_AleX took it from there so you could do all of this just by turning on the PSP so you don't have to load Devhook and stuff and also he added some things of his own like recovery mode and PSX emulation.
Scotland, Spain......
Let's wait a couple of weeks and see what kind of hacks can be made for the PS3 when it comes out here in Europe......
So we endly know why Sony waited for the release of the PS3 here......we are to smart
The C+D order was only for distributing the firmware with the package, not for the program itself. He hasn't distrubted the firmware with the package since, and would NOT be sued by anyone.
I don't usually believe in conspiracy theories but I think that because now DAX and Fanjita are public and everyone knows their real identities, some *persuasive* events will put a stop to their PSP hacking. This is just a word of caution and is probably taking it too far. If anything happened to them, we would all know it was Sony, right? Watch your back, that's all I'm saying.
wow dax the gothic cat lover lol
Booster is not there because my ***** is too big
That's why American and Ignoramus are synonymous terms.
Nice article, good interview. Keep it up David and Alex!
oooh ur hurtign my poor american feeling hahahaha. and to TIS sorry man when i get mad i ramble alooot that and my keyboards broke put short thanks for beign polite unlike these second rate humans
Dark_AleX - Likes Cats!
LMFAO
I not hating on you man! your still the best even if you turn gay on us.
Finally some real publicity for homebrew.
0okm SUCK!!! hahaa EAT... you are nothing!!!
that was a lot more mature than i was expecting i guess BBC reporters realy are beter than ABC ones
gonna post this in the german hello world thread on the official forums
@p0stal_sean your bigotry is truly absurd.
Bout time they got some sort of mainstream coverage. they (among many others) breathe life into psps. They saw the systems untapped potential and went for it for the greater good of all of us,so we can get the most out of what we spend our hard earned money on. Long live Fanjita, Dark Alex and Booster!
Sony gets pwned again and again, and just by a few guys. This is what you get sony for trying to kill the homebrew scene.
he contributes to homebrew too. look at the 2.8 downgrader. u sucka$$
lol everyone american, many hackers and homebrew creators live in Europa and Asia. And dont think amarica is the only country with internet, europa has many more rich countries
fanjita lastname:court
hope sony meets you the in court.
and you never gonna be alex never.
$ony's not anti-homebrew, they're anti-piracy. The psp doesn't allow homebrew cause then people would use it for piracy so $ony has to block it or the developers and they themselves (cause sony makes games too) would get pissed off. On the ps3 however, $ony didn't block homebrew and the ps3 is entirely open because so far no-one's really cracked blu-ray (have fun fitting 54gigs on your hard drive anyways) so $ony has no reason to block homebrew and as far as they're concerned is 1 more reason for people to buy their console. +)
Word.
Last post w00t!
Don't you realise that we are 2 different people, with different aims and skills. Why would we want to be each other? We're comfortable in ourselves.
so where is this all downloader then ?
Why dont SONY start shipping the New PSP's with 3.03OE-C.....
Atleast everyone will start buying PSP for sure...
man he probly live round the corner from me ( i live in edinburgh i gotta locate that dude)
See, i think he's right when he says, if you bought and payed for it, it's yours and you can do whatever you want to it or with it. Sony should not be able to control your psp after you bought it.
yes england rules!!
You gotta love those crazy kids
Finally the homebrew secne gets somme encourgement,
We've been too long waiting
0okm rocks! You suck. Why don't u go create a downgrader *****!
i canty believe that Homebrew has finally been introduced to the UK by one of the biggest corporations in thw world. Now sony are gonna put a blok on all all their new tvs so u cant put BBC on it (lol). I do think that the community will get bigger now and while tha could mean more developers it also spells the need for more in depth readmes or we will have the forums and comment boxes full of newbs asking how to put stuff on their PSPs......... OH THE TERROR!!!
I always knew it
freewebs.com/edder2000
omg.. I heard fanjitas voice
All this time I thought Fanjita was a girl.
its nice that a world famous site like bbc would do a article like this, but the writing in it was pretty bad and made it seem like the homebrew community was just composed of DAX, Noobz, and Team create and destroy. when in reality ther are literally thousands of devs that work in the homebrew community. so i dont think the article got the true message of the homebrew community out. but its still nice for the exposure.
lmao, i dont think there is a girl homebrew dev. rofl. fanjita is a moderator on qj forums. lol
well, isnt ditlew as important as those two, fanjita and ditlew are/were friends i thought?
whats next?
Fanjita and Dark Alex do the talk show circut?
ummm....don't be so sterotypical + ethnocentric not all americans are as sterotypical as your saying i'm very open to other cultures so don't class every american as the same as him even then he was just stateing an opinion of what he thought not that he said that he doesn't pay attention to the outside world and is ignorant
ontopic: this story is great i hope to see more of them in the future
didn't see the it went on to next page so just nvm this
Sony isn't going to try and sue them, they are going to try and kidnapp them. Then Sony is going to put Dark_Alex in a cold room and force him to make new updates that kick ass. Fanijita is going to be forced to make PSX emulator updates.
I don't think Goths listen to Metal. I'm not Goth and I listen to Metal. It would be cool if Dark_Alex did like metal, though :P.
@ p0stal_sean, lol, your comments are so awesome :P. I have a heavy accent associated with you. Oh, and your rant is a bit weird. It seems like your making fun of Americans, and also saying if you don't like America you can leave... Sort of weird. I'm guessing that your talking about Latin Countries, but...
the creator of the 1.51 custom firwmare or whatever it was. that creator was a girl. so sorry ur wrong
hahaha Dark Alex is a japanophile
He watches Japanes animes and reads mangas, just like i do xD
I hope he watches Bleach xD
that is sooo awesome.
and its not goth. its probably visual kei
Ye! plus If sony is really smart, they will create some form of electronic delivery system! like valve did with steam! that way we could still have the benifits of Iso games (ie, load faster) and it would still be legal!
Nice
Primeramente quisiera decirle gracias a Alejandro por su excelente trabajo como programador. Has ayudado much a la comunida. Buenos deceos desde Estado Unidos.
Ha. It's been a long time since I wrote in Spanish. I am from Mexican decent so write fluent Spanish. I just wanted to tell DAX thank you in his language.
Booster never received a cease and desist order. His ISP did, since someone had posted a copyrighted file on his site.
FANJITA IS GAY
DAX IS A *****
i dont think anyone could like recognize them enough
about time they were properly commended for their effrts in the homebrew scene. Good work guys!
wow, leave it to the bbc to do something that qj and the others should have done a long time ago. start to interview the homebrew developers, the ones who make this website what it is.
we don't give a damn about interviews from "legit" developers, the ones making games that we buy from our local EB. we want to hear from the ones who actually make our psp's worth having. the ones everyone here in this community practically worship.
hopefully this will be a wake up call to qj that what we care about aren't more chili con carnage trailers or interviews with "what's his face" over at "whatchamacallit " games, but fanjita, DA, and the others. what makes them tick, what are their secrets, why do they do what they do without getting paid for it.
SHAME ON QJ for not picking up this torch a long time ago. an exclusive interview with fanjita or DA only on QJ? 1000 jumps instantly and more web traffic than you can shake a stick at. interviews with developers that noone's ever heard of? you can almost hear the noninterest coming from this site's readers.
... since it's already been done. Search the site for "Meet the developers", you'll see a lot of interviews with me and various others, all original material by QJ.
first thing i heard a psp hacker
On software piracy; Innocent until proven guilty! just because I have a knife in my kitchen doesnt mean Im going to kill someone.
I use my PSP with custom firmware to:
-Play ripped DVDs ive already purched. Legal!
-Play PS1 games ive already bought like FFVII and GT2. Legal!
-Run Homebrew applications not supported by Sony like personal organiser and Satnav software. Legal!
Ive spent thousands on sony products over the past 12 years - PS1 and tens of games, PS2 plus 10s of games. Sony laptop, Sony Bravia LCD TV. Ill probably be having a PS3 too.
Wake up Sony. We are not the enemy. We are your bread and butter!
Wow, Fanjita's an English prick isn't he? What a knob...
Until now i thought Fanjita was more than one person like a group working together,but hey you learn something new every day.
if that was supposed to be mean ill come and cap all ur homies.
jk
What a smart question... the reason they don't is because then everyone could just download games instead of buying them and sony would go bankrupt retard... they LOSE money selling PSPs and they expect to make up the money by selling games... if they don't sell games, no more games will be made and the PSP fails. Why would you expect them to enable what they have been trying to stop all this time?
if one of these developers lose to Sony via courts or other legal system...i swear i will get the out of jail
ddfdfdfsf!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!
dont worry guys, i have not quit the whole homebrew scence and am waiting for a new version to come out so i can hack it, rumour is that the next version in 3.20 and shud be easy so no panic! I'm am currently in the process of hacking the downgrader for 3.11... Not 3.10 because u can update and then downgrade and more people need 3.11 so i will be back.... DONNT FORGET to my webby www.dark-alex.org..... WARNING dont go to www.dark-alex.xom... IT IS A *****ING FAKE
i love gothic and cats