PlayStation 3 code signing cracked

Hardware hackers claim to have uncovered the private key used by Sony to authorise code to run on PlayStation 3 systems. The hackers uncovered the hack in order to run Linux or PS3 consoles, irrespective of the version of firmware the games console was running. By knowing the private key used by Sony the hackers are able to …

[Confuciousmobil]

They do it again...

It never ceases to amaize me how few people can actually do this level of hacking. Bushing and Marcan, two of Fail0ver, were original members of the iPhone Dev Team, as was GeoHot who's exploit resulted in OtherOS being removed in the first place.

Comex, another well known Wii hacker is now helping with the iPhone.

The same people work on all devices to free them so people can use their own software - pirating is not, nor ever has been, the aim, of these very, very clever people.

The more I learn of their methods the more humbled and grateful I am.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: how few people

I think you are mis-reading the situation. The necessary technical know-how is not above the level of a degree course in mathematics or computer science. What it takes, in huge amounts, is time and inclination. I'm not saying it is trivial, since clearly Sony managed to get it wrong, but I'm sure there are many more people out there capable of doing this. It's just that most of them are doing other things with their lives.

But, I'm grateful too. These people provide *proof* that the industry DRM dream is unworkable, and since the industry is clearly too thick to figure this out for itself, society needs such demonstrations to ram home the message. It is particularly pleasing that on this occasion the proof can be provided in a way that doesn't facilitate piracy, thereby denying the industry its usual chance to go whining to the lawyers and lawmakers.

[Mectron]

this is the NEWS of the decade

Sony will pay dearly for ILLEGALLY removing the linux option. but sales of the PS3 will now explode.... (why do you think the wii is so popular?)

Sony is a company that lost all credibility when they started selling CD with rootkit on it. it should have been shutdown then.... now let's hope widespread piracy will hit Sony where it will realy hurt..,., their bottom line.

[Melvin Meatballs]

Black Tea Ops

I'm totally pissed off that Sony prevents my PS3 from making tea.

I'm on a mission to 'hack'-saw the slot to accept a tea bag and then apply a boiling water overflow.

If this operation fails, then as my mind is so unbalanced from years of sun-deprivation and the inability to talk to girls, I will mistakenly believe that killing virtual soldiers in a series of 1960s flashbacks makes me a real killer.

The staff of the local Premier Inn will all die as I rescue a teasmaid from their evil clutches.

So will anyone in rooms 9, 19, 18, 4, 6, 21, 17, 14...

[John Sanders]

You know what?

Now I'm buying a PS3, so are several of my friends, and I know even more people that will do once they learn of this.

In my case I will use the ps3 to have a cheap mediacenter with cheap remote, cheap blu-ray, bluetooth, wireless, and cheap etc.

XBMC will be ported with full gfx hardware acceleration in a couple of months.

You can keep yours to make tea.

Why is so hard for some people to understand that what makes an electronic device attractive for a certain type of people is the fact that you should be able to do with it what you want.

[Richard 31]

Title

It does that already out of the box.

Drop PS3 media server onto your desktop and all its media are belong to the PS3.

[[Yamthief]]

@Anonymous Coward "Just to clarify?"

This is correct, however this also means you can create your own PS3 OS similar to Xbox Media Center (XBMC) which can do all of the above. I think if anything the sale of PS3 consoles will go up because of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The title beetle juice is required..........

actually , funny enough,you Cant run XBMC On the xbox 360 as these so called hackers didnt bother to make a signed hack where you could simply boot and run a basic PPC Linux and actaully make some good Decode codecs and containers (to replace the crap limited originals) that actually work with real generic H.264 High profile @4.1 and above.

now that would be worth a few lines in a news item, a self booting 360 signed PPC linux ISO that works on an xbox360 out the box ;)

and before you say the 360 can play H.264 fine, try it with a real HP@4.1 1080P (beetle juice for instance)at your average 15Mbit/s 30fps with 5+ refs inside an MKV container or even mp4, fail...

[Anonymous Coward]

Great news.

Great news - and it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Six months after I bought my PS3 *specifically* because it was able to run Linux, they removed that functionality via an update.

Nope, no sympathy for Sony here!

[Daniel B.]

Is this really a surprise?

Up until April 1, 2010, the most talented hackers & coders didn't give a shit about PS3 restrictions, as most of the legal reasons for jailbreaking the PS3 were covered by the standard firmware: running Linux, running games from other regions.

Then Sony decided to piss off that group, thinking "geeze, they got like 1% of all the PS3 market. We can tell them to go fuck themselves and nobody will care!" And to a certain degree, they were right: most people were suckered by the "security reasons" that Sony gave them and called those who wanted to run Linux pirates or "xbots".

Sony simply didn't realize that the pissed-off userbase might be a low % of PS3 users, but they are also the ones that have enough expertise to pull off something like this. I really wish that Sony were to re-enable Linux not only on the fat ones, but on the slim ones as well.

[JaitcH]

First Kinect and now Sony

The enterprising types who do this should be congratulated on their technical prowess.

Pity they can't use it in a CV.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ AC - PC or Console question

fairly straight forward, Firstly, many PC's are far more capable in terms of hardware, they are also almost completely upgradeable.

Your standard console isnt, what you have is what you get. The PC until recently had a much larger range of input devices but on that front consoles are catching up as they have done with networking.

The problem with PCs and why Consoles are so popular is they just work, no fafing about, little to no "installing" is required, they are all networked up just pop the disk in and off you go, forget updating drivers and installing the latest direct x.

Now that sounds great and it is, but in every instance where a game has been made for a PC and not just a port the graphics quality and game playability in some instances is far better on the PC, because the PC can be capable of a lot more.

So as to why the console is holding back PCs? Well thats not really a fair question, but a simple answer is that consols are more popular with everyday joe, much more money is made on the titles so developers tend to make the game to the spec of the console, then port it back to the PC, which is why people say the PC is being held back.

There are some cracking titles on consoles and if they did a propper port to the PC id probably buy them but they dont, so i wont, My Media centre is now as powerful as my old desktop which has now ben decomissioned, in terms of power it knocks the socks off both the leading consoles, a few third party controlers and sorted, everything i need in one box...DVD, BD, Music, TV, media server, games, Office, remote control and VM software. But dispite all that it does, a console would still be easier to use because for all mine is more capable i still need to wait 20 min to install the game, make sure drivers are uptodate and every now and then get new DX updates.

[Rob Beard]

Take it you don't own a PS3?

I presume you don't own a PS3?

As a PS3 owner, one of the things that does annoy me is the occasional games which either require updates or installations. Take Metal Gear Solid for instance, requires a 4GB install (which takes about 20 minutes!) before you can run it.

Or Uncharted 2 which I played yesterday (since re-formatting my PS3 after upgrading to firmware 3.55), that needed a couple of hundred megs of updates before I could play it.

To be fair it's not all games that do that, and once the updates are installed then they're on there unless you delete them (or reformat or upgrade the hard drive).

I find my XBOX 360 isn't half as bad, most of the games I have for it don't require updates (although one or two occasionally offer updates), plus if I choose to I can install the game to the hard drive (to stop the noise of the DVD drive in the XBOX).

Rob

[Dylan Fahey]

I didn't read all the posts, but

I didn't read all the posts, but the thing that really pissed me off about the linux PS3, was that you didn't get access to the whole processor. It was closed off so you didn't even get accelerated X, just the slow version.

Hopefully with this crack, all the PS3 system resources are available to you, the user, not just some 'subset' that sony decided they would 'let' you have access to.

For Paris, 'whatz a puter?'

[Anonymous Coward]

PS3 PVR / Media Center?

Having built myself a PVR media center PC a year back, using Ubuntu & Mythtv, the thought of using a PS3 to do the same *and* also being able to play PS3 games?

That would be damn awesome.

I think I'm on record here, in an old comment, not understanding why anyone would bother to run Linux on a PlayStation - I was evidentally too thick back then to realise the potential.

Now I have a reason - a MythTV, Boxee, XBMC, Gaming beast in a sleek black case.

I'm keeping my eye on this projects, that's for sure.

[soaklord]

PC or Console Question

@Darren Tuffs While your comment about upgradeability etc. is true, part of the reason I switched form PC to console for my gaming was specifically because I chose not to keep up with the SOTA (State of the Art) tax. In order to play the most popular PC games that are not MMO, you had to have a GPU no less than two years old if you were buying mid range GPUs. Every year, your GPU was now a year older and you weren't going to be able to play as well as the rest of the players playing at the bleeding edge. I won't even get into SSDs, CPUs, RAM, etc. In shooters, this meant you spent a lot of time spawning and very little time shooting.

With a console, you buy the hardware that EVERYONE ELSE is using. Therefore, skill is more important than the hardware. With the console, you buy a generation, then get years of use out of it, then "upgrade" to the new generation when it is available, but you aren't fighting an upgrade war just to play online. Compare the two lists below:

Ultimate Gaming PC Min Requirements

SOTA GPU *2+ (lose SOTA in ~1yr)

SOTA CPU (lose SOTA in ~1yr)

SSD

High End RAM (lose edge in ~2yrs)

23"+ display

Gaming Mouse

Gaming Keyboard (assuming no driving/flight sim games no other input req'd)

(Each GPU, CPU, SSD is higher in cost than a console)

Ultimate Gaming Console

HDTV

Console of choice.

If you evaluate price along with everything else, then consoles win hands down. While it is true that you *could* use a gaming machine for far more than gaming with all that power, very few gamers I have met use the added power for sans gaming activities. They use their computers, but outside of gaming, most would be satisfied with "pick a tower" from their local electronics store.