Slashdot Mirror

173w ago - Update: Sony's Geoff Levand has now confirmed, to quote: "SCE is committed to continue the support for previously sold models that have the 'Install Other OS' feature and that this feature will not be disabled in future firmware releases."

Read more: http://www.ps3news.com/playstation-3-psn-news/rumor-sony-to-remove-otheros-in-next-ps3-firmware-update/#ixzz2WUNHPlbf

199w ago - Today Sony's Satoshi Hashimoto, in an interview with Impress Watch, confirmed that Sony will not be removing the OtherOS and Linux functionality in old (non-Slim) PlayStation 3 consoles.

Read more: http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Linux/ps3-otheros-linux-to-remain-in-old-ps3s-no-security-hole/#ixzz2WUNsxnTI

173w ago - Update: Sony's Geoff Levand has now confirmed, to quote: "SCE is committed to continue the support for previously sold models that have the 'Install Other OS' feature and that this feature will not be disabled in future firmware releases."

Read more: http://www.ps3news.com/playstation-3-psn-news/rumor-sony-to-remove-otheros-in-next-ps3-firmware-update/#ixzz2WUNHPlbf

199w ago - Today Sony's Satoshi Hashimoto, in an interview with Impress Watch, confirmed that Sony will not be removing the OtherOS and Linux functionality in old (non-Slim) PlayStation 3 consoles.

Read more: http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Linux/ps3-otheros-linux-to-remain-in-old-ps3s-no-security-hole/#ixzz2WUNsxnTI

182w ago - Today Sony's Satoshi Hashimoto, in an interview with Impress Watch, confirmed that Sony will not be removing the OtherOS and Linux functionality in old (non-Slim) PlayStation 3 consoles. Until now, many feared Sony would remove the functionality from older PS3 systems via PS3 Firmware 3.0 or a future update. Additionally, he stated that there isn't an issue with the feature leaving a security hole with the system. To quote Andriasang.com (linked above): "Rest assured, this will not happen. Sony's Satoshi Hashimoto, in an interview with Impress Watch, said that Sony will not be removing the feature, which he refers to as "Other OS functionality." He also assured readers that there currently isn't a problem with the feature leaving a security hole with the system." Read more: http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Linux/ps3-otheros-linux-to-remain-in-old-ps3s-no-security-hole/#ixzz2LdA1yfmE

There were also a lot of other things that were sold with the original PS3 that were then removed in future releases of the console. PS2 backward compatibility as an example. The first gen PS3 had it in hardware, the second gen had it in software. Then it was silently removed altogether. Luckily they didn't retro actively remove it. I know it's a little different because by the time you both the PS3 thin it was well known it didn't exist any more. To me that seems like an easily repeatable, first gen PS4 allows used games then before people know it all the sudden the feature is removed or phased out.

Sony's demonstrated that you can't believe what they say. I bought into the PS3 partly for the Other Os and was burned. Anyone who buys into the PS4 after know what with the PS3 deserves to get burned when Sony pulls another stunt.

Are you sure? I suppose you don't play PS3 games then.

From this post:

Assasin's Creed = 7.87 GB
Grand Theft Auto IV (US) = 10.5 GB
Motor Storm (US) = 14.48 GB
Ninja Gaiden Sigma = 11.5 GB
The Darkness = 17.6 GB
Uncharted: Drakes Schicksal = 21.08 GB

Plenty of Android phones have to be jailbroken. Here's the first Google result for android jailbreaking. A complex set of tutorials to get root access on Android.

The N900 has root access out of the box. Here's the first Google result for N900 jailbreaking. A tutorial on how to use the N900 to jailbreak other devices.

Utter rubbish. The initial attack may have required hardware but it opened the door to software hacks. His hack allowed him to manipulate and dump the memory tables of the PS3 and doubtless uncover bugs that could be exploited in software & packaged up as an Other OS dist which does not need signing like other executables. Indeed that was the speculation amongst modders contemprary with the hack, e.g. here, " It is quite possible someone will package this attack into a modchip since the glitch, while somewhat narrow, does not need to be very precisely timed. With a microcontroller and a little analog circuitry for the pulse, this could be quite reliable. However, it is more likely that a software bug will be found after reverse-engineering the dumped hypervisor and that is what will be deployed for use by the masses.".

No, Geohot demonstrated a viable attack on the hypervisor. A contemporary report of which is here. Sony had no choice but to shut OtherOS down before the attack was refined into an ISO that people could download, burn & install on the PS3 to root the thing completely.

No choice? Huh, I could have SWORN there could be other options like "Patch the vulnerability without screwing their customers." You know, a REASONABLE response.

No, Geohot demonstrated a viable attack on the hypervisor. A contemporary report of which is here. Sony had no choice but to shut OtherOS down before the attack was refined into an ISO that people could download, burn & install on the PS3 to root the thing completely.

None of this matters to Joe User. They buy video discs to watch movies, not burn content. I was also surprised at the summary. Blu-ray is being adopted at the same rate or faster than DVD, yet they are claiming it's failed?

http://www.ps3news.com/Console-News/blu-ray-poised-to-eat-away-at-dvd-disc-sales/

http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/The-Blu-ray-Rollercoaster--Adoption-Rate-Surges-Again/1593298

This is in spite of the fact that back when DVD was introduced, there was no streaming of video content to compete at all, other than poor quality stamp sized video.

I would hardly classify that as a failure since it's meeting or surpassing DVD and it has streaming to contend with.

I don't get all the rejoicing. This lawsuit is far from over. The jurisdiction thing seems too silly to be a serious attempt at anything. I can't understand why they tried that silly twitter/youtube thing, perhaps they want to win time? Or did they pick the court closest to their HQ? When this gets filed in New Jersey (and I don't see why it won't) the real suit will start. BTW: Could it be I just read something about the 'root key' not being so unique and holy-grail like after all? http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Hacks/hermes-and-naima-on-ps3-npdrm-selfs-encryption-differs/page-2 Anyone knows what it's about, and what the implications are?

Oh, I meant to link to this too: http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Hacks/ps3-jig-id-swapping-procedure-manual-leaked-by-demonhades/
I'll be darned if that isn't some sort of top-secret document there... Better not download it. Your Sony Rootkit will rat you out!

Hi,
I was researching this just now. It seems the PS3 "hacks" are based on the actual PS3 "jig" that sony uses to repair PS3s. I "found" (thanks google) an official manual describing one procedure ("ID swapping") and it seems to start off by exactly describing the process of jailbreaking a PS3. (Connect Jig with USB cable, Power on and hit eject within 0.2s)
Then it goes on to describe some complete different chain of activities, looks like cloning some "ID" from the hardware onto the usb, and then allowing it to be written to another PS3. Whatever.
My point is, Sony put this (buggy) code into the PS3 on purpose, and I guess the original hacking team have reverse engineered part of it, and figured out the rest from leaked documents, enough to get the exploit running anyways. We certainly aren't booting into service mode. It seems that the PS3 USB hacking devices are partial clones of this official sony hardware, and the danger lies in the fact that despite this being "open source", we don't really understand 100% how the exploit works. Microsoft had a nice (lame) trick for their Xbox360 hard drives - the drive contains a "security sector" that is nothing more than a (copyrighted) microsoft logo. I'm just worried you could be hosting some binary Sony logo, without knowing it, or something else that they can complain is "stolen".
Here's a bit more info on service mode: http://www.ps3news.com/PS3Dev/some-playstation-3-service-mode-details-1/
Anyways, the PSFreedom Git hub is here: http://github.com/kakaroto/PSFreedom
Those are easy to clone ;)

An intel i7-975 with an NVidia gtx 480 can emulate a PS2 quite smoothly at 1080p with hardware scaling, AA, and a handful of other graphical touches that blow the original PS3's PS2 support out of the water. SONY already proved the PS3 has the power to emulate the PS2's central processing. All that's left is for them to emulate the Emotion Engine (GPU). I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of cores left over to do that effectively. They even already filed a patent for it: http://www.ps3news.com/PlayStation-3/patent-shows-ps3-to-ps2-backwards-compatibility-no-ps2-chips-1/ My guess is once they finally end of life the PS2 the backward compatibility will return to the PS3 via full software emulation. That way they can continue to sell all the PS2 "classics" on the PlayStation Store. FF7 for the PS One has been one of the best selling games in their store for a long time. It's got to be killing them all the money they are loosing not being able to sell downloadable iso's of PS2 games.

http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Dev/ps-jailbreak-ps3-exploit-reverse-engineering-is-detailed/

It emulates a six-port hub and connects/disconnects devices with corrupted descriptors (that have their size changed on-the-fly!) in a particular order to smash the Heap so you can use a corrupted malloc boundary tag to overwrite the call to free() so that after the failed Jig authentication tries to release the memory allocated for the cryptographic response it will launch the shell code that was dropped into memory using a USB descriptor.

It brings a tear to my eye. Truly, one of the most beautiful things I ever had the privilege of understanding.

From my Firehose submission, there's an open source version available using a cheap and easily obtained development kit (~$40 US).

News article
Source code plus patch which you need to enable backup functionality.

All it would need is someone to port it to Linux (USB Gadget). An Android phone would serve as a suitable USB client.

Even better, this dongle disconnects itself from the USB bus when it's done - the only thing Sony can do is recognize unauthorized packages. Which becomes a problem because package managers will start using popular game IDs that Sony can't ban or block because it would block legitimate customers. Or download demos off PSN and use those IDs.

From my Firehose submission, there's an open source version available using a cheap and easily obtained development kit (~$40 US).

News article
Source code plus patch which you need to enable backup functionality.

All it would need is someone to port it to Linux (USB Gadget). An Android phone would serve as a suitable USB client.

Even better, this dongle disconnects itself from the USB bus when it's done - the only thing Sony can do is recognize unauthorized packages. Which becomes a problem because package managers will start using popular game IDs that Sony can't ban or block because it would block legitimate customers. Or download demos off PSN and use those IDs.

and maybe it will be free ? "however, please note the PSJailBreak patch above is only for PlayStation 3 Debug users. At this time it would probably be wise NOT to waste your money on this expensive PSJailBreak USB device, as a FREE PS3 scene solution is bound to surface." http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Hacks/psjailbreak-playstation-3-jailbreak-for-ps3-consoles-arrives/

im *SICK* of the DRM restrictions on pc games

Consoles are DRMd, too. It's just that NORMALLY, they don't get in the way. However, on the PS3, there are some games which DRM their save files so that you can't backup/restore them with the normal process:

http://www.ps3news.com/PlayStation-3/locked-ps3-game-saves-compilation-list-is-now-available/#ixzz0TLGnOjgP

This is pretty bad, since if your PS3 dies, you lose this game data. You can technically move these to another PS3 if both systems are working, by doing some migration hoodoo using a network cable (as opposed to the relatively simple hard disk backups you can do with any other game.)

Of course, since this generation of consoles have a much higher failure rate than previous generations, this is a pretty big deal to me.

There are other issues that add to the annoyance factor. Some games require that you be signed into PSN ( http://psx-scene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64147 ) and plenty of games require the latest firmware to play. Firmware updates can brick your console ( http://gizmodo.com/5021399/playstation-3-firmware-24-bricking-some-ps3s ). While you can easily fix a PC which has been hosed by an update, fixing a console is going to be much harder.

Consoles used to be great for gaming, but I'm too wary of all of these issues to buy one now. My last console was a Wii, though before that I had all of the major consoles of each generation.

It does now, after a fashion:

http://www.ps3news.com/XBox-360/video-xbmc-running-on-xbox-360-ubuntu-by-team-cygnos/

but it's not usable.

I've tweaked about 6 PSP Fats to run custom firmware using Chickhen as a starting point. No hardware modding needed if you have Sony Firmware 3.5 or lower. http://www.ps3news.com/PlayStation-Portable/psp-chickhen-homebrew-enabler-r2-is-now-available/ This works on *any* PSP1000 or PSP1001 & I think most PSP2001's. It can take a while for the TGA hack to actually "catch" & work. 1st time I did it probably had to try it 60 times or more. Then I use PSX2PSP to convert my PSX games into a format that the PSP can use. http://pspslimhacks.com/psx2psp-v13 An 8GB MemoryStick can hold quite a few compressed PSX games. Then I install BookR to read my ebooks. http://sourceforge.net/projects/bookr/ Hope this is useful to someone.