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PSP Firmware Downgrader Released
roka writes "SonyxTeam has just released a downgrader for the PSP using the toc2rta 2.0 overflow in libtiff. This has been tested and found working by PSP news sites. This is basically opening all sold models of the PSP to homebrew applications and will boost homebrew software development for Sony's handheld."
Er. I guess you missed the xbox buffer overflows used for the same purpose?
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Yes, because no one wanted to take advantage of the Xbox's PC-like capabilities and browse the web, stream video, pictures and music across their network and play it on their Xbox or play games with trainers to help them out like you can with PC games...considering the fact that there is no actual cheat device for the Xbox. There are so many more uses for the Xbox besides piracy. This is great news for the PSP scene, opens up many more possibilities than having a locked-down, DRM heavy $250 piece of equipment that Sony controls.
"Who we would like to give greetings: Every people devlopping on psp or making the psp scene going further, psp-spot for at least releasing the true side of alonetrio's story, maxconsole.com for their reliable news, killerx for his kxploit, the real founder of the 2.0 overflow (that isn't toc2rta)...
Who we say Fuck to: Alonetrio and what remains of the WAB team, Artik from SPAXXX, Toc2rta lamerz and especially Niacin (as they stole the 2.0 overflow discovery from a pspupdate's forum member) and released crappy code like a useless kernel dumper), Cpasjuste who said Yoshi is a liar but whose main hobby his to steal code form others. Any people who joined toc2rta, People who said shit about Yoshihiro or blamed him, people claiming we had to release the downgrader to them as they owned that priviledge, and people who forgot that devs have a life.
now you have the proof Yoshihiro knows to code and doesn't code shit !
The next one who will say shot about him or any respectable devlopper will get my kick on his ass.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Welcome to the world of Homebrew and Emulation on the PSP, theres emulators for most of the popular systems and nearly 150 games, demos, multimedia and apps for the PSP Emulation and Homebrew scenes, the 2 sites to visit to get all of these are http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/ & http://psp-archive.de/ Be sure to pay em a visit One quick comment i hope Sony havent noticed that a certain PSP site (pspupdates) are hosting the firmware file which im sure is illegal, oh well its up to them i supose. Thanks to Yoshihiro and JohnMPH for this great release :)
The 'homebrew software development' that people seem most intersted in are emulators.
I hope to die peacefully in my sleep like grandpa, not screaming like his passengers.
I don't see how that's flamebait. I visit video game forums all the time, and never once have I met someone who actually wants to play homebrew games on the PSP -- they're talking about homebrew for emulators. A visit to any PSP development site pretty much confirms that the development exists for emulation, not actual new content, as the emulation sections are huge, with constant updates, while the "games" sections usually consist of a basic line game that serves little more than a proof of concept.
They *are*.
The movies are a joke (same price as the DVD!!!), and there are no decent games (and I'm not paying that kind of money to find out.. I'll stick with the three I bought on the launch day until they start selling them in the bargain bucket section).
The only reason I haven't sold mine is I can't be arsed with ebay. This hack might allow me to give the thing some more life (woo homemade games probably even worse than the commercial crap. Can't wait).
I might sound bitter. I am.. that thing was expensive.
Actually, it's not the first time. When Texas Instruments released the TI-92, it only came programmable with a crappy version of BASIC. Then, some hackers figured out that if you used an overly large firmware image with their system restore tool, you could insert instructions into the calculator that let you execute arbitrary code on it. Someone built a hook that let you upload your own assembler instructions, and TI-92 homebrew took off.
The hack was so popular that Texas Instruments ended up releasing an assembler application so that people didn't have to hack their calculators to run their own custom code.
Right, because we know no one actually owns a copy of the games they want to emulate.
Apparently, I just imagined that there was a VNC client, ScummVM port, PDF reader, file manager, Doom port, Heretic, Hexen, a port of Quake in progess, etc... in addition to some pretty decent homebrewn games...
I would be lying if I were to say I don't enjoy playing my old genesis favourites on the psp, but even those I own.
Most of which, and many more can be found here: http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/
The owner is SonyXteam is scammer and liar. He didn't create anything. Check out http://www.psp-updates.com/ and http://www.psp-spot.com/ for the REAL DEAL. Yoshi, the owner of SonyXteam is a know thief who recently ran off with a bunch of donation money for a promised PSP downgrader, got kicked out of his coding group and now is trying to take credit for something he had nothing to do with.
[ brakken ]
I currently have 6 full-size games on my 512MB stick.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
To quote Princess Bride, I think it doesn't mean what you think it means.
:).
Emmerder quelqu'un means "bothering someone" in a vulgar way. A literal translation would be "those we throw shit at" (when doing so, French people usually wear gloves)
Profond here is used as an adverb ("beaucoup"), ie "much".
Anyway "ceux qu'on emmerde" is rather soft compared to "those we say fuck to".
Yoshi, the ex-member of WAB who recently got kicked out for mischievous activities including stealing money in a PayPal SCAM and ripping off code from other authors now states on his new page that he created the PSP v2.0 Downgrader with MPH and that MPH simply "forgot" to include that in the readme. With his past history and apparent lack of ability to spell correctly I highly doubt that he had anything to do with this downgrader, but until MPH responds or if they don't respond we'll know who is telling the truth or not. UPDATE: MPH has just spent some time online and didn't mention a single word about Yoshi's involvement. Guess Yoshi is trying to take credit for something he had no part in afterall. UPDATE: www.wab.com the group Yoshi was kicked out of has an information article about Yoshi and the fact that he didn't have anything to do with the downgrader.
[ brakken ]
I tried it about an hour ago, and it works. Scary procedure, as I:
1. Upgraded to 2.0 firmware from 1.5.
2. Installed the downloader.
3. Ran the downloader - the PSP had a weird screen. It wouldn't shut down, and just showed a screen of garbled text. I wound up having to take out the battery.
4. Put the battery back in, and turned it on. From here, I could run the 1.5 firmware installer. It went to 99% and failed. I had to take out the battery out again to reboot, and it came up fine.
So, a success. Now, there are only 3 PSP games I want to play, and one comes out next month, the other two over six months - and odds are, 2 out of 3 of those games will be made for a 2.01 firmware that removed this exploit. (Which is why the DS has 6 games coming out, two in this week alone, that I want to play, so there's a trade off.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I'm half way through reading Phantom of the Opera on my PSP using a homebrew app. I've got something close to 40 out-of-copyright books that I've been reading via PSPReader, ranging from War of the Worlds to a rather large collection of Shakespeare plays, all that fit just fine on the PSPs screen.
Now, the PSP isn't the best thing to read on, but as long as the room is rather well lit, I avoid headaches/eyestrain and it's not that much different than reading from an actual book.
There is some benefit to the Homebrew, though, I could certainly read the book via the web broswer on the 2.0 firmware, it's less convienient and doesn't have as many features.
It is only an overflow bug in a library, Sony will certainly patch it in the near future and the PSP will become increasingly tougher to crack open.
AFAIK, the PSP is the first major proprietary system with user-uppgradable firmware. In any case, the 1.00-2.00 trend indicates that Sony does not intend to let the PSP remain crackable indefinitely if it can do something about it... and fixing the exploit sounds like minimal effort.
I am betting that the PSP firmware and/or SDK has provisions for triggering automatic firmware upgrades when a disc containing a newer valid firmware is first loaded. Throw in firmware signature checks in new games and this either makes PSP hobbyists lives increasingly less convenient or forces them to choose between hobby and running Y2K6+ games.
Sony is in the business for profits... and profits come from title licenses for commercial PSP media. To get media endorsement for the PSP, Sony has to demonstrate that the media and platform are a perfect lock-in solution. Exploits like these un-upgrade hacks put a dent in Sony's PSP lock-in desires so they need to be ironed out to make content providers happy and keep the license money flowing in.
Does it suck? Yes. But that is how this particular business model works.
When booting a PSX disc, the PS2 reads a file from the memory card for some silly purpose like providing icons for memory card files. As it turns out, the code that reads that file is vulnerable to a buffer overflow, and if exploited properly it allows one to execute any arbitrary ELF code stored on the memory card, the effect of which you can easily imagine.