Slashdot Mirror
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."
I smell pirating goodness for all. :) I think its amazing how fast this downgrader came out after the buffer overflow was discovered in the photo section. Simply Amazing.
www.samuraidreams.com - My Blog
www.samuraifiles.com - Get Some Videos Here
Admit it.
Now we're all just waiting for Sony to thow it's Intellectual Property Toys out of the pram and let the attack dogs (lawyers) loose.
A sorry state of affairs.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
This is the first time a buffer overflow is used for non-evil purposes.
*SIGH* Wish all the hackers out there were like this guy.
Is "homebrew software development" the new euphemism for "piracy"? You know, how 99.99% of everyone who got mod chips for their ps2 and xbox was just so they could "run linux" ?
consumers increasing the value of the products they've purchased? tailoring them to their own sinister ends? i predict massive retaliation.
and the best kind of retaliation! fruitless retaliation.
gg.
How many people are really using this stuff, vs. the total user base?
The mainstream market isn't even aware hacks like this exist (much less where to find or how to use them), for the most part.
It didn't take long until they patched 1.50. This has been an ongoing process. They will patch the overflow, make the next gen of game require the patched update (Although there is a loader that fakes the psp's firmware). All this means is that everyone who buys a PSP up until the next firmware starts hitting the market will be able to run homebrew, and we will hear whining from all the 2.X people about being locked out of the homebrew scene. But its good news for a little while!
What if they release hardware at a loss, hoping you'll pay for other software?
Weird business model, granted, but it's worked in the past...
At last, a second chance for those who upgraded their original 1.0 firmware and instantly regretted doing it once the homebrew hacks were discovered. This hack comes at a much better time for enthusiasts to benefit and make use of the hack, if they desire, before Sony patch the hole (not to mention leaving a large number of PSP's out there on the available market running a hackable firmware..). Of course all this would be moot if Sony would just embrace the developer community surrounding the PSP and support it appropriately, instead of them having to go to these lengths.
Business Voyeur
"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 :)
This is very true. A few months ago I started seeing a lot of used psps being sold on sites like craigslist.com. The ones I contacted about why they were selling their psps basically said that games/movies were pretty expensive.
www.samuraidreams.com - My Blog
www.samuraifiles.com - Get Some Videos Here
Perhaps including a disclaimer like this with all my programs would help reduce the criticism:
The next one who will say shot about him or any respectable devlopper will get my kick on his ass.
I like it!
I learned from Skylark who was part of the downgrade developing group that SonyxTeam was NOT involved in the creation of this downgrade AT ALL. Instead MPH did released it.
:(
Sorry for messing up, please update the story for I don't think SonyxTeam's name deserves to be mentioned in the news
But Sony probably loses money on PSP base hardware sales. Their profit is in the sale of games and licenced accessories. The PSP (or GBA, or any of the consoles out there) don't make money for the company that makes them. They make their money from game sales. They charge a royalty on each game sold. So anything distributed outside that business model doesn't benefit them (homebrew apps) or is a penalty to them (pirated software).
So if someone bought the PSP just to use homebrew apps then Sony actually either makes no money or possibly even loses money, depending on if the price of the hardware is equal to or greater than the cost to manufacture and distribute. Its the whole "sell them the razor cheap, but keep them buying expensive razor blades" business model.
One might make the argument that a typical person who wants to use homebrew apps on it will also buy official games to play on it, but to Sony that's not worth the risk. Anything that opens the potential for a widespread pirate game (or movie) market for the PSP means lost revenue, which I'm sure the beancounters have compared to potential sales to people who want homebrew apps. And the resultant product shows which business model seems more profitable for them.
It may make it easier to emulate a GameBoy Color and play pirated ROMs from ten years ago on your PSP, but I don't think Sony really has much to worry about from that.
Pirating PSP games isn't going to be feasible unless you own a UMD fabrication plant, or have a large supply of 1GB Memory Sticks.
"The mainstream market isn't even aware hacks like this exist (much less where to find or how to use them), for the most part."
They aren't aware YET, and Sony doesn't want them to be aware ever. Unlike Nintendo's cartridge-based portable systems, on which loading homebrewed and pirated games requires special equipment that is being banned in the US and Western Europe as fast as it is created, once the details are worked out people will have little to no trouble burning PSP discs or booting games and watching movies stored on cheap Lexmark memory sticks. That would be the kiss of death for the PSP, a system that appears to many to be floundering now that the initial wave of publicity has faded out of most memories.
One of the biggest nails in the Dreamcast's coffin was widespread distribution of the tools and knowledge required to burn Dreamcast games that booted with no modifications to the disc. Sony was paying a lot of attention to that, and will fight tooth-nail-to stop it from happening on the PSP. They'll fail, of course, but they'll fight.
The benefit isn't great, but I don't see any damage.
If people are hacking the hardware and using free/semi-free/illegal homebrew software, they're not buying the "real" games. If you can explain how that would not lead to lower profits for Sony, i'd love to hear it.
Losing power while down/upgrading will brick the psp, making it transparent to the user would be a bad idea.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
Yes, I know it's less powerful and less sexy, but I'm still waiting for a GP2X. Should be cheaper and DESIGNED to run my own programs. I write silly little games for my laptop (not worthy to be sourceforged, mostly about the level of addictive flash games), and I want to write silly little games to play on the shuttle bus to campus. And I want to run other people's silly little games and Yar's Revenge, which I bought Back in the Day and feel no urge to buy again.
According to PSPUpdates, SonyXTeam has NOTHING to do with this. It is the sole creation of Team MPH.
SonyXTeam is comprised of former members of Team WAB, a group that conned hundreds of people out of their money.
WAB said that they would be releasing a downgrader on September 1, and opened up a Paypal account for donations.
Then members of WAB claimed to have been arrested, and they claimed that their hard drive crashed. If anyone came on their IRC server and asked about the downgrader, they were kicked off. Then the team split up, and the "main coder" of the supposed downgrader went over to SonyXTeam.
This coder, Yoshihiro, is well known throughout the XBox scene as a fake who stole the code of others and claimed it as his own. He is doing the same thing here with the real downgrader.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
as far as piracy of UMD games goes, well that is one of the more boring uses of an 'unlocked' PSP.
the PSP is a rather nice piece of hardware, and you'd be amazed at the stuff that people have got running on it - much more than just 'homebrew pong'.
there are of course the multitude of emulators, so you can have your favourite 8-bit microcomputer, or home console with you on the bus. there is already a good implementation of the SCUMM Virtual Machine, so you can play all (well, most) of your favourite Lucasarts graphic adventures, there's a passable Doom engine running on it, a really promising LUA implementation, DOSBOX, and a zillion other things that are under development right this minute.
slashdot is not condoning piracy with this post, they are simply highlighting the truly creative use of computing hardware - a concept that warms the cockles of many slashdotters!
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 ]
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 need a downgrader to Windows 95. That will protect me from all the hackers targeting XP!
How ya like dat?
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
Not true. I've had a Dreamcast since it launched, I've been downloading and burning homebrews for it since I've discovered them, yet I still loved and played the "real" games (when they were making them). The homebrews just gave more funciton to my Dreamcast, but it didn't replace the games.
I don't like to sit. Sitting is for people who like to sit.
homebrew != arbitrary code execution.
and remember, each purchased unit belongs wholly and solely to you. you own the chips inside the machine, you own the lcd screen, you own the interconnects, you own the speakers, you own the right to fully access each of them.
calling it "homebrew" does a disservice to the property rights "movement". it makes it sound like you have no business using and programming the chips you paid good money for.
Arbitrary Code Execution, ACE.
using technical means to prevent you using your own property is a crime in my book.
and no, "business model" is no excuse in removing your lawful rights in using your own property any way you wish. sell it for 3 times as much but leave my access alone. i want it to make it illegal to rent products but call it buying. if you want people to have limited access, call it renting and then set prices accordingly. if you want to sell items outright, then behave accordingly. the problem is, they want the benefits of selling with the benefits of renting. that's a commerce no no not to mention unethical and immoral.
please don't use the word "homebrew" or if you feel you must, at least give it some thought each time you do.... see if it matches up with the world you want to live in. words have a lot of power... use it wisely.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
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.
Sony sells the PSP at a huge loss (the fancy screen and marketing blitz couldn't have been cheap) and is designed to make up losses with PSP movie sales and PSP game sales. Neither of which have amounted to anything (yet).
Unless Texas Instruments launches their own 'Virtual Boy', they're pretty much the Nintendo of professional, high quality calculators. Don't expect double digit percentage growth, but constant and consistant growth. Sony on the other hand is already in the ditch. Yes they've made some headway into the market, but so did the Game Gear (arguably the Gameboy's strongest competitor) as did the Neo Geo Pocket/Color and they both lost, horribly for the latter.
The PSP isn't going to go anywhere if it just pushes itself with homebrewed software. It needs games. Badly. Movies are nice, but the DVD versions blow PSP versions out of the water. Sony needs to stop bashing Nintendo and give Sony fanboys something substancial to bash Nintendo.
I've been following the entire situation as I maintain TehSkeen.net and have first hand experience of what went down. Yoshi did rippoff a bunch of people using PayPal and stole code. http://www.tehskeen.net/ http://www.pspupdates.com/ http://www.psp-spot.com/ http://www.wab.com/ All of these have all of the resources you need to verify my claims including information on contacting the author of the downgrader and the people who assisted him with it.
[ brakken ]
If people are hacking the hardware and using free/semi-free/illegal homebrew software, they're not buying the "real" games. If you can explain how that would not lead to lower profits for Sony, i'd love to hear it.
Easy. Make it marginally difficult to mod so that only those interested pursue it.
Now, what happens? A minority of people dedicated to doing so hack the PSP (don't fool yourself, this was going to happen anyway). The less you harass them, the more these people rant and rave on every G3 Attack of the Show! episode and slashdot article about how cool the PSP is and how much it can do. This becomes, in effect, free advertising. Moreover, when every geek has a PSP, you achieve something far more special--a trend.
But being marginally difficult to mod, MOST people do not. Instead, you get those people to buy the PSP b/c of the coolness factor and then hook them on your games and movies that are offered at a reasonable price. Profit.
It's really not a hard concept. The majority of people are not hackers, nor will they ever be. Put bluntly, the majority of consumers are lazy. They will follow the path of least resistance, which you should provide them at every opportunity--for a reasonable price, of course. Why do you think Alienware is still in business when you can build your own top-notch computer for much cheaper? Why do most people pay for an oil change in their cars? Why do people buy music off of iTunes, when they can get songs free via P2P software?
The problem is that Sony doesn't get it. Instead, they harass the mod community with updates that block patching and so forth. They don't offer a good selection of games, and the movies they offer are obviously overpriced and incorrectly packaged. (Why the hell aren't those movie UMDs included w/ the movie DVDs for like $5/10 dollars more?--PEOPLE WOULD BUY THOSE). They don't offer floor models, so most people will never even see one, apart from pictures.
It's as if Sony thought they could design a badass handheld system and then do no nothing to promote or maintain it and still succeed. It's ridiculous. And it's no wonder analysts are starting to criticize them--the gaming community has for months.
-Grym
Just an idea...
As we know Sony sell the PSPs at a loss, and make up the rest by selling the games.
So, why don't they sell a PSP at cost + margin that will allow modding and homebrew?
A bit like with mobile phones, free or cheap when locked to a network. Full price if you want to use it however you want.
~www.devnull.co.uk
I was the one who did that hack. :)
The way it worked was, the TI-92 let you send and receive a "backup" -- an image of its RAM starting from a certain address. I sent a super-large RAM image that wrapped around over the top of its memory and into the interrupt vector table, so that the first time an interrupt occurred it would execute my hook (which I put elsewhere in the image).
The downside of this method was that sending the huge backup took a lot of time, which was especially inconvenient for me because I had to resend it every time I changed the kernel. Later I found a more streamlined hacking method; I found a callback function pointer in the RAM image, and modified the RAM image to make it point to my hook.
I later used a buffer overflow in a certain online PC game for non-evil purposes. I released an unofficial patch that exploited this, to remotely disable a cheat for the game I had previous written which had been leaked and abused, and also to allow people to host games with more options using remotely-executed code (the same code would run locally so the options would be the same on all ends). My patch also fixed some bugs in the game, like incompatibility with Windows 2000/XP.
The company that made this game noticed my patch and offered me the job of working on an official patch. This surprised the heck out of me but of course I accepted! :-)
Since then, I plugged the security hole. But had I not been hired, I would've wrapped a security layer around it and used it to further open the game to customization. Having the source code is much better though.