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US Government Using PS3s To Break Encryption

Posted by timothy on from the purchase-order-shenanigans dept.

Entropy98 writes "It seems that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center, known as C3, has replaced its '$8,000 Tableau/Dell server combination' with more efficient and much cheaper $300 PS3s. Each PS3 is capable of 4 million passwords per second, and C3 currently has 20 PS3s with plans to buy 40 more. Naturally this is only being used to break encryption on computers seized with a warrant and suspected of harboring child pornography."

3 of 570 comments (clear)

  1. Is this April 1st? by commodore64_love · · Score: 0, Troll

    Wait. (goes back to re-read). They are using videogame consoles to run their server? Seriously??? Wow.
    I guess the PS3 is more powerful than I realized; maybe I ought to go buy one. Any good games (not on Xbox) for the PS3?

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Is this April 1st? by commodore64_love · · Score: 0, Troll

      P.S.

      How ironic that the U.S. Cyber Crime unit is breaking U.S. Law to accomplish their goal (modding the hardware and installing Linux). Hmmm. But I doubt Sony or anybody else will file suit. They don't want to go after a big target like the United States government.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  2. This is important people, it's for CHILD PORN by BigHungryJoe · · Score: 0, Troll

    Can we waive the Constitution and give these brave law enforcement folks a billion trillion dollars to buy PS3's? This is about fighting CHILD PORN.

    Child porn is almost as big a threat as terrorism. ALMOST.