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Sony Has Lost the PS3 Hacking War

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-that-they'll-admit-it dept.

YokimaSun writes "Sony may have dealt a major blow to the PSjailbreak sellers, but the release last week of PSGroove, an open source version of the hack, has now opened the floodgates of ports to mobile phones such as the Nokia N900 and Palm Pre. The final kick in the teeth is that a port of the exploit has been released by Waninkoko of Wii custom firmware fame for the Dingoo Handheld, which is a homebrew console that is very popular amongst emulation fans. It makes you smile that you can use one homebrew console to hack another to get homebrew on that console. Awesome." pudge notes that you can apparently do the same with a TI-84 Plus graphing calculator (YouTube video).

15 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. The only thing Waninkoko is famous for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The only thing Waninkoko is famous for is not thinking before releasing things. He put out a USB .iso loader, for example, that made the pirating possible on a large scale and caused Nintendo to step up patching the Team Twiizers hacks. Don't paint him as a god! He didn't even make any "Custom Firmware", only a few patches to the wii's system menu.

    1. Re:The only thing Waninkoko is famous for... by FrangoAssado · · Score: 3, Informative

      Why is this modded troll? Anyone who follows the Wii homebrew scene knows Waninkoko has been very disruptive to people who want to write and run homebrew code without having anything to do with piracy.

      See also for example this post from another Homebrew Channel developer. And this from marcan (presumably the parent) about how he wrote an USB loader in 6 hours just to show it's no big deal, given everything other people had already done.

  2. Re:Banned from PSN... by morari · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sorry. Sony already ruined their own expensive console by removing marketed features after the fact.

    --
    "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
  3. Re:It does make homebrew *possible*. by partyguerrilla · · Score: 2, Informative

    Homebrew applications and a "cheap" Cell SDK, for starters.

  4. Re:Banned from PSN... by Sam+H · · Score: 2, Informative

    You don't know what you are talking about. I successfully wrote and compiled PS3 software, then ran it on my retail console thanks to PSGroove.

    --
    God, root, what is difference ?
  5. Re:Banned from PSN... by westlake · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sorry. Sony already ruined their own expensive console by removing marketed features after the fact.

    Searching Google News returns about 7,700 hits for "PS3."

    The "OtherOS" was never more than a very small part of the PS3 story - and it is the Move controller that is making headlines now.

  6. Android ports now available by capebretonsux · · Score: 2, Informative

    Without taking a stance on the whole piracy issue, this does work with a HTC Dream on a 120gb ps3 slim. Only problem is that it breaks wifi and sd storage (on the phone) until you reflash.

  7. Re:Ridiculous submission by marcansoft · · Score: 4, Informative

    The exploit has nothing to do with Sony's service jig. It uses the service jig code as a handy way to stash 64 bytes into memory, but it neither passes jig auth nor does anything related to what the jig does at Sony's repair centers. In fact, I think the exploit could be reworked not to emulate a device with the jig's ID at all. The core exploit relies on random (non-specific unidentified vendor) USB devices with wacky descriptors.

    The exploit also only has permissions at lv-2 level (GameOS). Breaking into lv-1 will require extra work, and breaking into the secure SPU is still impractical.

  8. Re:Naturally, the usual OMGWTFPIRACY folks arrive. by spire3661 · · Score: 2, Informative

    IF your machine doesnt have PS2 compatibility already, no amount of software is going to bring it back. PS2 emulation on PS3 has ALWAYS depended on at least part of the PS2 hardware being physically present.

    --
    Good-bye
  9. Re:Banned from PSN... by magnusrex1280 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sure, it's basically copying the Wii idea...but "gimped out?" It's more actually more accurate and works better. Since "gimped out" means "crappier...doesn't work as well...." I'd say your statement is incorrect.

  10. Re:It does make homebrew *possible*. by Schadrach · · Score: 2, Informative

    Technically, the exploit allows the execution of arbitrary code, there's even a fork of PSGroove that's a rewrite to make changing the payload easier. Also, PSGroove doesn't support the backup manager as is (though it's trivial to make it do so), while still allowing the installation of arbitrary PKG files.

    Literally, now that homebrew is possible, it's just a matter of time until there's an SDK that produces package files compatible with dev kit mode and thus an unmodified PSJailbreak.

  11. pc piracy rates are the problem by judeancodersfront · · Score: 3, Informative

    While there is piracy on the consoles it isn't like the pc where most of the people playing the games aren't paying for them.

    That isn't an exaggeration, numerous indy developers have reported piracy rates of over 80%. Just be glad there are enough sales on the pc to still justify console ports.

  12. It has been PATCHED! by cciRRus · · Score: 2, Informative
    Show's over.

    Apparently the latest firmware update fixes the USB exploit.

    Gaming site eXophase claims that, since Sony released firmware update 3.42 earlier today, it has been able to verify that "all variants of the USB-hub emulating exploit (PSFreedom, PSGroove, PSJailbreak) are no longer functional"

    --
    w00t
  13. New firmware 3.42 patches the USB exploit by cciRRus · · Score: 5, Informative
    Unfortunately, you are spot on.

    http://exophase.com/ps3/ps3-firmware-3-42-hits-network-update-18063.htm:

    Update: We can confirm that all variants of the USB-hub emulating exploit (PSFreedom, PSGroove, PSJailbreak) are no longer functional in firmware 3.42.

    --
    w00t
  14. Re:Banned from PSN... by fiendie · · Score: 2, Informative

    250 GB won't last very long. Especially the PS3 exclusive titles fill out those BDs pretty good.

    Uncharted 2 was around 39 GB as was God of War III. Heavy Rain used up about 28 GB.

    I would love to install at least the game I am currently playing to the HD to decrease load times but I can understand why they left the feature out.

    Your average XBox 360 game is roughly 7 GB. I guess Sony just puts a lot of uncompressed textures and sound files on their discs.