Slashdot Mirror
Sony Has Lost the PS3 Hacking War
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).
It makes you smile that you can use one homebrew console to hack another to get homebrew on that console. Awesome.
First of all, this is just used for pirating purposes. In fact that's the only thing the hack allows, so drop the homebrew bullshit.
Secondly, Sony has lost the PS3 hacking war? These hacks are fully detectable by PS3 and Sony. Those who have used them have already been banned from PSN and multiplayer games. What a great way to ruin your expensive console.
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.
Maybe this battle was a loss, but as long as Song can force firmware updates, the war is far from over.
There's aslo an iOS version being made that'll run from a jailbroken iPhone.
Saw a video of a palm pre hacking the PS3 yesterday.
Good-bye
The hack exploits a bug in the USB code on the PS3. A firmware update will render every single one those hack versions useless.
That's nowhere near a victory of any kind.
You're making a whole lot of assumptions. Following the news of this exploit, there's been no evidence of reaction from Sony beyond the lawyer attacks on distributors. It's true the commercial product is designed for backups (which may be used for piracy, but aren't necessarily), but it does allow adding other code - including homebrew. There simply isn't any around yet. I've been looking into the code injected to see if I can figure out a way to replace it with a Linux bootloader, and so far, this looks doable (but far from easy).
So, 1) this is not *just* used for pirating. 2) that is not all it allows. 3) you're the first I've seen spouting the rumour of people being banned from PSN for this. 4) Sony went right ahead and "ruined" the console months ago.
Sony have taken a surprisingly long time to react on the firmware side of things - they were quicker than this to kill Other OS when they weren't even threatened and knew the attack would have no positive effect.
I have been effectively banned for much less reason, however - insisting on keeping functionality I bought the machine for. SCE started the attack on me back in April, and I'm trying to regain what they've unrightfully removed.
If SCE had any interest in goodwill, they could release an update that reenables Other OS. Contrary to some spurious claims, the function required no extra work on their part - they only made changes to it to prevent Linux from getting "too good" at graphics, which is frankly laughable. It also didn't need removal to fit newer features, as it only existed on models with larger flash in the first place. If Other OS continued working as it should, I'd have no reason to spend so much effort on these exploits.
Unshockingly enough, Sony crushed a commercial seller of a PS3 mod device like a bug. Even if the law weren't probably unfavorable to the sellers, Sony probably could have just tied them up in injunctions forever anyway. Shocking.
Equally unsurprisingly, halting the distribution of some OSS software is going about as well as the fight against DVD Jon's little toy did. It's totally unwinnable, and Sony hasn't shown many clear signs of even trying. Shocking.
However, it isn't clear how much this matters. This isn't CSS, where the system was set in stone, millions of un-patchable, non-internet-connected hardware units were already in the wild, and team DRM pretty much just had to suck it up. Those were the good old days.
Sony controls the Playstation Network, and can enforce minimum software versions for access, or punitively lock out units. Even for offline users, individual game disks can mandate, and include, upgrades to a higher version. Sony has, certainly, lost the game against anyone content to just pick up an old PS3 fat on ebay and enjoy a pirated copy of every PS3 game to date, all for ~$200. You'll have to stay offline, and avoid games with mandatory upgrades; but not a bad deal on the whole, I can certainly see a fair few takers.
However, unless this USB hack is seriously powerful, exploiting some basically unblockable fundamental flaw in the PS3's design, all PS3s that ship more than a few weeks from now, are updated(manually or automatically) to the next firmware revision, or wish to play newer games or use newer peripherals, or play online, are back in Sony's camp. And, unlike a DVD or Blu-ray disk, where the plaintext copy, once created, is eminently playable on all sorts of 3rd party devices, general purpose computers, and whatnot, PS3 games are pretty much only playable on PS3s, pending substantial advances in computing power that will allow emulation. This isn't "hack once, run anywhere." Each individual PS3 is controlled separately, and the success of the hacking device depends on how many hackable PS3s remain in the wild, a variable over which Sony has substantial control...
So it enables piracy. But if it adds more functionality because of it, that much the better.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
...who hasn't updated since April 1st and doesn't use the PSN service, what does Sony banning users mean to me? Absolutely nothing. I owe these people nothing. I owe Sony nothing. If Sony has a problem with me using this knowledge to my own personal benefit, tough luck jack. I lost any inclination I had to buy from them EVER again on April 1st. I had been a fairly loyal customer up to that point (Sony TV, DVD player, etc...).
Serves Sony right for bullying us into giving up Linux on our PS3! I'm sure this would have eventually have happened but it makes me smile that it happened so soon after they specifically took away the Other OS option to avoid their console getting hacked. Talk about bad karma.
It has been years since I owned a console (Turbografx 16), after reading about the power of the Cell, I wanted to get a PS3. Not just for games but for Linux! However it turned out one couldn't full harness the power of the PS3 with Linux. So, I didn't get one. Thru the years, I'd check and see if any breakthrus were made or if Sony changed their stance. Well, with the release of the Slim models, the stance changed all right.
Since I own a N900 (Great hardware, great OS, great community! Nokia however is frustrating.) and seeing the release of PSFreedom was interesting to say the least. However at the moment all one can do is backup one's games. While it will be interesting to watch what happens in the homebrew scene, where does that leave those like myself that would want to do something legitimate with the PS3?
In my case, for years I've wanted to port KnoppMyth (now LinHES) to the PS3. Now, it seems that things maybe falling in place that would allow that. However thanks to corporate decisions and the law (DMCA), I probably won't be able to do so. Talk about crippling innovation.
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
It was just a matter of time till it got hacked. Props to sony for making it this long. I don't mod my systems untill I have the next gen one in my hands and working since then it extends the life or use of the old console. By that time then the hackinng is more perfected and I have a much better chance of bricking my machine...but meh each to their own.
I think, at this point it is supposition that Sony can detect the use of a backup. If they can, how does that make you feel if you legitimately own a game and back it up? More importantly, what else do they know about you and what are they doing with that information? I'm not talking about piracy, I'm talking about your rights as a consumer and your rights online.
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
When will the figure out that once you SELL something to somebody, you no longer own it. I'm sick of companies telling me what I can and cannot do with my hardware after I buy it. I should be able to access the PSN with a modded playstation the same way I'm able to get service on a rooted phone. The first people to make an open game console (with comparable/superior hardware of course) are going to be rich.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Sony won because they managed to delay for nearly 4 years the break in the PS3 security, They are not losing money on the console right now, If this would happened early Sony could have lost a lot of money, losing possible game sales on people that probably never had the intention of buying a PS3 because it was not pirate ready is not significant in my opinion, pirates never intended to pay
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.
Who cares, I've gone OpenCL and a GPU, the Cell/CBE is dead.
Great can I have Linux on my PS3 now?
Now that Sony has lost maybe they can give me back the features I PAID FOR.
Thanks.
I'm a full time linux user and I also own a ps3 for two years now. However, I never tried to install linux on it because it does it's job well for what I can't do on my linux system - play games. I wouldn't be surprised if most slashdotters that posted so far don't even use linux on their desktop let alone own a ps3. So what's up with the hate?
Exactly. I've been following this mod for exactly one reason: enabling PS2 games on PS3 versions which don't support that. Although having OtherOS to play with would be kind of neat (I have a slim, so I never had either feature.)
I don't pirate. I occasionally boycott a publisher, and then I simply do without their games (I'm looking at you, Ubisoft.) But I'd love to be able to disconnect my PS2 from my TV.
There have been some murmurs that this will be possible soon. The only question will be whether the cat-and-mouse game Sony will be playing with pirates will be too annoying.
Sony, bring back OtherOS and PS2 emulation, and I'll have no interest in this mod!
I just want them to release the firmware that enables 3D Blu-Ray damnit (they said the firmware was going to be released in Sep and now they say Oct). Anything else is moot. If they don't get off their ass and release it I'm going to have to go buy a Sony 3D Blu-Ray player...
Hilarious!
The PS3 is annihilating the wimpy Xbox 360 in every single possibly graphical/computational category:
* Animation
* Lighting
* Physics
* Materials
* Particles
* Deformation
* Resolution
Hell, the only thing 3500 dollar high PCs can even top the PS3 graphically are in gigantic high rez textures and AA.
Troll harder dimwit.
Let's at least be a little bit honest. Maybe the ability to install Linux on a PS3 was a big deal around here, but for the vast majority of people buying one it's not even on their radar. There's a least a sizable number of these people who have either never heard of Linux or have no real understanding of what it actually is.
I don't expect that Sony will lose many sales over this. Considering that they may still be selling it at a loss and hoping to make up for it in game sales may actually net them more money as there were at least a few people who were using them to make clusters.
"It makes you smile that you can use one homebrew console to hack another to get homebrew on that console."
Yo dawg! I heard you like hacking homebrew, so we we put hack in your homebrew so you can hack homebrew while you hack!
MAKES mE7 SICK JUST
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
Well that's damned disappointing.
You mean it adds back functionality that they used to include with the PS3. Don't forget that they have removed functionality from recent firmware editions as a response to the threat to their exclusivity. And the latest report is that the next firmware update is going to disable the USB ports. Sony has learned very little from getting clobbered over that rootkit they installed on computers as DRM.
Now that there is no unhacked console left, maybe the consolization of PC games will slow down a bit. And maybe Sony will finally release the PS4, so that PC graphics can finally move ahead. It has been 3 years since Crysis. PC games have been stalled in terms of graphics because the better the graphics are on the PC version the more difficult it is to port to the old tech on the consoles.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
The PS3 is not fast enough to emulate a PS2 without hardware assistance. Sorry.
Seriously did you think Sony was holding back on something that would move a lot of units simply by flicking the "on" switch?
Good job, Slashdot: modding the OP as troll. Do note the OP happens to be one of the biggest contributors to the Wii homebrew scene and one of the developers for the Homebrew Channel and BootMii, among many other things. Offtopic? Perhaps, slightly. Troll? Jesus fucking Christ, Slashdot.
I have a 40GB PS-Fat. The blu-ray laser has died on me already. I've replaced it since, but that was a $60 item and time. Near the end of the cycle of these consoles, I can see a perfectly good use for this jailbreak. If my laser dies again (which apparently it's certain to do!) then if I have all my games backed up to the drive, I can still play them! (True I won't be able to buy any more, but that's ok, my gaming has slowed down in my old age any how)
I'm seriously looking into this HD upgrade then jailbreak then backing up the games to a HD deal. It would give me great peace of mind and work around a defect that sony won't own up to. Plus things would load faster! That's just win-win-win as far as I can see.
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i don't side with sony with this war. before i did. ps3 had linux so you would run all your homebrew and emulators on there. so the hacking for homebrew was never a issue. and homebrew hackers left the system alone. 1 hacker finds a way to expolite threw linux sony pulls linux. they opened the flood gates all on there own. and unfortunately braking open the securty to reenable homebrew also means the pirates get there way to. so sorry sony you only did this to yourself..
Wonder how long this will take to get bundled into otherwise innocuous looking iphone apps, and inserted into the app store :D
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
On the other hand, removing PS2 compatibility from the hardware is a big deal. That's taking about $100 USD away from the value of the console in my (narrow) opinion.
Full compatibility with the PS2 would add about $100 to the retail price.
The PS2 "Slim" with Ethernet and Dial-Up Modem is $100 at Amazon.com. Amusingly enough, it was the PS2 "Slim" which axed PS2 Linux. Something which seems to have been forgotten hereabouts.
Well, IF the PS3 is unlocked fully and the homebrew scene develops properly, and IF the performance is as good as it should be, and IF some clever people get on it, it may be possible to port he pcsx2 emulator to the PS3.
It would take quite a bit of work, AFAICT, because the current emulator is heavily tied to x86/x86_64 and x86 extensions, but with a bit of work it could be possible.
Really?
That's a shame, as I'm sure more than a few folks would be interested in trying to get pcsx2 running on there.
"And the latest report is that the next firmware update is going to disable the USB ports"
BULLSHIT.
Sorry, but I have to call this one out for what it is.
The USB ports are how the controllers are used during certain updates or if they're out of power. The USB ports also are how you plug in things like the Playstation Eye, a peripheral that Sony themselves sell and are relying on for their "Move" push.
They will not now, nor ever, disable the USB ports, this is some sort of forum echo-chamber nonsense or an outright troll that's somehow gained credence.
Especially when an update to their USB driver will destroy this jailbreak just as well.
Just noticed that 3.42 has been released. Nothing posted on the official PS3 website...I wonder what it's going to do? Keep an eye out here. Figures...I did one update since I'll be able to use Linux now and Sony has to come and spoil my fun.
That's why they removed it. It had already been used to compromise the security.
I got voted down for pointing this out before, I guess some realities are just too harsh here? Or perhaps SONY BAD is the only acceptable opinion?
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.
yeah yeah, we all know who marcan is. just read his post history on /., the man is fucking brilliant. but that does not make him immune to down-moderation. i think it was deserved.
he's extremely vocal about his anti-piracy ideology and that makes him quite annoying sometimes. he has to post in every thread about how many wii consoles waninkoko's code has bricked, and his claims become more outlandish and disconnected from reality every time he mentions it (we're up to 100% now :)
sure, waninkoko may not be quite as talented as others, but he's providing something that MANY people want. and his tools do work. count how many people, even just in this thread, have praised the wii usb backup loader. whether you pirate wii games or not, the usb loader is a killer app for wii hacking. discs are obsolete.
marcan deserves huge amounts of praise for his work in hacking the wii, but his ideology prevents him from taking it to the next level. that's fine, homebrew is a great great thing to have. but waninkoko put the puzzle pieces together and created another tool that makes the wii even better. sure, the pieces were already laid out for him and didn't take that much skill to put together, but at least he fucking DID it and RELEASED it. and for that I thank him.
> The Other OS option was used to hack it. That's why they removed it. It had already been used to compromise the security.
And that justifies remotely removing a function of the device after the sale? Telling somebody that they cannot hack a device they've bought is outrageous.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
Apparently the latest firmware update fixes the USB exploit.
w00t
http://exophase.com/ps3/ps3-firmware-3-42-hits-network-update-18063.htm:
w00t
Yeah, that's a lot of "if"s. And it's notoriously hard to get good performance out of the Cell, due to its multiprocessor nature. I'm not sure whether it's even theoretically possible to match the performance of the PS2 without having to coax multiple processors to cooperate. I haven't specifically heard of something like this being done, but if it were (generally) possible, you would expect it to have happened on the x86 or amd64 architectures. It would be a boon to virtualization. On the other hand, it could be that it's practically impossible without some sort of hardware support--though I wouldn't necessarily expect the Cell to have such support.
I'm inclined to think that my best best is to just see what kind of performance I can eek out of my Mac mini with pcsx2 (connected to the TV.) Unfortunately, my suspicion is that the graphics won't be up to par. Just have to sit down one day and see.
"without hardware assistance."
Gee, I wonder what that fucking silicon all over the motherboard is called? Software?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Given what Sony did by removing the "other OS" feature after it was used for a hack, I think I can safely say that there is no way you cannot trust Sony not to retrospectively kill other features later. I don't hack my PS/3, but the "other OS" feature was a reason for me to buy it, so the "upgrade" isn't (and has thus not happened) because I refuse to pay the price for something I didn't do, and lose a feature I PAID FOR and which is on the product description.
Imagine what happens if someone finds a way to hack the box via a movie feature - given their approach to "other OS" it is not totally bizarre to expect them to nuke the "play video" feature in a next release, so thanks Sony, but there is not going to be another penny spent on anything PS/3, or anything else that is remote changeable. Quite simply, the PS/3 as a product is dead to me, and research for any new kit (whatever type) will certainly not begin with Sony.
If a company cannot take into account a certain amount of customisation when it gets a device out in public it suggests it is totally hopeless at both market analysis and crisis management. To me, that spells "incompetence".
No thanks.
Insert
Yeah, I wouldn't count on much!
I had an Athlon64 3200+ with an ATI X800 Pro in it last time I tried. One or two things worked acceptably, R-Type Final springs to mind, but most things either failed totally or ran at an abysmal speed. I don't know what's in your Mac Mini, but macs haven't historically been that hot on graphics have they?
You can play PS2 games on PS2. Is your apartment really that cramped there's no extra room for slim PS2? What's your excuse to "love to be able to disconnect my PS2 from my TV"?
Macs haven't been known for having particularly good graphics. The latest Mini has a decent card (I think it's onboard Nvidia on the order of a 9400 mobile.) Nothing to sneeze at, but probably not suitable for emulating PS2 graphics.
But hell, I can't keep up with model numbers anymore. There was a time when you could make a reasonable guess as to performance by the model. Now they go to great lengths to make it hard to figure out. A confused consumer is a vulnerable consumer, I guess.
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The problem with model numbers is that they go around!
That system was from 2005 IIRC, pretty cutting edge for the time but not so much now. Your Mac Mini is probably a bit more powerful than that, it's worth a try anyway!
If I were Sony, I'd put off fixing this exploit for a while and watch PS3 sales go up. Only when sales slow down will I release the fix. I've read that the PS3 logs the ID's of every bit of software it runs, even offline. So if you've used the backup manager, chances are Sony can detect it when you go online. People are working on hacks to change the ID though.
Really? That's... sick. I'm sorry, but that just seems really ridiculous. I heard that the the PS3's software emulation was bad, but at least it sounded like it had *some* games working purely on software emulation. The damn thing certainly has the processing power to do so!
If Microsoft can make the Xbox 360 run so many classic Xbox games after changing damn near every part of the system (Intel x86 to IBM PPC, nVidia to ATI graphics, RAM that's 3.5 times as fast...) then Sony sure as hell *ought* to be able to make software emulation work. The Cell processor is well-suited for this, too; like the Xbox 360 processor it has far more hardware threads, running at far higher speeds, than the older CPU. It should be possible to do dynamic recompilation on the other cores and get a near-perfect PS2 emulator running at (PS2) native speed.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
> If they don't get off their ass and release it I'm going to have to go buy a Sony 3D Blu-Ray player...
Punish them by giving them money! Also, please punish me. I can send you my banking information.
Nope, the PS3s with software emulation still had the PS2 video hardware present. The 40GB PS3 dropped even that, as did any subsequent models (newer 80GB model, all Slim models).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I think someone's exploited your sarcasm filter. Best get Sony to remove it completely for you.
Don't put it past them. They'll probably disable the Blu-ray drive at some point too.
First they came for backwards compatibility,
and I did not speak up, because I did not play PS2.
Then they came for OtherOS,
and I did not speak up, because I did not play linux.
Then they came for the USB ports,
and I did not speak up, because my controllers were not unpaired.
Then they came for my Blu-ray drive,
and now I just watch Netflix.
Everything that happens now must be linked to mobile phones. And this is the current development and future direction should be. Mobility is very important nowadays.auto parts stores