Slashdot Mirror
Sony Releases PS3 Firmware Update To Fight Jailbreaks
RyuuzakiTetsuya writes "Destructoid is reporting that the 3.42 firmware has been released for the PlayStation 3, and it has fixed the USB vulnerability that allows the PSJailbreak exploit to work."
Sony's brief announcement of the update refers only to "additional security features," though the EU blog post acknowledges that a vulnerability was addressed. PS3-Hacks.com confirms that the patch is effective against the various jailbreak tools, and they point out a different tool for bypassing the update. Sony told the BBC, "... as we always have, we will continue to take necessary actions to both hardware and software to protect the intellectual content provided on the PlayStation 3."
Huh, that's odd. It was only yesterday that I was being told Sony had lost the PS3 hacking war. Wait a second, this sounds familiar. Did a Texan in a flight suit show up at the unveiling of PSGroove with a giant banner?
My work here is dung.
But if it makes you feel any better, Sony--yeah, you've "won."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It's never been really about protecting intellectual content on the PS3. It's always been about how much money Sony can squeeze out of a customer, even after they've already paid for the console. Remember the OtherOS option? Since Sony makes their money from games, a PS3 with Linux installed (whether by an individual owner or as part of some sort of cluster) wouldn't make any money for Sony, so they took away the option, even if the owner bought it just for the OtherOS option.
Same thing with the jailbreaking now. PS3s with homebrew content isn't going to make any money for Sony, so they'll close that option, too. God forbid if Sony ever decides that we don't pay enough for games and starts charging us a dime for every minute we play.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
if you don't know, you are certainly not L33T enough.
There Can Be Only One...
And in other news, it is reported that the Little Dutch Boy is running out of fingers to stick in the dike.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
" It's always been about how much money Sony can squeeze out of a customer, even after they've already paid for the console."
Let's just compare this asinine claim to reality:
* Sony, just like PC gaming, provides FREE ONLINE to every single PS3 owner.
* Sony provides FREE DEDICATED servers for all major competitive online games just like on the PC
* Sony is developer friendly and completely open to FREE add-on content for PS3 owners to download
* Sony's wildly successful 20 million+ userbase online world, Home, is completely FREE to every PS3 owner
* Sony allows cheap, off the shelf harddrive upgrades
* Sony allows cheap, off the shelf keyboard and mice to be used with the system
Wow, what a bunch of evil gamer hating misers are those Sony guys...
Seriously, why would anyone want to develop user code for that junk lockout box. Doing so only increases the value of the box for Sony. Sony has burned so many bridges I wonder why anyone would give them there business. Sony is first and foremost a media company and this is incompatible with being an electronics company. An actual electronics company should be on the customers side when engineering the box. These days most engineering on these junk boxes is to prevent function and track users. These devices should not be purchased.
As in "homebrew" pirated games, yes? Do you honestly think more than 10% of the people who "jailbreak" a ps3 are doing it so they can run Linux or play homebrew games on it? Of course not, they are doing it so they can download games and not pay for them. Given the fact that one of the first things that seemed to be released with the new "jailbreak" were ways to play "backups", I think it is pretty obvious what people really want it for. Stop pretending otherwise. Sony is well within their rights to stop people from stealing games. If you are mad at Sony for taking away your ability to play Linux or whatever on it, maybe you should get mad at the "pirates" who feel they are entitled to play games they haven't paid for, because they are the reason Sony has to take away the capabilities.
Just to play devil's advocate here,
I'm really not fond of all the latest sony moves, i miss the other os option just like everybody. but at the same time they are protecting their IP. Because we can claim the homebrew scene all we want. We *know* that most people will be buying the USB dongle to play copies...erm... backups.
I'm not saying there aren't any genuine homebrew and useful mods, I'm saying that most people won't be into that. By stopping us from playing game copies, sony is protecting their IP.
Sony would be way smarter to keep stopping people from playing game copies but at the same time, provide a resource kit for modders to keep on modding. The PS3 is a beautiful and powerful piece of plastic and by providing the other os option (initially) i think sony was in the right track.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Once the system has been opened up it can be analyzed in great detail giving hackers many more tools and insight into the system than when it is closed. From here on out, Sony will be fighting a loosing battle. Computer architecture is designed to do what you tell it to do. Up until the hack, Sony was the only one who knew how to phrase the requests, giving then a firm advantage. After the crack, thousands of people have been able to have a good look at the internal workings. There is no way for Sony to get back to where they were, security-wise, without new hardware. The hackers are just going to learn more and more until they can order the machine around as well as Sony.
After the CD rootkit debacle, I will never trust Sony again. They could come to my house bearing roses and I'd kick 'em in the nads.
While I can't stand Sony and wouldn't own a PS3 at least they quickly tackled this. Playing Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360 with all the JTAGed Xboxes running rampant hacking public games on Xbox Live while MS does nothing hasn't been fun this year.
If you had actually read my post, you would see that I specifically mentioned the removal of OtherOS as a primary motivator in hacking the PS3.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What you describe is pretty much what XNA is all about.
100$/year access to run code on the machine (with full access to 5 of the 6 cores, and full access to the graphics card), you can privatly publish to your own xbox to test stuff, and it's community approved for placement in the Indie Marketplace where you can sell your stuff, which will only be denied if you either have serious bugs (bug handling is okay, as long as the machine doesnt crash or display some random error message), and you can't do certain things like have a game where avatars have sex or something of that nature.
Only downside is that you can't set the price for your stuff to 0, it has to be a minimum of either 60 or 80 MS Points (can't remember exactly).
I keep hearing this but I finally call bullshit.
Where's the tool chain? Where's the Other OS enabler? Where's Linux?
This hack came from a site that sells MODCHIPS. this didn't come from Dark Alex, Geohot, or anyone else generally involved in the console hacking scene. They released a bootloader for dumped disks. if this came from the mod scene, it wouldn't have cost $150 bucks plus shipping.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
The thing is that while your biggest *market* for a hack to run arbitrary code is always piracy, the producers of the same also tend to be homebrew/tinkerer types. Accordingly, guess what language the hack's distribution is crouched in?
That the "evil piracy" part of it still required you to have an original disc to install from (it's literally just an "Install game from disc completely to HDD" feature) makes it not as bad as it could be.
That the open source implementation of the hack (PSGroove) doesn't support doing even that out of the box (though it's trivial to alter the source to get it to -- you only have to change four values in an array) might suggest something. Yes, PSGroove specifically and explicitly altered the original hack to break the Backup Manager and only the backup manager.
As an aside, a way to get your PS3 to access PSN without patching is already in place, and a homebrew FTP server was also released today.
As for tool chains, an OtherOS enabler, and Linux, the ability to even attempt to homebrew dev for the PS3 has only existed for a few weeks now. Those things take time. Again, an FTP server was released today for the PS3. Baby steps.
NES emulators ran fine on the PS3. Sure, you didn't have 3D access, but 2D games worked pretty well. Played many a game of Nethack on mine.
Because most modders want to pirate? That makes zero sense. Eliminating copyright would just move all games to the web.
Most PS3 owners support cracking down on pirates. It's a minority of whiners that think they have a right to free games.