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."

Comments

So ... the War's Back on Then?

[eldavojohn]

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?

Re:So ... the War's Back on Then?

[BStroms]

I don't know the technical details of this particular hack and how easy it will be for hackers to get around the patch. However, even if they're unable to stop the pirates for long, the money may not be as wasted as it initially seems. Imagine if it actually were as many people here would like. No DRM was ever put on games, and no one was ever prosecuted for piracy, or even running servers to distribute pirated material.

Once it got into the public perception that pirating games was easy and virtually risk free, I think you'd see a whole new floodgate open that really would destroy the gaming market. You'd get many people who formerly bought games deciding they can save some money by just pirating everything. Then, as piracy becomes more and more commonplace, even many of those who firmly believe it's wrong will start to grow bitter.

Knowing they're continuing to spend money trying to support the game makers only to see nearly everyone they know just grabbing the titles for free. Then watching as company of company struggling just to keep afloat despite making critically acclaimed games that are being played by millions. Many of them will decide it's just not worth it anymore and decide to save their money before the inevitable crash.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think humanity is selfless enough to support a thriving software market on the honor system. I suppose it's possible games could survive in some form as interactive ads that endlessly try to market products to you, but not much beyond that. DRM may always doomed to failure, and lawsuits seem excessive and overly heartless. Even so, I believe the fear of getting in trouble and the effort of getting around DRM provides benefit to the companies that practice them that goes beyond the cost of their implementation.

Re:So ... the War's Back on Then?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

That floodgate has been open for PC games, movies, and music for years and those markets haven't even been able to show any damage, let alone been destroyed. If they keep pushing, though, they'll have a self-fulfilling prophecy on their hands.

Re:So ... the War's Back on Then?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'd like to point out that in all three of those markets DRM is alive and well....

The music industry gave up on DRM yonks ago.

That said, music is a different market, and I think it would have a much better chance of surviving DRM free because of the low cost per song.

Music has the lowest percieved value, smallest file size, and lowest barrier to entry. It's the most likely to be pirated, not the least. Note that Napster was created for sharing music, not for piracy of games, porn, etc.

However, considering the differing states of the two markets, that might not be the best sales pitch for ditching DRM.

The reason to ditch DRM is every copy of software they sell requires a staff of people to keep unlocking and troubleshooting it after the purchase. Instead of a one-time sale, now they can watch the individual profits of their games slowly get eaten away over the years. They're also increasing the value of piracy but not effectively stopping it. Go look up what happened to Spore just before it launched.

Re:So ... the War's Back on Then?

[GrumpySteen]

Once it got into the public perception that pirating games was easy and virtually risk free, I think you'd see a whole new floodgate open that really would destroy the gaming market.

ROFL

What alternate universe did you come from? Pirating software is and always has been easy and virtually risk free. Look at the experiences of Reflexive and 2D Boy, for example. Reflexive released a game with DRM and 2D Boy released one without... both found piracy rates were around 90%. Reflexive estimated that, for every 1,000 pirated copies their DRM eliminated, they gained 1 sale.

Do you think the 90% of people who pirated those programs suffered any reprisal at all? Can you find even a single instance of someone being punished for copying either program? Of course not. Piracy is virtually risk free.

Breaking DRM may be difficult, but it only has to be broken once. The vast majority of the people who download pirated software are just grabbing a copy that's already broken and know absolutely nothing about DRM. For the majority, it's as easy as clicking a link.

And yet... not only has the gaming industry continued to exist, it has grown enormously. Your declaration that piracy being easy and risk free would destroy the game industry is completely, utterly wrong because piracy IS easy and virtually risk free and the game industry has not been destroyed.

The undeniable truth is that the vast majority of pirates aren't interested in buying software. No amount of DRM is going to change that. It's just as true that removing DRM doesn't turn the 10% or so who do buy software into pirates. The figures stay the same regardless of DRM.

Despite what you believe, it seems that about 10% of humanity is selfless enough to support a thriving software market on what is, in fact, mostly an honor system.

Jailbreakers to announce a new hack in 5 minutes

[elrous0]

But if it makes you feel any better, Sony--yeah, you've "won."

Re:Never about Protecting Intellectual Content

[sheehaje]

For gaming on a television, any PC with HDMI output will do...

I run a fairly plain Dell low profile computer with a sapphire radeon HD 5570 and it's great as a media/game type pc for the living room. I added a cheap bluetooth adapter for keyboard and mouse, and I use a wired xbox 360 controller for those who prefer that (my wife)... There's even a wireless kit available for the xbox 360 controller...

It's also great for the other usual sorts of things PC's are good for: email, web browsing, netflix, hulu, etc...

I have an XBOX 360, but I rarely use it anymore... I'm not anti-console, I just find the console lacking in some areas, especially MMORPG's and Strategy type games.

Ravings Of A Delusional Fanboy Vs. Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

" 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...

Re:Ravings Of A Delusional Fanboy Vs. Reality

[VGPowerlord]

* 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...

Oh, I didn't realise that they'd used cheaper generic parts instead of fabricating much more expensive proprietary hardware. And then they didn't go to excessive lengths to block the use of that hardware that was easier and cheaper for them to use. Good God, they are lovely after all. Such lovely, lovely thieves.

You are aware those points were in comparison with other game systems?

Nintendo's Wii doesn't allow internal storage at all. External storage is limited to SD cards... although an update early this year (or was that last year) allows it to use SDHC cards as well, which bumps the limit from 2GB to 32GB without changing devices.

Microsoft uses "standard" 2.5" drives in a proprietary case, but locks it to a few specific models. External storage is any USB Mass Storage device, but is limited to 2 devices at 16GB per device, for a max of 32GB without changing devices.

This is in contrast with Sony, who allows you to use any 2.5" SATA HDD. External storage is any USB Mass Storage device. If there are limits on either external or internal storage, I've not yet seen them.

As for keyboards and mice, from what I recall, the Wii and Xbox 360 limit keyboard support to the systems menu/dashboard. Neither the Wii or 360 support a mouse.

Now, the problem here is that you apparently bought a gaming system for non-gaming usage... but you're now responding in a thread about gaming saying you can't do any of that. Why?

PS3 is a lame lockout box and I won't buy one.

[Script Cat]

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.

Re:PS3 is a lame lockout box and I won't buy one.

[ALeavitt]

The most obvious reason to develop for a home console in this day and age is money. Quite simply, video games on consoles outsell games on PCs by a very wide margin. With the video game market poised to top $10 billion in the US alone this year, it should be fairly obvious why a developer would choose to develop for consoles instead of the PC - sales are higher than on PC, piracy is almost nonexistent compared to PCs, and consoles are both more popular and visible as gaming devices than PCs. You can argue that everybody plays Flash games on PCs and that the PC gaming market is larger than the console market, but I would argue that for people who actually pay money to play video games, consoles are the go-to destination. Some developers are unconcerned with programming as a political statement and just want to develop something that will pay the bills.

"Homebrew", right...

[Khisanth Magus]

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.

Re:"Homebrew", right...

[Derekloffin]

And it is disingenuous itself to not point out that those same hackers jailbreaking the other OS is why it got removed. Make no mistake, this is a war, and legitimate users are the collateral damage. Neither side is blameless, Sony nor the hackers.

Re:Jailbreakers to announce a new hack in 5 minute

[DamienRBlack]

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.

Re:Jailbreakers to announce a new hack in 5 minute

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

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.