PS3 Hacked Using Official Controller

YokimaSun writes "The PS3 Hacking War took on a new turn few days ago with Sony releasing a new firmware that blocks USB devices, supposedly aimed at cloned PS3 Joypads, but more than likely to stop the efforts of hackers. Today the PS3 is now hackable using its own Sixaxis/DualShock 3 Controllers. How will Sony stop people now from playing emulators on the PS3?"

Comments

Much thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Many thanks to all the people who use their time, so that I can use my own hardware the way I want to!

Why not boycott PS3s

[Nethemas the Great]

I don't understand why you folks keep buying such consoles and other locked down devices. You're only encouraging the business model. Efforts to subvert the security measures brings risk of criminal liability. Perhaps the "inferior" alternatives would stop being so inferior and you'd get what you really want, but on your terms not theirs.

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[TrancePhreak]

When I bought the PS3, it had OtherOS and was not as locked down. They changed all that after purchase, which is ridiculous and I haven't bought any more PS3 games.

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[Mashiki]

So why don't you file in small claims to get your money back? Chances are they'll simply give you, your money just to be done with you.

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[theaceoffire]

"I don't understand why... keep buying ... consoles and other such devices".

Allow me to help.

1) PS3 allows any hard drive, any video camera, any keyboard, any tablet, any printer, etc. It allows you to download random files from the internet, it allows you to play random files and store them on the hard drive, and it allows you to download PSN games onto up to 5 other consoles and let your friends play your games on their profiles. Compared to EVERY OTHER CONSOLE, the PS3 is the most free.
2) Most new games come out for consoles now, due to the fears of piracy on Computers and other non-locked-down devices. And for games that come out on console AND pc, the console has less security and more stable hardware targets. For example, most PS3 games have no 30 digit id codes, no constant Internet access required for single player games, and easy joining with friends with games.
3) Updates are not forced. If you wish to use every service available on the PS3 that worked before the last update, you can. It is only if you want the new features, the new games, and the new services on PSN that you have to upgrade.
4) The Other OS was only taken down AFTER someone started bragging about the ability to copy $60 PS3 games and play them. Until then, people could play emulators, PS1 games, PS2 games, n64, etc. Only 5-6 assholes who are too cheap to afford new games but feel deserving of free stuff ruined it for the rest of us. Or did you want Sony to let this turn out like the PSP, which is so hacked that almost no new games get released for it? They tried to open their system, and they got slapped for it.

So yeah, I bought a PS3 to play PS3 games. The fact that it had all these other benefits were just frosting on the cake. People bitched about the price, so Sony took $100 ps2 out of the system and sold it separately so you could enjoy PS1 and PS2 and not pay for it if you didn't want it.

Sorry, you can get back on your high horse about how evil Sony is. Just wanted to point out that out of all the evil companies out there, Sony is the only one letting you use generic parts and share purchases. Ooo, scary.

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a great idea for those who don't have a PS3 yet. For the rest of us, Its a fight to use what we've already paid for. (and not purchasing future product from a locked down device)

I don't understand why you folks keep buying such consoles and other locked down devices. You're only encouraging the business model.

That's a great idea for those who don't have a PS3 yet. For the rest of us, Its a fight to use what we've already paid for. (and not purchasing future product from a locked down device)

That's disingenuous and you know it.

It was clear from the start that the PS3 was meant to be a locked down device and that Sony would resist any attempts to open it up. The only justifiable area in which people can reasonably complain that they were burned was the withdrawl of its Linux support (which was never sold as giving full access to the hardware's capabilities).

But this doesn't justify your implication of bait-and-switch over the general nature of the machine. The PS3 was locked down from the day it came it, and everyone knew it.

This smacks of people wanting to have their cake and eat it, i.e. wanting to complain on Slashdot about Sony's obnoxiously controlling and authoritarian hold on the hardware, then buying it anyway because when it comes down to it, shiny new tech trumps principles. (Same old Slashdotters' story). *Then* complaining that their machine- which they already own(!)- is locked down. Well, yeah. You knew that before you bought it.

(Disclaimer to tl;dr skimmers, this is not an endorsement of Sony's locking down the hardware, but a rebuttal to the implication that anyone who cared about the issue could ever have bought a PS3 imagining it would ever *not* be locked down).

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[Moryath]

They tried to open their system, and they got slapped for it.

Bullshit. They didn't "try to open their system." If they had had a proper way for people to code emulators or legitimate games for the PSP, and they hadn't been pushing that ridiculously stupid UMD as the game storage device (yeah I know, "DS has cartridges", but the DS doesn't have a cartridge slot that eats 30% or more of your battery life) then nobody would have had to spend the insane time trying to hack into the system.

Same thing happened with OtherOS. OtherOS didn't give proper access to certain parts of the system (video hardware especially). The end result was that the Linux guys were trying to find a way to get full access to the hardware. Full access for Linux would STILL not have done the pirates any good, since the games require PS3's OS to run on, but Sony decided to crippleware OtherOS. The end result was no surprise - someone figured out a way to get behind hypervisor and get complete hardware access, and the psychotic, paranoid people at Sony decided to strip OtherOS completely in response.

I'm convinced that what's really going on is that Sony hired behind the scenes one of those paranoid motherfuckers who was responsible for all the crappy Nintendo lock-down crap that resulted in shell companies during the NES and SNES days, blinky-blinky consoles when the "security chip" didn't read properly even on a real game, and then the horrible mistake of using cartridges and then tinydiscs for the N64 and Gamecube, driving all the 3rd party developers away.

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[Sancho]

Nerd rage? There is a world of difference between putting out a new product with fewer features than the older one and removing features from a product I've already purchased through the use of firmware updates.

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[stoanhart]

I would argue that Sony did bring all this hacking on themselves. Sure, the first PS3 hack made use of OtherOS, but it was very impractical and required hardware modification. Very few people would ever have done it, but Sony overreacted and took away OtherOS. That pissed off a lot of people and suddenly there was intense motivation to hack the console properly. Lo and behold, there are now two separate ways to bust the console wide open and piracy is practical for all users. Good job Sony.

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[Ant P.]

Don't point the finger at them. They are the victims of bait-and-switch fraud by Sony, after all.

Re:Why not boycott PS3s

[petermgreen]

At the time the PS3 came out the choice was essentially consoles which were locked down but generally no-messing required and PCs which had all sorts of compatibility problems and a rising push towards online activation and other horrible protection schemes. At the time sony was being nicer (linux, 3rd party controllers) than the XBOX division of microsoft and had the games I wanted.

Could anyone have reasonably predicated that sony would be removing features (first linux support, then support for standard HID controllers) retroactively from existing consoles? I don't think any console manufacturer has done that before.

I agree those who buy a device in the era of updatable firmware and downloadable content under the assumtion that they can keep it both cracked and able to be used online and with the latest games are being very overoptimistic. The trouble is that those of us who just want to use the machine as originally designed are getting caught in the crossfire :(

Personally I find it all very sad, I like gaming but it all seems so much more painful these days.

Meanwhile

[Beelzebud]

My PC supports every major game that comes out, and I'm free to use my system however I wish.

Re:Meanwhile

[Robert Zenz]

...and I'm free to use my system however I wish.

So, you're not using MS Windows or you never read the EULA?

What the fuck Sony? I cant use a USB device now?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Fuck you Sony, You removed the Other OS feature, now you remove USB support?

Why not remove video support too so no one can rip data via hdmi now that it is cracked?

Fucking shit. Sony. you suck a whores shit hole.

Oh, the Irony

[Colonel Korn]

Sony removed OtherOS citing worries about piracy, despite the fact that the system was uncracked after years of OtherOS inclusion.

Very shortly after its removal, various groups publicly announced their intention to crack the system specifically because of the OtherOS removal. They very quickly succeeded, and now Sony is going to have to live with nearly instant cracks of every version of their firmware because they riled up the wrong people. Piracy is now trivial on the PS3, with the usual caveat of no online multiplayer, all thanks to some executives irrational fear of at the time nonexistent pirates.

It's a pity that the executive in question will probably be rewarded because the current rise in piracy proves that he was right about the menace of game copiers in the first place!

Should have left the abiilty to install Linux....

[Fallen Kell]

Sony, now 5 months after you killed linux on the system, there have been 4 different hacks, whereas for the 3 years you had left liunx being available to your customers, there where no hacks. I think we can now successfully say, "We told you so", when you decided to unilaterally removed an advertised feature from the PS3. The people with the knowledge to hack the system were finally given the reason to do so, because they wanted their linux back, but in doing so, that also released the floodgates of the tools used/developed to the people who simply want free games. Real smart move Sony.

Re:The USB lockdown screwed me over

[Khyber]

I'm sorry, you don't just lock out something and then claim to adhere to the bluetooth standard for HID WHILE BEARING ITS LOGO ON YOUR HARDWARE.

Hint: You can't, you're now violating your licensing agreement.

Sony can't do this. Microsoft can because they're using a proprietary bluetooth stack. Sony went STANDARDS and what they're doing is a clear violation of those standards.

they cripple OtherOS to preserve their revenues

[YesIAmAScript]

Sony get a licensing fee per game sold for PS3. They don't make money when you buy a PS3.

If you could use all the hardware from OtherOS, then developers would just ship their games to run under OtherOS and not pay any licensing fees to Sony.

So Sony crippled OtherOS, same as they crippled NetYaroze and PS2 Linux. But even uncrippled, OtherOS still sucked. By the time Sony yanked it, PS3 was $400 and vastly inferior to any Linux machine you could build for $400 (and took twice the electricity to run!).

UMD was stupid. Selecting spinning media right at the time when solid state storage became very cheap was a huge mistake. But that is not why people hacked PSP. People hacked PSP because they wanted to get games for free. This is the same reason they hacked GBA and DS, neither of which had spinning media.