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PS3 Root Key Found
An anonymous reader writes "The PlayStation 3 'root key' used for code signing has been found by GeoHot. This enables running homebrew without the need for psjailbreak-style USB-devices, and also provides hope for those at firmware version 3.55 that currently cannot be downgraded. The key also cannot be changed without hardware modifications. Oops."
I wonder how many job offers that kid has received.
Is this the same private key that was discovered last week?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I wonder how long until the lawyers start raining down from the sky.
Did you guys hear about the next firmware update that bricks the console? It's fine, they offer free replacements for anyone affected by it.
I can encrypt/sign anything on psp now.
Neither. Sony botched their PKI implementation and the 'random number' they were using for their seed was anything but random. In fact it was the same every time! That made it trivial to solve for the key. Oops.
This went undetected for years until they ... removed Linux.
Since they basically did a "bait and switch" with the PS3.
When I bought it, it had the OtherOS feather AND I could do all the online stuff...not now
When I bought it, it had backwards comparability for almost all PS2 games...not now
So it appears to me that in a sense the "hackers" have returned my property that was stolen from me by the "legitimate corporation"
I doubt that Sony will learn anything from this, and after our family owning a PS2 and 3, the next console I buy will be Xbox...I had no idea a company could be dysfunctional enough to make me regret not buying a MS product.
Still think revoking the "Other OS" function was a good idea?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Despite all the people claiming this is a dupe, it isn't. This is getting the PSP private key from inside the PS3.
They put the PSP private key on the PS3, presumably so you could buy games for your PSP through the PS3 and have the PS3 do all the heavy crypto work instead of encrypting it on the store end.
Presumably, they figured "hey, the PS3 is unhackable, it is OK to embed the super secret key to PSP software in it". But then the PS3 got hacked.
No. PS2 backwards compatibility required additional chips that aren't in the newer PS3s.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
"Laywers raining down from the sky"
<voice actor="Lloyd Bridges">Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up skeet shooting....</voice>
www.eFax.com are spammers
The random number could still be random. That's the thing with randomness... you can never tell. http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Random%20Nine
It wasn't full software emulation. As I recall, the original PS3s had both a PS2 CPU and PS2 video chip. A later revision performed CPU emulation in software but kept the video chip. Finally, Sony removed both chips and all backwards compatibility entirely.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
The second generation PS3s had the PS2 graphics chip in them, but took out the Emotion Engine CPU which was run in emulation.
Later PS3s have neither the PS2 graphics chip nor the Emotion Engine CPU, and are not able to run PS2 games in emulation at all, regardless of what the firmware says.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I think they only allowed it in the first place to try to get tax breaks in the European Union. So, after the EU decided that it wasn't really a personal computer, Sony pulled it from their newer models (the PS3 Slim never had Other OS).
However, it was tampering around with the Hypervisor that caused Sony to remove it from older models in a firmware update.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hcbaeKA2moE#t=2147s
Jump to 37:20 for the money shot.
On his website he credits those respontible. http://geohot.com/ Don't blame the other middle men. Geohot gives credit where credit is due.
Since the lame submission doesn't bother to link to the /very/ source that the article is about, I'll paste it here.
Hey, that's the same combination that I have on my luggage!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
From the geohot site:
props to fail0verflow for the asymmetric half
Geohot isn't taking credit for anyone's work here.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
No, it was their choice to do that. In no way did someone messing with the hypervisor cause the removal of the feature. To say that is like saying because my dinner was cold I had to beat my wife.
To quote someone who said one correct thing today, "you really should consider making posts based upon facts". Read What difference does the firmware version make for CD and SA-CD? for an intro to the firmware issues I was speaking of. I know people who purchased the PS3 when firmware V2.00 added optical output for the format, only to find that capability taken away in the next revision. Since firmware upgrades are not optional if you want to stay on PSN, that's a clear bait and switch move. And if you read through the whole FAQ you can see some of the other limitations that come from Sony giving up on development here before the feature ever really worked perfectly.
I purchased about 20 new SACDs in 2010, from companies like Mobile Fidelity and via the SHM-SACD remasters. That gives me about 80 of them total. Since some of these are the highest quality recordings available, they get an inordinate amount of playtime here relative to the rest of my music collection.
See activity on SA-CD.net to see that many people are still actively using the format, and how many titles are available. Yes, there are probably only a few hundred people in the world impacted by Sony's SACD on PS3 decisions. That doesn't mean those people were not misled about Sony's commitment to supporting the format well in the PS3. I never claimed there were a "mountain" of such people, merely that the mechanics of how they were treated is similar to the situation with both backward compatibility and the Other OS features. This is a regularly recurring behavior from Sony.
In a utopian future, people would pay the actual cost of manufacturing the console - plus a reasonable profit margin. Anyone could write games - and the cost of them would be reduced because they wouldn't have to pay the "Sony Tax" on each one. For people who'll own very few games over the life of the console, this is not so attractive - but for people who buy more than the average number of games, it's a huge win. But at least we're honest about it.
I already live in that future. I have a console hooked to my TV that runs code that doesn't have to be signed by Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, et al. I can also run multiple OSes on it without having to jailbreak it. And I have hundreds* of legally-purchased games to play on it that probably cost me less than what 20 new PS3/360 games would (at $60).
It's called an HTPC. It pretty much does everything a PS3/360 does better (including blu-ray playback). Not to mention backwards-compatibility with at least a dozen of older consoles via emulators. I still have my PS3, but primarily for GT5 and not much else.
*My Steam account alone has 300+ titles. Mostly bought through holiday sale packs at a huge discount. I've probably played less than half so far, but I'm still discovering games that I bought more than a year ago.
Sigs are for losers
They put the PSP private key on the PS3, presumably so you could buy games for your PSP through the PS3 and have the PS3 do all the heavy crypto work instead of encrypting it on the store end.
they did not put any private key anywhere outside the Sony headquarters. They just did something stupid with the encryption algorithm (always use the same seed) so that if you have several objects encrypted with the same key you can reconstruct the original key.
I'm sick of these sorts of comments. This is Slashdot people, news for nerds. Don't make these kinds of comments!
We will not know whether or not lawyers are full of hot air enough to reduce terminal velocity to a survivable speed, until we have taken a significantly large random sample, and dropped them from planes.
I suggest we take some aspiring lawyers, and use them as our control, as I couldn't bear the thought of accidentally killing someone who isn't a lawyer.
Scientific rigour, people. Use it!
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Did you view the 27C3 talk about the PS3? The first keys ARE in hardware, fixed. It's the first keys used to check anything, and they are set in stone so no hacker can touch them, but also no update can touch them. Also changing them would break everything out there. You might be able to get around those with huge whitelists. But that's not practical in the end at all.
His website was changed. Only after he was asked, as was pointed out in other comments here by folks from fail0verflow, did he give credit where it was due.
Steam is a rental, not a purchase. If Valve folded tomorrow and Steam went to liquidators, their "We promise to release DRM on the games" statement is worth less than the electrons fired along the wire to your monitor allowing you to read it.
Don't get me wrong, I love Steam and like you made many, many purchases over the holiday period. I'm under no illusion, however, that I am absolutely guaranteed ownership of those games if Valve turns off the servers.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/