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First PlayStation 3 Custom Firmware Created
Stoobalou writes "Hot on the heels of the discovery of the the PlayStation 3 private root key, and its subsequent leakage by iPhone hacker Geohot, the first custom firmware for the formerly impenetrable console has been released. A code wrangler known only as Kakaroto reckons he has created the world's first custom firmware for the popular console — although if you're expecting it to help you play pirated games, you might be a little disappointed."
I'd love a ROM for these that essentially just makes the PS3 and all its features available to a Linux distribution. Similar to the Other OS functionality, except with full access to the hardware.
There are a lot of cool things a PS3 could do. It is inexpensive, reliable hardware. Of course, XMBC can address the media aspects, but for non-media, I can think of a few things (some can already be done):
1: Hook it up to an external disk array, and use it as a NAS head, with encryption. Perhaps have it rsync to a gmailfs directory for backups to the "cloud" of critical files.
2: Three Ethernet ports, so it can do some complicated firewalling/IDS/IPS/content filtering/NAT.
3: Persistent storage for a squid cache, a caching DNS, DHCP, DDNS.
4: RADIUS server for the wireless router.
5: LDAP
6: Mail gateway.
7: VPN server.
8: SSH gateway.
These are relatively boring things for a PC to do, but a PS3 has the advantage of being relatively inexpensive, reliable, and a non-x86 architecture, which may help things if an attacker manages to get arbitrary code executing.
I almost wish Sony allowed this in the first place -- there is a vast, untapped market for an all in one home server appliance, that doesn't just provide file and print serving, but authentication, caching, and many other features.
Indeed, sales of all three consoles are now profitable (and have been for about 2 years). The margins are still small on all three, though. Last numbers I remember seeing indicated that for the console manufacturer, one console sale was roughly equivalent to two game sales. That's not bad, but it's not fantastic either. Might be outdated, of course; you'd expect the margins on hardware sales to get larger as time goes on.
The Kinect, however, has an absolutely stonkingly huge profit margin for each unit sold. No wonder MS were treating its release as a new console launch. Even if the Kinect attach rate for games is awful, as I suspect it probably will be (unless games improve from the launch titles), MS are probably already laughing their way to the bank on that one.
I know that there is complete access to the system now (not going through hypervisor), but are there Linux video drivers yet?
I __REALLY__ want to have XBMC on my PS3.
Don't waste your time (and hair). Just get a small $250 ION nettop and install XBMC. It is the bees knees. If you're lazy you can google for "xbmcfreak", the guy releases customized LiveCDs that take most of the hassle out of installing it.
No DRM, no transcoding, and it will play 1080p H.264 with ease thanks to the onboard GPU. Share your movies over SMB, FTP, NFS, HTTP, whatever. Way easier than trying to coax your PS3 into doing piratey things.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
You're missing the point. If the firmware checks for media type, a BD-R's signature will never be checked, because its the wrong type of media. You still need a firmware bypass to allow that. Note: we can already do 1-to-1 copies of BD-R discs, and they don't work. Those are signed already, being 1-to-1 copies.
The signature issue only applies to unlicensed software, not pirated software.
IE someone can make a printed non-burned game/application disc and sign it without paying Sony for licensing. That's a whole other problem.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)