Slashdot Mirror
PS3 Hacker Claims He's Jailbroken 3.60 Firmware
Wesociety writes "Not one week ago Sony released a new PlayStation 3 firmware update which implemented cloud-saving for its PlayStation Plus subscribers and featured some understandably secretive behind-the-scenes security features meant to prevent future hacking. Today, a hacker is purporting that he broke firmware 3.60 and posted a video to prove it."
The more you increase your security to keep hackers out, the more feverishly they'll work to take down what they see as a challenge.
According to Mathieulh, Sony is smart: they're let you log into PSN if you are using the old authentification method from 3.55... and flag you as a thief. http://twitter.com/#!/Mathieulh
Is Sony going to come after me for reading TFA? Do we now need to start incorporating "Caution: Reading the following article may result in you being sued to the ends of the earth" logos over the top of stories?
Someone spotted the fact that his debug loader properly connected to a PC, apparently something that retail PS3s, no matter how hacked they are, can't do. So for the moment, looking like a fake; basically a debug unit on the latest debug firmware.
As a PS3 owner, I am getting a bit tired of all the jail-breaking. I get that people want to mess around with the hardware, but almost none of this work goes towards something new and useful. I've yet to see any work on some killer applications or games the PS3. I went through the same stuff with the Wii. Everybody talking about the great homebrew scene was but there was barely anything more than emulators. Sure, there were a few new games, but they weren't anything that fantastic. Then, Nintendo felt it necessary to update the bootloader for the Wii, bricking people's unhacked consoles. The PS3 isn't looking much different. All of this talk about being free to do what you want with the console, but people end up just getting their games for free. If you are going to hack the console, at least make it look like you are doing it for a worthwhile reason.
And that seems to be the fundamental flaw with DRM in physical devices: One does have physical access to them.
That is the fatal theoretical logical flaw with DRM.
But in practice:
a) They figure maybe they can hide the secret well enough that you won't be able to find it.
b) They figure that if they can keep you looking for it long enough, it will be a success even if you do eventually find it. If the gamecube were just cracked yesterday, its DRM would have been an unqualified success.
c) They figure they can pass enough laws making looking for the secret, talking about the secret, and using the secret if you find it illegal that few will be motivated to find it, and fewer still will risk spreading or using it.
They've been right enough I guess.
vote with your wallet.
The PS3's DRM was unbroken for half a decade. Now, part of the reason it was so successful was because enthusiasts had access to many features they wanted via the OtherOS functionality, but the fact remains that there was virtually zero piracy of PS3 games for the first 5 years of it's life cycle. Even today with much of the DRM defeated, Piracy rates are still next to zero. Now compare that to the average nerdy college dorm room with a hacked XBox playing downloaded copies of everything from the latest AAA titles to old Atari games (though I suppose you could always play old games via emulators in Linux on the PS3).
He's running a dev unit. 3.60 has not been jailbroken. This was non-news when this video surfaced two days ago because it was debunked mere hours later. Glad to see Slashdot posting articles in a timely fashion.
Nobody was motivated, because of Other OS.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Took significantly less then 5 years to crack the PS3. The people who ended up finding the right stuff werent even looking until motivated by Sony.
Good-bye