Geohot Hacks The PS3
PlayStation 3 Hacked; World EndsPublished 23/01/2010 at 13:00 by Michael
It had to happen, as you can’t keep good hackers down, but finally someone has hacked the PS3. According to George Hotz’s blog post, Geohot has made the acquaintance of the Hypervisor, which presumably is a really good sun shield for protecting the PS3 from overheating in warmer climates.
As the blog states, it’s taken well over 3 years for the PS3 to finally be hacked. That’s pretty good going for consumer electronics these days, although George says it took him a total of 5 weeks to do the deed. There’s not a lot of information yet, as you’d expect, but you can always follow @geohot on Twitter if you want to get the latest news as he releases it.
For the record, at TheSixthAxis we don’t condone piracy.
Source: News Tip from gc
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Jordaaaan | 23/01/2010 13:12
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Nifty, although I do love my PSN.
tonycawley | 23/01/2010 23:59
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Does anyone care? I don’t. I really couldn’t give a toss what other people do with their ps3’s. As long as people don’t use it to make themselves invincible on mw2 or something it really doesn’t bother me at all. Good luck to them, if it gets them cheaper games good on them. And people will go on about how it negatively affects the industry. Bollocks. Ok, if a large percentage of people chipped their consoles then it would, but it’s such a small percentage it really doesn’t affect anything.
Gamoc | 24/01/2010 00:16
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Yes, because piracy directly affects games releasing on a system.
It DOES negatively affect the industry, full stop, not debateable.
Pitcher-T | 24/01/2010 13:08
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412 TSA Points | Member since: Jan 2009
I don’t mind him hacking for sport, but when people use it to get freebies it just annoys me.
But I think it will be so complicated it won’t become a main stream problem like every other console I can think of.
Also Sony will probably find out how he did it and update the Firmware anyway.
Kudos for managing to do it though, must be a very clever man.
td_rules | 23/01/2010 13:19
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he hacked iPhone OS 3.0 with blackra1n
this could be interesting
Gamoc | 23/01/2010 13:22
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This is not good news.
s0602277 | 23/01/2010 18:51
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Agreed, people like this really need to get a life….or get hired by Sony and help them combat this thing!
Erroneus | 23/01/2010 13:22
Wanted "Trophy Hunter" but was too late.
2955 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
While I do have pretty hacked Wii and enjoy some of the added features from that, eg. homebrew, a full system backup, running import titles (Wii are not regionfree) and so on, it has lead to quite a lot piracy on the Wii, which are killing some games.
It would be cool to run homebrew on the PS3, just think of how an awesome medie-device it could become, but if it leads to easy piracy on the PS3, I would rather miss it.
Gamoc | 23/01/2010 13:25
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It’s already an awesome media device.
Erroneus | 23/01/2010 15:24
Wanted "Trophy Hunter" but was too late.
2955 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
Meh.. I prefer to use my Popcorn and there is plenty of stuff which could be added. It’s an oki media device, defiantly not awesome.
cam the man | 23/01/2010 13:49
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If you had a hacked PS3 wouldn’t Sony ban you from the PSN?
Daywalker | 23/01/2010 14:16
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They should but as you know sony only care that people buy stuff and if they’ve paid then sony couldn’t give a flying shit. Althouth this could lose them money from the psn store so they may crackdown on this obsenity. I hope they do.
hazelam | 23/01/2010 14:46
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3833 TSA Points | Member since: Feb 2009
if they can detect this hack.
of course once they find out how it’s done they can probably block it with firmware updates, and any mandatory firmware update will lock you out of the psn if it’s not installed.
Agony is my name | 23/01/2010 13:27
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The Goverment should crack on this and jail him or else a fine
YOURMUMANDME | 23/01/2010 13:52
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Nah dude they should hire him , it took Sony 2 years to move a battery indicator and he s managed to reprogram it in 5 weeks
Daywalker | 23/01/2010 14:20
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He’s like an evil genius who has amazing skills that he uses bad but he should use them for good. He must not take over the world!
skibadee | 23/01/2010 15:44
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5 weeks more like 3 years come on why not the first 5 weeks when it came out.
seedaripper1973 | 23/01/2010 17:15
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The truth is, quite a lot of hackers are recruited ‘into the fold’ so to speak, in order to combat such fares.
iAvernus | 23/01/2010 22:41
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He’s the 1st guy to crack the iPhone. You can’t lock someone up for that, the same way you can’t lock someone up for cracking their own PS3. I think he’s brilliant, and only did it just to say he can.
lewis815 | 23/01/2010 13:36
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Oh great, the gaming industry about to take another hit..
DrFreeman | 23/01/2010 13:43
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Haha the PS3 can’t be hacked! We’ll just see what he was capable of though, but I highly doubt it.
a inferior race | 23/01/2010 13:45
I'm special
1978 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009
Depending on the hack, pirated games could still be a year away. Hopefully the Slim will be immune to the hack and that should offer Sony some protection.
YOURMUMANDME | 23/01/2010 13:55
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I know someone who ‘chips’ Ps3’s , not that I condone it , besides if you log onto the PSN with one it bans you instantly . is this the same as what we’re talking about or not ?
Mentality | 23/01/2010 14:17
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That’s a lie because the only mod for the PS3 is the infectus which doesn’t let you do anything other than downgrade the firmware which is useless anyway because back-ups have never yet been possible which means Sony has no reason to ban then, not only for the fact that there is no way to actually detect the infectus, I’m sure if there was a chip and people where getting banned then it would be widley known of. I have been watching the scene closly for any news regarding hacks on the PS3 and there has been no hacks or mods of any use in the homebrew scene or mod scene other than anything which has been linux side.
YOURMUMANDME | 23/01/2010 14:41
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I suppose it’s not what you know, it’s who you know and all I know is that when he plays a game on it he uses a memory stick . Not trying to start an argument but don’t call me a liar , I’m a grown adult and immature as I may act from time to time if I give you a snippet of info as correct , it’s because I believe it to be so .
pawski | 23/01/2010 16:43
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fiiiiiight!!!!!
no but seriously, have you seen this in action, or is it just what your friend told you?
Senel_Coolidge | 23/01/2010 14:09
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Piracy worked well with the Ps and the Ps2 but these are different times, most of the Ps3’s are connected to the internet, how will a hacked Ps3 coop with the PSN or FW’s? Will it even be able to log in?
Pitcher-T | 24/01/2010 13:11
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My friend has a hacked Wii, and he can’t use the features of the internet on it, as he needs to update FW to do so. Not such a loss on the wii, but on the PS3 not being able to connect to the internet would be so rubbish, lol.
endlesscupsoftea | 23/01/2010 14:21
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While technically interesting, I am personally not interested and I would hope that people would get the psn account associated with that ps3 banned from psn etc. I think the bad outwieghs the good, really a bit of fun homebrew would not be more than the pirated stuff that would presumably get out there.
theshockwave | 23/01/2010 14:50
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Surely, now that he’s announced this, Sony will get on to the phone to him, ask him how he did it, and they do something (firmware upgrade?) to stop it happening again?
theshockwave | 23/01/2010 15:04
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Just read the full blog and comments, and it appears he plans on keeping it a complete secret. What if Sony paid him to tell them the exploit?
Hodgi92 | 23/01/2010 15:57
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lol. “I’m going to keep this a secret…I think I’ll post it on the internet”
davidjmclare | 23/01/2010 17:33
always on easy
1090 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
is there any proof that he actually did it? maybe that explains not revealing how he did it…
codeman- | 23/01/2010 20:56
* Banned *
-778 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
Ha Ha Ha… Yeah, what a complete secret it is… Nobody knows…
) I think that Sony should be proud that it actually took sooo long! 3 years is a lot of time and I’d say victory for the ps3 security! He shouldn’t be jailed for this as someone here suggested. Congratulations George! He should keep it to him self though, as piracy wouldn’t do any good to our lovely ps3. Game development is quite costly these days and good developers should get paid what they deserve.
Daywalker | 23/01/2010 14:50
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I just read the replys on the blog and I’m not going to say what I think of them but believe me its not very nice. It was quite a feat to hack such a secure system and only god knows how he did it but still…
Pitcher-T | 24/01/2010 13:14
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Most of the people on that site seemed to just want free games. They don’t seem to understand the cost of making games.
We don’t want to end up with crap like on the Wii, lol.
Daywalker | 24/01/2010 19:25
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well said
hol | 23/01/2010 15:02
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Certainly is quite a feat to have done what he has but, it would seem thats about as far as he is likely to get. He needs access to one of the spu’s on boot to gain full control of the system, so far, he hasn’t been able to do that.
Also, reading between the lines, sony have already been in touch, they should employ him, best way to beat a hacker is to employ them.
theshockwave | 23/01/2010 15:07
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When I read the whole thing, my heart sunk. I felt a real pride the fact that the PS3 was such a formiddable opponent to hackers and am genuinely sad it finally lost it’s battle.
Any chance this is a fake and he’s making it up?
Daywalker | 23/01/2010 21:44
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we’ll find out…
iAvernus | 23/01/2010 22:48
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No, Geohot has been working a while on it, and would have no reason to lie. He’s the guy that first cracked the iPhone! He’s not going to lie about that =)