Sony Can Detect PS3 Hackers; Ban Their Punk Asses

Kovacs 112 Comments

Forewarning potential digital pirates of possible repercussions from using the new PSJailbreak dongle as a way to illegally back-up PS3 games, hacking website PS3Hax.net are claiming that Sony will be able to dish out PSN bannings to those who choose to steal games. The site states:

“The Backup manager game ID could be logged/recorded by Sony when logged into PSN (when online). This would obviously allow Sony to see who would be using the illegal PSjb/clone and we could very well see ban waves similar to the Xbox 360.”

The news hardly comes as a shock, with Sony sure to be working around the clock on a response to combat what is viewed as the biggest threat to their previously impervious PS3 software library. The tit-for-tat dance between Sony and hackers is sure to continue, however, with likely future firmware updates and possible banhammers on the horizon as both camps attempt to best one another.

We abhor piracy here at TheSixthAxis and highlight such potential bannings as a warning to those who may be contemplating using the device. Don’t. If not for your own enjoyment of games, then for the wider gaming industry which undoubtedly suffers from piracy.

Source: MCV

Tags:

Related stories from TSA

New ‘JB2’ PS3 Mod Chip Surfaces
Kevin Butler Tweets The PS3 Jailbreak Code
PSJailbreak Is Back
Medal Of Honor Targets Jailbreakers

112 Comments

  1. This is pretty much the first rule, if you don’t want to be banned from a console, you don’t make changes to the system software, it can be detected with no problems.

    Good for us though. As much as I like the idea of having my discs on hdd, it’s not worth it, when people can use it for piracy.

  2. “illegally back-up PS3 games”

    Ooo, I think it’s completely legal for you to back-up your own games. Obviously this means a genuine back-up and not a “I’ll just take a copy of this then sell the original on eBay”.

    I would’ve been tempted to do back-ups if the discs scratched easily but they don’t so am not interested. God knows the hard coating technology Sony use is phenomenal.

    Obviously if the way you end up circumventing things is illegal itself sure, but, to say it’s illegal to back games up is wrong. You need to check every EULA when you’re buying a game as you might find that many will be fine with a back-up as long as you own the original. Also, some might offer a disc-swap service should your original become damaged beyond repair.

    Not sure if any Sony games do the latter.

    • It’s not legal to make changes to the system software or install un-signed applications on the hardware. You agree to that every time you install new firmware.
      So backing up your discs = fine
      installing something that allows those backups to run = illegal
      /I think/

      • Illegal/Unlawful/Against EULA

        Modchips are illegal through most of the developed world (excluding Norway according to dj-katy) the manufacture, distribution, advertising and importing (ie. buying from abroad) of a device such as this is illegal

        It is unlawful to circumvent copy protection methods and to distribute copyrighted material

        It maybe against the EULA to make backups, who knows, I’ve never read one despite agreeing to thousands

      • Yep. I just don’t want people thinking that it’s illegal to back-up your discs. Or your music, or your films. It’s nearly “fine” most of the time. Equally, no one will come chasing you and taking you to court if you have the originals. The article implies that it’s illegal to back things up.

        Sorry, I don’t mind Sony being bullish. They want to protect their console. God knows they’ve done a cracking (sic) job until recently. Quite incredible. Just that wording that’s very obviously open to misinterpretation is not good. Especially over such a serious topic.

      • I summarised the legal details in the PS3 Jailbroken comments Peter (page 4). Installing the backup manager is a breach of the EULA, it’s not against the law though because you are allowed to modify any product you own for personal use.

        Backing up is allowed for fair use, however the concept ‘installing something that allows those backups to run’ is not illegal because by the time you do that the copyright infringement of duplicating the disc has already taken place (see Australian supreme court ruling 2005). However, this particular device is a special case because the backup manager will not run without the USB stick and games cannot be copied unless the stick is inserted; however it is not the stick itself which does the copying. This makes it different to all previous modchips.

        When it eventually goes to court, it will be interesting to see whether it is judged that the stick, the pkg file or both are facilitating copyright infringement, because if it is found to only be the pkg file, that will be an excellent loophole for the pirates since it is distributed separately and for free on the net.

      • Modchips are not illegal per se cc_star, go and read my response in the other thread, you probably missed it.

      • But wouldn’t the lawmakers then feel the pressure by big companies like sony to close the loophole if that happened?

      • @bunimomike
        Actually copying even your own CDs/DVDs etc in the UK is still unlawful, although it now commonly allowed (through an unenforceable law) to back up music and transfer between devices, the law makes no such allowance (unless it was in the DEBill)

        @dj-katy
        Regardless of what you say about modchips not being strictly illegal
        The ruling regarding the successful prosecution of a modchip supplier in the PS2 era set the precedent.
        This was confirmed only 2 weeks ago for R4 cards
        Again the owners of R4 argued it facilitated homebrew and back-ups of purchased materials, this was thrown out of court and the distribution, manufacture, advertising and importing of R4 cards was made illegal.

        Regardless of technicalities you argue, PSJailbreak will be lumped in the same bracket and will further re-enforce the UKs stance that modchips are illegal, there is provision throughout the US & EU and esewhere for the same to happen.

        In fact it was the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) which was enforced with the PS2 case, whereby the law makes provision for it to be illegal to bypass copy protection. The US US Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes the same provision.

        With the R4 cards it was again the fact it was a device which circumvented copy protection, before it enabled backing up that rendered it illegal.

      • I agree that it would be nice to back up games to my HDD, however like Mike said, the BRD are quite scratch resistant and I would not use any device which promotes Piracy.

        Btw nice Slipknot reference there. Stay (Sic) Maggots!

      • @cc
        if you can point out the parts of the Digital Economy Bill where it details how it’s illegal to back-up your audio discs, DVDs, etc, that’d be awesome cos I’m lost! :-) I’ve been over the Bill and it mentions nothing. I might’ve missed something out but still, if you know where it is.

        However, if it’s not part of the DE Bill then we can turn to Fair Use which is nearly always upheld. There might be the slimmest of chances that you could go to court but the likelihood is ludicrous. As to is the court finding you guilty when it was proved to be fine for personal usage, etc. Our technology laws are some of the worst and this is one part where they realise they need to catch-up. We desperately need “format-shifting” laws for all situations.

        Whilst a law might say something is illegal there is nearly always an exception to the rule. The Fair Use sections in copyrighted media often stipulates such a thing.

      • If you had to break DRM or copy-protection, things quickly change but I’m not on about that for now.

      • I’ve emailed a summary of current EU law to colossalblue because I can’t be bothered to bang my head against a brick wall anymore, but FYI the EU Copyright Directive cannot be used in legal judgment for anything because it is a Directive and not a law, and member states have to make their own implementations. So, you’re wrong I’m afraid.

  3. Arrr, this be bad news. I be wantin to play all ye games and you be tasting my cutlass if I has to pay

    • *Points shotgun at face* You want to make any changes to your comment?

      • Change it 3shirts or BIGAL-1992 is gonna blow his own head off! ;-)

  4. Great work Sony. Hackers should die!

    • Hackers help make things more secure. Hackers are often employed to continue securing a system.

      What a useless comment. Why not go with “people who look to gain financial benefit from selling copies of games to others should die”.

      Ok, not as catchy. :-)

      • Yeah doesn’t quite roll off the tongue!

      • I agree with you though. The only way to keep pushing security forwards is to keep attacking it. We need white/grey hat hackers who highlight the vulnerabilities and even guys like this that make them public (if not for the right moral reasons) otherwise hackers that find holes and keep quiet can use them for profit all day long.

  5. Yes, I’m sure pirates having their PSN accounts banned periodically will be a terrible burden on them spending 2 minutes making a new one. Laff.

    • Wouldn’t the MAC code be the same across all accounts (on any given PS3)?

    • You can ban the machine ID

      • I wish that were true, otherwise we wouldn’t have giovanni on SingStar with 400 accounts who has been repeatedly banned by Sony from PSN.

        I would’ve thought it was true, but Sony don’t appear to be exercising it.

      • Hang on, a guys has had 400 accounts banned and he’s still on there?

      • Ah, so technically it’s possible just that Sony don’t seem to enforce it as of yet. Is that the case, Katy?

      • As far as I know, MAC address bans and indeed bans on any console used on your broadband is used only in extreme cases such as hacking, modding, stealing from PSN etc.

      • I honestly don’t know mike because I don’t work there, I can only report anecdotally that multi-account downrating of other users’ media is rife on SingStar, it has even been in UK newspapers and the problem is still not solved.

        A MAC address ban will not be sufficient because you can change your MAC address with two lines at the command prompt, some routers also allow MAC spoofing per machine. The way to go is a console ID ban as Tuffcub mentioned. I do not know if they use it or not, but they certainly should.

      • Ah right. Cheers Katy. So ban the console then job done (if it comes to that).

  6. So what? The “hackers” can still back-up their games offline.

  7. Sounds to me like they can only detect illegal backups if you’re actually playing them online. Otherwise there’s nothing stopping them, except firmware possibly.

    • Well if the hackers need to update their firmware because newer games require a fw update to run they will possibly need to sign in to PSN

      • You can download and install new firmware without connecting to the PSN. Besides, newer games that require newer firmware come with it on the disc.

      • yes but that new firmware may also counter the modchips function.

      • plus I never played a ps3 game which needed to install a firmware update that only happens in psp games

    • The article made it sound that the PS3 keeps a history of IDs of the most recently played games on the machine. Something that was probably put in place for the background updates PSN+ users are using.
      So even if they remove the dongle before going online the ID of the backup manager is still in the history-list and in comes the hammer.

      • A NAND chip records everything, therefore even if the device isn’t plugged in, Sony will know it has been.

  8. Shame Sony didn’t have a sense of humour and hold off this type of annoucement until the device was readily available and had sold shedloads. Instant ban on the console making it worthless and also $150 (or whatever) wasted on the dongle – harsh lesson learnt :)

    • Now that WOULD be sadistic of them.

    • I would pay to see someone’s face if Sony did do this. For someone to plug it in and atttempt to play a pirated game online only to find they’ve been banned.

    • They don’t WANT to ban loads of users if they can avoid it! They’d obviously rather put off as many people as possible who might otherwise have given it a try and then only have to ban the people that still go ahead.

      • That’s a very good point. Just like how MS only ban in waves once or twice a year. They know that these guys are probably also legitimately buying _some_ product and I’m not sure they want to piss off an enormous ‘market’, even if they are essentially also thieves.

        Just for the record, I don’t support piracy what-so-ever, but I am interested in running one of these offline if it can be shown that some nice homebrew emerges. I would particularly like to see a nice HTPC program that uses PlayTV – that would make it worth the price of admission alone.

  9. I think it’s completely normal and expected that Sony will ban anyone who steals from them, and I do not plan to. However, I’m a little surprised that people here want software pirates to be ‘burned alive’ and ‘thrown from airplanes without a parachute’, methods I’m sure our good friends Stalin and Pol Pot would happily condone. I will admit I did own a ‘hacked’ PS1 and gamecube once (and the gamecube still), and I have had a very happy youth playing hundreds of games I could otherwise not have afforded. Nowadays I have more financial means and am quite happy to spend my money on well-made PS3 games, being able to do so because I was not burned, buried, eaten or dismembered alive earlier.

    I think some of you guys (not just the 2 quoted) are overdoing it a little, did you never copy some game floppies from one of your friends? Did you never download a single mp3? Is that Photoshop install of yours legal?

    By the way, I *do not* say it’s OK to play illegal games, it drives the prices up for us who buy them legally and I do not like my prices driven up. And everyone should use Linux, the most unstealable piece of software in the world.

  10. If only Sony put a remote detonation device in the PS3 that they could trigger if anyone used the thing.
    Just saying it has one might work as a deterrent .

Comments are now closed for this post.