According to news surfacing overnight, the PS3’s private keys appear to have been found – or, at least, a method to recreate the key. The end result seems to be the same, with some claiming the PS3’s previously watertight security has been breached.
This all seems to stem from fail0verflow’s revelations at the end of last year in Berlin, with a different ‘hack’ than the infamous Jailbreak method being used.
What does this all mean? Well, it looks like this could open the doors to allowing users to run any unsigned code on a currently jailbroken console, regardless of firmware. fail0verflow’s original goal and aim was to enable Linux on any PlayStation 3, but it’s almost certain that this will be used for piracy.
An interesting by-product of all this is that the PSP’s keys also appear to have been found inamongst the PS3’s code, which is presumably due to the console’s ability to play some PSP games.
Sources: Sony Insider, NeoGAF, Kotaku.
TheSixthAxis does not condone piracy and does not recommend the modification of your console – doing so is against the Terms of Use of the console and is possibly illegal.
Tanzil
If anyone’s interested Eurogamer has an in depth article about the comprimise. Let’s hope piracy will stay low and homebrew will make it into official firmware. Community mods going official.
xdarkmagician
Oh no, the PS3 is hacked… again, Sony needs to give this battle up. Maybe its time for Sony and MS to get the next generation of consoles ready. Sony can’t win this round, and a new generation will at least start the race over from scratch again, and isn’t the shear amout of space the HVD holds suppose to eliminate piracy? These devices weren’t designed well enough to even perform for 5 years, so why is it surprising when they’re hacked 3-4 years into their lifespan, especially since poor design forced some people to try to fix their console themselves which probably added to the hype- I wonder how many 360’s were moded AFTER they RROD’ed. Point is, the entire world is now derived by hacking, from computers to the human genome, to the desire to control the weather, you might stop piracy, but you will never crush human curiosity, or the desire to use what we learn from that curiosity to improve our surroundings. Sony needs to realize that they are battling piracy and not hacking.
Dany2Step
here here!
Crazyfrog23
Some of the most ridicules comments I have ever seen on this site in this one article.So many of you are bashing and attacking the developers that were able to crack the ps3 in order to gain the master key, yet you don’t know all the facts of the situation.If you do not understand the situation then don’t go spewing words and personal attacks left, right and center towards these guys who have in their own minds done nothing wrong.
These guys are not looking to generate piracy in any form for the ps3 though of course they know that there work will be exploited by less knowledgeable pirates who can get pirated games to run on the system.
Their goal has always been to allow homebrew software on the system and like all systems the starting point for this is to get linux booted on the system.For three years this was not necessary as Linux was already available on the ps3 so serious hacking of the console never took place in the early years of the system as the top hackers didn’t see a need to attack it when there time could be spent elsewhere.
Once sony removed OtherOS the big players in the hacking scene knew it was necessary like all other consoles to hack it.12 months later, they have completed the first step of the task.Three years sony were heralded as having one of the most secure consoles ever, but when we look back was it secure or that the hackers just didn’t give a rats ass about cracking it as they were happy.Sony pissed them off and look what that has got them.
tonycawley
If you must insist on ridiculing people’s comments, you could at least have the decency of spelling ridiculous correctly!
Crazyfrog23
Why thanks tony, my misspelling was made without any decency in mind.Shame on me for misspelling a word.
tonycawley
Always my pleasure to correct such errors. It just makes you look a bit silly sometimes when you’re trying to pull someone up for something, but make a mistake yourself in doing so. That’s all.
Crazyfrog23
At least my mistake is only something as small as spelling a word wrong while there’s is to personally attack other’s.
Hmm i wonder which is worse?
tonycawley
I suppose that depends on your perspective really. An english teacher might find your mistake to be unforgivable but not really care a jot about hacking.
MOVE
Which makes it totally okay for the hackers to inform the whole world about how to exploit the system. Oh yes, Sony really had this one coming…
Jesus where is the sense in your logic?
Crazyfrog23
I never once said it was ok for them to tell the whole world did I?Thing is though like anything, when a person or group of people discover something new in any field it is there initial reaction to tell people about it, this is true in all walks of life.
Once they removed OtherOS,they should have known people would start hacking the system as soon as they removed it.If they did not remove it, this probably would not have happened, or at least not for another few years when its to late to matter.So yes Sony did have it coming.
Erroneus
Off course Sony had it coming.
You don’t advertise a feature like Linux, only to remove it later on in a firmware update. It was so fucking stupid, I can’t believe Sony didn’t see this one coming.
Sony deserved this one, to be honest. The removal of OtherOS, the incorrect use of random (K) in ECDSA. Somebody at Sony screwed up really really bad.
xdarkmagician
The problem with this is Sony still wants to claim ownership of my PS3. I willingly agreed to their TOS’s when I joined but I’ve been forced to agree to it ever since. If they want to control everything I buy then start up a lease program, where I may not own anything, but I also don’t need to worry about YLODs/RRODs, or have to replace worn out controllers anymore. They could then legally do whatever they wanted to their console, as I would have no claim to ownership. Because the thing that P***’s me of the most is Sony wants the right to say they still own my PS3 until it doesn’t benefit them, like when repairs are needed. They say things like you can run older firmware but just can’t log into the PSN, then they go and make all the new game require the latest firmware. If you want to play at all you need to agree to the TOS, that they can change whenever they want. So they kinda do deserve this, they all do.
MOVE
Hackers don’t look to generate piracy, yet when they for some reason feel offended they indirectly incourage other people to do it. If this was not intended from the hackers THEY should have seen it coming. “I just hacked the PS3, I’m gonna put it out on the Internet…(a while later)…Oh, I forgot. Millions of people are online and they migth take advantage of software piracy…Anyway, they had it coming. Forcing me to hack the freakin console.”
They are f…ing guilty!
Crazyfrog23
If you actually watched the presentation from the hackers then you would realise that they never tried to play dumb to what their exploits would lead to.They admitted that finding the master key would lead to piracy and that this would be inevitable.Though they said they were not looking to deploy piracy so they themselves would not be working on such projects, as they just want to use the ps3 for homebrew.
So what are they guilty for?They admit their exploits will lead to piracy but they are not the one’s implementing it.They are not aiming for piracy in any way.
nofi
Play nice. Being arsey in comments is my job. :p
Dany2Step
hi i download songs for free, and stream films online, some of which havent even come out in my country yet. so i cant really take any kihd of morale high ground on this issue of piracy in games. even though i dont pirate games.
…just putting it out there.
UKZ-N3M1515
Im same as you, i download films etc, but i dont feel like me downloading the film, will lead to a lost sale, as i will not pay those prices for something i will watch once or twice, however if its a film i really want to see, i will view it at the cinemas, or if i miss it at cinemas, i will rent or buy it, such as avatar, i bought that, and glad i did, you really need to see it on bluray to fully enjoy it. Games on the other hand, if i were to pirate something, why would i pirate a game, i am not interested in, if im interested in it, and i pirate it, that would be a lost sale, i always buy my games, if everybody pirated games, no good games would be released.
cc_star
There is no justification for piracy.
If you want something, pay for it through whatever means the content’s rights-holder sets eg cinema ticket, retail price, subscription, licence fee or ad-supported. If you don’t want something then do without it.
cc_star
Hack proof console:
1) For retail games, the disc/Blu-ray you buy is a trial & you go online for a free/premium unlock for unlimited access, this ensures devices running the latest (& presumably un-jailbroken) firmware can play the game
2) For digitally distributed games, give a trial of every game away free & allow in-trial only purchase of full game.
Perhaps these are where Sony’s degrading demo patents will come in useful, in the future
or
3) OnLive
ElGuason
it was just a matter of time before someone did it.
PriceKitty
-_-
SpikeyMikey23
ha, my thoughts exactly.
Bober9000
My view:
It dose not change anything.
Why?
Online gaming will remain secured. Sony will ban players 2 or 3 times for mixing in firmware (like MS did in the past).
Time of Exclusive games is over right now I think 95% of all console games come out on PS and Xbox. So why someone who want to play for free will buy more expensive console hack it and burn games on more expensive disks.
In stealing there most important factor is efficiency and in this case Xbox wins its cheaper have more games etc.
Consoles will be selling as usual (cracked or not) games also. (If you wanted to pirate console games you probably already own Xbox360 ;) )
Only market that will be affected by this is used games market. Some of player will gladly switch for “even MORE cheaper games”.
Fore me nothing has changed. I have just ordered Mass Effect 2 for PS3 ;)