Topic: So, the PS3 is like totally hacked and stuff

[gpw11]

Now why would you go and read those?  You knew what you were getting into.

[Ghandi]

Let us pray, for his own good, that Que never reads a Youtube comment. I do not think that he would recover.

[Quemaqua]

But YouTube is shit for the masses.  You'd think people who would bother to make a comment about a firmware update for a gaming system would have a bloody clue.  Sure, a lot of people buy these things and don't know much, but do they search news?  You figure most of them would just install the updates when a new game requires them, not go out of their way to find a news post about it and leave a comment.  I'd assume if they're into things enough to bother with that, they'd know about the security breech.  I guess that's an entirely wrong assumption.

Meh, whatever.  I get more irrelevant by the day.  I'll be obsolete shortly.

[idolminds]

Interesting. It seems the newest firmware for PSP is not required to access PSN so there is little reason to upgrade to it. From what I've read it fixes known exploits so ISO loaders and that HEN thing doesn't work, but apparently signed homebrews still work on 6.37.

I downloaded 6.35 the other day, so I'm going to give it a try.

EDIT
Heh, have to charge my PSP. Even just sitting there the battery goes dead, no idea why.

Note that I'm only doing this because I have a Pandora battery and can go back to custom firmware all I want. If you have CFW and no pandora, might want to see how this all pans out before goofing with it.

It seems you cant sign things over 4MB, which works for homebrew but wont let you "sign" ISOs. Looks like an optimal situation for Sony.


UPDATE

So I installed the 6.35 official firmware. Cant seem to get on PSN since it tells me theres an updated firmware. It'll be a bit before I get the latest downloaded. But on official firmware I was able to use the Wagic homebrew game! Really cool to be able to do that with no hacks or trickery.

[idolminds]

Lets hope this turns out to be false. Pretty sure that would kill the PS3. No one wants to deal with that shit on a console.

[Xessive]

I understand Sony's position but that is a bonehead idea. Nobody likes serial codes on PC and the console crowd aren't used to it; not to mention the effect this will have on the console culture of trading second-hand games.

[Pugnate]

I don't mind it, but really, has it worked on the PC?

[idolminds]

I messed with my PSP a bit more. Still running 6.35. There is a signed HEN that I put on here that sort of puts the thing in CFW mode. I ran a program called PSPFiler and can use it to rip my UMDs to the memory stick. I tested it with LittleBigPlanet. Then using a program called Prometheus Iso Loader I was able to launch the game and play it from the stick. Pretty cool.

Now the question is how to get the patch for it so I can download custom levels. I dont know if thats a PSP security thing, but LBP has an update on the PSP that you must have to take the game online. Of course I first have to figure out how to get my PSP online in general since it wants me to update to 6.37.

Anyway, its still pretty cool. I can play signed homebrew like a real game and playing my own ripped games just requires a few extra steps.

[idolminds]

Sony just released a new firmware update and it seems like they were able to throw a monkey wrench into the CFW scene. Couple posts from neogaf:

For those who are curious about the new PS3 security, it seems Sony has implemented something in 3.56 I mentioned here a few weeks ago that is the same as Microsoft uses to detect and ban 360's.

Mathieulh just posted about it on IRC.

Essentially Sony can now remotely execute code on the PS3 as soon as you connect. This can do whatever Sony wants it to do such as verifying system files or searching for homebrew. Sony can change the code and add new detection methods without any firmware updates and as the code executes remotely there is no reliable way to forge the replies.

Whilst it is possible to patch or remove this code from the firmware this will likely mean the end of playing CFW online (as PSN can just check before login that this is active) or at the very least mean it will be even easier for Sony to detect and ban users.

Judging from the fact that people can still connect using the proxy method it seems Sony hasn't activated any of this yet but the functions are there in the new firmware.

I'll try and some everything up (I'm no expert in this so I'll probably get a couple of things wrong).

- Geohot's signed homebrew always uses the same keypairing which Sony have now blacklisted. Another keypairing can be generated and any homebrew signed with this would work on vanilla 3.56 (you would have to install it on 3.55 though as NPDRM keys still haven't leaked). It's likely this will always be the case unless Sony creates a whitelist. However it is not practical as you would not be able to install new homebrew once you upgrade from 3.55.

- 3.56 fixes the ECDSA random number bug. Private keys can no longer be calculated. Public keys can still be found (and already have been).

Private keys = encrypt data
Public keys = decrypt data

The fact Sony fixed this makes no difference to people already on CFW or pre-3.56 OFW as they have everything they need to decrypt and encrypt with old keys.

Additionally fail0verflow's other exploit allowed all the loaders and revoke lists to be downgraded using hardware (very difficult). This cannot be patched by Sony so all PS3's can still use CFW (though it's very inconvenient for anyone on 3.56)

- Signed 3.56 CFW will only work with 3.55 or lower firmware because of the new keys.

- New PSN security means that it will very soon be secure even when 3.56 CFW arrives. (see my post on the last page)

What this means:
- All consoles on virgin 3.56 or higher can't install CFW or homebrew without a downgrade via hardware.
- Homebrew will run on 3.56 or newer once resigned with different keys (but you can only install homebrew on 3.55 or lower)
- CFW 3.56 will eventually arrive but will only be able to be installed on 3.55 or lower.

[Cobra951]

Though confusing, I still understood enough to reiterate what I said before: one virgin PS3 for online, one hacked for offline only.  No single-system solution will be reliable longterm.

[idolminds]

Makes me wish I could afford a secondary system. Sorta. I could probably build a cheap emulation PC and attach a 360 controller and be just as well off.

[idolminds]

Couple interesting threads on neogaf. Since this latest PS3 firmware update cheaters have started being banned from Black Ops. And if you own a Slim or later model original PS3...you can't change the HDD.

I'm not sure why people call this a bug. It's actual more of a side effect of Sony's newer hot patch process. The 3.56 patch is a tiny patch which simply add/changes files in the 3.55 software. This differs from most patches which download the entire firmware. Since part of the software on models with 16 MB of flash memory is stored on the hard drive, those PS3's need to reinstall the software when upgrading the drive. PS3's with 256 MB of flash memory store all the software in the flash memory so it isn't lost on a drive upgrade.

Anyway since 3.56 is a hot patch and requires 3.55 to be installed prior to updating, you can't install 3.56 on a new drive. You also could install 3.55 when upgrading if not for Sony's software version checks.

In any case it's not a bug, Sony simply wanted to get 3.56 out quickly, hence the hot patch. Once they have most of the PS3 consoles updated, they'll replace the hot patch with a full patch and it will work for drive updates.

I expect that a new 3.57 update will come out before 3.56 is fixed considering 3.56 has already been hacked.

[Pugnate]

I've been planning to upgrade my harddrive to 500GB for a while. Are you telling me that's illegal?

[gpw11]

I've been planning to upgrade my harddrive to 500GB for a while. Are you telling me that's illegal?

It's covered in the quote above.  It's a hardware change they did with the slim due to less flash memory.

[Cobra951]

What a horrid mess.

[idolminds]

Pug, its apparently a "bug" and has happened before. Hopefully they fix it.

[Pugnate]

Yea I got it when I actually read the quote. I am just so used to D digesting information for me hehe.

But yea, I guess they will just fix it in the next patch.

[Pugnate]

&feature=player_embedded#

I think legally speaking, this guy may be in the clear.

[Cobra951]

I wish him the best of luck.  Further nerfing the DMCA would be the perfect outcome.

[idolminds]

Tee-hee!

In what can only be described as one of the worst corporate Twitter faux pas' of recent times, comedy PlayStation executive-come-marketing character Kevin Butler has accidentally tweeted the PS3's root key to his 70,000 followers.

[Cobra951]

Haha!  So he forwarded (or whatever twitter equivalent) a message with an obscure string of characters innocently.  If nothing else, it underscores the impossibility of stuffing this genie back in the bottle.

[idolminds]

Sonys mountain of subpoenas denied.

[idolminds]

PSN bans incoming?

I think this is the first statement Sony has made to "the people" and not just court filings.

[idolminds]

Well, its over. They settled with a permanent injunction against Hotz.

We don't have any other details, but to me it sounds like Sony realized they had nothing to gain from winning. The hack is already out there with no way to stop its spread, and Hotz has no money. Losing, on the other hand, means its open season on the NGP and all future consoles. As for Hotz, he already hacked the PS3 so telling him he can't hack it anymore isn't a big deal.

[idolminds]

Ok, so maybe he won't be hacking the NGP.

As of 4/11/11, I am joining the SONY boycott. I will never purchase another SONY product.

I encourage you to do the same. And if you bought something SONY recently, return it.

Why would you not boycott a company who feels this way about you?

There is much more to come on this blog.

[sirean_syan]

Wait? People gave this dude money to fight the fight? Heh.

[scottws]

Ok, so maybe he won't be hacking the NGP.

What is the NGP?  I don't understand what the text you quoted says about him not hacking the NGP.  To me it just says he is not buying any more Sony products.

Edit:  Ah, Next Generation Portable.  Keep in mind the only gaming news I get these days is from this forum and I'm not part of any other gaming-related community.  "Gaming" and  "journalism" are two words that don't belong together any more.

[idolminds]

heh, sorry. Of course I still get messed up when I see NGP since I remember the Neo Geo Pocket.

[scottws]

Yeah, I kept thinking "Neo Geo Portable", but knew that was wrong.

[gpw11]

Fuck, Geohot is such a douche.

[Xessive]

Fuck, Geohot is such a douche.

Careful, Anonymous might target you too! Aaargh!!