Technological discussion on PS3 security and crack.*

[corduroygt]

I'm beginning to think the traditional model of making a profit on consoles is not feasible anymore. The ps3 has cost Sony billions and now this hack looks like it will make piracy incredibly easy, and I assume there will be a free method available at some point.

This only affects already released games, new games are likely to require a fw update to run. You can bet GT5 and LBP2 won't be able to run on 3.41. Also maybe after the apocalyps3, sony put a timed kill on the firmware of the device, maybe 3.41 won't work at all after a year and when you turn on your PS3, you'll be asked to update the fw or it won't work.

 

[eastmen]

Perhaps, but there are ways to speed up copying compared to ripping (e.g., friends sharing over a LAN, prepacked on HDD).

In any case, we will probably get a new firmware soon.

Cheap bluray drive for the pc. I think 8x or 10x players are now $100 bucks on newegg. Rip an iso of the image and put it on the ps3. It seems it can read an play games from the iso easily enough

 

[DieH@rd]

New videos are surfacing, lot of ppl are geting this USB Stick in the mail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsBckuvmP7U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrsTTWpGfQU

 

[dragonelite]

This only affects already released games, new games are likely to require a fw update to run. You can bet GT5 and LBP2 won't be able to run on 3.41. Also maybe after the apocalyps3, sony put a timed kill on the firmware of the device, maybe 3.41 won't work at all after a year and when you turn on your PS3, you'll be asked to update the fw or it won't work.

Didn't they say the usb stick is easily upgradeable.
They clearly have a source so they can get or make new usb firmware to work or maybe a custom ps 3 firmware didn't the psp got hacked like this in a similar way but only then with a battery.

 

[patsu]

Hard to say. Both systems are very different. You'd think that they have learned from the PSP battery exploit.

 

[corduroygt]

Didn't they say the usb stick is easily upgradeable.
They clearly have a source so they can get or make new usb firmware to work or maybe a custom ps 3 firmware didn't the psp got hacked like this in a similar way but only then with a battery.

PS3 is much more different than a PSP, you bet it's easy enough to patch this, especially when sony gets their hands on one of these sticks. Not to mention that source, if still working at Sony, won't be available again.

Hell, a super brute force solution would be to make the PS3 unable to boot into debug mode and tell service centers to just replace broken PS3's instead of repairing them...A smarter solution would be to force online connectivity when trying to boot into debug mode.

 

[AmFreak]

German modchip store gamefreax.de recieved their "early acces" package with the USB Stick. Here is the web translated page:
http://translate.google.com/transla...geknackt-psjailbreak.html&sl=de&tl=en&act=url

Their conclusion: it works as advertised.

Seems Sony (Germany) is already behind it - gamefreax have updated their posting saying that they can't sell the stick. They have destroyed it and all shipping documents. So that "Sony's lawyers can stay at home".

 

[DieH@rd]

Can someone tell me are the external fat32 HDDs somehow encrypted? Does PS3 requires that we format them before we start to use them?

What will prevent someone from sharing one HDD on multiple consoles? Or sharing ISO dirs with rest of mankind [to prevent long backup times from bluray to hdd]?

 

[patsu]

Not encrypted at the file system level, but individual files can be signed and encrypted. Can't share between PS3s if they don't want you to (See protected game saves)

Someone should check PS3 search ranking to see if there's a surge. ;-)

EDIT: In this case, the PS3 behaves like a debug unit. So anything goes I think -- except for Blu-ray and DVD movies. I was told debug units cannot play those.

 

[eastmen]

PS3 is much more different than a PSP, you bet it's easy enough to patch this, especially when sony gets their hands on one of these sticks. Not to mention that source, if still working at Sony, won't be available again.

Hell, a super brute force solution would be to make the PS3 unable to boot into debug mode and tell service centers to just replace broken PS3's instead of repairing them...A smarter solution would be to force online connectivity when trying to boot into debug mode.

It doesn't matter. Oce this works there are what 30-40m ps3's out there that are able to be hacked and then just like the psp they will simply run custom firmware. Sure the firmwares might be a version or two behind but i doubt it really matters

 

[patsu]

I don't know if having a debug unit allows you to flash the firmware. They should be two different access levels.

 

[corduroygt]

It doesn't matter. Oce this works there are what 30-40m ps3's out there that are able to be hacked and then just like the psp they will simply run custom firmware. Sure the firmwares might be a version or two behind but i doubt it really matters

Any new games would just have a firmware check and not launch in the presence of custom firmware, they may even go as far as bricking the PS3. Old games could be pirated of course. It's also interesting that you went from "no one wants to pirate the PS3" to this.

 

[Xenus]

Not really eastman there is a fatal flaw in this system. I can't be removed. All they need to do is make the disks for new games to force you to connect to the internet to update firmware to play new games. Hell since they know what the program is they could make new games have a built in software to detect it and do something. This is a bad way to try an break their security since it's a known backdoor and leaked software that can't be removed.

 

[eastmen]

Not really eastman there is a fatal flaw in this system. I can't be removed. All they need to do is make the disks for new games to force you to connect to the internet to update firmware to play new games. Hell since they know what the program is they could make new games have a built in software to detect it and do something. This is a bad way to try an break their security since it's a known backdoor and leaked software that can't be removed.

With the ability to run any code they want they can easily block those discs from acessing the internet until they cfw the newest firmware and then as far as the games are aware the required firmware is already installed.

Its why once a psp is hacked its never bricked (unless you do something really stupid) and once they had acess to custom code they were able to hack every firmware.

 

[patsu]

...provided they can flash the firmware, or somehow be the first to run.

 

[Xenus]

Uh the disk doesn't need to access the internet to block the system. It's not too hard to write a program for search for this program on system and do something and slip it on disks with a new game. The fact that the program is known and can't be removed will be it's undoing. One slip doesn't mean the whole system is compromised forever and it's a big assumption to assume that an intrusion that lets them back up disks and play them will allow them to write custom firmware. Protection is layered it's not just that simple that when you find one crack you can do anything you want.

 

[Npl]

Not really eastman there is a fatal flaw in this system. I can't be removed. All they need to do is make the disks for new games to force you to connect to the internet to update firmware to play new games. Hell since they know what the program is they could make new games have a built in software to detect it and do something. This is a bad way to try an break their security since it's a known backdoor and leaked software that can't be removed.

Then they could modify the program to not be detected. The real issue is that new games just will mandate new firmware, and while the program can block the update it can`t make the game run. And why cant it be removed, if it can install a module it should be able to remove it aswell (say after running "backups")?

eastman:
The good thing about PS3 is that you cant decrypt firmware-updates unless you broken into the lowest level - so while apparently the hackers now have their foot in the system and possibly can learn about the installed Firmware and patch the running one, it wont help getting into future firmwares with this hole closed.
I just hope the service-mode hack isn`t such a low level that it can`t be disabled by firmware (which would make some sense to revive bricks but would be an insane security f***up).

PS. the games working fine just confirms my guess that there aren't any significant runtime checks.

 

[Xenus]

Yes that will make it harder to detect but I assume a firmware update will also be included to in effect close the leaked hole even if just changing the key to open it. Also as npl just so kindly pointed out access to run things on OS is not low level firmware access. Only an internal Sony firmware dev could leak that rather then the massive number of devs who have access to the sdk. So it makes it much less likely to be leaked as the less suspects the easier it is to trace. So I doubt custom firmware is coming anytime soon they need to hack that on their own. As long as Sony didn't stupidly leave clues into the firmware on the OS this doesn't mean they crack the firmware. This is why layers of protection are always a must.

 

[Cyan]

It sounded like someone inside leaked a secret key, or someone stole the key.

This seems to exist since March 2009 at least.

Take a look at this spaniard forum and what the user xakmsx replies. (the thread starts with a question asking why there are backups of PS3 games in some webs)

Reply dated March 9th 2009: They are there for those who have a PS3 Test and a very, very special USB pendrive

.
It looks like the guy is from Poland, odd....

http://www.elotrolado.net/hilo_por-que-hay-algunos-backps-de-juegos-en​-algunas-webs_1197956

 

[corduroygt]

This seems to exist since March 2009 at least.

Take a look at this spaniard forum and what the user xakmsx replies. (the thread starts with a question asking why there are backups of PS3 games in some webs)

.
It looks like the guy is from Poland, odd....

http://www.elotrolado.net/hilo_por-que-hay-algunos-backps-de-juegos-en​-algunas-webs_1197956

The pen drive existed as an official Sony internal use product. Someone just managed to get their hands on one and clone it.