Technological discussion on PS3 security and crack.*

However he also said this: "The era of the PS3s relevance as a supercomputer has pretty much passed. For $100, I can buy a GPU(HD4850) that far surpasses the 7 SPU's capabilities. I more want to hack it to prove I can.

Yea, all bluray hacks are off the table, couldn't care less about people playing "backup" games."

There are more quotes to anti piracy .. just don't have the time to search his blog, but the above statements are on his blog. Seems to be contradicting to posts above.
 
Rangers said:
Wow, talk about non logic. Very few boxed non-MMORPG PC games sell much at all anymore.
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That is because the PC market no longer buys boxes. The PC market is 5-8 years ahead of the console on digital distribution. I know many people who buy games who haven't installed using a CD or DVD for years. Physical media is so 90s.
 
senas78 said:
There are more quotes to anti piracy .. just don't have the time to search his blog, but the above statements are on his blog. Seems to be contradicting to posts above.
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You mean the faking of his anti piracy stance, which he made clear with this statement:

The real reason I'm against piracy on this blog is the DMCA and lawyers though. It's not a moral issue.
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Clearly whoever "donated" the PS3 to him wanted to pirate or be able to play pirated game. Let's just see how legit this hack really is in that regard.

All console hacks were motivated by piracy, despite claims otherwise.
 
Perhaps we can continue the last part of this thread in the 'ethics' thread? Although maybe not much more can be said. Ethics doesn't seem to be this guy's best feature.

So going back to the technical aspect, one thing that puzzles me is his claim that his hack cannot be patched because it's so low level. If that's indeed true why can't he make his discovery public? It's unpatchable after all.

And don't you guys find it a bit weird that he has done (allegedly) in 5 weeks what no other team/person managed to do in 3 years? It's not like it hasn't been tried or there weren't people interested in selling modchips. I don't believe the claim that having Linux available was the reason.
 
mmendez said:
So going back to the technical aspect, one thing that puzzles me is his claim that his hack cannot be patched because it's so low level. If that's indeed true why can't he make his discovery public? It's unpatchable after all.
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Probably the same reason he doesn't reveal his various iPhone exploits. His reasoning is that the implementation of the patching will be more difficult - but not impossible - when Sony know what he has done. By his own admission he has half of a hack, not the complete article.

mmendez said:
And don't you guys find it a bit weird that he has done (allegedly) in 5 weeks what no other team/person managed to do in 3 years? It's not like it hasn't been tried or there weren't people interested in selling modchips. I don't believe the claim that having Linux available was the reason.
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The guy has a proven track record in attacking and compromising hardware. If you look at his iPhone stuff, he is achieving working results - on his own - weeks/months ahead of entire teams of people looking to do the same thing. And I daresay he's got better things to do with his time than orchestrate an elaborate fake.
 
So it's broken ?

mmendez said:
So going back to the technical aspect, one thing that puzzles me is his claim that his hack cannot be patched because it's so low level. If that's indeed true why can't he make his discovery public? It's unpatchable after all.
Click to expand...

I am guessing...

Besides preventing Sony to counter his patch, it will also keep the exploit under his control. If it's everywhere, he can't control the damage and any follow up action by Sony. Sony and IBM are probably interested to talk to him to learn too.

The hack seems to exploit specific timing condition that can be altered with Sony's software tweaks.

Geohot said:
Hardware combined with software, for example, using OtherOS to map the htab, then when the HTAB mapping entry is being added, glitch the memory bus data line to add the mapping such that it's R/W instead of just read.
Click to expand...

EDIT: Need to wait for an implementation.


senas78 said:
However he also said this: "The era of the PS3s relevance as a supercomputer has pretty much passed. For $100, I can buy a GPU(HD4850) that far surpasses the 7 SPU's capabilities.
Click to expand...

Phhhpphht... the Cell chip has stayed stagnant, and has been superceded by more advanced design. The beauty of a distributed system is working units will remain in operation until they cannot keep up anymore (or broke down). RoadRunner is still #2 on the list. Cell's still in active use in other institutions. Haven't seen HD4850 in Top 500 list yet.
 
grandmaster said:
Probably the same reason he doesn't reveal his various iPhone exploits. His reasoning is that the implementation of the patching will be more difficult - but not impossible - when Sony know what he has done. By his own admission he has half of a hack, not the complete article.
Click to expand...

No, by his own admission he has enough for backups, for homebrew, for full linux. He's called it a full hack, there's no half anything. He's a smart kid, but the internet seems to forget that there's other smart folks around.

The guy has a proven track record in attacking and compromising hardware. If you look at his iPhone stuff, he is achieving working results - on his own - weeks/months ahead of entire teams of people looking to do the same thing. And I daresay he's got better things to do with his time than orchestrate an elaborate fake.
Click to expand...
His iPhone stuff was done with a group, at first. Then it seems like he got enough money to buy more advanced gear and do much of it solo (his software jailbreaks are done with a team, though). Not to mention that now he's refusing vehemently to do anything more for iPhone (which leads others to conclude that he can't, at which point it gets REALLY childish).
 
obonicus said:
No, by his own admission he has enough for backups, for homebrew, for full linux. He's called it a full hack, there's no half anything. He's a smart kid, but the internet seems to forget that there's other smart folks around.
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Well he's saying he's got a hell of a lot of reversing to do... so the job is clearly not done. It still remains somewhat unclear what his definition of a full hack actually is.
 
It would be very fitting is this hack indeed was working and especially if it was working on the Slim as well, that would give a well-deserved "F*CK YOU" to Sony for removing the OtherOS capabilities.

However, even as it was before, the OtherOS was too crippled due to the lack of RSX. As others have already stated, a soon 10 year old Xbox with XBMC is a way more feature-complete mediaplayer than a PS3 or 360.

For a brief period of time, (I think it was before 2.10) you could actually access the RSX from OtherOS, but Sony instantly removed that "hole".

Then they even removed the possibility to run BD-J apps from USB, which posed no security risk at all (well, not more than running BD-J from Bluray, which is stilll allowed). I can't even begin to understand the reasoning behind this:
"Oh no, people can play slow NES emulators without booting to OtherOS, we must address this serious issue at ONCE!" ?

Sony deserves to have the PS3 hacked, no question about it in my mind.
 
If modchip is really needed, then piracy penetration will be much lower than with PSP.

Opening & hacking the x360 requires just few simple moves, but reaching the PS3 motherboard is a serious task.
 
Sdw said:
It would be very fitting is this hack indeed was working and especially if it was working on the Slim as well, that would give a well-deserved "F*CK YOU" to Sony for removing the OtherOS capabilities.
Click to expand...

Well, looking at this incident. It's hard to argue why Sony can't remove OtherOS even though I liked it.

However, even as it was before, the OtherOS was too crippled due to the lack of RSX. As others have already stated, a soon 10 year old Xbox with XBMC is a way more feature-complete mediaplayer than a PS3 or 360.
Click to expand...

Yes, a fully functional XBMC would be nice on the PS3 !



AlStrong said:
http://www.top500.org/lists/2009/11

Number 5 on the list uses 4870 X2s.

"6,144 Intel CPUs and 5,120 AMD GPUs"
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That's why I said 4850. Cell will eventually go away but right now it's still relevant. :)




ShadowRunner said:
Im assuming he means playing "backup" copies of games that you may no longer be able to get hold of.
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He meant PS2. I think I saw similar comments earlier. It's ok. He's just trying to reason/justify what he should do next. The interview may have forced him to do more than what he wanted though since he would have to keep to his words now.
 
That's why I mentioned he's looking for reasons and justifications, not necessary facts at this point. He's not too familiar with PS3 gaming scene. Poor kid is under media pressure right now. He needs an Agent/Manager for the stardom. :p
 
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