Technological discussion on PS3 security and crack.*

[makattack]

It also means that that's one less reason to go to fully direct download in future, as a relatively piracy free console can be distributed in newer markets where piracy has always been seen as rampant ;-)

Actually, I see it as one *more* reason to go fully digital distribution. If you require your device be online, and have a secure channel for distributing and maintaining the code on the end-point devices, you can more effectively combat piracy.

After-all, Sony having replaced the entire boot-chain with the latest firmware is accomplished via. digital distribution...

I suspect most hacked PS3's are still running 3.55 and are not connecting to PSN, or are connecting via. proxy servers that somehow spoof PSN. If you think about it, firmware 3.55 and physical media is what will still allow rampant piracy of software on the PS3.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Not really, if people cant pirate new games due to the re-securing of PS3 its not so much of a problem. Most game sales are very front heavy with regards to sales, i doubt they will loose too much money from people staying on 3.55 and pirating old games only. Firmware updates come on they game disks aswell, not just through DD.

 

[Trejser]

Piracy won't be a problem on PS3. Majority of consoles connected to internet are on 3.56/3.6 now, and most of people that don't have internet access don't know about any CFW stuff (they also will have 3.6+ installed with new games). Also, not all people are using CFW to play pirated games. I expect small numbers compared to other compromised consoles (even 360, and we know that piracy is not affecting software performance that much). Sony will surely kill all PSN bypass methods in the future, so some of the CFW users will update to OFW.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

After-all, Sony having replaced the entire boot-chain with the latest firmware is accomplished via. digital distribution...

Excepting you can put a FW update on discs and require it, ensuring older FW's are locked out of the latest games. That's not a complete fix of course, but it means you'd only lose sales of old games which normally is only a smallish percentage of overall sales, and maybe one or two new titles the moment a crack happens and before a patch is found and released on all new discs.

Incidentally has anyone ever had a FW update experience with disks? I've always updated online and never been prompted, and am just wondering if anyone has seen that from a disc.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I guess Sony's security engineers rightly do deserve praise considering the sheer number of (even "supposedly" well informed) people claiming the PS3's security compromise would never be recovered from.

No-one commenting was that well informed about the inner workings of Sony's security and what was/is possible. It was always speculation, as pretty much everything on this and other boards is! From what information we had, this didn't seem at all possible, which jsut goes to show our understanding was way too limited. Which is what you want with security.

 

[Gradthrawn]

Incidentally has anyone ever had a FW update experience with disks? I've always updated online and never been prompted, and am just wondering if anyone has seen that from a disc.

Yes, with a friends PS3. It was GTAiV, I think. There PS3 was/is offline simply because they didn't have internet access.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Excepting you can put a FW update on discs and require it, ensuring older FW's are locked out of the latest games. That's not a complete fix of course, but it means you'd only lose sales of old games which normally is only a smallish percentage of overall sales, and maybe one or two new titles the moment a crack happens and before a patch is found and released on all new discs.

Incidentally has anyone ever had a FW update experience with disks? I've always updated online and never been prompted, and am just wondering if anyone has seen that from a disc.

That's not a foolproof plan either. MS has been trying to do similar with retail games but there's always been ways to rip the ISO and "patch" out material that might prevent a game from running on custom firmware.

As long as they don't go online, it's no problem to play the latest and greatest.

This latest firmware from Sony definitely sounds like they've done some significant work, but only time will tell if it actually prevents the playing of the latest games as long you remain offline.

And even if it doesn't, it at least makes things difficult enough that it should at the very least avoid a PC-like explosion of pirating.

Regards,
SB

 

[manux]

That's not a foolproof plan either. MS has been trying to do similar with retail games but there's always been ways to rip the ISO and "patch" out material that might prevent a game from running on custom firmware.

As long as they don't go online, it's no problem to play the latest and greatest.

This latest firmware from Sony definitely sounds like they've done some significant work, but only time will tell if it actually prevents the playing of the latest games as long you remain offline.

And even if it doesn't, it at least makes things difficult enough that it should at the very least avoid a PC-like explosion of pirating.

Regards,
SB

Assuming new firmware is not hacked Sony can encrypt new games with new keys. Hence older firmwares/hackers cannot decrypt and modify game binaries and therefor patching/loading new games would be impossible on older firmwares.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's not a foolproof plan either.

It is if the FW contains features the new game needs. A simple handshake routine would confirm presence of the right FW. No error messages would be needed as the player wouldn't never encounter such a security failure unless they were trying to circumvent the security. You'd just have an ISO that doesn't run.

This latest firmware from Sony definitely sounds like they've done some significant work, but only time will tell if it actually prevents the playing of the latest games as long you remain offline.

Of course. No-one can claim this one is 100% secure any more than the others. The possibility of entry vectors that have been missed and more blunders in implementation mean future hacks may happen. The take home point is from an unrecoverable fault, the system is back to being as secure as it was at release. There's no way to replace the FW, copy games, play game copies, etc. Anyone releasing a game on PS3 knows it won't be played for free. And the importance of this comes when you look at other systems, like those Linux guys showed, where they're all blown wide open without too much problem, and in some cases like Apple within a time frame measurable in hours of public release. Every system that is being cracked could, as PS3 demonstrates, offer up much more resistance than those hardwares are doing. It's just silly not to learn from other's successes and copy their methods, let alone the chance to improve on them!

 

[Rangers]

Did PS3 really offer resistance or people just didn't try to hack it until recently?

And besides to that, once they did try, seems like there was some colossal security failures there.

I remain highly unconvinced.

Also, doesn't Sony's system rely on Cell? Others wont duplicate that obviously.

And if Sony's security is so good, wouldn't NGP/PSP remain unhacked? Somehow I doubt that.

Also I've seen some rumors of 3.60 jailbroken already, though they could well be fake. Hard to say as Sony's sue policy keeps hackers down.

 

[AlphaWolf]

no idea if it's real /shrug

edit- the video is not a tutorial or anything, don't worry about Sony suing you.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Did PS3 really offer resistance or people just didn't try to hack it until recently?

And besides to that, once they did try, seems like there was some colossal security failures there.

I remain highly unconvinced.

Also, doesn't Sony's system rely on Cell? Others wont duplicate that obviously.

And if Sony's security is so good, wouldn't NGP/PSP remain unhacked? Somehow I doubt that.

Also I've seen some rumors of 3.60 jailbroken already, though they could well be fake. Hard to say as Sony's sue policy keeps hackers down.

Which I dont understand why MS and Nintendo cant do the same...

You would be pretty silly to thing people were not trying to hack it. Many of the common PS3 hacking sites have been active since the console was first released.
PS3s security has held up very well against piracy, better than any console in history, there can be little denying that. They will ofcourse be using their knowledge to secure NGP in a similar way too.

Not to say 360s security hasnt been reliable also, to my knowledge that has also been fully hacked before and then re-secured. If it wasnt for the blunder with the dvd drive it may not have seen much piracy either.

 

[ShadowRunner]

no idea if it's real /shrug

edit- the video is not a tutorial or anything, don't worry about Sony suing you.

Most likely fake. It is very easy to modify the value PS3 reports as its firmware. If the video doesnt show a game that requires 3.60 running take it with a hand full of salt, there are going to be tons of fakes showing up.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Most likely fake. It is very easy to modify the value PS3 reports as its firmware. If the video doesnt show a game that requires 3.60 running take it with a hand full of salt, there are going to be tons of fakes showing up.

Well if its a fake, its much more elaborate than you suggest. He has the online storage option.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Ah i see, missed that. Could well be real, although after a little look there seems to be a some doubt:

mastag23: just fyi:
mastag23: that is fake
mastag23: it would look legit if he hadn't of ran the debugging station launcher
mastag23: You fail "Connected from 192.168.0.2 on port 1000" (port might be wrong pretty blurry.
mastag23: This is a debug unit. That can't be done on a retail unit. Run the Debugging Station Launcher on a retail and the debug tools won't connect to it, yours obviously does
mastag23: debugging station launcher cant be connected to on retail
mastag23: if he hadnt of posted debugging station launcher
mastag23: he would be believable

Then again EDIT: the 3.60 hack video seems to be coming from the guy who claimed the PS3 security was totaly redone, so he could be lying about both, or neither, or one or the other

It would actually be an awsome deciet, make fake claim that PS3 had been totally resecured, then be the first to hack is wide open agen fresh lol.

 

[Gitaroo]

or just trolling?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Did PS3 really offer resistance or people just didn't try to hack it until recently?

The arguments already been had. If you've read all that, and still think hackers just randomly overlooked PS3 whereas they targeted every toher console, and then the moment they targetted PS3 blew it wide open in a matter months, there'll be no convincing you otherwise.

And besides to that, once they did try, seems like there was some colossal security failures there.

There was one particular colossal implementation error the made everything else accesible, From a security design POV, PS3 would still be as secure as it was if they had used the security algorithm properly. So from a design POV, even if the implementation failed, PS3 is looking like a very strong model. Even moreso if 3.60 was a complete repair.

Also, doesn't Sony's system rely on Cell? Others wont duplicate that obviously.

You just integrate the same security features in other processors.

And if Sony's security is so good, wouldn't NGP/PSP remain unhacked? Somehow I doubt that.

PS3's model. Every company who's ever released hardware has seen it cracked. They try different preventative measures, learning from their mistakes, with some measure of success or failure. PS3 shows Sony (along with IBM) evaluated the system and came up with a solution that so far has prevented open software piracy. Or are you going to say that because PS2 and PSP security was weak, no-one should ever look at Sony for a better solution? Wouldn't that mean we'd never look at any hardware vendor ever, because they all release hardware that gets cracked?

 

[BadTB25]

Looks like it's time to jailbreak my PS3...
http://psx-scene.com/forums/f6/showtime-mediaplayer-ported-ps3-83488/

It's not XBMC, although it is a step in the right direction.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Interesting and tempting. But I'm guessing it's going to be a crapshoot whether you can get a jailbreakable PS3 in retail or not now. And lack of infrared on PS3 still a deterrent for me.

Regards,
SB

 

[BadTB25]

I only purchase 3-4 games a year for my PS3--sometimes used...the media server/player is worth it to me.
The only game I am really looking forward to is Uncharted 3 which I will probably buy a used PS3 or a price drop to get if it doesn't allow me to play with my current FW.