The last vestige of sanctuary has now been swept away - the PS3 has been hacked

[sausage]

Discuss. (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10622351)


"The PlayStation3 - previously considered unhackable - has been modified to run pirated software by an American who unlocked the original iPhone.

George Hotz told the BBC that he's beaten the PlayStation3's piracy protection with a combination of hardware and software modifications.

The high-profile hacker admits that he hasn't hacked the whole system and its protected memory, but says he's tricked the console into doing what he wants it to."



"It's supposed to be unhackable - but nothing is unhackable," 20-year-old Hotz told BBC News.

[sausage]

Also,


He will also publish detail of the PlayStation's 'root key', which will allow others to attempt alternative hacks on the entertainment device.

The exploit will also allow PS2 games to be played on the console, Hotz said. Early PlayStation3s were able to run these titles, but controversial hardware changes in the console removed the ability.





Good news??

[Second]

EVeryone's a winner.

[sausage]

Baby that's no lie.

[igotnewsuper8systemWRONG!]

I'm sure Sony will make good use of firmware updates, the last thing they need is another PSP. At the very least though it might encourage them to quit being jerks and make ps3's play ps2 games.

[dinopoke]

This has been a sad day for all of us-


The exploit will also allow PS2 games to be played on the console

**** YES!

[AranchineD]

Well if the 360 wasn't so easy to hack, then the hackers probably wouldn't have put the same effort into getting the PS3 hacked because they were on a roll.

f*** microsoft

[Fenrir]

Hang on, this hadn't already been done?

[igotnewsuper8systemWRONG!]

Nope.

[Jay]

Hang on, this hadn't already been done?

Not everyone has your ninja hacking skillz Fenrir. :p

[Fenrir]

Clearly.

[Stevorooni]

So it could always play PS2 games even when they said the hardware revisions didn't make it possible?

JAW ON THE FLOOR

[Creedy]

I don't know where that site is getting their information.
This guys hacking is pretty much fruitless so far, here is his blog.

http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/2010/01/level-playing-field.html

[sausage]

Hmm, I believe Creedy now; mods please lock.

[TrinityJayOne]

Err...he has uploaded the hack. The guy has done it.

[Creedy]

No, he hasn't done anything, read around about it.
He hacked into the hypervisor and can read/write things to memory and access the GPU via Linux (which could be done before). But you still can't program anything (homebrew) for the RSX/Cell as of yet.
There is also the issue of finding the decryption keys hidden away in the systems hardware/software (not sure which it is) to. This is mainly for pirating games though and those codes may never be found for all we know.
Geohot has made a tiny bit of progress but has already given up due to the security being so complex.

[TrinityJayOne]

He found a hardware vulnerability, exploited it with software, and has been able to do things Sony don't want you doing. That is hacking and the console has been hacked, whether he can make it play pirated games or not is irrelevant.

[Fenrir]

Creedy, please don't try to talk programmerspeak. This isn't a schoolyard console pissing match.

[Creedy]

I don't understand program speak but people over at GAF do and they explained it all in layman's talk. The Hypervisor has been hacked but currently it means crap all and might mean crap all for another 12 months for all we know.

[Lex]

Mmm, delicious fanboy desperation.

[Fenrir]

I don't understand program speak but people over at GAF do and they explained it all in layman's talk. The Hypervisor has been hacked but currently it means crap all and might mean crap all for another 12 months for all we know.
Conversion of a proper explanation of a system into laymans' terms tends to involve an almost complete attrition of the point; and given the amount of dumbshit fanboys and buzzword-spouting pretend-experts over at GAF, what credibility you can dredge up from those depths has probably drowned long ago. More concisely: you don't understand the implications of this hack.

By-the-by, why do you care if the PS3 has been compromised? It's not exactly going to hurt consumer interests.

[Creedy]

I don't care if it has been hacked, in fact I want it hacked myself as there is a lot of potential with home brew on the PS3. I wasn't defending the PS3, just stating fact that it still may be an extremely long time until something fruitful turns up.

[texta]

So it could always play PS2 games even when they said the hardware revisions didn't make it possible?

JAW ON THE FLOOR

Except that:

George Hotz told the BBC that he's beaten the PlayStation3's piracy protection with a combination of hardware and software modifications.

[StorminNorman]

That sentence is poorly phrased. The hardware it refers to is actually the hardware he used to help him hack the system, not a hardware mod for the PS3 itself.

No, he hasn't done anything, read around about it.
He hacked into the hypervisor and can read/write things to memory

I don't know if you know what a hypervisor actually is, but hacking one generally gives you ring 0 access to the entire system. Here's a good description (http://rdist.root.org/2010/01/27/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/) of what's going on with this hack.

Geohot has made a tiny bit of progress but has already given up due to the security being so complex.

If by "given up" you mean "laid the groundwork for a PS3 homebrew dev scene" then yes, that's exactly what he's done.

The big stumbling block now is the "private" SPE that not even the Hypervisor can access. While this is apparently not essential for generalised PS3 work, it may hinder development until it's fully understood.

[Fenrir]

"could play PS2 games" is a bit vague, though.

My (also vague) understanding of the architectures of the PS2 and PS3, is that they're both rather obscure left-field things, and emulating one with software is a very complicated and (as long as your implementation remains naive and unoptimized) resource-expensive undertaking. Don't ask me why Sony went with these bizarre systems, though there are theories.
That said, basic computer science: given enough resources, a Turing-complete computer (such as the PS3, or a PC) can emulate any other Turing-complete computer (such as a PS2). Indeed, there already is a PS2 emulator for the PC underway (http://pcsx2.net/); Hotz could've been hinting at porting it over. He may have even just been alluding to the theoretical possibility, really. I don't know whether or not an efficient enough PS2 emulator is viable on a PS3, though - they may share many of their radical eccentricities, or they may not.

I guess he could also have been talking about some built-in emulation technology hidden away in the console somewhere, but I was of the impression that Sony scrapped emulation due to the exorbitant costs of including the hardware in there or building competent software alternatives. I find this one very unlikely.

Also, I doubt much of this is new to Stevo. >_>

[StorminNorman]

I think the PS2 emulation thing comes from some (probably faked) YouTube videos in which people show that you can run PS2 software on a PS3 if you've installed TEST firmware on the PS3. I really can't figure out how that works though: The PS3 certainly lacks the processing power needed to do 100% perfect PS2 emulation (hell, it can't even emulate the PS1 properly!), so I really don't know where the "Sony have a working PS2 emulator ready for all PS3s they just won't give it to us" conspiracy theory comes from.

Of course, the YouTube videos could be entirely real.

[Fenrir]

I really can't figure out how that works though: The PS3 certainly lacks the processing power needed to do 100% perfect PS2 emulation (hell, it can't even emulate the PS1 properly!)
Hmm, unless PS2 emulation has largely been charted, and foreseeably all optimal interpretation/JIT mappings determined (specifically for the PS3 platform no less), this comment is premature at best. You can only really know how much grunt you'll need once you've implemented and profiled the system, really, and for something like an emulator an insightful optimization could make a routine run in several orders of magnitude less time.

Also, the PS1 and PS2 are, as far as I'm aware, radically different systems.

[REQUIEM]

It has only EVER been a matter of time.