PlayStation 3 hack – how it happened and what it means - The Guardian (blog)

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In December, a group of coders operating under the name Fail0verflow stood up at the Chaos Communications hackers conference in Berlin and proclaimed that the Sony PS3 security system was an epic fail. Through the use of what they termed "simple algebra" they had managed to exploit a weakness in the PlayStation 3's encryption system, thereby gaining the public key required to run any software on the machine.

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Like many members of the hacker community, Fail0verflow is resolutely anti-piracy – its members bypass console security systems merely as an intellectual challenge, or to run their own operating systems and applications. Consequently, the group didn't itself reveal the key. However, days later hacker, George Hotz (also known as Geohot), previously responsible for opening the iPhone system to so-called "jailbreak" hacks, did released the required firmware package decrypter on his website. Although the current hack requires users to modify their PS3 to run homebrew apps (o use a PS3 'Jailbreak' dongle, which bypasses the security system on machines with older versions of the firmware), further developments may ensure that anyone with the relevant software tools and technical knowledge could produce applications that will run on any PS3. It would then effectively be an open system. And naturally, the floodgates that have prevented widescale piracy on the console for the last few years could be smashed to pieces.

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Console hacking of this sort has been a part of the games industry for over a decade. Sega's Dreamcast console, launched in 1999, was one of the first major targets, favoured by homebrew coders for its powerful hardware, online functionality, and ease of access. The original Xbox also proved to be an easy machine to hack, thanks in part to a leaked SDK, which gave coders low-level access to the hardware.

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PlayStation 3 hack – how it happened and what it means - The Guardian (blog)

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This page contains a single entry by Viraj published on January 7, 2011 5:14 PM.

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