PS3 may have been hacked, for real

[LiquidManZero]

Thanks to a Jupi for finding this one.

Hello hypervisor, I'm geohot
I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1.

3 years, 2 months, 11 days...thats a pretty secure system

Took 5 weeks, 3 in Boston, 2 here, very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.

Shout out to George Kharrat from iPhoneMod Brasil for giving me this PS3 a year and a half ago to hack. Sorry it took me so long

As far as the exploit goes, I'm not revealing it yet. The theory isn't really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can't post dumps. I'm hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone's KBAG.

A lot more to come...
Posted by George Hotz at 7:06 PM. Friday, January 22, 2010

From: On the PlayStation 3: Hellohypervisor, I'm geohot

[bungholio]

I wouldn't really know what to say about this. It's a great thing. I truly hope for some kind of cheating software at some point.

[DaLoca]

I think it is great news. I support cheat devices as long as Sony keeps trying to dictate to me what I can do with the thousands of dollars I have spent on a overpriced, lack of a decent catalogue system. I've read arguments about the online play, and the PS3 being more Online driven, but I'm not one for online play, I'm a gamer that plays for the story and not running around in free world mode zapping at 13 year olds who are up past their bedtime. Granted, these days more games are focused around "cool" multiplayer instead of the story itself. More power to whoever took three years to beat Sony at their game.

[Lazy Bastard]

If it's genuine, great.

As for online play, if Sony had DNAS way back on PS2, I'm pretty sure they have some impressive security features to stop tampering with online play for the PS3.

[MIR]

it made BBC news

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8478764.stm

[LiquidManZero]

As far as online activities go, they're probably going by firmware revision rather than anything actually secure. It's what they did with PSP and it did work perfectly in the end. Before the revision spoofing became useless people could cheat as much as they wanted online even if it was a pirated copy of the game too.

Of course... This may only be useful in that somebody is very publicly screwing with the console. I get the impression Mr. Hotz is a bit against piracy and might wind up getting offended by the massive piracy industry.

[bungholio]

He released it. Check the site, the link called "Here's Your Silver Platter".

[LiquidManZero]

The exploit is useless for almost everybody who has a ps3. Even assuming you have a linux capable unit, you need to take the entire console apart and pulse a specific connection for 40 nanoseconds. Even if you can get this to work... It won't help with piracy or anything most people have any interest in.

[itoikenza]

i thought it allowed those huge 25/50gb iso's to be stored & run off the hard drive!!

[LiquidManZero]

No, that's still years away if ever at this point.

[MathUser]

Well, I'm not all that much for piracy on the PS3. It's gonna lead to online cheaters and I like that there aren't any at this point in online matches.