Home Gaming Sony may be able to brick compromised PS3’s after all

Sony may be able to brick compromised PS3’s after all

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This is good news for anyone who cares about the health of the gaming industry in general. It seems that even though Sony has lost the master keys to it’s PS3 it may still be able to catch people running custom software (pirated copies of titles) on their machines.

The only problem is that Sony themselves may not know exactly how yet…

This weird situation has come about thanks to some people hacking their consoles and then installing the custom firmware that Sony released last November. After which the console turns itself into a very formidable doorstop.

It only seems to affect the 60Gb models but you can be sure that Sony’s engineers are now desperately scrambling to find out what it is in that code which allows them to detect the hack.

Source: Destructoid

Last Updated: January 18, 2011

23 Comments

  1. BoyWonder

    January 18, 2011 at 10:58

    Yeah this is great news. You no longer own the console you bought. Fuck piracy and all that but double fuck this big brother crap.

    Reply

    • Gavin Mannion

      January 18, 2011 at 11:27

      It’s not big brother crap, if you want to mess around with your PS3/Xbox then go ahead, just don’t expect to connect back to the mainstream network afterwards.

      You don’t own that and I want to play Black Ops without all the hacking thanks

      Reply

    • Guest

      January 24, 2011 at 10:46

      Knob, get off the internet.

      Reply

  2. fred

    January 18, 2011 at 11:26

    The people are stuffing up the consoles themselves , nothing to do with Sony.

    Reply

  3. Zestyone

    January 18, 2011 at 11:54

    Sony brought this on themselves. They dont exactly have a great reputatyion for caring about consumers.

    Now PSP Go has been hacked too… so people who spent a lot of money buying another Sony dead-end media (UMD) can actually use them lol… What a bunch of tossers.

    Here is a company that took a commanding position with PS2 with total dominance of all major publishing titles, a huge user base and what have they done? They have thrown it all away and will be lucky to keep up with Nintendo & Microsoft. My feeling is Apple will wipe the floor with all three within two years…

    Reply

    • Kayle

      January 18, 2011 at 12:36

      I do need to ask how Sony brought this upon them selfs and do not have a reputation for not caring for customers?

      From what I can think their initial hight price of their console, that one must remember was at the time the cheapest blue ray player on the market, came with built in HDMI on every console, a bigger HDD and offered online for free (not to mention local support and prices in South African rands and their console was region free).

      I’m also not sure of your statement considering the did slim down the console to offer competitive prices against MS whilst still offering all the above.

      The only other knock that comes to mind is no backwards compatibility. But in my personal case I have too many next gen games to clear as is and too much coming out to bother going back to my old PS2 titles.

      I can agree that the PSP UMD was probably not the best move and the GO was not the PSP2 everyone expected but I still enjoy my PSP since there are some great games I don’t have on my DS. The PSP suffered heavily from piracy and as such a lot of developers are reluctant to make great games for the console as they wouldn’t see a return.

      I feel no console manufacturer ‘deserves’ this to happen. Yes they are not all innocent and there are practices that I disagree with but is making the industry suffer worth these problems?

      Reply

  4. Kayle

    January 18, 2011 at 11:59

    I really do hope Sony are able to punish these people. Despite their cries that once you’ve bought it you own it, how does that permit someone then to steal the software that runs on your console. It’s not Sony who makes all the games that these low lifes copy, it’s people working hard to make a product we can enjoy.

    The sad truth of the matter is there is a very high chance that console manufacturers will move to always connected DRM, we may no longer be able to play games without being connected to Sony/MS servers. Personally I wouldn’t want Cloud tech here in SA with our terrible internet infrastructure. Can we blame them, I don’t think so, it’s their lively hood these good for nothing pirates are taking.

    The developers trusted Sony’s protection system and they did a good job so far, no system is unhackable, it’s a matter of making it not worth the effort. I think people like this George Hotz should spend all his free time in prison instead of trying in his own little word to bring down the man (translated: the gaming industry in our world).

    For the record I’m not saying all hackers are bad. There appears to be a minority who wish to further the industry like people that are using Kinekt to create some stellar apps.

    Reply

    • Elyaas

      January 19, 2011 at 04:15

      dude the jailbreak has nothing to do with piracy, geohotz said it himself. I jail broken my ps3 and i will never ever get free games on it, so why should people like me get punished?I have done nothing wrong, just got jailbreak on my ps3 for no reason.

      Reply

      • Kayle

        January 20, 2011 at 13:18

        Sorry Elyaas but perhaps you could explain why you would jailbreak a PS3 for no reason? If Sony starts banning jail broken consoles it would be like cutting of your own nose to spite your face.

        Geohot would not have distributed the hack if he had not intended for other people to use it. In an industry that is rife with piracy and theft what good will come from releasing something that allows piracy? Someone who is cleaver enough to hack the console knows very well what the implications of his/her hack is. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that most people who will use a hack that enables them to pirate games will do just that.

        I sceptically say that you are perhaps one of the minority, but the few must suffer for the good of true gamers who don’t wish to have common thieves destroy the industry we care about.

        Reply

  5. sonyyoco

    January 18, 2011 at 16:19

    Yeah Baby! firmware 3.60 and beyond cannot come soon enough, I hope it bricks every jailbroken console out there and does away with username accounts and DLC, to hell with the F@ggL@ggers who want to ruin it for everyone else, there are already reports of CFW bricking consoles especially the slim and 60gb, yeah! woohoo, now Sony can start making money repairing all those damaged consoles, I think it’s like what $150 bucks, yeah! get ready to pay douchebags yeah! long live Sony and its products.

    Reply

    • Sean

      January 19, 2011 at 05:43

      With Geohoffs, you can’t pirate PS3 games or PSX games. It’s so you can play games you already have on it, but not nesessarily PS games, and bring stuff from in/out of your computer easier. Do we truly own our PS3, I think NOT!

      Reply

  6. Trailseeker

    January 18, 2011 at 20:18

    “Sony has lost the master keys to it’s PS3 ”

    Sony has done a diservice to all owners od any PS 3 system, by taking away from owners, witth each previous update, regadless of the SONY marketing claims to have persons purchase its hardware.

    More power to the hackers who exposed SONY.
    Stop crying wolf SONY and its very few backers in media forms. Cheats are part of our Gaming world and MW2 on a PS3 has not been destroyed or rendered unplayable. Sure some will have attained all weapons by cheating, but the game with complete hacker control is not the normal product on PS3 or XBOX360.

    I support 110% the “geohot” hack exposure that exposed SONY. More powr to the future hackers that expose any new updates to PS3 systems that take away ability to run software on their manufactured hardware and sold to the public as the most modern hardware.

    Reply

  7. JS

    January 18, 2011 at 21:21

    Trailseeker. I understand that you feel that Sony is screwing over everyone by taking away the Other OS option, but let’s face it, Sony, and any other company’s main focus is to satisfy the majority of their customers. They were trying to prevent what is happening now from happening back then when the exploit was discovered using Linux.

    You can feel like they are trying exert some sort of power over everyone, but in the end, they just want to sell consoles and software tie-ins.

    On the other hand, if GeoHot didn’t do it, someone else would have, and Sony could have been more prepared for the outcome, as no encryption is unhackable. Look at WPA, which was previously tauted as unhackable, now can be broken in minutes. Your wifi network is now essentially wide open unless you have other measures in place, which are beyond the reach of most home networks.

    Reply

  8. Turtle

    January 19, 2011 at 05:47

    Fellow Gamers and Sony,

    I am a gamer for all too many years. I remember the good old days of the PSONE and the hacking and chipping of that time. It is now that I see the true cost of system chipping, CFW and software backing up (lol).
    In my opinion, SONY has always been a producer of far superior technology which has never failed to draw my entertainment dollars, but it is the hacking and copying of games which threatens this great company.
    Other manufacturers have supplied alternatives, but usually they are of inferior quality (cough xbox cough) or some lame system with a gimmick (cough wii cough) or just lacking standard features that come with a SONY product.
    Are the games too expensive?.. is that what is driving this crave for pirating software?(not when you compare the hours of fun)..is the excitement of being able to hack/pirate that drives many PS* owners?
    I have never considered myself a SONY boy until recently and realize why i am now, SONY have provided me with hours of fun, pushed entertainment technology forward years ahead of competitors…and I want it to continue..you should too.
    Hackers out there! pull your head in. Stop pandering to your own over inflated egos..stop pretending it’s about freeing unjustly locked consoles..it’s about piracy and $$$.
    SONY, keep up the great work.

    Reply

  9. Toaster

    January 19, 2011 at 06:42

    has anyone here ever had any emulator? if so, what was it and how do you feel about this exploit with that in mind?

    As for my opinion: how is any of this different from downloading music or movies illegally?

    and as for bricking consoles, I’m all for banning people from a service that you own, but this is a device, you can’t stop them from using it. I have to admit this is a quite a situation though.

    Reply

    • Shogunreaper

      January 19, 2011 at 08:10

      Since they are doing it at their own risk then it’s not sony’s fault.

      Personally i don’t care either way since i’m not going to risk it, i paid 300 bucks for my ps3 last year and i can’t see myself going without it.

      Question to people who’ve had their console bricked before:

      Does sony fix it if you send it in (Like MS with the RROD thing)?

      Reply

  10. Chrishooten

    January 20, 2011 at 04:05

    Sony screwed the security up by hard-coding in numbers into the encryption algorithms that were supposed to employ random numbers. This made the encryption susceptible to common algebra, and they were able to get the master keys. This is 100% Sony’s negligence. The encryption probably would have been unhackable had they done it right. And then they pissed off all the hackers by removing the otheros feature for no reason. 100% Sony’s fault. You don’t leave the keys to the bank vault on the floor in the middle of the bank, and then leave the door unlocked when you go home at night.

    Reply

    • e1ace

      January 20, 2011 at 09:02

      That’s a really silly mindset. Yes Sony goofed up in some aspects but no security is unhackable. Why does Sony seem to be getting so much hate when the Xbox 360 was hacked almost instantly?

      Reply

  11. Chrishooten

    January 20, 2011 at 04:11

    and no, sony does not fix ur ps3 unless you pay them $150. no matter what the issue is, many of which have been faulty hardware (my 60gb for instance, lasted only 2 yrs, 1 mo. then bricked after an update.) The bluray probably went out when they started speeding it up with the firmware updates, and there was a huge batch of bad bluray lasers. Did i complain? Yes. Did they fix it for free? No. I ended up trading my awesome backwards compatible 60gb for a refurbished slim (and I paid $120) with a 3 month warranty. I knew the old 60gb hardware would fail again, probably soon, and they only offer refurbished units with 3 mo warranties. Good luck.

    Reply

    • e1ace

      January 20, 2011 at 09:04

      Sony will respect the warranty if your console is bricked. If they find out that it was because you were using some CFW they likely wont. Standard practice in the industry.

      Reply

  12. Sech

    January 23, 2011 at 15:06

    People aren’t cracking consoles to come into games and “Hack” all you noobs, they’re doing it to use homebrew apps, run custom operating systems like home theaters Linux and otherOS, and to be able to back up their games/occasionally pirate one.
    Granted, pirating games may hurt Sony but it’s the cost of doing business in the digital medium these days and developers need to get used to dealing with it because there is NOTHING they can do about it.

    99.99999 percent of the people who jailbroke their console will NEVER log onto the internet with it because they’re too scared of getting banned, most of them want to be able to run OtherOS like the ps3 said it could when it was first released, Sony removed this feature.

    You guys really should research what you’re talking about it before you start bashing other people.

    Reply

  13. Sech

    January 23, 2011 at 15:22

    Also, for everyone saying that games are so expensive because of pirating that REALLY ISNT the case at all, most developers invest maybe 100 million into making a game, some do invest more such as rockstar when making red dead redemption, numbers I heard were around 350 Million but they planned NOT to make any money on that game they hoped to break even.
    Take a look at Call of Duty: Black ops, A HORRIBLE GAME.
    Budget for that game was 30 million dollars, do you guys know how much it made at 60 dollars a piece?
    over 1 BILLION DOLLARS
    Thats a 4000 percent gain in the investment.
    So if you people think these gaming companies are HURTING over pirating and people “stealing” CRAP COOKIE CUTTER JUNK software you’re totally wrong.
    They’re only crying because they’re only making 600 million on this crappy game they spent 20 million to make instead of 700 million.
    Btw, also most of the money goes to the company heads NOT the people actually programming and working on the games.
    When you pirate a game you’re only stealing for the that pig driving a Lamborghini flipping everyone off and throwing his daughter a million dollar 16th birthday party.
    You consumers need to wise up, if gaming companies didnt want their products pirated they’d make better ones
    Look at blizzard, millions of copies sold, millions of subscribers and the least pirated company, they make good single player and online content, it makes you WANT to buy it.

    Wise up people.

    Reply

  14. Sech

    January 23, 2011 at 15:23

    for anyone whose interested, link to COD sales figures for proof that I didn’t make that up
    http://www.t2conline.com/life-and-style/technology/1040-call-of-duty-black-ops-fastest-video-game-to-hit-1-billion-in-sales

    Reply

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