The 'Final' Sony PS3 Hack

from the our-hardware-our-rules dept

The PS3 has been hacked before, but Sony was able to inhibit the hack with an update to its own firmware. This is much like the history of jailbreaking on Apple's iOS, where hackers typically uncover a security vulnerability and exploit it, whereupon Apple patches the hole and suppresses the jailbreak.

But the latest PS3 break is being dubbed unpatchable and the final hack. That's because this hack isn't giving you an exploit to use against a programming hole. It's giving you Sony's so-called LV0 (level zero) cryptographic keys.

Let's hope, when the PS4 comes out, that Sony will give up on trying to lock out jailbreakers permanently, and instead provide a way for those who want to run alternative software to do so in official safety.

When King Cnut famously ordered the tide back and failed, he wasn't an arrogant absolute ruler trying to show off. He knew he would fail, and thereby demonstrated that to hold back the tide was impossible - and, in any case, unnecessary - even for a king.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Sony's awesome freakout over folks "hacking" their PS3 product to return the functionality they originally advertised, but then retroactively took away , has been a long and often times hilarious saga. That said, all that freaking out occurred when the PS3 was still in its prime. Now that the console, while still the latest generation of Sony gaming console on the market, is clearly in its twilight years, it will be interesting to see how they react to what Sophos is reporting -- the Playstation 3 being "hacked for good".If true, the war is over and Sony lost. Hacker collective, the Three Musketeers, reportedly figured this all out some time ago, but now the LV0 keys have been leaked and it's open season on jailbreaking your PS3 (assuming you're technical enough to implement it). And, while it would be very easy to sit back and comment gleefully on the wonderful spirit of curiosity that propels this kind of work, and to likewise point out the futility of stopping people from tinkering with the products they legally bought, I find a different point more compelling.Quite simply, this war that Sony lost. They advertised a feature and it was only the subsequent and unilateral removal of that feature, which many customers very much wanted, that created all of this controversy. Without that removal, how much litigation money does Sony save? Without being anti-consumer, how much ill-will do they avoid? And all of that to fight a battle that, not only did they lose, but that theyto know they were overwhelmingly likely to lose over the long haul. Sophos touches on this point in hoping for a different approach in the future.Once I got done snickering at the name King Cnut, I found the analogy perfectly fitting. Hopefully Sony will avoid this war entirely the next go around, though with their track record, I won't be holding my breath.

Filed Under: hack, ps3

Companies: sony