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Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

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Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#51

Post by daeken »

daeken wrote: post #43
artmageddon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No kidding? I remember someone from GDC in 2005(the one, I believe from Maxis, who created a storm on Gamasutra after bashing the Wii two years later) that putting out-of-order execution on gaming consoles was going to cripple their capabilities... but the PS3 certainly doesn't seem to suffer from it as far as games are concerned. I don't know enough about the topic at this point so I'd have to read some more.

The strength of the PS3 doesn't lie with the PS3 core, but rather with the ring of SPEs that the Cell processor has. These allow insanely efficient data processing, where the PPC chip really doesn't do a whole lot except for managing logic and state. However, nothing under OtherOS used the SPEs really, and it had no access to the GPU, so the speed came down to the in-order PPC core.

Correction: s/PS3 core/PPC core/

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#52

Post by Swannie »

JonnieCache wrote: post #49
Swannie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It is unlikely that the release manager would have been expected to generate a random number. I'd have expected, possibly, a pre-generated list of random numbers, maybe 1000 or so, so a duplicate is not unlikely, and cannot happen maliciously. I find it most likely that the build process code was flawed. This sort of code is, in my experience, not written by your most talented developer (unless one of your t…

If the whole project is about signing code packages to prevent the platform being hacked, you would've thought the key generation would be considered a critical part of the application code, rather than a detail of the build process. Even if the code necessarily exists in the build script. The build script is the project in this case. If a developer has ever even thought about generating a list of 1000 random numbers…

I was suggesting a one time list. You need to keep a list of past random numbers anyway so you can verify no repeats.

But sadly, I have to agree, this is epic fail.

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#53

Post by mustpax »

marshray wrote: post #24
ronnier wrote: post #5

"if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me. any of you 3." I would take the mans word and hire him. I'd even through Apple into his list, he did after all release jailbreaks for the iPhone too.

I'm not so sure I'd want to take a job having just made my new chain of command look like incompetent idiots, they'd probably find a way to repay the favor. They'd just make him to sign a bunch of long-term NDAs and fire him 6 months later. If this guy had much experience in the workplace he'd know that development like this usually happens when an organization has systematically driven out the detail-oriented securi…

Contract employees are paid to perform specific services as laid out by, well, their contract. This makes them a lot less beholden to management than their full time equivalents. The most vindictive thing management could do is to not hire GeoHot in the first place, which would be their loss really.

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#54

Post by mukyu »

marshray wrote: post #22
robryan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assumed the PS3 has top notch security given how long they had managed to avoid exploits. Seems from watching the videos that they could go a long way on a future console to prevent hacks just by plugging these issues. The hypervisor happily allocating/ running anything and everything seems like a good place to start. Obviously other ways would probably eventually be found but as these guys say, just providi…

I always assumed the PS3 has top notch security given how long they had managed to avoid exploits. Sometimes absence of evidence really is evidence of absence. Sometimes it's just that nobody was really looking that hard. Their presentation makes a good case that real hackers really do just want to run their own code and that the 'piracy' bugaboo is something else entirely. When I was little, I thought Sony was the c…

I do not think they make that case well at all. If you look at what happened with the last generation of consoles, everything but the PS3 had piracy before anyone had unsigned code running. They ignored basically all of the security measures the consoles had implemented and attacked the optical drives firmware (with or without a modchip) and enabled 'backups'/piracy. That basically leaves the PS3 as the one that had linux so the 'real hackers' were not working on it.

The PS3 itself is still not a good example of holding up against piracy until the hackers that wanted to run linux worked on it. It was first broken for the reasons of piracy (PSJailbreak) and was not done by the homebrew scene. Actually, all of their work required and is based on already having code running on the PS3 using the pirate method.

So, what exactly is left to support the opinion that the homebrew people are smart, the piracy people are dumb, and if you do not support linux the homebrew people will make it work with the side effect of allowing piracy? In every instance it is piracy that was first. You can also look to the DVD/HDDVD/BluRay scene and see that the piracy people were ahead of the 'make it play on linux' crowd and quite capable.

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#55

Post by loire280 »

marshray wrote: post #41
sliverstorm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older versions of the PS3 support PS2 games. They dropped support around the time the Slim came out.

Thanks for the info. Clearly we have to read the fine print rather than relying on product names. Congrats Sony, you thought you'd force your customers to repurchase their favorite games didn't you? Instead you made enemies of an upcoming generation of gamers. If only they could have heard the tears of the small children on Christmas morning upon finding out that they would not, in fact, be able to use the dance pad…

The backwards-compatibility with PS2 games was facilitated by the presence of the PS2 CPU and GPU in the PS3 hardware. Newer revisions of the system eliminated first the CPU and then the GPU. I think it's fair to assume this was done for cost reasons -- it's not like they removed the functionality through software update.

If you really want to play PS2 games, buy a used PS2 on Craigslist for a fraction of the cost of a PS3. Heck, you can still get them new.

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#56

Post by phirephly »

JonnieCache wrote: post #49
Swannie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It is unlikely that the release manager would have been expected to generate a random number. I'd have expected, possibly, a pre-generated list of random numbers, maybe 1000 or so, so a duplicate is not unlikely, and cannot happen maliciously. I find it most likely that the build process code was flawed. This sort of code is, in my experience, not written by your most talented developer (unless one of your t…

If the whole project is about signing code packages to prevent the platform being hacked, you would've thought the key generation would be considered a critical part of the application code, rather than a detail of the build process. Even if the code necessarily exists in the build script. The build script is the project in this case. If a developer has ever even thought about generating a list of 1000 random numbers…

Yeah. You don't generate a list. You have make automatically dd 16 bytes from /dev/random, pipe it through hexdump, and then use that as your seed. You don't even have to check for dupes. There are 3.4 * 10^38 possible keys; You will not pick the same one twice.

That way, you can't even accidentally reuse a seed in development, or leak that list of the previously used seeds. When something compromises the system, and you don't need it any more, it should be destroyed.

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#57

Post by Glide »

artmageddon wrote: post #45
marshray wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A chain of command that's savvy enough to really want him despite that is one you'd actually want to be in, though. Absolutely. But if they were the savvy type, would they have been pwned at nearly every security layer like that? If you haven't seen it, the video says it better than I can. So probably if he were hired, it would be with mixed feelings of some of his uppers. At best, he probably "wouldn't fit in with t…

Backward compatibility of gaming systems, in my estimation, started with Sony. Nintendo and Sega certainly didn't have them on their systems, and Sony was the first to do it(again, AFAIK) with the Playstation 2. Gamecubes didn't play N64 games which didn't play SNES games which didn't play NES games, etc.. However, the PS2 accomplished that by having a PS1 core on the same board as the PS2 hardware-whenever a gamer i…

Backward compatibility of gaming systems started quite a bit earlier if you count Gameboys.

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#58

Post by boredguy8 »

comex wrote: post #50
boredguy8 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly brilliant, but he also faked a photo of a jailbroken iPhone 4, which (apparently) motivated his partial withdraw from the scene. Though talk about a comeback... This is a much better online "hire me" than the ones that were popular on HN several months ago.

Huh? I don't remember any such thing and doubt he would do that.

http://blog.alltechrelated.com/2010/07/12/geohots-iphone-4-j...

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#59

Post by JonnieCache »

Swannie wrote: post #52
JonnieCache wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the whole project is about signing code packages to prevent the platform being hacked, you would've thought the key generation would be considered a critical part of the application code, rather than a detail of the build process. Even if the code necessarily exists in the build script. The build script is the project in this case. If a developer has ever even thought about generating a list of 1000 random numbers…

I was suggesting a one time list. You need to keep a list of past random numbers anyway so you can verify no repeats. But sadly, I have to agree, this is epic fail.

You are probably more likely to spontaneously rearrange your constituent atoms into cheese or something than to generate the same random 16 bytes twice, assuming a new number needs to be generated only once for each package of code signed. If there was one needed for each packet on a network or something it might be different.

In any case, this risk is orders of magnitude lower than the risk of someone leaking your list of past numbers, especially when they're this valuable.

Re: Root keys for Sony’s PlayStation 3 go public

#60

Post by marshray »

mustpax wrote: post #53
marshray wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure I'd want to take a job having just made my new chain of command look like incompetent idiots, they'd probably find a way to repay the favor. They'd just make him to sign a bunch of long-term NDAs and fire him 6 months later. If this guy had much experience in the workplace he'd know that development like this usually happens when an organization has systematically driven out the detail-oriented securi…

Contract employees are paid to perform specific services as laid out by, well, their contract. This makes them a lot less beholden to management than their full time equivalents. The most vindictive thing management could do is to not hire GeoHot in the first place, which would be their loss really.

The most vindictive thing management could do is to not hire GeoHot in the first place, which would be their loss really.

I am happy for you. I think you have not worked anywhere really bad. Look at what what you are missing out on: http://www.google.com/search?q=vindictive+employer

Actually, I didn't think this was about GeoHot, but one of the guys presenting at CCC.

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