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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

#71
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is simply not true. Unsigned code came before piracy. OtherOS kept people wanting to run code on their console happy, removing it was a severe mistake.

And don't put words into the mouth of the PSJailbreak authors. The PSJailbreak allows unsigned code to run, that is why they made it first and foremost (they need unsigned code for piracy), they saw that they can get piracy and went for it. Anything to drive the sales, right? And we still don't know who's behind PSJailbreak, and if they are or aren't in the 'homebrew scene'.

What 'pirate method'?

'DVD/HDDVD/BluRay scene' we're comparing consoles to media now? Get your act together.

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

#72
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's not true. Let's see:

PS3: OtherOS allowed unsigned code, way before piracy. Wii: Team Twiizers, who are strongly anti-piracy, were the first to run unsigned code. This was later abused for piracy, but only after Nintendo refused to work with them to fix the issue. Xbox 360: Don't know much about this. You might be right here.

Drivechips aren't "hacking" in any way comparable to what fail0verflow, Team Twiizers, or any other group accomplished.

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

#73
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also, the Game Gear played Master System games with a cartridge adaptor (not strictly "backwards compatibility" but cool nonetheless)

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

#74
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is simply not true. Unsigned code came before piracy. OtherOS kept people wanting to run code on their console happy, removing it was a severe mistake. And don't put words into the mouth of the PSJailbreak authors. The PSJailbreak allows unsigned code to run, that is why they made it first and foremost (they need unsigned code for piracy), they saw that they can get piracy and went for it. Anything to drive the…

PSJailbreak did not come from the homebrew scene and you cannot honestly think people were going to pay $150 just to run homebrew that didn't even exist. You said I should not ascribe PSJailbreak to be for piracy and yet in the same breath you devote them to the homebrew side. At best, you could say that they tie. OtherOS does not count as it is still restricted by the hypervisor.

The pirate method I was referring to is the USB descriptor buffer overrun.

The technological measures protecting HDDVDs and BluRay are as tough as any used by the gaming consoles. Even still, SlySoft in particular manages to deal with new hurdles faster than the rest of doom9.

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

#75
post #72
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's not true. Let's see: PS3: OtherOS allowed unsigned code, way before piracy. Wii: Team Twiizers, who are strongly anti-piracy, were the first to run unsigned code. This was later abused for piracy, but only after Nintendo refused to work with them to fix the issue. Xbox 360: Don't know much about this. You might be right here. Drivechips aren't "hacking" in any way comparable to what fail0verflow, Team Twiizers…

I never said that running 1:1 backups is anything near the accomplishments in other instances. I am not the one trying to make a strong claim here. Anyone saying 'let people run linux on it or they will hack it, which leads to piracy' is basing that argument on the sole data point of the PS3. That is a terrible argument.

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

#76
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really not that brilliant. It appears that the fail0verflow guys did all of the work here. He just beat them to the punch after taking the fruits of their labor, and dropped the key using their exploit. This is not unlike his behavior that got him rejected in the iPhone scene. I am actually a bit surprised that there are so many comments here praising him. Hiring the fail0verflow guys, on the other hand, would be a g…

No, this is different. geohot compromised metldr, fail0verflow did the other loaders. geohot's exploit is different, no one but himself knows how he did it (not even fail0verflow).

No, the only thing that wasn't known was how he dumped metldr. This is a relatively insignificant part of the whole thing and wasn't what fail0verflow was focusing on in their research (as seen in the video).

The only reason that he was able to do anything with his dump was because of all of fail0verflow's work. See the twitter feed of marcan42 for clarification.

Actually, since the beginning, geohot's ps3 trick was just him copying what fail0verflow had done on the wii (glitching the address bus). He didn't give them credit for that either.

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

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Then they ought to stop selling it as a "PlayStation 3" once it no longer performs the functions of a "PlayStation 3". Call it a "Playstation 3--" or something.

Product model names invoke the very definition of what the product is and does, particularly when the name includes a number. They aren't just attractive words to be chosen by Marketing, even when it was the same company that made the initial definition of the feature set in the first place.

Like I said, it wasn't particularly frustrating or surprising to me to find this out after I bought it, but only because my expectations of a Sony product were so low to begin with. I would have been shocked if this had been Google though.

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

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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. Then they ought to stop selling it as a "PlayStation 3" once it no longer performs the functions of a "PlayStation 3". Call it a "Playstation 3--" or something. Product model names invoke the very definition of what the product…

How about the "PlayStation 3 Slim"?

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

#79
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is different. geohot compromised metldr, fail0verflow did the other loaders. geohot's exploit is different, no one but himself knows how he did it (not even fail0verflow).

No, the only thing that wasn't known was how he dumped metldr. This is a relatively insignificant part of the whole thing and wasn't what fail0verflow was focusing on in their research (as seen in the video). The only reason that he was able to do anything with his dump was because of all of fail0verflow's work. See the twitter feed of marcan42 for clarification. Actually, since the beginning, geohot's ps3 trick was…

No, we don't know what exploit he used. (fyi, I'm in the private IRC channel with fail0verflow and geohot).

I will agree though that what geohot did and the what Team Twiizers (as they were calle back in the day) are quite similar.

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