Sony shouldn't have pissed off linux people.

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**illuknisaa**

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3-the-final-hack

By Richard Leadbetter Published 23 October, 2012

Sony is waking up to a new PlayStation 3 security nightmare after a day in which a brand new, PSN-enabled custom firmware was released for hacked consoles, swiftly followed up by publication of the console's LV0 decryption keys - which some say blows the system wide open.

We've been here before of course. Over two years ago, the first piracy-enabling firmware and USB dongle combo - PSJailbreak was released, which exploited a weakness in the PS3's USB protocols, allowing for the system software to be patched in order to run copied software running from hard disk. This was followed up some time later by the release of tools from hacker group fail0verflow, which allowed users to encrypt files for the system in the same way that Sony does, allowing for a new wave of piracy. Geohot's public release of the "metldr" root key also added to the challenges facing Sony, resulting in a messy legal battle.

The firm's response - firmware 3.60 - plugged many of the holes, neatly working around the entire root key problem, and even with the release of the new custom firmware, any console running system software 3.60 or higher is effectively locked out. Only hacked consoles, or those still running 3.55 or lower can run the new code unless expensive, difficult-to-install hardware downgrade devices are utilised on older hardware.

Despite the effectiveness of firmware 3.60, PS3 has still had to contend with piracy issues, notably the JB2/TrueBlue dongle, but this hack still locked consoles to 3.55 and stopped compromised consoles gaining access to PSN - until recently at least, where the "passphrase" security protocol protecting PSN was leaked, giving hacked consoles full access to the service.

The release of the new custom firmware - and the LV0 decryption keys in particular - poses serious issues. While Sony will almost certainly change the PSN passphrase once again in the upcoming 4.30 update, the reveal of the LV0 key basically means that any system update released by Sony going forward can be decrypted with little or no effort whatsoever. Options Sony has in battling this leak are limited - every PS3 out there needs to be able to decrypt any firmware download package in order for the console to be updated (a 2006 launch PS3 can still update directly to the latest software). The release of the LV0 key allows for that to be achieved on PC, with the CoreOS and XMB files then re-encrypted using the existing 3.55 keys in order to be run on hacked consoles.

So just how did LV0 come to be released at all? The original hackers who first found the master key - calling themselves "The Three Tuskateers" - apparently sat on its discovery for some time. However, the information leaked and ended up being the means by which a new Chinese hacking outfit - dubbed "BlueDiskCFW" planned to charge for and release new custom firmware updates. To stop these people profiteering from their work, the "Muskateers" released the LV0 key and within 24 hours, a free CFW update was released.

"You can be sure that if it wouldn't have been for this leak, this key would never have seen the light of day, only the fear of our work being used by others to make money out of it has forced us to release this now," a statement from the hacker group says.

We have approached Sony for comment.

**Tibbsy**

The double standard here is amusing...

From my reading: A bunch of people hacked into the PSN, seemingly to get free stuff from Sony, just because they could, and only released the method to the world when some other hackers did the same thing and tried to charge money for telling people how to do it...

The mind boggles...

**LordofHats**

Welcome to the world of hackers and pirates! Exact same thing was currently tearing apart the Scanlation community months back.

Pirates are hypocrital douches.

**AlexHolker**

Tibbsy wrote:
From my reading:

Your reading is wrong. This is not about the PSN hack, it's about being able to decrypt Sony's firmware updates and make your own custom firmware updates - basically so you can choose what changes are made to your PS3 and not Sony. BluediskCFW wanted to make this knowledge (that can be misused to enable piracy) available to anyone willing to pay them, so The Three Tuskateers made the same knowledge available for free.

**Squigsquasher**

Oh dear.

I hate hackers. Hopefully Sony will sue them to hell and back.

Why would anyone want to put Linux on a PS3 anyway?

**LordofHats**

Because it's cheap.

**Melissia**

So they can cheat in games as well.

**Squigsquasher**

Ah. That would explain it.

**Palindrome**

Anti-piracy measures always fail eventually. Piracy is a fact, which been widespread for decades. The genie is well and truely out of the box now though.

Basically its time to stop fighting a losing war via restrictive software and start offering customers a reason to buy games and hardware.

**Squigsquasher**

I would argue we need tougher laws to stop piracy, IE: fiddle with our software in ways we don't allow you to, illegal ways, for pirating purposes=jail sentence, no questions asked. Piracy is what is killing the game industry, because people aren't going to pay for games when they can get them illegally for free.

If there were harsher punishments for this kind of thing piracy would vanish.

**Palindrome**

Squigsquasher wrote:

If there were harsher punishments for this kind of thing piracy would vanish.

No, it wouldn't. First of all it is incredibly difficult to prove that people have downloaded anything illegally as an IP address is not a valid from of identification and it can easily be altered, torrent sites themselves also host legal content. If you can't identify anyone you can't bring legal action against them. You can force ISPs to block access to certain sites, for example Virgin 'blocks' Piratebay yet it is trivially easy to get around the block, you can even access it through google now.

As to piracy killing the games industry all I can say is prove it. There is a lot of industry hype, several £billion in lost sales for example, but the evidence behind these statements of doom is extremely dubious. For example earlier this year my extrenal hard drive failed and my desktop's harddrive started dying within a couple of weeks of each other so I bought a new lap top. Rather than tediously copying all my music from CD I simply 'pirated' it all even though I already own it. This would be counted as several hundred lost sales when in reality it was nil.

I am quite sure that piracy does result in lost sales but it its significance is undoubtably over estimated.

**LordofHats**

Well some things are more secure than others.

Linux is not the most secure system they could have picked to do this on.