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Geohot releases PS3 exploit

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Dela @ Jan 28, 2010 00:27 | 29 comments

The hacker behind the first proper breach of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console's security has released the exploit for others to tinker with. It won't let you launch a "hello world" program easily, but its definitely a start for others who are up to the challenge now. George Hotz (geohot), known for his work Apple's iPhone, ran a blog for a few weeks following his efforts to crack the console security, and then on Friday announced that he had "hacked the PS3".

Here's his latest blog post.

Here's your silver platter
In the interest of openness, I've decided to release the exploit. Hopefully, this will ignite the PS3 scene, and you will organize and figure out how to use this to do practical things, like the iPhone when jailbreaks were first released. I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night.

Please document your findings on the psDevWiki. They have been a great resource so far, and with the power this exploit gives, opens tons of new stuff to document. I'd like to see the missing HV calls filled in, nice memory maps, the boot chain better documented, and progress on a 3D GPU driver. And of course, the search for a software exploit.

This is the coveted PS3 exploit, gives full memory space access and therefore ring 0 access from OtherOS. Enjoy your hypervisor dumps. This is known to work with version 2.4.2 only, but I imagine it works on all current versions. Maybe later I'll write up how it works

I've gotten confirmation the exploit works on 3.10. Also I've heard about compile issues on Fedora. I did this in Ubuntu. I would really like someone to write up a nice tutorial :)

Source: http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/2010/01/heres-your-silver-platter.html

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Comment by: DVDBack23 (Jan 28, 2010 01:06)

Originally posted by bmlshane:
for the record, all my PS3 games were bought, some I waited for the cheaper Platinum edition, but nevertheless, bought.

How else would you have got them lol

Comment by: djeazyg (Jan 28, 2010 01:36)

Quote:
Originally posted by bmlshane:
for the record, all my PS3 games were bought, some I waited for the cheaper Platinum edition, but nevertheless, bought.

How else would you have got them lol

Stolen from the store? Maybe? :)

Comment by: lxhotboy (Jan 28, 2010 01:37)

Quote:
Originally posted by bmlshane:
for the record, all my PS3 games were bought, some I waited for the cheaper Platinum edition, but nevertheless, bought.

How else would you have got them lol

LMAO!!!!!!!..............LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not being rude or anything. Lol. But it took me a minute to get what u meant on that one. Was it really necessary for him to post he bought all his ps3 games. Lol. When this is the first known hack of the ps3 it would have been impossible to be booting backups or from a HD. Sorry ....lol. But that was like someone saying "hi my name is Tom" while wearing a shirt with "Tom" printed on the front. Lol..... Good one dvdback23.

Comment by: tucker001 (Jan 28, 2010 02:29)

Sony will probably patch this in a few days unfortunately, a hacked PS3 would be nice especially having an ISO Loader to backup store bought games to since I've been hearing about a lot of peoples BluRay drives dying. But then Sony would just ban your console from PSN. As of right now I have no intentions of hacking a my PS3, or pirating games off the internet. I have a job and I enjoy paying for my games and supporting game developers.

Comment by: embo22000 (Jan 28, 2010 02:36)

Originally posted by bmlshane:
If the Hack improves user friendliness, and adds capabilities, then It will be a worthwhile addition, and for the record, all my PS3 games were bought, some I waited for the cheaper Platinum edition, but nevertheless, bought.

I have 10 PS3 games that i have bought around realease date. I'm also planning to buy GOW 3, Heavy Rain and any other awesome title that's Ps3 exclusive. THe only system I buy games for every other system it's for freeeee

Comment by: DarkJello (Jan 28, 2010 03:35)

Quote:
I have 10 PS3 games that i have bought around realease date. I'm also planning to buy GOW 3, Heavy Rain and any other awesome title that's Ps3 exclusive. THe only system I buy games for every other system it's for freeeee

Seriously dude, shut up. No one thinks that's cool, and you are not what people that advocate freedom of information are defending.

Comment by: embo22000 (Jan 28, 2010 04:21)

Quote:
Quote:
I have 10 PS3 games that i have bought around realease date. I'm also planning to buy GOW 3, Heavy Rain and any other awesome title that's Ps3 exclusive. THe only system I buy games for every other system it's for freeeee

Seriously dude, shut up. No one thinks that's cool, and you are not what people that advocate freedom of information are defending.

SURE DUDE. Freedom of info yeah right. FREE STUFF.... I see it and i'm not being an ass.

Comment by: KillerBug (Jan 28, 2010 04:21)

PS3 is the only platform that I buy games on these days...but that is more due to the fact that I don't have a 360 and I am tired of throwing away hundreds of dollars every few months to keep my PC current. I would buy them even if they were easily pirate-able...but I would still wait for them to get down to the $20-$30 range.

Comment by: embo22000 (Jan 28, 2010 04:30)

Originally posted by KillerBug:
PS3 is the only platform that I buy games on these days...but that is more due to the fact that I don't have a 360 and I am tired of throwing away hundreds of dollars every few months to keep my PC current. I would buy them even if they were easily pirate-able...but I would still wait for them to get down to the $20-$30 range.

True my 360 lasted 3 years and i bought one with 3 red rings and fixed it i wonder how long thats going to last. i've made some money of of suckes that their warranty had expired too. but seriously i shoulnde have 4 xbox in a 2weeks with red rings in my house at a time.

Comment by: xnonsuchx (Jan 28, 2010 04:38)

Originally posted by djeazyg:

Originally posted by Dela:

Originally posted by embo22000:
I know everyone on this site defends piracy, illegal music donwloading movies, games etc. I myself am a big time pirate since i learned how to mod systems back on 04. I did all my systems ps2, game cube ,xbox, xbox 360, wii ds, psp. But i hate myself and others that defend it. I love playing any game that i want without paying. So it will be a sad day and a happy day when ps3 finally cracks. MISSED FEELLINGS LOL.
Well this exploit won't let you pirate games and Hotz isn't looking to make that possible either.
Yea, but it wont be long...... It always starts out this way.

Except that the hack has nothing to do with the gaming side of the system...it isn't a hack of the firmware or GameOS, but just being able to possibly do more stuff in an 'Other OS' Linux install. It's really being misreported that the PS3 has been hacked since, for the most part, it hasn't.

Comment by: djeazyg (Jan 28, 2010 06:09)

Quote:
Originally posted by djeazyg:

Originally posted by Dela:

Originally posted by embo22000:
I know everyone on this site defends piracy, illegal music donwloading movies, games etc. I myself am a big time pirate since i learned how to mod systems back on 04. I did all my systems ps2, game cube ,xbox, xbox 360, wii ds, psp. But i hate myself and others that defend it. I love playing any game that i want without paying. So it will be a sad day and a happy day when ps3 finally cracks. MISSED FEELLINGS LOL.
Well this exploit won't let you pirate games and Hotz isn't looking to make that possible either.
Yea, but it wont be long...... It always starts out this way.
Except that the hack has nothing to do with the gaming side of the system...it isn't a hack of the firmware or GameOS, but just being able to possibly do more stuff in an 'Other OS' Linux install. It's really being misreported that the PS3 has been hacked since, for the most part, it hasn't.

I understand that. What I was trying to say is this is the first step. This shows that the system in not bulletproof and is exploitable. If this can be done so can that. Just a different part of the machine. Your also going to have a lot more hands in this now and for those people the main objective is to pirate games.
I myself don't care because your just going to have the same "banned console" issues with the PS3 that you have with the 360 if they do figure a way to steal games. And the PS3 costs a bit more than a 360 to be replacing it every time a ban wave comes around.

Comment by: KillerBug (Jan 28, 2010 10:39)

When drilling a hole in hardened metal, it can be a good idea to drill a tiny pilot hole first, then to re-drill the hold with increasingly larger drill bits...this is the pilot hole.

Comment by: DK1979 (Jan 28, 2010 12:12)

Personally i don't care if it makes you able to pirate games cause i'm not really that big of a gamer but i would love it was able to make the ps3 play mkv files, read from external hdd's etc... :)

Comment by: ps3lvanub (Jan 28, 2010 12:21)

If they manage to crack the ps3 so I can boot the PS3 with a game friendly OS (xp) and play PC games (such as Oblivion Pc version) and get the to run smoothly at medium settings then I wil get a PS3 and just use it as a PC.

Comment by: xnonsuchx (Jan 28, 2010 13:40)

Originally posted by ps3lvanub:
If they manage to crack the ps3 so I can boot the PS3 with a game friendly OS (xp) and play PC games (such as Oblivion Pc version) and get the to run smoothly at medium settings then I wil get a PS3 and just use it as a PC.

Um...WHAT???

Comment by: tatsh (Jan 28, 2010 14:23)

Quote:
Originally posted by ps3lvanub:
If they manage to crack the ps3 so I can boot the PS3 with a game friendly OS (xp) and play PC games (such as Oblivion Pc version) and get the to run smoothly at medium settings then I wil get a PS3 and just use it as a PC.

Um...WHAT???

HELLO! PS3 runs a PPC64 architecture. Good luck on that.

This will start as a homebrew thing. But the money is in the piracy, for distributors of EVERYTHING: (in this case) Blu-ray burners, Blu-ray discs, parts that make it very easy for total noobs to do the hack (such as no-solder add-on boards, etc), and etc etc. Don't be surprised by the new stuff that comes out, or lowered prices on Blu-ray burners and media (especially large packs like 100 packs).

I absolutely want to see some great homebrew stuff that takes full advantage of the system. We can port so much stuff now that we could potentially have access to graphics acceleration and use OpenGL (or PSGL, Sony's version). There are a great number of open source and free games I'd love to see (Nexuiz, Neverball/Neverputt, StepMania, etc).

And actually what I am hoping soon is that we won't be using the official SDK to make this stuff. Parts of the toolchain are here already (as in, GCC for PPC64, binutils for PPC4). What we need is full support for the SPU and PPU units. This is something present in Sony's compiler but not in GCC of course. There are many other things missing too.

Just like that, I am hoping for a complete free XDK for 360. This is madness going on Xbins to grab the latest stuff just as it was back when Xbox1 got hacked.

Comment by: NINVIN21 (Jan 28, 2010 16:59)

Somethings Not Right.

Why would he just release it for other people?
He is stuck so he Gave up.

You people have High Dreams.

Comment by: cheez125 (Jan 28, 2010 17:15)

Originally posted by NINVIN21:
Somethings Not Right.

Why would he just release it for other people?
He is stuck so he Gave up.

You people have High Dreams.

He's not giving up. He said in the blog, "I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night."

And the more people that work on it the faster things will move along. I think it's a good move.

Comment by: WierdName (Jan 28, 2010 17:24)

Sehr interessant. I have been waiting for a way to use the PS3 as a renderer with Maya. My humble 2.1Ghz 3GB RAM laptop isn't quite up to snuff with redering glossy, reflective, high resolution scenes in a decent amount of time. Also, I would love to be able to write my own PS3 OS plugins for random stuff. However, just as with the PSP, it opens the door for in-game RAM editors that spawn an entire field of cheating where a fair game is the exception. If that happens, hopefully Sony and devs can work out systems of not only detection but also user reports.

Comment by: xnonsuchx (Jan 28, 2010 21:41)

Originally posted by cheez123:

Originally posted by NINVIN21:
Somethings Not Right.

Why would he just release it for other people?
He is stuck so he Gave up.

You people have High Dreams.
He's not giving up. He said in the blog, "I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night."

And the more people that work on it the faster things will move along. I think it's a good move.

He also admits to not being familiar w/ PPC-based CPUs and kinda implied he didn't care to learn.

Comment by: Darknytes (Jan 29, 2010 01:22)

It still going to take a long time before any we see any homebrew for the PS3. I can't wait for full speed emulation of Nintendo 64, PS1, PS2, and even possibly PSP. This hack is just the beginning of a long and difficult road. Even though we have access to the entire system memory, we still don't have the decryption keys to the Software like we do for the PSP. They are said to be somewhere in the PS3's eight SPUs. From here on, there are still several more layers of security we need to get pass. All thanks to our "friends" Sony and IBM, who have done a heck of a job keeping the PS3 hack-free. We still don't know if we can get HEN running. My guess is we won't have a Proof-of-Concept or HELLO WORLD using the PS3 Native OS for another 6-12 months.

Comment by: borhan9 (Jan 29, 2010 03:22)

Nice progress. only the beginning of many good things to come.

Comment by: embo22000 (Jan 29, 2010 03:39)

Originally posted by borhan9:
Nice progress. only the beginning of many good things to come.

I don't think it's going to happen. The xbox 360 got hacked just because of the drives. They have older xboxes running homebrew but that's it the ps3 and newer systems after this will probably be unhackable except nintendo consoles lol

Comment by: xnonsuchx (Jan 29, 2010 04:36)

Quote:
Originally posted by borhan9:
Nice progress. only the beginning of many good things to come.
I don't think it's going to happen. The xbox 360 got hacked just because of the drives. They have older xboxes running homebrew but that's it the ps3 and newer systems after this will probably be unhackable except nintendo consoles lol

Yes, people are getting WAY too excited about this. The Cell BE itself has internal security structures that cannot be hacked through either software OR hardware means (even the HyperVisor cannot access it)...if games and the GameOS itself (including the HyperVisor) is at all utilizing that security, decryption to fully reverse engineer is virtually impossible. There is a chance, though, that Sony may not have fully encrypted something.

Personally, I'm only hopeful for full RSX access in Linux, like was apparently possible in pre-2.x FW versions.

Comment by: WierdName (Jan 29, 2010 05:47)

Originally posted by xnonsuchx:
Yes, people are getting WAY too excited about this. The Cell BE itself has internal security structures that cannot be hacked through either software OR hardware means (even the HyperVisor cannot access it)...if games and the GameOS itself (including the HyperVisor) is at all utilizing that security, decryption to fully reverse engineer is virtually impossible. There is a chance, though, that Sony may not have fully encrypted something.

Personally, I'm only hopeful for full RSX access in Linux, like was apparently possible in pre-2.x FW versions.

While PS3 OS homebrew would be cool and fun to be able to write programs with that much available resources, I personally don't expect anything overnight. I would like to see the otherOS opened up to homebrew though. An operating system capable of using the processor would have a lot of resources available to it.