PS3 Fanboy

Emulating operating systems is never really a good idea. Yet, mopx0 has decided to give it a try with Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista. To say it runs slow would be an understatement, as booting the resource-heavy OS takes 25 minutes on the system. To run Notepad emulated on the PS3 via Linux takes a whopping 12 minutes. It's not really practical, but shows the incredible dedication the hacking community has when tackling the strangest of projects.

If for some crazy reason you want to give it a try, read here.

[Via Engadget]

It looks like the PS3 has just gotten its own Hello World greeting courtesy of Dragula96, a well-known PSP hacker. According to Dragula96, he recently discovered an exploit in the official 2.20 firmware and was able to put up his own Hello World proof of concept. Currently, he's not sharing how he did it; he's still doing some tests and working on running a simple game like Pong.

The hacker noted that the systems he used for his experiment had no hardware modifications. The exploit was up and running on both 40 and 60 gig retail models -- not test PS3s.

In light of this, we know that anti-hacking/piracy has been a Sony strong suit when it comes to the PS3. We wonder if we'll be seeing more hacks to come, or will the big S put a stop to things and quickly retaliate with a new firmware update.

[Thanks Craig!]

Where is the PS3 homebrew scene? Considering how active the PSP scene, one would think that Sony's other console would get the same kind of attention from hackers. It's not that people aren't trying -- rather, it appears that Sony has learned from their mistakes with the PSP.

PSP was rather insecure from the start. A primer from "nikkelitous" explains that "the PSP didn't have any security protections in the first version: Thats right! It essentially ran anything that you put on it." In spite of Sony's continued attempts at fixing PSP security through firmware revisions, the damage has already been done. "The PSP now has a very powerful security system, but like the Greeks, we had people inside. Once a system is hacked and understood, very little can be used to continue to protect it."

Not only has Sony made the PS3 much more secure, but its use of Blu-ray makes it significantly more difficult to hack. "It's not using a DVD drive it's using a custom Blu-ray drive, we can't simply copy the disks, and we don't know enough about the firmware on the drive to accomplish a 'debug mode' even if it's on there." Of course, all of these hindrances aren't stopping the hacking community. They're going to keep on trying, and will probably one day succeed. However, it's clear that this time around, Sony isn't going to be taken off-guard.

[Update: This will only work on test PS3 systems. This will NOT work on retail systems. Sorry for the confusion.]

Yup, you heard it right: hackers have discovered a way to run retail PS3 games off the PS3's internal HDD and off external USB HDDs. While this is quite a neat trick, it might not be all that useful considering how much data is stored on a single layered Blu-ray disc -- about 25 gigabytes. That precious HDD space will probably end up being devoured in no time.

More tech-savvy gamers out there who want to know more about this development can go check out the tech mumbo-jumbo here. We're pretty sure this high-level jargon will scare away most. What countermeasures can Sony take to ensure this doesn't become an even larger problem? Rampant piracy has always cast its dark shadow over the PSP ... will the PS3 be next? Let's hope not.

[Via Maxconsole]

SCEA has declared that they will "actively pursue" legal action against hackers that attempt to crack the PS3 anti-piracy software. This announcement arrives just after recent news that hackers were close to completely cracking the PS3 anti-piracy software found in firmware versions 1.10 and 1.11. Their progress on the crack would allow pirated PS3 games to boot, but they still were not playable. The homebrew community is also still waiting in the wings, as even this latest attempt still prevents any type of homebrew gaming on the PS3 console.

Obviously, SCEA hopes to stalwart further progress and deter hackers from completely subverting the anti-piracy measures completely, because saying "please" just doesn't carry the same weight as legal action. Dave Karraker, SCEA spokesperson says, "the best we can do as a company, is to make our security that much stronger and aggressively pursue legal action against anyone caught trying to use an exploit in an illegal manner."

The pirates who want to burn and run copied PS3 disks? Yeah, they're bad. Bad, bad. Spankings all around kind of bad. And if you're thinking of doing it, you shouldn't. Go find someone to deliver a spanking for even thinking such thoughts. On the homebrew front, we're kind of indifferent. Now, we're stepping out on a very thin limb here, but maybe, just maybe if Sony was a little bit more organized in lining up a steady stream of content for thirsting PS3 owners, we wouldn't have hackers so interested in cracking the PS3 for homebrew. What do you think?

If Sony's support for previous homebrew endeavors (like the PSP) was any indication of their PlayStation 3 involvement, then indie coders out there would have something to worry about. Thankfully that's not the case.

We've heard about their desire to get homebrew developers on board with the Linux system to create some unique and independent software for the next-gen console. Izumi Kawanishi spoke up about this recently saying that Sony would "like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3."

The idea here is to broaden their Linux strategy. Using Linux World, they plan on giving homebrew hackers all the freedom to build from the ground up. No SDK libraries or support. It's all you guys.

This would be a huge step for independent game makers out there, especially if Sony would let them distribute it over their online platform too. There's still no word on the distribution part though, but hopefully we will see some integration on that end as well.