PS3 Root Key Found 380
An anonymous reader writes "The PlayStation 3 'root key' used for code signing has been found by GeoHot. This enables running homebrew without the need for psjailbreak-style USB-devices, and also provides hope for those at firmware version 3.55 that currently cannot be downgraded. The key also cannot be changed without hardware modifications. Oops."
I wonder... (Score:3)
More Likely... (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder how long until the lawyers start raining down from the sky.
Re:More Likely... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how long until the lawyers start raining down from the sky.
That sounds... very nice. I mean, assuming they are falling a long enough distance, that is.
Re:More Likely... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how long until the lawyers start raining down from the sky.
That sounds... very nice. I mean, assuming they are falling a long enough distance, that is.
*mumbles something about lawyers being full of hot air, thereby reducing terminal velocity to a survivable speed*
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*mumbles something about lawyers being full of hot air, thereby reducing terminal velocity to a survivable speed*
Oh, I'm sure we could arrange [slashdot.org] something.
I'm sick of these sorts of comments (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sick of these sorts of comments. This is Slashdot people, news for nerds. Don't make these kinds of comments!
We will not know whether or not lawyers are full of hot air enough to reduce terminal velocity to a survivable speed, until we have taken a significantly large random sample, and dropped them from planes.
I suggest we take some aspiring lawyers, and use them as our control, as I couldn't bear the thought of accidentally killing someone who isn't a lawyer.
Scientific rigour, people. Use it!
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A flight of B-17s bombarding Redmond with air-dropped lawyers.
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It's accountants that rain from the sky http://www.mcs.csueastbay.edu/~malek/Surrealism/magritte2.jpg [csueastbay.edu]
Laywers raining down from the sky (Score:3, Funny)
"Laywers raining down from the sky"
<voice actor="Lloyd Bridges">Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up skeet shooting....</voice>
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how long until Kevin Butler brings the viking horde down on him?
http://images.movemodo.com/news/2010/09/latest_kevin_butler_ad_shows_our_most_wanted_move_add_on_vikings/attachment/0/large.jpg [movemodo.com]
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Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because GeoHot is wrong in what he is doing?
How should he have released the key to the rest of us? We all have a sacrosanct right to own our property, and I don't give two *$#% if somebody uses it for piracy. I applaud what he has done here, and in fact, it has finally made me consider actually purchasing a PS3.
If Sony does brick all the consoles, don't blame GeoHot. Blame Sony, because they are the ones that have acted in a morally repugnant fashion for years.
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The local copy of the software on the hardware that I own is absolutely mine, and I have every right to do whatever I like to it.
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I absolutely despise the idea, and I fear the day it gets challenged in court. I only
Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
The word "right" has both moral and legal connotations. You absolutely have the moral right. Whether you have the legal right is up for debate on a case-by-case basis.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
News flash: clicking AGREE on a EULA does not make it enforceable. I dont care what any weazel lawyer tells you.
until the government falls, and Megacorperations rise and start hiring shadow runners to enforce their EULAS, you need to not treat them as if they are anything but a bunch of bullshit that has no more value than the insane guy on the corner screaming that the end is near.
Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it is, the one copy on the device is mine to do whatever I want with.
Just like a book, I have no right to copy it but I can do whatever I like to that copy I own.
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He did not copy it, he deduced it.
You can't copyright a simple key.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
You appear to be laboring under the assumption that the absurd ways US copyright, licensing, and contract law has been twisted apply to the rest of the world.
They do not.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
GeoHot did something Sony didn't like, and therefore Sony punished you.
Hopefully this teaches you something about buying Sony products.
Same private key? (Score:5, Informative)
Is this the same private key that was discovered last week [slashdot.org]?
Re:Same private key? (Score:5, Informative)
No, this is the metldr private key. fail0verflow wasn't able to find that one as it required a metldr exploit
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the metldr key is based from the exact same broken algorithm.
Uh, duh. How do you think it was found in the first place?
Re:Same private key? (Score:5, Informative)
No, this is the metldr private key. fail0verflow wasn't able to find that one as it required a metldr exploit
No. fail0verflow had no interest in getting that key. Why? Because they're about homebrew, which they can already do, and they're (officially, at least) against piracy, which the metldr key would simplify.
There was a question asked about this at the end of their presentation. They basically said "Yeah, we don't have that key - we don't give a shit about it. Of course you can get it using the same method we just told you about.".
Exactly (Score:5, Informative)
From the geohot site:
props to fail0verflow for the asymmetric half
Geohot isn't taking credit for anyone's work here.
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Informative)
For the record, that wasn't there initially. We had to complain to him to get him to add that.
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First things first: it's not a "root" key.
How you get it: you do some boring buffer overflow or integer overflow exploit (which you do have to find first of course), and then you do the computations we detailed at the 27c3 talk.
Hardly rocket science. But it was indeed a (non-essential) missing piece.
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As long as it wan't this [wikipedia.org] root "key".
Re:Same private key? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, I don't think so. What was released before wouldn't allow gamecode to be run but in this case he seems to have also released a Hello World app - if the GameLauncher recognizes it and runs then this is completely NOT the same key. The guys releasing code last week refused to touch the GameLauncher code because they wanted to run Linux etc. at a level lower, IF this is what I thik it is it can be used to sign actual code to be launched. If you listen to the 4th movie released from CCC you can hear a quest
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Re:Same private key? (Score:5, Informative)
We (fail0verflow) discovered and released two things:
We used these techniques to obtain encryption, public, and private keys for lv2ldr, isoldr, the spp verifier, the pkg verifier, and the revocation lists themselves. We could've obtained appldr, (the loader used to load games and apps), but chose not to, since we are not interested in app-level stuff and that just helps piracy. We didn't have lv1ldr, but due to the way lv1 works, we could gain control of it early in the boot process through isoldr, so effectively we also had lv1 control.
With these keys we could decrypt firmware and sign our own firmware. And since the revocation is useless and the lame "anti-downgrade" protection is also easily bypassed, this already enables hardware-based hacks and downgrades forever. Basically, homebrew/Linux on every currently manufactured PS3, through software means now, and through hardware means (flasher/modchip) forever, regardless of what Sony tries to do with future firmwares.
The root of all of the aforementioned loaders is metldr, which remained elusive. Then Geohot announced that he had broken into metldr (with an exploit, analogous to the way we exploited lv2ldr to get its keys) and was thus able to apply our techniques one level higher in the loader chain. He has released the metldr keyset (with the private key calculated using our attack), but not the exploit method that he used.
The metldr key does break the console's security even more (especially with respect to newer, future firmwares - and thus also piracy of newer games), and also makes some things require less workarounds. Geohot clearly did a good job finding an exploit in it, but considering a) he used our key recovery attack verbatim, and b) he found his exploit right after our talk, so he was clearly inspired by something we said when we explained ours, I think we deserve a little more credit than we're getting for this latest bit of news.
There's still bootldr and lv0, which are used at the earliest point during the PS3 boot process. These remain secure, but likely mean little for the PS3 security at this stage.
Re:Same private key? (Score:4, Insightful)
Next time, release everything of interest yourselves, first, and you won't have to worry about it. Lawsuits be damned---you guys being the actual hackers, maybe you have the wherewithal to take the Right To Tinker With Shit We Own all the way up to the Supreme Court so we can all have fun again.
I've got a few bucks I would throw your way if you needed it.
Nice job, though.
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Geohot while he does help out with certain things, likes to take credit when it was really a group effort.
I don't like people that steel credit.
Re:Same private key? (Score:5, Funny)
I prefer people that iron it.
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Re:Same private key? (Score:4, Funny)
Geohot while he does help out with certain things, likes to take credit when it was really a group effort.
I don't like people that steel credit.
What lead you to that conclusion? :P
Re:Same private key? (Score:4, Funny)
If only I had a nickel for every time I zinc of a bad pun...
Re:Same private key? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Same private key? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Same private key? (Score:4, Funny)
I don't like people who steel credit either. Or anyone who commits pewter fraud for that matter.
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I don't like people that steel credit
No kidding. Plastic credit is good enough for anyone...
Re:Same private key? (Score:5, Insightful)
We published our exploits at the talk by explaining exactly how they works, and how anyone could use them. We said we'd release tools through the following month, and we already released two Git repositories containing most of the tools (that's 4 days after the talk). We didn't release keys due to fear of legal repercussions, but we told people exactly how to calculate them, and they did.
Geohot first released a useless signed loader to prove that he had the keys. Then he released the keys. He hasn't released information on how he got the metldr plaintext and apparently doesn't have plans to do so.
Personally, I think explaining things first, then a few days later releasing tools, is better than just dumping keys on the world and keeping how you got them a secret.
Re:Same private key? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since geohot was able to release the keys (to the kingdom) without tipping his hand in this case, is it really bad?
Would it not be possible that Sony patches whatever exploit you guys used and detailed, added a whitelist for games under the current signature, and began using a new one, possibly nullifyng much of the work you guys have (brilliantly) done?
Is the way geohot did it (using your work again, totally with you guys there for credit) not better for the community in the long run, where now unless Sony finds the vulnerability he got in through he can keep providing these keys no matter what Sony does?
Hell Sony may even reuse hardware/firmware from the PS3 in the PS4 and geohot may again be able to get in and provide keys, or at least have a jumping off point.
Again, no knock on you guys, full disclosure is cool for nerds sake, its great to know all that stuff, but the way we do it in iPhone world is always trying to do whats better for the community/users. Not tipping your hand on the exploit used may be the way to go here.
Firmware updates (Score:3, Funny)
Did you guys hear about the next firmware update that bricks the console? It's fine, they offer free replacements for anyone affected by it.
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There are 40 million PS3s out there. Even if they can swap them for $50 a unit, that's 2 billion dollars to get them off the market. ;-(
For a 2 billion dollar hit to Sony, It'd almost be worth the inconvenience hoping they'll try it!
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Easier and cheaper to release a PS4 with 4 times the processing power including the "security" fix ;-)
Peeking under the hood (Score:2)
Acid and a very powerful microscope? Or leaked information from a Sony insider?
Re:Peeking under the hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither. Sony botched their PKI implementation and the 'random number' they were using for their seed was anything but random. In fact it was the same every time! That made it trivial to solve for the key. Oops.
This went undetected for years until they ... removed Linux.
Re:Peeking under the hood (Score:4, Funny)
As an added bonus... PSP keys! (Score:5, Informative)
I can encrypt/sign anything on psp now.
Does this mean the hypervisor can be circumvented? (Score:2)
No sympathy for Sony (Score:5, Informative)
When I bought it, it had the OtherOS feather AND I could do all the online stuff...not now
When I bought it, it had backwards comparability for almost all PS2 games...not now
So it appears to me that in a sense the "hackers" have returned my property that was stolen from me by the "legitimate corporation"
I doubt that Sony will learn anything from this, and after our family owning a PS2 and 3, the next console I buy will be Xbox...I had no idea a company could be dysfunctional enough to make me regret not buying a MS product.
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Design change, the first gen ones still have it. The ones after had to emulate the PS2 and even that ability has been removed.
Re:No sympathy for Sony (Score:4, Interesting)
One problem is that because the capability has been removed from all current models, if your early model breaks you could easily find yourself in a situation where it's not feasible to replace. Another is that since they dropped the feature, work on adding support for more games stopped too.
Another thing on the bait and switch pile is Sony's support for SACD. That was also available in the early models, then cut from the later ones. While it theoretically still works for people who have older units, the firmware isn't very good, and because they dropped the feature they also stopped development on improvements to that. So people who bought their PS3 expecting that to work right as a long-term capability have also been screwed.
no, it's still there and it still works (Score:2)
SACD was not removed. It works and it works the same as it ever did. And there's no reason to think it won't work the same long-term as it has so far.
It's not a bait and switch if you simply didn't get a feature because the device you bought never had it.
No one uses SACD anyway. It's the height of hyperbole to try to make a mountain out of this molehill.
Re:no, it's still there and it still works (Score:5, Informative)
To quote someone who said one correct thing today, "you really should consider making posts based upon facts". Read What difference does the firmware version make for CD and SA-CD? [ps3sacd.com] for an intro to the firmware issues I was speaking of. I know people who purchased the PS3 when firmware V2.00 added optical output for the format, only to find that capability taken away in the next revision. Since firmware upgrades are not optional if you want to stay on PSN, that's a clear bait and switch move. And if you read through the whole FAQ you can see some of the other limitations that come from Sony giving up on development here before the feature ever really worked perfectly.
I purchased about 20 new SACDs in 2010, from companies like Mobile Fidelity and via the SHM-SACD [cdjapan.co.jp] remasters. That gives me about 80 of them total. Since some of these are the highest quality recordings available, they get an inordinate amount of playtime here relative to the rest of my music collection.
See activity on SA-CD.net [sa-cd.net] to see that many people are still actively using the format, and how many titles are available. Yes, there are probably only a few hundred people in the world impacted by Sony's SACD on PS3 decisions. That doesn't mean those people were not misled about Sony's commitment to supporting the format well in the PS3. I never claimed there were a "mountain" of such people, merely that the mechanics of how they were treated is similar to the situation with both backward compatibility and the Other OS features. This is a regularly recurring behavior from Sony.
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When I bought it, it had backwards comparability for almost all PS2 games...not now
If you purchased it with PS2 compat, it still has it.
And it introduced a host of other features, and is far more open than Xbox ever was.
If you're really going to be that upset over a feature I'm sure you "family" used regularly, then good luck being satisfied owning anything.
stick with the truth (Score:2)
Backwards compatibility was never removed from any PS3. If you had it before, you have it now.
I have a 1st gen PS3 and the latest firmware and I still have my near 100% PS2 BC.
You really should consider making posts based upon facts instead of vitriol.
Re:No sympathy for Sony (Score:5, Informative)
That's a good explanation except for the fact that there's a minimum OS version required to play online. One USED to be able to run otherOS and play online, and after a certain cutoff date, you had to choose to lose one or the other. That's where (some of) the contention comes from.
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Correct on all points. I have a copy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue which is now completely unplayable. I (stupidly) bought the game online and downloaded it. The game requires the user to sign on before playing, which is impossible with un-updated firmware.
Re:No sympathy for Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the word "steal" is overloaded. Sony's entertainment industry seems to have a great fascination with the concept of people "stealing", and in that case many disagree with that use of the word.
But what's your point? Are you arguing some point of US law?
Normal people (i.e., non-lawyers) understand that the very fabric of commerce is based on "yours", "mine", "not yours", "not mine", "buying", "selling", "vendor", and "customer", etc.
There's not a lot of subtlety in these terms, because normal people are able to conduct their commerce without concepts like "stealing", "swindling", "crooked dealing", "cheating", or "screwing over your customer" even coming into question 99.9% of the time.
"Bait-and-switch" doesn't fit, neither does "planned obsolescence". Actually, Sony is breaking new ground here. I don't think normal people ever needed to invent a term for a vendor selling something and then intentionally breaking it by remote control years later.
So maybe you think it's significant that Sony presented some EULA on the TV and made the user press the green button before they could play the game they just bought.
But normal people don't. They see it for exactly what it is.
Nothing particularly subtle or complicated about it at all.
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As I have heard it, "bait-and-switch" has meant to advertise one thing and then when you go to buy it, you're told that that thing isn't available but you could buy something else that's supposedly a great deal. The key factor here is that all of that takes place before any sale has even occurred.
Actually buying something and not getting what you paid for is a much more general concept.
But "bait-and-switch" is a legal term with a reasonably precise definition. Look it up. I don't think it really applies
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how about "fitness for purpose"?
you can't sell a machine that does everything to people who want a single machine that does everything and then slowly remove features (under threat of several other features being removed if you don't agree to remove said features).
just because something is "by computer", or "online", or "in space" does not change what has happened.
******WARNING - CAR ANALOGY*******
if you sent your car in for a scheduled service (as required to keep warranty) and when you got it back the ste
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Really? Try playing GT5 with older firmware and let me know how it works out...
Re:No sympathy for Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that you can separate the two actions--requiring updates to access the Internet and play new media (and indeed, also to continue using applications that have not been updated themselves such as the Netflix App) and "agreeing" to the upgrade--makes me seriously question your logic. It is a tactic a half step removed from "that's a nice car, it would be a shame if anything happened to it." In fact, it may be worse. At least if I pay the nice man in the trenchcoat his protection money he leaves my car alone. Sony promises to break your PS3. The only choice they give you is whether you want to lose features you've already paid for or lose the ability to play new games or utilize any features of your old games that happen to use the Internet, such as multiplayer or, as in my case, a baseball game that provides roster updates throughout the year.
It's called coercion, and it is grounds to nullify even the most strenuously negotiated contracts much less a click-through EULA that doesn't even specify how they're fucking you, just that they might. They are going to take something from you--your ability to play new games and fully utilize your old purchases--for absolutely no technical reason other than people who probably aren't you are using their machines in a way that Sony disapproves of (homebrew, cheap computing cluster, etc), unless you "agree" to let them take out features you've already paid for. It's nothing but a bargaining chip to force you to do as they tell you to do.
Frankly even that is too generous; bargaining chip implies there is negotiation and intelligent thought before determining which is the best course of action. Turning down these updates and effectively bricking your PS3 from that point in time forward is no more a choice than not paying the man in the trenchcoat. Do you really think it's any consolation to people who got rid of their old PS2s because they have this lovely new PS3 with backward compatibility that they weren't fucked in the ass until they "agreed" to it? Oh but don't worry dear consumer, we'll slowly start to release them as downloads for $9.99 a pop! Everybody wins!
The PS3 was the most locked-down piece of consumer hardware in the history of computing. Do you truly believe this update requirement was done as anything other than a way to force you to do what they want and patch any holes that might arise--the exact behavior we have seen from them? No, it's not about an unspoken agreement to produce content; if they stopped making PS3 games tomorrow I would be upset, but I wouldn't have been fucked. They are actively breaking my hardware, for all intents and purposes, unless I let them have their way. At the bottom of every game I buy--on the disc AND the packaging--is a little "PS3" logo. The idea that one disc might work and another might not in my PS3 based on whether I've let them screw me yet is ludicrous, and so is claiming that it is somehow a choice.
It goes well beyond shady. The fact that it hasn't been absolutely clobbered in civil suits yet is stunning. The idea that any court in the world would see it as anything less than illegal coercion boggles the mind.
And not that it should matter, but lest you think my outrage is personally motivated: I did buy my machine with the expectation of using OtherOS, but after a while I realized I simply wasn't going to go through the hassle and the update didn't affect me on a personal level. Likewise, I paid $600 at PS3 launch so my PS3 has hardware backward-compatibility and I am not personally affected by their removal of the software backward-compatibility in later updates. That doesn't make either of those decisions any less of an outrage.
Dear Sony.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Still think revoking the "Other OS" function was a good idea?
Re:Dear Sony.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dear Sony.... (Score:5, Interesting)
From memory, what happened is that with the OtherOS, Geohot was able to outline a proof of concept to run arbitrary code on the PS3.
He didn't release much, and nothing he released would have directly facilitated piracy - there were no keys exposed for instance.
Sony, in a knee-jerk reaction, promptly issued a software update that removed OtherOS support altogether - even though Geohot's work was just a proof of concept.
This is when the real work then started to get back what was once there - and in the process through discovering these keys, this has now opened the doors to piracy on the system.
If Sony had have kept OtherOS in there and instead done something like fixed the flaw in the hypervisor that allowed Geohot's exploit to work, or just ignored it and moved on, it's arguable that no one would have bothered to put in the effort they have recently to discover the crypto keys.
PS2? (Score:2)
Re:PS2? (Score:4, Informative)
No. PS2 backwards compatibility required additional chips that aren't in the newer PS3s.
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The embedded chip was taken out after the first generation, but even second generation PS3s could run PS2 games in emulation mode.
I guess the emulator just isn't installed on the newer models, but with the key hacked it might be possible to. Of course you'd still need to find the emulator somewhere...
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It wasn't full software emulation. As I recall, the original PS3s had both a PS2 CPU and PS2 video chip. A later revision performed CPU emulation in software but kept the video chip. Finally, Sony removed both chips and all backwards compatibility entirely.
Re:PS2? (Score:5, Informative)
The second generation PS3s had the PS2 graphics chip in them, but took out the Emotion Engine CPU which was run in emulation.
Later PS3s have neither the PS2 graphics chip nor the Emotion Engine CPU, and are not able to run PS2 games in emulation at all, regardless of what the firmware says.
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It was never disabled so there's nothing to enable again. It was only available on the first few models of the PS3 because they included PS2 hardware inside them. Hardware which was removed in later models.
Missing key (Score:5, Informative)
Since the lame submission doesn't bother to link to the /very/ source that the article is about, I'll paste it here.
Hey (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, that's the same combination that I have on my luggage!
Re:private key on the machine? (Score:5, Informative)
Despite all the people claiming this is a dupe, it isn't. This is getting the PSP private key from inside the PS3.
They put the PSP private key on the PS3, presumably so you could buy games for your PSP through the PS3 and have the PS3 do all the heavy crypto work instead of encrypting it on the store end.
Presumably, they figured "hey, the PS3 is unhackable, it is OK to embed the super secret key to PSP software in it". But then the PS3 got hacked.
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Dangit, replied to the wrong post.
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They put the PSP private key on the PS3, presumably so you could buy games for your PSP through the PS3 and have the PS3 do all the heavy crypto work instead of encrypting it on the store end.
they did not put any private key anywhere outside the Sony headquarters. They just did something stupid with the encryption algorithm (always use the same seed) so that if you have several objects encrypted with the same key you can reconstruct the original key.
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You understand it fine. It's just that Sony doesn't.
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They've found the key used to sign the code (presumably, the private key... not that it really matters). I didn't RTFA, but "found" here shouldn't be taken to imply that they just saw it lying around somewhere... More likely, it was deduced/reverse engineered through some flaws in the implementation.
To put it another way, if the consoles have the public key, then they've discovered the private key which corresponds to that public key.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hcbaeKA2moE#t=2147s [youtube.com]
Jump to 37:20 for the money shot.
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I think they only allowed it in the first place to try to get tax breaks in the European Union. So, after the EU decided that it wasn't really a personal computer, Sony pulled it from their newer models (the PS3 Slim never had Other OS).
However, it was tampering around with the Hypervisor that caused Sony to remove it from older models in a firmware update.
Re:Don't dare give us Linux and try to take it awa (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it was their choice to do that. In no way did someone messing with the hypervisor cause the removal of the feature. To say that is like saying because my dinner was cold I had to beat my wife.
Re:GeoHot did NOT find the root signing key. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GeoHot did NOT find the root signing key. (Score:4, Interesting)
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He used the work of others, most notably the guys that just got the private keys.
The other guys are the ones truly responsible for this. GeoHot, as he tends to do, is just trying to take credit.
He's a known bullshitter in the scene.
I'd guess it's some kind of superiority complex. On his site he offers an executable that supposedly uses the key but offers no source code or anything other than indirectly mentioning that he used PSL1GHT.
Personally I'm looking forward to getting my hands on fail0verflow's tools. I've been too lazy to do the USB thing, and though I'm still sitting on 2.15 I've been too lazy to pull out my keyboard and mouse and load up my half-assed Yellow Dog install so I could tinker with fgalea's Freezer engine. But,
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SHIP'S VOICE: Counting down. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, four....
SKROOB: Four? What happened to five?
SHIP'S VOICE: Just kidding.
(modified for the sake of parent AC joke)
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lol, wut?
Re:The ridiculous problem is... (Score:4, Informative)
In a utopian future, people would pay the actual cost of manufacturing the console - plus a reasonable profit margin. Anyone could write games - and the cost of them would be reduced because they wouldn't have to pay the "Sony Tax" on each one. For people who'll own very few games over the life of the console, this is not so attractive - but for people who buy more than the average number of games, it's a huge win. But at least we're honest about it.
I already live in that future. I have a console hooked to my TV that runs code that doesn't have to be signed by Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, et al. I can also run multiple OSes on it without having to jailbreak it. And I have hundreds* of legally-purchased games to play on it that probably cost me less than what 20 new PS3/360 games would (at $60).
It's called an HTPC. It pretty much does everything a PS3/360 does better (including blu-ray playback). Not to mention backwards-compatibility with at least a dozen of older consoles via emulators. I still have my PS3, but primarily for GT5 and not much else.
*My Steam account alone has 300+ titles. Mostly bought through holiday sale packs at a huge discount. I've probably played less than half so far, but I'm still discovering games that I bought more than a year ago.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't get me wrong, I love Steam and like you made many, many purchases over the holiday period. I'm under no illusion, however, that I am absolutely guaranteed ownership of those games if Valve turns off the servers.
Re:Not 100% correct -- key can be changed and patc (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you view the 27C3 talk about the PS3? The first keys ARE in hardware, fixed. It's the first keys used to check anything, and they are set in stone so no hacker can touch them, but also no update can touch them. Also changing them would break everything out there. You might be able to get around those with huge whitelists. But that's not practical in the end at all.