One of the self-proclaimed hacker named George Hotz, has claimed on 22nd January that he has finally succeed in hacking, the invincible Sony PS3. But we really doubt so. Has he ?
First of all, for those of you who do not know what we meant by hacking PS3, hacking PS3 is a process by which you can run unsigned and unauthentic (pirated CDs/DVDs) games in the gaming device launched by Sony in way back November 2006.
Yes ! If you believe the claims of this hacker, finally the Sony Play Station 3 is hacked to run unsigned and pirated games.
In the past, all the previous Playstations from Sony (PS1, PS2 and PSP) have been hacked for pirated games. Hacking them would require just a modding chip to be integrated in the Playstation. But hacking PS3 was difficult and totally different task, as George Hotz writes on his blog:
I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I’ve also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip.
3 years, 2 months, 11 days…thats a pretty secure system
Took 5 weeks, 3 in Boston, 2 here, very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.
Yes it was indeed a big and daring task. George Hotz, as he proclaims, has done “little hack” on the iPhone in the past. But, the PS3 was termed as “Immaculate” in security. If you look at the time duration between the launch and “rumored-hacking” of PS3, it is more than 3 years, more than it took for any of the predecessors of the PS3. So, we really doubt that it has actually happened, or George Holtz has really succeed in hacking it.
He is not open to release the hack as of now, and is not providing any details or memory dumps of the hack. As quoted on his blog:
As far as the exploit goes, I’m not revealing it yet. The theory isn’t really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can’t post dumps. I’m hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone’s KBAG.
He is claiming that, he is not ready to let out any signs of how he did it, for Sony could very well make the security implementations of device much stronger.
As far as we are concerned, we are not too pleased to spread this rumor any further. We really doubt about the credibility of this hack. If he has really hacked the underlying security walls in PS3, why is he afraid of providing the details about them? He has not provided a single proof for us to believe that, he has been actually successful at it; No details, No videos, No screenshots, No memory dumps . The “Sony-could-patch-the-hack” reason, looks too good to believe to us. Also, if the hack is halfway through, why is he boasting about it, as if he is already enjoying a pirated game with his PS3 ? A publicity stunt maybe
