• PS3 Cracked Open Even Further With "Root Key" Discovered

    Devin Coldewey

    Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

    Monday, January 3rd, 2011


    Just a few days after the PS3′s security was deemed an “epic fail” at a hackers’ convention, famed system breaker GeoHot has published what is described as the “root key” for the PS3, a hex sequence that identifies code as legitimate. I’m no hacker so I don’t want to overstep my expertise here, but this seems to be a pretty serious breach. But can Sony put the cat back in the bag?

    Of course, Sony putting the cat in the bag was the reason for all this hackery in the first place. They really incurred the ire of the net when they removed the “Install other OS” option. Really, Sony, what did you think was going to happen?

    At any rate, this isn’t some script-kiddie tool for playing pirated games, though it will surely be used for that eventually. And it doesn’t seem to be something Sony can fix quickly — a lot of embedded software and likely already-pressed games rely on this code, so it may be that this door is open forever.

    [via 1up]

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