How To Hack a PS3

February 2010 Most of the PS3 hack buzz now is about Bioshock 2 and the in-game hacks it has. StreetskaterFU says Geohot's hack is insufficient to run home brew on the PS3 because it does not expose the root key. He says the root key will be hard wired into the system and not accessable with software. Scroll down this Mahalo page for other recent PS3 hack updates.

On Jan 29 2010, Geohot blogged that he had found the back door into all that is written in the PS3, but he posted that now it is up to everyone else to find the encryption keys so that non-technical people can hack their PS3. He said he has a life to get back to. He asked all hackers to leave a record of any more useful information they find on the PS Wiki, so more information may be coming soon.

Geohot does spell out his exploit on his blog, but it is in very technical terms and only skilled programmers will be able to use his information. The exploit gets a programmer full access to the PS3, but that is all. Typically a programmer pokes around until he finds specific codes that laymen can use to create further gaming console hacks.

Step 1: Other Recent PS3 Hack Updates

This page will release the most current, substantiated information when more is known on the encryption keys and other PS3 hacking methods that hackers are working on. Once these are posted, we will post step by step instructions on how to hack a PS3.

Update February 2010: xorloser claims to have propered Geohot's hack of the PS3. He claims it would be too much trouble to publish his whole hack, but he does say the first step is to install the Linux operating system onto the PS3.

Update Jan 2010: Mystic Injection Tools claim that the PS3 can be fooled by a Blu-ray disc that they customized. They say it doesn't do anything useful yet, but they promise updates.

Incgamers contacted Sony for a statement on the possibility that their PS3 gaming console had been hacked, and that it may now be vulnerable to piracy. They report that Sony told them Sony is investigating and they will clarify the situation once Sony has more information.

Step 2: More on Geohot's PS3 Hack

Gehot says that he can read or write to anything in the whole system memory. He says he has top level access to the PS3 processor. He had previously announced that he planned to work for the next few weeks on finding the decryption keys, and had previously promised to post them when he found them.

Geohot did leave a few clues that might help some enterprising hackers follow his lead and also hack the PS3. He seemed really excited when he tweeted something at 11:17 AM Jan 15th about the PS3's reset vector not being locked down to ROM, and how it was in the system controller as 0x2401FC00000. On January 20 he posted in his blog that he was able to mess with the RAM bus even though he could not read it.

As Geohot, George Hotz was instrumental in showing us all how to hack an iPhone. He figured out how to untether an iPhone from its carrier. He created the blackra1n and blacksn0w hacking utilities.

Step 3: PS3 Was the Last Unhacked Gaming Console

The PS3 was the last gaming console of the current generation to be hacked. All the other gaming consoles including the Xbox 360 and Wii have been hacked before and were already feeling the effects of game piracy.

There are two general methods of hacking a gaming console. First, reverse engineering low level programatic code can reveal holes in the operating system. Typically, hackers are looking for a way to bypass software authentication mechanisms to play "backup" games. The previous generation of gaming consoles such as the Xbox and PS2 made Mod Chips popular. These are small hardware devices that are soldered or placed on the motherboard of consoles to bypass software checks and add functionality to the devices.

It is important to realize that hardware manufacturers such as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo do not support any form of hacking or modding.