F-Secure bricks a PSP on camera

by Ryan Block { Oct 20th 2005 at 11:05AM }

If you were ever curious as to exactly what was entailed in a PSP-bricking (for the uninitiated, that's when running some code that kills your PSP entirely), famed antivirus company F-Secure (who we hope you should well know by now) plunked down the $250 to do an on-camera bricking, for, um, educational purposes. It's not pretty. In fact, you may want to shield their eyes if you've got children (or gamers) in the room. The lesson to learn here? Always use protection, kids—never run unverified arbitrary code.

Watch [14MB WMV]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

fistpittingnork @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Half that video was starting/ending credits, but it was neat to watch a brick sesh.

Jammie @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Emm...It says that the file cannot be found a may have expired when I click the link. Any help?

John Molina @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

I'm glad I don't run arbitrary code on my PSP.

Dave Zatz @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Good thing Best Buy takes returns.

jc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Isn't there a way to reflash the PSP's bios? Why can't the system files be reinstalled?

WickedP @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

jc,

It can...by Sony, for a price since you've now voided the warranty.

I like the closing caption: "One PSP was harmed during the production of this film" ...too funny

WickedP

grim.r @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

I think they are obligated to perform proper burial rites. The PSP's perennial fate should be sealed along side it's brethren with mortar into a wall.

Tom @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Those bastards, with all those poor kids out there who can't afford a PSP. There's gonna be a special place in hell for PSP murderers.

Deputy Doffoos @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

OOOHHHH NNOOOOEEEEZZZZ!!!1!!11111!

Jake McMahon @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Hahaha. That was great.

NekoTsukimi @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Two thumbs up! Great family fun~ I almost felt my heart drop thinking about $249 (plus any taxes, shipping, etc) gone down the drain in less than a second. I feel sorry for the real PSP users that were punk'd into bricking their systems XD

Keith @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

I laughed. I cried. I give it two thumbs up.

paralipsis @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Anybody else curious as to what that flash of text actually said?

I'm not so curious as to try mind you, but curious nonetheless

Jared Schwager @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

That was great. Although I would have gladly taken that PSP and sent it to Sony to have it fixed. :P

Jamie Thingbox @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Dear God!

I hope someone will come along and sell me a product to protect my PSP from arbitrary code from third parties. I wonder if F-Secure knows of anyone planning on doing that?

Dominic @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Does anyone know the source of the verb brick? Did it come about with the PSPs or before that? Wikipedia yielded nothing.

neo.cerberus @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

the text says something like "team xploit has F*cked your psp." it was on pspupdates.com a while ago, search there. My friend bricked his psp this way - I laughed so hard i cried, i told him not to run it but he did it anyway.

lupinstel @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

We use the word "bricked" because saying that something was "paper-weighted" doesn't roll off the tongue as well. It is a "brick" because now does nothing but sit there.

Rob_ @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

#13

from what i can see, it seems to read:

PSP XX 2.0 Exploits back the 2.0 firmware
Thank's to XX for the 2.0 exploit :)

(XX = unreadable)

the amount of psp's i had to brick to get that...

OTAM @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

If there were tons of games to play on the PSP then we wouldnt have this problem because people wouldnt be bothered to fucking around with homebrew and old ROMS.

I hear about tons of DS games everday but all I ever hear about for the PSP is Wipeout and GTA (which isnt even out yet).

Jen @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Is there no way to access the drive directly and put the system files back? I mean, if it's a brick you might as well take it apart and play with it...

DarkFader @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

NOOOOOO!!!
What's next? A DS bricking video?

Tom Robinson @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

What a lame attempt at a publicity stunt. Yeah it was interesting, but they obviously did it to draw attention to their little "research" firm.

Phoenixfury @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Notice that clear sheild in front of the PSP? I think this is an amazing precaution.. God forbid if the PSP exploded as it was bricked. LOL In a way I kind of wished that happened, that would have been cool!

Eric Bostrom @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

f-secure is by no means "little"

Alex @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Oh man, #17 that was hilarious. but yeah I couldn't figure out what the XX's were either.

Andy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Here's a screencap for all those trying to figure out what it says. Good luck.

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/2885/pspbrick7to.jpg

Hunty @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

I'll see you PSP bricking video, and raise you one PSP smashing video:

http://mga.sorobangeeks.com//news_pics/133/psp_cassee.mpg

today is crying fanboy day. :)X

YourTechSupport @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

How anticlimatic. I was expecting something like.
"PWN3D J00 STUP1D N00BZ LOL!!!111ELEVEN - Love, PSPhaxx0r" or something.

Not.... "Thanks to some guy for the exploit", makes it look more like someone POOCHED A DOWNGRADER and released it anyway.

Hmmmm.

tobikow @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

is it posible that sony might have realeased that program? it would make me less inclined to downgrade.

Jak @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

The next time [engadget] wants to do test and films then send me the PSP and i'll do it for you. :D
Please Im desperate for one, and have no money.

svuntcake @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

The text:

PSP IDEA 2.0 Exploit Hack the 2.0 firmware
Thanks to [illegible, maybe toa2r4o] for the 2.0 exploit :)

Larry Jones @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

i am a spammer: sales@thego2spot.com

Galley @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

That certainly was thrilling. I want 3 minutes and 20 seconds of my life back.

collegetoad @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Now...thats Amazing...bricking a PSP, whats next? Ipod?

tiuk @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Anyone else getting Sharper Image flash adds in the top left of their browser on Engadget? Using Firefox so I don't think I've been spywareowned.

Jason Anderson @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Goddammit! STOP USING WINDOWS MEDIA TO MAKE VIDEOS!

Joseph Collum @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

Man, this is seriously low...espcially who work their asses off to get hold of a PSP, well good thing I stay away from Homebrew, i recently got a White PSP and I dont wana White Brick thanks!

Meditator @ Dec 18th 2005 9:12PM

got psp model p-1000 with fw 1.5 original from sony, japan. no restriction was set to emulators, no need to downgrade, but want to get updated and then this happens (had not heard about cause owned it just for five days) now i send email to sony to get this fixed cause i did not do something illegal, i was using a "computer" which damages after upgrading fw. no, i read some threads and i guess it will be not hard to fix it cause afaik sony repairs it for money to european users ... so it seems to be a additional income for them ... but this is only cool for them not needing too much time for one... so my idea is that it boot ups and shortly accesses the memory stick. perhaps theres a way to get known what it looks for and places a boot bin/rom there which loads up a dump back to bios and, additional installs current fw. what do you think about? let me here, how far is the way done to this? every day more and more get bricked and more and more are working on that, so tell me ur experiences. i got a jap psp, have a 1.5 and 1.0 japanese dump, elf files and some ideas to script but until now coding is not my favourite so i just start up and guess out in the world are so many real crazy programming guys that this should be fixed within days??? what we are living on ONE planet if we do not help us? ;)