Hackers claim discovery of PS3 'private key,' enabling unauthorized code [Update]
by JC Fletcher 
on Dec 29th 2010 1:30PM
During the ongoing
Chaos Communication Conference 27C3, the
hackers responsible for the Wii's Homebrew Channel, calling themselves fail0verflow, gave a presentation in which they claimed to have figured out the "private key" used by Sony to authorize code to run on retail PS3 systems. This means, as a
PSX-Scene forum post puts it, giving a hacker "full control of the PS3 system," without the use of a
USB device.
The group will explain more when its
website launches, and also plans to show a
demo tomorrow at the conference. This hack is designed not to enable PS3 game piracy (though it might have that effect) but, according to a
tweet by fail0verview, to enable Linux to run on all PS3s, "whatever their firmware versions."
Update: Find video of the full presentation after the break, courtesy of
PSGroove.
[Thanks, Liam]
