First PS3 'custom firmware' working, doesn't allow piracy

by James Ransom-Wiley on Jan 5th 2011 11:20AM

Building upon the exploits of the fail0verflow hacking troupe, a tinkerer known as "KaKaRoToKS" has got the first "custom firmware" (CFW) running on PS3. The modification can be applied to any version of the system's official firmware, including the latest 3.55 patch, and simply adds an "Install Package Files" option in the Game section of the XMB.

Importantly, this unauthorized option isn't an open flood gate for pirated games, but rather a means by which users could install signed and encrypted executable files -- in other words, "retail" .pkg files like the ones Sony uses for PSN downloads. While no current homebrew application is packaged like this (and therefore compatible with the custom firmware), it would be possible for homebrew developers to re-package their files to be installed through the CFW. (PSJailbreak offers similar functionality, DigitalFoundry explains, but as its name implies, Jailbreak allows for the installation of unsigned, unencrypted code.)

"Since the kernel is left unmodified, this means that this custom firmware is really meant for future homebrew installation, and it will not allow piracy," writes KaKaRoToKS in a blog post about the CFW. "I plan on keeping it that way."

[Thanks, Roland]

Source: KaKaRoTo's Blog
More coverage: @KaKaRoToKS [Twitter]

Tags: cfw, custom-firmware, fail0verflow, firmware, hack, hacks, homebrew, install-package-files, mod, mods, piracy, playstation, ps3, xmb

Reader Comments (150)

Why is that avatar not Goku?

@thisredengine KAKOOROOOOOOOOOOOOOOT

@thisredengine
Why is your avatar not a picture of a red engine?

@supersonic124

I'd rather have my fellow Joystiq users suffer...I mean, enjoy, a stunning photo of myself making a funny facial expression as big-boned people usually do to divert attention from my physical shortcomings.

@thisredengine

You need Freud. :)

@DigitalFortress

Freud would just tell him being breast fed as a child has led to an unhealthy sexual obsession with his mother.

I think Freud had some issues...but he might be on to something.

@thisredengine - Believe it or not, this is a real picture of me as well. I think I inherited the red hat from my mother, and the blue skin from the mail man.

@thisredengine
You may need some zooooom on your photo to maximize that suffering. All I can make out from the 50x50 pic is a guy in a blue shirt and a beard.

@thisredengine Because my nickname is 10 years old, and I don't care much about goku anymore, but I like my nickname as it is.
Also, that's a picture of me when I was a baby.. the only picture of me that I don't mind showing :p

@KaKaRoTo

Just be honest for a second, did you google yourself to get here?

@thisredengine
My profile picture is destined to be this because the joystiq comment system is so nice. I cant even make it NOT me.
P.S. cant it be up vote tiem?

@thisredengine

That was one of the funniest things I read all day.

@MrAlex
LOL, no, I've been reading all the Joystiq ps3 news for a long time :)

He says he won't allow piracy, but you KNOW someone's already figured it out.

@Gibbeynator
You fail to see the point of this release. It's to make things easier for developers. You still need to know how to sign your binary and this is a much easier way of loading it than using service mode (which is was the only way till now).

Unsigned code will be allowed when someone makes a kernel patched CFW, or a signed HEN that runs through this "CFW".

@Gibbeynator

I give it till the end of the day before someone releases an NES emulator.

@kurian2z5

You say he fails to see the point, but you're wrong. He gets it and is simply stating an additional fact.

that's good news. But probably bad news to most people who planned on doing this

@Narutogameking
This is good news (I'm assuming you're one of those hypocritical anti-piracy advocates, who downloads music and watches videos on youtube)? I'm guessing someone will create their own CFW that will allow piracy (already exists by the way) within a week.

@mywhitenoise

So I guess you're one of those judgmental holier-than-thou Joystiq users?

@Funkmaster General 'holier-than-thou' That reminds me of someone...

@Funkmaster General
I would be holier-than-thou if I was calling a pirate an "idiot", or accused them of killing the industry.
I'm a bit of a pirate myself (at the same time I own a ton of media, 45 retail games for PS3), but even when I present facts that piracy DOES NOT kill the market, I still get downvoted to hell.

@mywhitenoise I'd conjecture that you get downvoted for endorsing copyright infringement and using anecdotal evidence to support your claims. Anyone can use anecdotal evidence, that doesn't make it correct for the larger data set. As for your 45 games claim, we have only your word to take, and you have already stated you have no qualms with dishonesty. And before it erupts into a sharing != stealing debate, I'll just ask this. If you have a car would you let your entire street 'share' it, using it whenever they want, never having to ask? But leaving you with the Gas bill for all of their usage. And if they protested to locking the car because you were sick of people using it, would you then cave in to the pressure and have it remain unlocks and open to all usage?

@shatteredminds

I got that joke. Man, now I feel old :(

@shatteredminds

How long ago was that now? Damn.....
In a weird way Sprinkles kept the comments section interesting to say the least ;)

@xCameleonx

i think i might agree with your opinions, but that's a poor analogy.

@mywhitenoise
Where are the facts you claim to be presenting? All I see are ill-based opinions from someone who doesn't know shit of what he's talking about.

If piracy rates were as bad in the US as they are here in Brazil (yeah, say what you will), the industry would be non-existent.

Oh, BTW, still waiting for those facts...

To all you anti-hacker naysayers,
- - mlegh!
U
See, hardware hackers really do care!

@naginalf - Some do. Unfortunately they are few and far between.

While I have no intentions of installing it, I fully support custom firmware that doesn't allow for piracy. Nice to see some people using this type of access for legitimate purposes...

And yes, before people try to point it out, I know that some people use these hacks to make legitimate backups of games they own but for every one person who does that, there are 500 that use it for piracy to avoid paying for games.

It's unfortunate that some people will likely write similar firmware that allows for piracy which will lead to Sony releasing updates that disable all of it, even for the people that are doing nothing wrong.

@Mcmax3000
This still requires your homebrew to be signed. Instead homebrew can just be packaged in an EBOOT which will run from the XMB. This is meant for developers to make deployment easier.

@kurian2z5 - That's what this is intended for but my point is, if this guy can do this, other people can make hacks that will allow for piracy.

And when they do, Sony will release patches that will break all of them (even if temporarily before somebody re-hacks it) and unfortunately ruin it for the legitimate people as well.

@Mcmax3000

I think your missing the point, this is a root hack, so it cannot be patched, even if Sony released a patch then someone could release within the hour a modified patch which shows Sony its installed but it isn't really, there is no way of Sony fixing this problem, i am pretty sure also a patch wouldnt be able to detect anything when haclers get into the development of this stuff as it has legit signatures in the binary how can Sony tell what isn't legit and what is?, it wont ruin it for legit users as legit users will simply only have to update to play.

awesome! I really hope they make a good media center for it, something like XBMC. The ps3 media server is nice, but not everything streams properly.

@hardbread

Yes yes yes! XBMC rocked, and that ran on hardware that was POS compared to the PS3.

As soon as someone distributes a Boxee .pkg file for the PS3, we can toss out our Rokus and Apple TV boxes.

And so it begins...

@Guts

Pirated games have been possible for a couple of months now... ever since that USB dongle exploit. Unfortunately I don't think there's anything Sony can do to stop this hack. I'm sure there will be waves of bans from PSN, but the piracy will continue. But I also don't think the results we be as grave as you think.

@Guts It was never 'known to be unhackable'. It was known that nobody had yet, but also that it had never REALLY been tried. When they removed Linux support, they threw down the gauntlet. They lost.

Now it's not only hacked, it's outright broken. I really don't see how they can put the genie back in the bottle this time.

I sure didn't expect that. Kudos for this guy.

@Guts
The 360 isn't remotely affected by piracy. It seems the only ones who mod their 360s are one who don't buy games or wouldn't even own one to begin with. I just bought a PS3 now....

I stopped reading at KaKaRoToKaKSToKoKoKOkoOkokOKS

@Madgame

like a paper bag with baguettes or like a plastic bag with meat?

@Guts
PS3 has been able to play pirated games for a while. This changes nothing aside from the fact that you won't need a USB dongle anymore.

@Madgame
Maybe those are all just abbreviations of his 5 given names and his surname? Karl Kurt Roger Tom Knutterjingleheimer Schmidt?

@aristokrat
Damn you, Kurt. Couldn't think of any other "Ka" names...

thanks alot guys, now we all have to buy new consoles! keep it up hackers/scum of the earth

@oboynesquick Why in the HELL would we have to buy new consoles? You really think Sony is going to lock all their PS3s from working because 5% of the PS3s out there will be hacked?
People like you make me proud of being a pirate.

@mywhitenoise

He's talking about them releasing a PS4

@AntiSniperSpy
I full endorse the release of a PS4. Then Microsoft will have to make a better xbox, not a smaller one with a creepy HAL attachment.

@oboynesquick

As much as I think piracy is wrong, I wouldn't exactly call them scum of the earth when we have child rapists and murderers out there. I hardly think piracy is worse than that.

| 1 | 2 | 3 | Most Recent | Next 50 Comments

First PS3 'custom firmware' working, doesn't allow piracy

Reader Comments (150)

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:24AM thisredengine said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 12:32PM Leafhopper said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 12:33PM supersonic124 said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 12:49PM thisredengine said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 1:15PM DigitalFortress said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 1:48PM AmanteDuck said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 2:50PM BananaBoat said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 3:26PM Crayola Q Pants ESQ said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 3:33PM KaKaRoTo said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 6:15PM MrAlex said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 9:52PM ChuckBartowskiX said

Posted: Jan 6th 2011 12:16AM PeaTearGriffin said

Posted: Jan 6th 2011 9:21AM KaKaRoTo said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:27AM Gibbeynator said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:45AM kurian2z5 said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:49AM NaeemTHM said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 4:33PM Dustin F said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:28AM Narutogameking said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:47AM mywhitenoise said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 1:21PM Funkmaster General said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 1:55PM shatteredminds said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 2:37PM mywhitenoise said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 3:48PM xCameleonx said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 4:50PM Ashitaka said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 5:49PM joeymoto said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 7:07PM maveric101 said

Posted: Jan 10th 2011 11:53AM TheShaper said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:29AM naginalf said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:31AM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:30AM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:47AM kurian2z5 said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 12:09PM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 12:39PM hazzatori said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:31AM hardbread said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:55AM copa said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:38AM Generalguy41 said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:44AM Vidikron said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:44AM WC said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:47AM Unvrfd said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:49AM kurian2z5 said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:49AM eat it said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:50AM eat it said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:54AM Jamp said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:56AM aristokrat said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:57AM aristokrat said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 11:57AM oboynesquick said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 12:15PM mywhitenoise said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 12:38PM AntiSniperSpy said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 1:29PM MicahR said

Posted: Jan 5th 2011 1:39PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Super Joystiq Podcast 004: 38 Studios meltdown, Gravity Rush, Civilization 5: Gods & Kings, Dragon's Dogma

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW