PS3 hackers make Modern Warfare 2 'unplayable,' Infinity Ward cannot patch a fix

@Guts
Seriously I hope all these bastards get caught, banned, and fined.
Geohotz may not approve of piracy but he opened the door to all this shit at the expense of the entire community. At the very least I hope he get's his house TP-ed or something.

@Guts More like, thanks Infinity Ward.

You'd think they'd have learned to not do that after all the hacking in MW1.

@tenacioustoaster

Let's all remember that Sony started it by removing the OtherOS option.

@fischju

sony deserves their whole system to be hacked because some guy wanted another operating system on a console? the 5 er so steps to his home computer is that hard? imagine the time spent on his OS on his computer just to hack it. Other OS isnt necessary

@fischju yeah and why did Sony remove the OtherOS feature in the first place?

@fischju Sony had every right to do that. It's their operating system. They just grant you a license to use it. That does not include modifying it.

@tenacioustoaster
'All these bastards' goes a bit far don't you think? fail0verflow didn't do anything wrong, they only were working on a way to run linux (without hypervisor) when Sony disabled it. GHotz didn't think that was enough, so he went as far as posting the metldr key. Which wasn't even needed at all for homebrew purposes

@Doctor Otis

NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOO.... This issue is not one of piracy, TRUST ME (or not) IW does not want to patch the PS3, THATS the issue. The 360 has the same if not more piracy then the PS3. Never mind that though, Call of Duty 4 was also "hacked" and MW2 is no different, it used to be as simple as copying your save data and using a Hex editor. I don't know how it is on MW2 but there were always glitchers and modders in Call of Duty games even before the jailbreak.

trust me when i say no one wants to punch Geo in his face for making the PS3 go the PSP route (lets hope not) but this issue CAN be fixed by IW, but they won't.

i know i sound like a conspiracy theorist but IW was never really fond of Sony or the PS3, i think they just don't want to spend hours fixing this issue. Whos left in IW anyways??

@fischju Remember that Geohot started hacking the PS3 before other OS was removed. This is easy to remember because otherOS was removed IN RESPONSE to Geohot's linux hack.

@Guts

Hey _ you. The Xbox had homebrew available and it was some of the most useful things you could do on any device. Look where XMBC took everything in the way of settop boxes. Oh by the way, I don't remember Halo 2 on the Xbox 1 having this issue.

@tenacioustoaster PSN screen name: siik1 is one of them

@tenacioustoaster
you know what you just gave me a ideal of what im going to do today.
*Grabs 8 rolls of toilet paper*

@chromekreeper

I love these "just use your PC" comments in regards to OtherOS.

Does your PC have a Cell processor? If not, it doesn't do you much good in learning to code for a Cell, does it?

What if Sony pulled the Blu-Ray functionality? Just get a Blu-Ray player. They're cheap. They're right there. How about they pull the streaming functionality, or the MP3 playback? Just use your PC. It's right there. Forget what they sold you when you dropped your $300-$600 on the counter. Just use your PC.

Why even have a PS3 at all? You can play games on your PC. It's right there. Sony should just make their games run on a PC.

Oh, but they gave us all the great free updates and new features! Great stuff like 3d games and movies, which, while pretty cool, is probably utilized by a far lower percentage of PS3 owners than was OtherOS. Of course, you can't sell $2000 TVs with Linux.

Gee, why should people want to add *more* functionality to the machines they purchased? Hm... even though Sony and MS want to try to pitch their boxes as living room be-all-end-alls. Oh, they just want it to be on *their* terms.

And BTW, Geohot didn't go after the PS3 until *after* the slims were released, which *didn't* have OtherOS. It was only after that that Sony pulled OtherOS from the fats. Get your timelines straight.

@tenacioustoaster
Ironically, piracy is the least of Sony's worries. GO FIGURE.

Seriously, these hacks will hurt so much more than simple piracy ever could. They're basically taking out an entire genre (FPS) that heavily rely on online multiplayer. Ironically, this is also the most popular genre this generation and one of if not the biggest money maker of all genres.

Yet, somehow, I'm sure people will lose focus and blame Piracy first, when it's probably among the last reasons as to what may kill the PS3.

And this again points to what makes people's stupidity on the threat of piracy so dangerous. It is not the #1 threat. I mean, this will definitely make Sony want a super secure system in the future but if they focus more time on DRM and piracy fighting measures, shit like this will be overlooked again and potentially ruin another platform all because they didn't want to lose maybe 10% of their sales due to piracy. When this could cause far more damage if every game that is a money maker gets destroyed by hackers and is thus overlooked. Decreasing the userbase.

This is definitely going to give the homebrewers less to crow about. Emulators that aren't any better than their PC counterparts aren't worth this by a long shot. And all hombrew games are not worth this by a long shot.

@fischju

"Sony started it"

That'll hold up in court.

@PR0F3TA
Exactly. MW2 got hacked LONG before there were any talks of a PSJailbreak or some GeoHot guy. I'm sure both the PSJ and GeoHot would have something to do with it NOW, but MW2 got hacked ASAP. All COD games get hacked.

Seriously, go to any forum for MW2 like a year ago and look for "Prestige 10 lobbies". People actually paid money to have someone Prestige 10 hack them. That's why I quit playing MW2 a while ago. I liked it a lot, but I didn't want to run the risk of having my stats deleted.

Although, it is a little pathetic that they are blaming this all on the PS3's security and not on how they designed their games. The fact that all of these hacks, AND MORE, were around since before the PSJ and GeoHot cracked the system, should just prove that these guys are looking for someone to blame.

@chromekreeper
Neither is Modern Warfare 2 necessary then. To deny an option is to deny choice outright in this situation.

Honestly, if some small MP game got hacked as a result of this, you wouldn't bat a lash. But it's big bad Modern Warfare 2. And that's the intention! Hackers always go after the big fish, especially ones that have a weak structure. Modern Warfare 2, with over a billion in sales, is Moby Dick the Whale. Who wouldn't want to exploit that?

Furthermore, how dare you blame Geohotz and fail0verflow for the cheaters. Cheaters will always look for a way to cheat. Why go after those who merely open the door, when these people who seek that opening are the real parasites? You sound like a bunch of Saudi Muslims who blame the rape victim because she was dressed "provocatively." Shame on all you.

@PR0F3TA

Yeah, it's ok for them to collect the money for the ps3 version but when it comes to actually supporting the title, they're at the beck and call of Microsoft...even though the title costs the same on both platforms.

@Guts
Actually, End_User, GeoHot was working on PS3 hacks long before the Slims even dropped. he announced shortly after iPhone fell to him that he would be going after PS3. He got, by hacking, the system to run a backdoor version of Motorstorm, aka, Piracy. As in "I can run a backed up game guys!" That's when the door was shut, not before.

This revisionist history that the hackers have come up with is hilarious. Especially since the timelines y their own accounts just don't match.

As for removing the OtherOS feature, turn back the clock for yourself a bit. Sony never said they were shutting the systems out completely, instead they said by using PSN, players agree to terms and services. Those things you SHOULD read, provided your stolen software continues to have them anyway. Under those terms, you accepted the removal of the OtherOS. You could always deny, of course, retain use of other OS, but you forfeit your rights and access to PSN.

So now that we're here, and you're defending this, I do have to ask if you're proud of what's happened? The entire point of this was actually opening back up the system to run homebrew. The result, however, denies the rhetoric given. I'm seeing a whole lot of stealing (emulation), a whole lot of cheating (trophies, MW2), and a whole lot of, well... nothing else. The true intentions are laid bare before us and it's all been lies.

@Guts Infinity Ward contradicted themselves in their own statement. They placed the blame on consoles saying they relied "solely on platform security" but Treyarch still felt the need to add anti cheat tech to the console versions of Black Ops? Because they didn't see all the hackers IW had on COD4 and MW2, right? Why would they need to add that technology if it's the consoles responsibility?

They even admitted having the same problem with the 360 long before the PS3 was breached and did nothing about it. Its their own stupidity for thinking that consoles were unhackable. Let the record show that pointing fingers is how these guys support their products. Activision and whatevers left of Infinity Ward are a joke.

@Tiptup300
In terms of cheating Halo 2 was one of the worst affected games back in 2006, Bungie built a system to deal with it and the problem subsided.
The problem here is that IW has no intention of putting in the time to fix the system.

@Guts

"Games rely on the security of the encryption on the platforms they're played on," Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling explained on the game's official forums."

Horseshit. MW2's servers were hacked almost immediately upon the game's launch, long before the PS3's security keys were leaked and people gained the (speculatively, I might add) ability to run unsigned/homebrew code. To blame Sony for issues that have been prevalent almost since day one (literally within the first week of launch) while having simultaneously done nothing to provide a fix since then (despite god knows how many players bringing it to their attention) smacks of an unforgivable amount of arrogance. To make Bowling look like an even bigger finger-pointing douche than he already is, he seems to be conveniently forgetting that the Xbox 360's security measures were completely bypassed in 2007; people have been able to run a wide range of unsigned code/unauthorized software on the system (everything from homebrew code to the latest Ubuntu distro) and, to this day, the smarter ones are able to do so without getting popped by Xbox Live. Every hack and flaw the PS3 port suffers from can also be found on its 360 brother but, for some reason, only the PS3 gets the blame. To add even further insult to injury, he's using the, "We can't fix it" line which is, essentially, "We knew about the problem before the game went gold, we couldn't give a rat's ass to fix it then, and we're not going to spend any money fixing it now." I'll get ghosted for saying it, but stuff like this makes me glad Activision gutted that studio and relegated it to a map-making skeleton staff.

@tenacioustoaster

That's rediculous. That's like saying it is your second amendments fault for the shootings in Arizona.

@Nero6 In other words:

"We don't have the team we used to, you know the guys who coded the game, so the few of us that are left can't patch anything into it. Maybe we can add the source code to our list of things we're suing the old Infinity Ward for." -Infinity Ward

@SheppyReturns
"He got, by hacking, the system to run a backdoor version of Motorstorm, aka, Piracy. As in "I can run a backed up game guys!" That's when the door was shut, not before."

What a stupid statement. Please provide a source. AFAIK, Geohot never used a "backdoor copy" of Motorstorm to hack the PS3 (wtf is a backdoor copy anyway). Also, Geohot is not bound by the PSN terms as he never used an account (it is not required). Check his court docs.

@Nero6 Dammit, why can't I upvote you higher! Also, there are hackers on the PC versions as well and a friend of mine was hit with a level reset on MW1.

@Guts honestly I can't even play mw2 any more. Every game Is a hacked game. I know that before there was hacked games but now its out of control! EVERY SINGLE GAME IS HACKED! I got my all my stuff taken away at least my ac130 eblem stays because I was using it when the guy did it. Oh and don't tell me to go play black ops I have that game. it sucks balls! good thing littlebigplanet 2 comes out tomorrow so that way I have some other game to play. I think all the hackers should have somthing done to them. this is ridiculous. I say terminate their systems. Sue them. Do what every you have to do to stop them! Those of you who say do not blame the hackers, hell yeah I am gonna blame them! nothing good was gonna happened by them posting the code online. It is also all the blogs fault for telling people where the code was!

@SheppyReturns

Haw! "Revisionist history..." Perhaps you can provide some reference for Geohot running a pirated Motorstorm. I think some other hacker may have pulled it off a while back, but it wasn't Geohot.

Geohot completed/released his first hardware exploit last January. The slims came out in Sept '09.

And yes, I'm aware of what the EULA says, which is, effectively "You can choose to either use one feature we sold you, or another feature we sold you. You can't use both features that we sold you." The whole "rights and access to the PSN" is a steaming load of BS, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together should know that. You don't only forfeit your use of the PSN, but you forfeit the use of ANY GAME that requires a firmware above 3.21. I'd love to see a catalog of all games and which firmwares they require. I'd guess that choosing to retain OtherOS means you can't play 90%+ of the games released over the last year. I'd wager that there are a few Blu-Ray movies you can't watch, either.

Am I "proud" of what happened? Well, I'm not a hacker, so I don't know what I'm supposed to have done for which I should be "proud." I am encouraged by some of the developments, yes. It will be nice to see what CFWs can accomplish. A better browser would be nice. Not having my PS3 return "unsupported content" on random WMV videos would be nice. Cloud gamesaves would be nice. And I've got two PS3s, so honestly, yeah, being able to buy one copy of a game and not have to pop it out when I want to change rooms, or be able to play "local" MP on games that don't support it would be nice as well.

The results don't deny the rhetoric. Neither Geohot nor fail0verflow have enabled backups/piracy in their releases. Other hackers have built on their work to accomplish those things. You say you've seen this and that and "nothing else." Just goes to show that you haven't paid attention, and are just providing knee-jerk reaction, since fail0verflow has in fact demonstrated Linux running on a slim, and hasn't really put anything out since then.

Maybe next we can blame Alexander Graham Bell for the NSA tapping everyone's phone calls.

@Potat4o

"Also, Geohot is not bound by the PSN terms as he never used an account (it is not required). Check his court docs."

Ahahahaha... I know... I love that part!

Sony: You can't do that because it says so in our PSN EULA.
Geohot: Well, I don't have a PSN account and never agreed to your EULA.
Sony: ...

Another amusing note about the EULA... in the section about hacking their security measures, some notes:

"8.You must not bypass or attempt to bypass any user authentication systems or security feature or attempt to hack or reverse engineer any code or equipment IN CONNECTION WITH Sony Online Services"

So if you're not connected to the PSN, THERE IS NO EULA RESTRICTION ON HACKING.

(after section 8, noted above): "(unless permitted by applicable law)."

That's right... LAW trumps the EULA. The EULA IS NOT a law. As to whether or not there is "applicable law," well... the jury's still out on that one. Well, no... the jury hasn't convened, because the presiding judge put a temporary kibosh on Sony's lawsuit.

"2.modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any Service or part of any Service (unless permitted by applicable law);"

"Service" refers exclusively to the PSN and PSN-provided content. If you're not messing with the PSN, the EULA DOES NOT APPLY.

@End User

You use the browser on PS3? Interesting. Masochist.

@fischju Geohot is the reason sony removed other os support.... don't blame them.

@Guts Geohot is absolutely a self-serving, attention-seeking tool that has done untold harm to PS3 gamers, and while I don't think he deserves jail time for what he's done (that'd just turn him into a disillusioned and violent self-serving, attention-seeking tool) he should definitely be the subject of disapproval by gamers.

However, as has rightly been pointed out, the hacking on PS3 MW2 was well out of control within days of its launch, and was a mess well before Geohot released his code on the web. IW's lack of commitment to their game is the issue here - plenty of other PS3 online games (SOCOM, MAG, Warhawk, KZ2) have been successfully patched to prevent exploits and cheaters. I'm not surprised, given IW's parent company's focus on profits over providing a quality service.

@PR0F3TA - Anyone that has been playing popular FPS games online on the consoles for years can bear witness to the massive cheating that has always occurred. There was cheating before the PS3 was hacked, and there will be cheating after (obviously). I don't think the PS3 has been hacked long enough at this point for anyone to know for sure if the hack has been a factor in any anecdotal increase in cheating seen on the platform.

I'll never forget the first time I played with a cheater on a console. It was Halo 2, on the original Xbox, and the cheater had somehow modified a game so that the opposing team started hundreds of feat in the air (with lower grav to keep them from falling too fast) and he started on the ground with a sniper rifle. I'll bet the cheater had all sorts of fun. I didn't though.

@Doctor Otis

or play Black Ops, which does "not rely solely on platform security"

That statement proves they can fix this issue. But why should they spend money when they already have your money?

@Guts Geohotz didn't enable hacking/piracy. Those who further delved into the jailbreak did.

@CrimsonRyan i agree with you, i don't really think its sony's fault. I think that IW is just trying to blame it on sony and even if there was something they could do to fix mw2 im pretty sure that they would not fix it, i mean for how long did robert bowling say that he was working on a patch for OMA and what happened to that patch. Just think about that

@End User

"Maybe next we can blame Alexander Graham Bell for the NSA tapping everyone's phone calls."

Oh SNAP!

@yakapo codblops was made by Treyarch, and IW always seemed snooty and reluctant about sharing technology, and especially now that nearly all the key staff is gone, Treyarch probably didn't share that with them

@Mmmmz

The solution to that is a simple one. Console developers will simply have to become as savvy as PC developers at guarding the on-line portions of their games. They never should have expected a free pass on that in the first place.

@oJMan240o

For one, I'm not claiming anyone bought a PS3 "solely" for other OS.

Second, if one were a software developer that was interested in learning to write code for a Cell processor, I'd like to know what you would proffer as a more affordable solution to acquiring a Cell-based system on which to work.

Third, OBVIOUSLY removing OtherOS didn't help them very much in keeping their system from being hacked.

Before OtherOS removal: an obscure, unreliable hardware hack (meaning Geohot actually had to solder leads from a pulse generator into his PS3) that had incredibly limited functionality.

After OtherOS removal: Relatively simple jailbreak dongle, followed by an incredibly simple, software-only hack that busted everything wide open.

As for the rest of your comment, it really goes to show how pathetically immature so many people are that complain about Geohot's work. "Wah wah... somehow, some way, Geohot's unlocking of the system somehow damages me... but not really... by maybe, possibly, hypothetically enabling an environment in which maybe, possibly, somehow, but not really, developers won't make as many little vidja-gameys for me to play with... therefore immense physical harm should be visited upon his person."

What a bunch of pathetic children.

@DimensionWarped
Savvy as PC developers? There is not a big name online PC game ever that isn't full of cheaters. In under 10 or 15 minutes you can easily have a working undetected cheat going for any game.

@jackal
Wrong. The Xbox and PS3 hacks are two very different things. You can't modify a game and play on xbox live. There may be glitches in games, but you don't need modded hardware to exploit a glitch. The only known "cheat" on xbox live is a lag-switch, and that one is used on all platforms.

It appears that the Sony hacks are letting people modify game code or execute commands to the server. This is not the case on xbox live.

@xreadmore

No, they aren't two entirely different things; one might use a mod-chip and the other relies on leaked security keys (no one has been successful producing a PS3 modchip), but they both require custom firmware, same amount of effort to implement, and ultimately yield the same end result. People have been able to run their own unsigned code (namely, aimbots and server hacks) on the 360 version of MW2 while using Live and they've had that capability within the first week of the game's launch. The only two reasons we're not hearing of it "making the game unplayable" is that A) Live! will outright blacklist a console the very moment it detects unauthorized software (doesn't matter if it's a hack, aimbot, unauthorized game copy, or a modified version of Ubuntu) and B) the vast majority of people who do run unsigned code on their Xbox don't go through every necessary step to remain undetected. Getting an Xbox 360 to run a bootlegged game or homebrew software is a difficult affair but few people are willing to dedicate the time and effort necessary to constantly stay ahead of Microsoft's security measures.

@Guts

One of the few intelligent replies here.

@Guts Correction: It's "GeoHot" AKA George Hotz.

@fischju

Bullshit. I hate the loss of the OS options, but Sony was forced to do that to defend against hackers. Because they removed that, while sucking, it doesn't not warrant more hacking.

@fischju do you remember why Sony removed the Other OS? Because GeoHotz started poking around with it and hacking it to access the whole PS3. This is all Geohotz fault from the very beginning

@Maverick128 That's like saying "Yeah. You can have a PC, but you can only have Windows 98"