Vita "hacked," (PSP) homebrew on the way (not piracy)

With PSP it was interesting from a homebrew and piracy point of view because the handheld was fairly unique. Now that Vita is at a technical level essentially an uber smartphone, it will be more interesting if they can take Vita roms and put them on the inevitably more powerful android-based systems that will be out in a year or so. Prototype Android handhelds are already trickling out.

The value of rear touch becomes apparent to Sony not as a useful input method (let's face it, it stinks) but as something that no other manufacturer in their right mind would include on their hardware. So taking Vita software and running it elsewhere has a practical stumbling block.
 
A well emulated, handheld n64? That's not undesirable..

I just hope it doesn't get released until much much later into the vita's lifetime. No risks of ruining the platform for everyone else.

To anyone who wants cfs for emulators on vita, is vita really necessary to play those games or there are tons of alternatives? How many times have you played those games? Is it really necessary to hack and probably kill another device to replay them for the n-time? Or do you want to play games you don't have?
 
It would be kinda "funny" if Playstaion Mobile is the reason for the Vita getting hacked. This is the 2nd time Sony tries to bring homebrew to their system (not counting the Net Yaroze for PSX and the Linux Kit for PS2), and it would be the 2nd time that it gets abused for hacking. First OtherOS and now maybe PSM. I guess that official homebrew support has a very slim chance to evolve in the positive direction if things like this is being abused for hacking the systems.
If sony learned their psp & ps3 lesson, they'd make sure 'things like that' do not pose a fundamental vulnerability to the system, just like OtherOS shouldn't have been a fundamental vulnerability, until SCE goofed big time. Yes, perhaps somebody will be able to run a homebrew vita toolchain without paying the $100 annual PSM fee, so what? What if they don't intend to publish their work on the PSN store?

The 'leave Britney alone' mentality on these boards really needs to go. Problems of the individual platforms need to be identified, and threats and opportunities diligently recognized for what they are. So far we have zero evidence of a serious threat for vita coming from this news.
 
If it means region-free gaming/multi accounts/access to all my paid for content that's sitting idle, then fuck it I'm all in. Sony screwed the pooch on the last fw update, was the last straw, bust this thing wide open.

Same here. If I can at least get my Wipeout and Rayman Origins saved data off the unaccessible EU account on my memory card, this hack will be worth it for me.
 
To anyone who wants cfs for emulators on vita, is vita really necessary to play those games or there are tons of alternatives? How many times have you played those games? Is it really necessary to hack and probably kill another device to replay them for the n-time? Or do you want to play games you don't have?

i want to play old games on the go. and vita has all the powerrrr
 
If sony learned their psp & ps3 lesson, they'd make sure 'things like that' do not pose a fundamental vulnerability to the system, just like OtherOS shouldn't have been a fundamental vulnerability, until SCE goofed big time. Yes, perhaps somebody will be able to run a homebrew vita toolchain without paying the $100 annual PSM fee, so what? What if they don't intend to publish their work on the PSN store?

The 'leave Britney alone' mentality on these boards really needs to go. Problems of the individual platforms need to be identified, and threats and opportunities diligently recognized for what they are. So far we have zero evidence of a serious threat for vita coming from this news.
Yep, that is the question. But with pretty much all systems, there are always possible to have overlooked something. Just look at the recent Java exploit for example, and Java isnt exactly something new, still exploits are being found.

I dont think that anyone is concerned about homebrew only being possible here. It is more about what this exploit can lead to further on.


The 'leave Britney alone' mentality on these boards really needs to go. Problems of the individual platforms need to be identified, and threats and opportunities diligently recognized for what they are. So far we have zero evidence of a serious threat for vita coming from this news.
I'm not sure if you're referring to what i said, but i was actually one of the first in this thread to say that this exploit alone isnt really a threat (said it is post #101 :)).
 
Only for emulators and homebres and in this machine...well it's not really needed to be honest. And that is coming from someone who always has hacked his consoles to take advantage of the hombrew options (I miss you Xbox)


Now, if this changes some things about the vita system Im all in. Just imagine an adapter for miniSD to vita memory card :D:D:D:D:D
Or an action replay for PSX games! Yay! Psx emulaton is not complete without an action replay.

Emulators...meh. Maybe just to see how would they look on the nice screen, Im tired of emulators.


Wait...wololo posts on gaf? Awesome! good work wololo!
 
Yep, that is the question. But with pretty much all systems, there are always possible to have overlooked something. Just look at the recent Java exploit for example, and Java isnt exactly something new, still exploits are being found.

I dont think that anyone is concerned about homebrew only being possible here. It is more about what this exploit can lead to further on.
Well, so far hints are that sony have learned their lesson. Time will tell.

I'm not sure if you're referring to what i said, but i was actually one of the first in this thread to say that this exploit alone isnt really a threat (said it is post #101 :)).
I wasn't, and apologies for not making that clear.
 
Does it mean the PS Vita has been "hacked"? Well, in the pure sense of the word, yes, because this will allow some people to get the device to do something it wasn't designed for.
But if you mean, does this give people full root access, the possibility to install Android, and the possibility to pirate games, then the answer is no.

As long as PSM is 'sandboxed' (and where this exploit be used) cannot be used as an avenue to dump a rom of a game... it's ok, i guess.

But would this hurt the PSM devs more or any Indie that's interested in the platform?
 
People said the same thing about the psp emulator when we first broke into it. 9 months later, do you see any pirated Vita games around?

Again, I'm confident, Sony did a fine job securing the vita.


One important thing too, if not for "grey" hacks like this one, the whole console hacks would be handled by black hats (like what happened with dongles on the PS3).

I've seen some pretty terrible things security wise on the PSP (psn credentials stored in plain text in the flash,...). Given that the PS Vita, PS3, etc... all have, one way or another, access to my PSN account and my credit card, I'm pretty happy to see hacks being revealed, open sourced, ( and even used for game piracy!), rather than undisclosed and used by some organization in Russia or China to steal my money.

Yes, it would probably be better for Sony if those hacks were simply sent to them privately so that they could fix them and be done with it. Believe it or not, some of us have tried that, but there is no easy way to contact Sony when a security vulnerability is found in their systems (by comparison to other technology companies... here's another article I wrote on the subject: http://wololo.net/2012/04/20/big-software-companies-and-security-how-sony-should-handle-hacking/ ), and those who tried got ignored.



Quick question, do you know if the PSVita heart is a linux/bsd kernel as it was rumored some time ago?
 
I wonder if Gamecube emulation would be possible? I do not know how the hardware compares though, so I'm totally dreaming out of my ass here. But portable Wind Waker on that Vita screen sounds... so right.

Of course, I could dream bigger, but I doubt Wii emulation would be possible... as much as I'd love to play Xenoblade Chronicles on the go :p
 
I've seen some pretty terrible things security wise on the PSP (psn credentials stored in plain text in the flash,...). Given that the PS Vita, PS3, etc... all have, one way or another, access to my PSN account and my credit card, I'm pretty happy to see hacks being revealed, open sourced, ( and even used for game piracy!), rather than undisclosed and used by some organization in Russia or China to steal my money.
Just out of curiousity, how would they be able to steal your money if the info is on your PSP? Wouldnt they have to hack your PSP to be able to do that? It doesnt sound like a senario that is very likely to happen. But that said, there is no reason to store the info in plain text regardless.
 
I wonder if Gamecube emulation would be possible? I do not know how the hardware compares though, so I'm totally dreaming out of my ass here. But portable Wind Waker on that Vita screen sounds... so right.

Of course, I could dream bigger, but I doubt Wii emulation would be possible... as much as I'd love to play Xenoblade Chronicles on the go :p

Nope. Not a chance in hell. Cutting edge PCs only just manage it. Lesser machines can, but not very well.
 
Wow great news!

Now Vita sales will ramp up as all of the pirates buy units to play "backups" of the games they own *wink wink*. The few publishers that were willing to create Vita games will officially ditch the platform now, and it'll be a wasteland of nothing all so they can play rips of Vita games they downloaded off the internet!

As an added bonus we'll be able to play emulators on yet another platform! Oh, and homebrew! Can't wait to see what awesome homebrew is created!! Duke Nukem port? Quake on Vita? Wait, I can't get too far ahead here, we're just at the beginning stages, but we all know the desired end result.
 
The homebrew=piracy crowd just won't cut it out.
Do you have an example where a mainstream system that was hacked to enable emulation did not lead to widespread piracy?

Because of the history of the paper and already shipped sales I would not be green lighting anything but cheap to development ports uf I was a dev if Sony doesn't counter this somehow
 
The homebrews that are most interesting to me personally aren't necessarily emulators. What is more interesting are when things like Project M pop up. Same thing with USB loaders for Wii, region lock bypasses, mods to games, like instant text in Skyward Sword, new OS features (being able to switch accounts without formatting you memory card would be nice), universal screenshot mode, non compressed wallpapers etc.

I guess what I want to say is that what people find interesting might not necessarily be just one thing, but the hole package.

However, if you would ask me if I think that this is worth it over the negatives that would (probably) come with an open Vita. I would say no.
 
The homebrew=piracy crowd just won't cut it out.

Because it never just stops with "homebrew". Piracy is always the end result unless you can prove me otherwise.

Why can't the Pro Homebrew crowd just admit that this is what it's all about, even if they don't partake in it?
 
Because it never just stops with "homebrew". Piracy is always the end result unless you can prove me otherwise.

Why can't the Pro Homebrew crowd just admit that this is what it's all about, even if they don't partake in it?

Because if one does not partake in it then it's not what it's all about. We're not pirates here, so when making blanket statements, who are you even talking to?

Seriously I'm pretty sure you guys know full well that this shit might get you banned but get a kick out of bringing it up anyway. Oh look at yourselves, fighting the power, EXPOSING THE TRUTH, huh.


Neither the homebrew=solution to every problem of the world crowd...

I'm not part of this one. My own convenience and satisfaction is good enough.
 
Because it never just stops with "homebrew". Piracy is always the end result unless you can prove me otherwise.
You can't be serious..

Why can't the Pro Homebrew crowd just admit that this is what it's all about, even if they don't partake in it?
Oh I see now. Dumb generalizations are fun!
 
Bullshit, there are tons of emulator for smartphones and there are lots of vita and psp ripoffs to play emulators with.

Welk Touchscreen controls ans ripoff consoles tend to suck. Vita is capavle of much more. N64 is super wonky on psp und sould be no big deal for Vita. Maybe they could even make a DC one. Great controls, Screen and power
 
Wow great news!

Now Vita sales will ramp up as all of the pirates buy units to play "backups" of the games they own *wink wink*. The few publishers that were willing to create Vita games will officially ditch the platform now, and it'll be a wasteland of nothing all so they can play rips of Vita games they downloaded off the internet!

As an added bonus we'll be able to play emulators on yet another platform! Oh, and homebrew! Can't wait to see what awesome homebrew is created!! Duke Nukem port? Quake on Vita? Wait, I can't get too far ahead here, we're just at the beginning stages, but we all know the desired end result.

So much rage lol.
 
Because if one does not partake in it then it's not what it's all about. We're not pirates here, so when making blanket statements, who are you even talking to?

Seriously I'm pretty sure you guys know full well that this shit might get you banned but get a kick out of bringing it up anyway. Oh look at yourselves, fighting the power, EXPOSING THE TRUTH, huh.




I'm not part of this one. My own convenience and satisfaction is good enough.
Homebrew usually cracks the console up for the hackers who want piracy on the platform as these iso loaders are made later on based on such hacks,nothing against homebrew but it makes it easier for enabling pirated games on the platform,the already minimal software support would be mostly finished and it's a problem for the customers who don't want this also because they'll have to download several firmware updates after games become piratable
 
So what will Sony come up with to stop this. Probably future games which will require the actual firmware to be able to play them and more which will piss "normal" customers off. It will be like PS3 all over again. No thanks.
 
Yup, I'm pretty sure that stuff is banable here no? Atleast I thought that it was in the PS3 thread, accusing homebrew people of being pirates.
If you directly accuse a poster yes. I think we can all wear our big boy pants and acknowledge that historically homebrew leads to piracy and rationally discuss how this could effect the Vita without the need to ban members
 
The homebrew=piracy crowd just won't cut it out.

I think noone says homebrew = piracy.

The thing is such emulators will be used by a minority in a legitimate way (as in owning the original cart and then even dumping the ROM by yourself instead of piracy). Take a look at ScummVM for example, not an emulator, but who cares. Totally legal homebrew with lots of developers working on it even using their real names - and all of them owning the games themselves - if we didn't stick to the "no piracy/warez" and "no copyprotection removal unless the game was released officially at some point without it", we would have been shut down years ago.

Would you really say that there aren't tons of people using pirated copies of games with ScummVM? Because there are. I even saw LucasArts/Sierra collections on piratebay that also included ScummVM. It's that shameless, especially because those games cost a few bucks at most. Some of the pirates even have the nerve to post onto the forums and/or join the IRC channel and ask questions about their hacked copy including even posting BUG reports, that their hacked version of the game doesn't work. And there are lots of those. And they don't even get the hint that their stupid behaviour could shut down the whole project.

And I would say that in this case, there are maybe even more legitimate users, BECAUSE it's not a problem to insert an original CD or original floppy disc and copy the files onto the harddrive. Dumping a ROM to remain a 100% legitimate user is way more difficult.
 
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