Right Let's Try This Again: PS3 Hypervisor Hacked

so basically its come back to him having actually not really done "much". He's e-peen proclamations of hacking the ps3 have fizzled out to getting hypervisor access in otherOS and not being able to run any kind of code? That and/or he doesnt really understand the security model of the ps3?
 
Hypervisor cracker dude said:
Losses due to piracy are incredibly hard to measure. For example, I have 3 Miley Cyrus songs in my iTunes library, but I really don't think she lost any money because of me...

Piracy in the iPhone scene bothers me for a different reason. The people who want cracked apps seem to be the biggest leeches around, ...

Also theres a big difference between a $1 app and a $60 game, which is why I think the people are like this...too cheap to spend a dollar...

Hmmmm
 
He's just a dumb kid. A really smart dumb kid. I wouldn't even call him a hypocrite, I don't think teenagers have enough of a world-view to really even be hypocritical.
 
jett said:
Anyone who read his blog and the interview can see the guy is a hypocrite.
Maybe not intentional - he sounds awfully naive as well:
hacker said:
Obviously, it must not hurt the game manufacturers that bad, or they wouldn't continue to release PC versions of games
 
Sorry for the apparent double post, but he's posted a big update.

That aside, I'll tell you what I have so far. I have added two hypercalls, lv1_peek and lv1_poke. peek reads memory in real space(including all the MMIO), poke writes it. I can also add other arbitrary hypercalls as I see fit.
Well, at the very least he'll be able to make a modchip that'll enable RSX access in Linux.
The hypervisor is complicated, it is written in C++ and is PPC, which I am not that familiar with yet. At first I was trying to add a hypercall to add arbitrary real memory to the LPAR, but it kept crashing(because I can't code), which is really annoying, because I have to wait while Linux reboots.
I'm still a bit surprised the hypervisor is written in C++. I'm tempted to say something about how he's dealing with the compiled product so the language shouldn't matter, but I know C++ uses pointers and memory allocation differently from C (makes buffer overflow attacks harder, iirc).

Some people pointed out that I have not accessed the isolated SPEs. This is true. Although as far as doing anything with the system, it doesn't matter. The PPE can't read the isolated data, but it can kick the isolated SPEs out. Decrypt the PPE binary you need using the intact SPE and save the decrypted version. Kick out the SPE, and patch the decrypted version all you want. And interesting note, by the time you get to OtherOS, all 7 working SPEs are stopped.
Still have no idea what he means by kicking the isolated SPEs out.
Despite this, I am working on the isolated SPEs now(which I can now load), because what I'd really like to do is post decryption keys here so you guys can join the fun.
Yeah, loading them's the easy part.
 
Yeah I think its clear, everyone on neogaf hates piracy. Is it thus necessary to have post after post in this thread lambasting geohot's personal views on it? Stop reading his blog, stop reading this thread and move on.

I guess I'm one of the few here who doesn't give a crap what the hell he does with his personal life if he creates a way to circumvent the retarded savegame locking and the road to XBMC on the PS3.

"You, there, you like weird fetishes? I won't have my life saved by the likes of you."

*lets go of ledge and plunges to death
 
Its just kinda sad that ultimately his "curiosity" and "need to open the platform" aren't for homebrew things but seemingly his completely naive and contemptable stance on piracy. Normally hackers avoid the issue, but I guess he's so dumb he can't see the repurcussions at all in any way.

I also love the constant whining "why isn't it ARM and an iPhone and rrrrrgh!". I think he's going to hit a brick wall if he hasn't already and then we'll see if Geohot has "the skillz" required.
 
androvsky said:
I'm still a bit surprised the hypervisor is written in C++.

Seems like the logical choice to me. What other language would IBM use?

androvsky said:
Still have no idea what he means by kicking the isolated SPEs out.

Yeah, loading them's the easy part.

He's referring to the ability of the PPE to end an isolated SPE session. The PPE can only begin and end an isolated SPE session. The reason for this limited functionality is to secure the isolated SPE as much as possible. The isolated SPE vault is also where the decryption keys are revealed. Since he's given up on the isolated SPE, he's also given up on retrieving the keys to the system and the ability to sign any code.
 
if you "know" arm opcodes, then it's really not hard to extend that to know ppc or mips or whatever. it's all risc, and very similar. also, the hypervisor "being in c++" doesn't make sense. they don't ship the code with each machine like it's javascript or something. and knowing sony's game side api's, i doubt they decided to go object oriented for their hypervisor. well i guess maybe it could be a modification of ibm code... but either way knowing the high level language the program was originally written in isn't going to be what gets him stuck. it sounds like an excuse.

i was hesitant to doubt this kid, thinking he was some sort of wunderkind, but now i'm starting to think he's in way over his head.

this attempt had received the most publicity of any hacking attempts on the ps3 so far, and if it ends up going nowhere, that's a pretty huge victory for sony.
 
diddlyD said:
if you "know" arm opcodes, then it's really not hard to extend that to know ppc or mips or whatever. it's all risc, and very similar. also, the hypervisor "being in c++" doesn't make sense. they don't ship the code with each machine like it's javascript or something. and knowing sony's game side api's, i doubt they decided to go object oriented for their hypervisor.

I've been trying to figure that out, too.
 
Ice Monkey said:
Yeah I think its clear, everyone on neogaf hates piracy. Is it thus necessary to have post after post in this thread lambasting geohot's personal views on it? Stop reading his blog, stop reading this thread and move on.

I guess I'm one of the few here who doesn't give a crap what the hell he does with his personal life if he creates a way to circumvent the retarded savegame locking and the road to XBMC on the PS3.

"You, there, you like weird fetishes? I won't have my life saved by the likes of you."

*lets go of ledge and plunges to death
Oh come on, I think we both know the reason.

Brotip: Admitting to piracy, or even arguing in favour of piracy if the mods are particularly cranky, is an easy way to get permabanned. Lots of developers and "industry insiders" on this forum, just FYI.
 
androvsky said:
Still have no idea what he means by kicking the isolated SPEs out.

I think he means stopping them. The only thing a PPU can do is 'stop' a isolated SPE. That's what I think he means by kicking it out (i.e. kicking the currently running program in the SPE out).

From the rest of his post then I'm guessing he feeds encrypted PPE code to the SPE that had its code kicked out, gets it to decrypt it and save the decrypted code out somewhere. I'm not sure how he's doing this - I don't think it's MEANT to be allowed to read any data the isolated SPE is dealing with. But again there's a difference between what's meant to happen and what does happen...maybe this has something to do with his hardware interference.

Then he's changing that code. How he's then running that code, I'm not sure. He says it's PPE code, so maybe some binaries or code modules are less rigorously checked at runtime vs others, particularly perhaps some of the ones that run on the PPE.

I dunno. Just guessing. Sounds like he's a fair bit of work still to do. I'm curious about the hardware element in this too - will it just be required to develop the hack, or will it be required to use it too? And whither OtherOS?
 
Dambrosi said:
Oh come on, I think we both know the reason.

Brotip: Admitting to piracy, or even arguing in favour of piracy if the mods are particularly cranky, is an easy way to get permabanned. Lots of developers and "industry insiders" on this forum, just FYI.
Protip: He wasnt anywhere near arguing in favour of Piracy. Don't put words into his mouth.
 
Dambrosi said:
Oh come on, I think we both know the reason.

Brotip: Admitting to piracy, or even arguing in favour of piracy if the mods are particularly cranky, is an easy way to get permabanned. Lots of developers and "industry insiders" on this forum, just FYI.

Admitting to piracy anywhere, especially one with a huge userbase that hates it is always a flamebait/idiotic maneuver.

Anyways, I guess I'm just tired of hearing the same old "geohot is a dirty pirate" and am itching badly for more juicy SPE/PPE discussion and with that in mind, everyone should ignore this post and carry on so I can learn more by osmosis (does that work through the interwebz?)

*Cue more posts about SPE isolation
 
this guy is a fluke. He wasn't the 'guy who hacked the iphone" he was 2 generations late before he showed up on the iphone scene. He release a solid jailbreak, which I used. But the iphone dev team put in much more work. I dont believe this guy coulc "hack" his way out of a wet sack. As much as I'd love a homebrew for the ps3, this is not the guy who will give it to us.
 
Dambrosi said:
Oh come on, I think we both know the reason.

Brotip: Admitting to piracy, or even arguing in favour of piracy if the mods are particularly cranky, is an easy way to get permabanned. Lots of developers and "industry insiders" on this forum, just FYI.

And so are thinly veiled accusations of piracy with no merit. Just sayin'
 
Here at my university we had a work shop (it went for 4 Months ) about the effect of piracy on the music industry. What we finally find out was, that the people who share music are part of the group who also invest most in music. While they download tracks, they heavily visit concerts and buy music DVDs for example.

For the music industry it is not easy to say everyone who downloads a song hurts the industry but the gaming industry is a whole different situation. Someone need to do some researches to find the real effects out. It isnt always as easy as it looks like.
 
obonicus said:
He's just a dumb kid. A really smart dumb kid. I wouldn't even call him a hypocrite, I don't think teenagers have enough of a world-view to really even be hypocritical.
.
 
Interesting stuff; maybe one day it will lead to a PS3 Slim with a good PS2 emulator on it and other interesting software.

If he is on to something - and it could all be a dead end - then I would expect some initial stuff around this time next year...
 
For a layman, geohot comments seem to point to a steady progress in the hacking. As much as i understand some users trying to show he isn't really close to hacking the PS3, it looks like a wishful thinking - he's one that's actively probing the system while others rely on doctuments and publicly shared information.

In short, it's looking more and more as a question of a (relatively short) 'when' rather than if.

On a side-note, can't help of feeling sort of dumb when a 20-year old has the capabilities and knowledge to hack those sort of stuff, even if he's a kind of a prodigy.
 
Truespeed said:
Seems like the logical choice to me. What other language would IBM use?

C, like most operating systems. I'm just a little surprised someone felt the need for having object orientation at such a low level.
 
androvsky said:
C, like most operating systems. I'm just a little surprised someone felt the need for having object orientation at such a low level.

Maybe 20 years ago. But, not today. C++ is as OO as you want to make it. Also, I wouldn't necessary call the Hypervisor low level as it's more of an abstraction layer masking the hardware.
 
obonicus said:
He's just a dumb kid. A really smart dumb kid. I wouldn't even call him a hypocrite, I don't think teenagers have enough of a world-view to really even be hypocritical.

He may be dumb, or as you say a really smart dumb person, but don't call him a kid. He is 20 and is in his 2nd year of college.


gofreak said:
From the rest of his post then I'm guessing he feeds encrypted PPE code to the SPE that had its code kicked out, gets it to decrypt it and save the decrypted code out somewhere. I'm not sure how he's doing this - I don't think it's MEANT to be allowed to read any data the isolated SPE is dealing with. But again there's a difference between what's meant to happen and what does happen...maybe this has something to do with his hardware interference.

Actually, according to the IBM docs, while the SPE is in isolation mode, the only real external command it can respond to is cancel. At which point, all data on the SPE's localstore is erased.

According to digital foundry, Hotz is trying to get the PPE to emulate the SPE. And since the PPE doesn't have all the protection features of the SPE, he should be able get the exposed keys from there.

Call me insane, but I don't think IBM would put the hardware keys in the PPE.
 
The_Reckoning said:
this guy is a fluke. He wasn't the 'guy who hacked the iphone" he was 2 generations late before he showed up on the iphone scene. He release a solid jailbreak, which I used. But the iphone dev team put in much more work. I dont believe this guy coulc "hack" his way out of a wet sack. As much as I'd love a homebrew for the ps3, this is not the guy who will give it to us.

He was one of the original members of the iPhone Dev Team...
 
obonicus said:
He's just a dumb kid. A really smart dumb kid. I wouldn't even call him a hypocrite, I don't think teenagers have enough of a world-view to really even be hypocritical.
Umm..i wouldnt say he's a dumb kid.. he's the one that started off the iphone hacking..the first to get it cracked and it brought us the uber sexy jailbreak that alot of us enjoy for homebrew,etc,etc

SO i wouldnt go spouting off calling people names unless you know a little history about them.. just some advice that you may benefit from in the future, son. Besides this kid probably could run circles around both you and me when it comes to code.
 
Mr.Potato Head said:
Besides this kid probably could run circles around both you and me when it comes to code.

It's almost like that's why he called him a really smart dumb kid.
 
George Hоtz said...

Ok, I figured out how to make iso loader. It will be ready in two hours.
January 26, 2010 9:24 AM

SHIT-JUST-GOT-REAL-GIF.gif


edit - posted from the fake George Hоtz account. :D :lol
 
KernelPanic said:
But but he said it's not about piracy ! :lol

Amusing that making an ISO loader is at the top of his priority list.

It's a fake 'George Hotz'.

There's at least one person masquerading as him in his own comments section...you gotta check the blogger profile links to know who you're dealing with.
 
PlayStation 3's security on the Blu-ray drive itself is (was?) pretty much untouchable and was designed to foil the kinds of attack seen on competing systems. Xbox 360 was compromised owing to the unencrypted nature of the firmware on the original DVD drives. Wii was hacked because the system itself was so similar to the GameCube that when the old hardware was cracked, the new revision fell with it. PlayStation 3 is far smarter. Not only is the drive software itself encrypted, but it's widely believed that the mandatory firmware updates can also reflash the Blu-ray drive too - even if the drive was hacked (it never has been) it would be re-secured next time you updated your PS3.

Wow, that's very smart design...

Even if the BD-ROM gets cracked (which is unlikely), it means that it will be able to run games released until a new FW update... Which reflashes the ROM again, and the crackers would need to keep up releasing cracked firmwares all the time. :lol
 
Lagspike_exe said:
Wow, that's very smart design...

Even if the BD-ROM gets cracked (which is unlikely), it means that it will be able to run games released until a new FW update... Which reflashes the ROM again, and the crackers would need to keep up releasing cracked firmwares all the time. :lol

You mean just like the PSP?
 
gcubed said:
so basically its come back to him having actually not really done "much". He's e-peen proclamations of hacking the ps3 have fizzled out to getting hypervisor access in otherOS and not being able to run any kind of code? That and/or he doesnt really understand the security model of the ps3?
Access to the RSX is a big deal IMO. That means we could have XBMC-like software running in OtherOS which could handle 1080p.
 
Lagspike_exe said:
Wow, that's very smart design...

Even if the BD-ROM gets cracked (which is unlikely), it means that it will be able to run games released until a new FW update... Which reflashes the ROM again, and the crackers would need to keep up releasing cracked firmwares all the time. :lol

This is sort of the way I saw it playing out, anyway...just like the PSP.
 
Lagspike_exe said:
Wow, that's very smart design...

Even if the BD-ROM gets cracked (which is unlikely), it means that it will be able to run games released until a new FW update... Which reflashes the ROM again, and the crackers would need to keep up releasing cracked firmwares all the time. :lol

Or you just don't update the PS3 with official patches, but hacked patches. Or update at all.
 
infinityBCRT said:
Access to the RSX is a big deal IMO. That means we could have XBMC-like software running in OtherOS which could handle 1080p.

You could have had it years ago if you'd taken the time to write it in Linux. The SPEs are quite capable of decoding 1080p streams.
 
noire said:
Eh, I gave up on piracy a few years ago and it's upsetting to me that it's a one way street. It's easier to pirate on a PC than a game console, yet my games cost $10 than the same title on a PC, plus I miss out on free map packs and the like. I love the idea of digital distribution, but the savings there aren't passed along to me. Most recently, I got burned by the fucking terrible PS3 port of Fallout 3... no demo & now that it's open, no way to get my money back from a product that is broken.

Businesses are out to make money, not to do you any favors. I don't blame the kid for having that attitude back at them. Dog eat dog and all that.

You could just sell that copy of FO3 to someone else or trade it in for store credit if you don't like it so much.
 
OldJadedGamer said:
You mean just like the PSP?

Before additional trolling, please learn the difference between BD-ROM firmware and PS3 OS firmware.
Thanks.

AndyD said:
Or you just don't update the PS3 with official patches, but hacked patches. Or update at all.

Yeah, but hackers would need to make a new BD-ROM flash for each new XMB firmware update, since XMB FW update would reflash BD-ROM as well.
So, if you don't flash you don't get to play a new game and if you flash you lose the cracked BD-ROM firmware.
Not to mention the hassle of reflashing all the time.
 
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