[IP] Sony cracks down on PSP hacks
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: September 30, 2005 2:37:37 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Sony cracks down on PSP hacks
Reply-To: dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sony cracks down on PSP hacks
By Joris Evers
<http://news.com.com/Sony+cracks+down+on+PSP+hacks/
2100-1002_3-5885945.html>
Story last modified Thu Sep 29 18:06:00 PDT 2005
Sony is engaged in a tug-of-war with hackers who keep cracking its
PlayStation Portable software to unlock the device and run their own
applications on it.
The company is preparing another update to the PSP firmware to fix a
recently disclosed bug that lets hackers downgrade the PSP system
software and run their own, so-called homebrew code on the device, a
Sony representative said Thursday.
"It is not...what the device was designed for," said Patrick Seybold,
a spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment America. "We plan to deal
with this issue with the next system update." He declined to say when
that update would be ready.
Soon after Sony released the PSP earlier this year, hackers started
hunting for bugs in the software that runs the device. Flaws were
found and used to run homegrown applications, such as a PDF reader
and an FTP client, on the device. The bugs were not used to attack
PSP users.
Sony last month updated the PSP firmware to version 2.0. The update
encompassed new features, including a Web browser, but also fixed the
flaws that had been exploited by the hackers. The 2.0 update was made
available on Sony's Web site and will be included in new PSP games,
which will require the update, Seybold said.
The 2.0 release sparked a new round of hacking. A buffer overflow
flaw in the software was disclosed last week on PSP Updates, a PSP
enthusiast site. The new bug can be exploited to run code on the
device and to downgrade to version 1.5 of the firmware, according to
PSP Updates. Version 1.5 was more hacker-friendly.
Sony is not "actively going after the people doing it," Seybold said,
but the company does not advise running homebrew code on the PSP.
"Running unauthorized software will void the warranty," he said.
The PSP was released in the U.S. in March. Since then, more than 2
million units have been sold in the U.S., according to Sony. The
device is sold primarily as a portable game machine, but users can
also play movies and music, display digital photos and browse the
Internet through its built-in wireless networking.
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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