Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 26, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
After more than three years, Sony’s PlayStation 3 has been completely hacked for the first time. At least that is what 20-year-old hacker George Hotz claims on his internet blog at http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/. The hacker, who operates under the pseudonym “geohot”, has made a name for himself on the web with, among other things, the first iPhone jailbreak and is currently also responsible for a free software solution that can unlock the iPhone 3GS and its predecessors in a few seconds.
Five weeks of work
“I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software,” Hotz says in his post, which spread across the web at lightning speed. According to his own information, he was able to crack the console in just five weeks with the help of simple hardware and more complex software. Hotz believes that the vulnerability found cannot be closed by Sony with a simple update, but gives the company credit for having created a genuinely secure system.
“Particularly in the field of game consoles and devices such as the iPhone, hacking represents an interesting phenomenon. This is because the community behind it generally does not pursue hacking for dishonest motives such as illegal software distribution. Rather, it happens out of the understanding that the technological possibilities of the devices should be freely usable by everyone,” says Matthias Bärwolff of the Computer Science and Society department at TU Berlin in an interview with the pressetext.de news service.
Hackers see themselves as morally in the right
Such hackers see themselves as morally in the right and are also convinced that they are not violating legal principles, Bärwolff continues. Hotz also communicates this view, repeatedly pointing out on his Twitter account, for example, that he does not endorse piracy and consequently does not carry out hacks for that reason.
For companies, dealing with the hacker scene is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, for example, Apple leaves no stone unturned in patching discovered iPhone vulnerabilities with software updates and officially portraying hacking activities as illegal. At the same time, Apple also gives the impression that it repeatedly allows popular functions and applications from the jailbreak community to flow into the official further development of the iPhone’s software after a delay.
“The jailbreaking community is certainly an interesting way for Apple to find out what is currently popular with users and what is worth adopting, provided the company’s contractual and strategic restrictions allow it,” Bärwolff also tells pressetext.de.
