The first hacker to successfully jailbreak the iPhone says he has pulled off yet another modding marvel, this time penetrating the previously impervious PlayStation 3 gaming console.
The hack by 20-year-old George Hotz, aka geohot, is significant because the PS3 was the only game console that hadn’t been hacked, despite being on the market for more than three years. The feat greatly expands the functionality of the box by allowing it to run unrestricted versions of Linux and a wide range of games that are currently forbidden. The hardware and software designer told El Reg it took him five weeks to develop the hack using a combination of modifications to the console’s hardware and software.
“Basically, I used hardware to open a small hole and then used software to make the hole the size of the system to get full read/write access,” he said in an interview. “Right now, although the system is broken, I have great power. I can make they system do whatever I want.”
The first three weeks were spent trying attacks to directly access memory of the console. He eventually settled on his current approach after realizing software approaches alone were insufficient.
A dropout of the Rochester Institute of Technology, geohot said he is declining to provide details to prevent Sony from introducing changes that would stymie the modifications. But a blog post announcing the accomplishment makes clear the hack gives users unprecedented control over their systems.
[Thanks Fe]
