XeNTaX

Okay, I'm sure everyone and their cat have read about GeoHot (George Hotz of iPhone fame) having hacked the hypervisor on the PS3 (the details are a bit more technical but it's basically a first step to running unsigned binaries on the PS3)
[Note: if you haven't heard it yet, just google for GeoHot and PS3]

Obviously we're still a few months away from "practical" uses (i.e. actually loading unsigned binaries or backup ISOs) but I was wondering what people hope will come from this.

I, personally, don't care for ISO loaders (I earn enough money to by an original game every once in a while), but what I'd really want to be able to is run an unrestricted version of Linux (i.e. with hw-accelerated video) on my PS3, since I use it as a media center and I'm kinda annoyed that I have to re-encode almost every video I'm streaming to it (it happens on the fly but it still has some rather annoying problems associated with it)

However, what is more relevant here at XeNTaX is that I'd really like to hack away at the graphics/sound files for all those PS3-Games that I have. Too bad that this is probably one of the last things that will come from this project, as hacking the disk encryption keys is not really required for running an unsigned executable, but I can be patient

Oh, and of course the Demoscene could also hugely benefit from this hack, seeing what groups like Plastic can do with the full power of the PS3 ("Linger in the Shadows")

What do you think?
-Darkstar

Well it is now August and buyers of that new PS Jailbreak USB device are reporting that it does work. Now I don't care for the piracy that this thing obviously enables, but it has other really interesting features. Mainly, it supposedly enables unsigned code to be run on the PS3 (homebrew) and it allows PS3 games to be run from the hard drive. If true, then once build toolchains start becoming available it might be possible to write programs to dump the decrypted contents of bluray disks, discover encryption keys, and run modified disk images allowing for customized games. With this, we would now be able to reverse PS3 games! These games probably have little to no protection on their archives due to relying on the encryption all games were provided with. Personally, I can't wait to dig into Metal Gear Solid 4; such high quality content just waiting to be extracted.

Anyway, all of this is based on the assumption that the device really works which seems to be the case for now.

All disc protection and exe protection is removed in th ebackup process.
this still leaves any protection th edevelopers may have used like in metal gear solid 4 they encrypted all file headers.
So getting access to these is possible now and reversing the ee's on th eps3 can begin.

Yep, can't wait to dive into this.

This is better news
http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Hacks/Fail0v ... -by-geohot