80w ago - Today The Street (linked above) has interviewed Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer, who states that PS3 hackers have not held them back despite numerous PlayStation Network disruptions over the last year.

He believes that they were the victim of a sophisticated vendetta orchestrated by elements within the hacking community, stating it was a revenge attack, due to them going after a PS3 hacker who exploited the PlayStation 3 console. Below is an excerpt from the interview, to quote:

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Sony (SNE) has bounced back from a wave of hacking attacks on its PlayStation business earlier this year, according to CEO Sir Howard Stringer, who says that digital assaults are an occupational hazard for major firms.

“The press was on us for four days until somebody else got hacked and everyone realized that hacking is a fact of life,” he said, during a briefing event organized by The Wall Street Journal. “We took it on the chin over and over again - the problem that we have is that we were alone out there, so nobody had anything else to write about that month.”

Sony’s security travails certainly grabbed plenty of headlines. In May, the company confirmed that it was the victim of a massive denial-of-service attack, likely timed to coincide...

122w ago - Since the news first broke of Sony taking legal action against PlayStation 3 hacker GeoHot, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has now posted a report on their views of the current pending case.

To quote: "Sony v. Hotz: Sony Sends A Dangerous Message to Researchers - and Its Customers

For years, EFF has been warning that the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be used to chill speech, particularly security research, because legitimate researchers will be afraid to publish their results lest they be accused of circumventing a technological protection measure. We've also been concerned that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act could be abused to try to make alleged contract violations into crimes.

We've never been sorrier to be right. These two things are precisely what's happening in Sony v. Hotz. If you have missed this one, Sony has sued several security researchers for publishing information about security holes in Sony's PlayStation 3. At first glance, it's hard to see why Sony is bothering...

123w ago - Update #5: According to ArsTechnica via Groklaw, GeoHot and Sony now share same charge as a result of a PS3 OtherOS class-action lawsuit.

To quote: "One of Sony's defenses is rather interesting, as the company claims that it had no way of knowing gamers who bought the hardware would want to use these functions for the life of the system, and the multiple warranties and Terms of Service all said that Sony had the right to remove functions from the hardware."

Update #4: The latest documents reveal Judge Susan Illston has denied Sony's request for expedited discovery, essentially meaning Sony can't send out the subpoenas to other PS3 hackers mentioned previously, however, Wired reports Sony is now preparing to inspect GeoHot's hard drive.

Update #3: GeoHot...

174w ago - The PS3 is hacked, at least according to George Hotz on his latest blog entry (linked above)!!!

This news comes just under a month after he resumed PlayStation 3 hacking!

To quote: "Hello hypervisor, I'm geohot

I have full 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. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me.

Took 5 weeks, 3 in Boston, 2 here, very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.

Shout out to George Kharrat from iPhoneMod Brasil for giving me this PS3 a year and a half ago to hack. Sorry it took me so long

As far as the exploit goes, I'm not revealing it yet. The theory isn't really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can't post dumps. I'm hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone's KBAG.

A lot more to come..."