14 DAY TRIAL // Hardware developer and video game publisher Sony is actively working to limit the availability of custom firmware that was developed for the PlayStation 3 home gaming consoles and to eliminate information that shows how the device can be hacked.
Github, a site which allows programmers to share code, recently received a notice from the company that says a number of custom firmware files should be removed because Sony had a “good faith belief the files circumvent effective access controls and/or copyright protection measures.”
The notice was delivered on January 27 and one day later a judge issued a temporary restraining order against George Hotz, aka Geohot, one of the hackers that worked on cracking the protections of the PS3 alongside another group, 0verflow.
Sony has moved against some sites, but information on how to eliminate the protection of the PlayStation 3 is still widely available on the Internet and there are also custom firmware builds that allow users to run their own programs on the Sony platform.
The breach in the security of the PS3 means that anyone can create content for the device and then sign them using codes from Sony, making the user created stuff impossible to distinguish from official releases coming from the publisher.
Sony has already released new firmware for its main console designed to limit the security exploits, but it seems that the most recent package has already been hacked.
Sony fears that the breach could lead to widespread piracy and that it will make publisher less willing to deliver games on it.
Recently, developers from Infinity Ward suggested that the security breach could lead to widespread cheating in competitive multiplayer games like Modern Warfare 2 or Black Ops.
Geohot has argued that his efforts were aimed at trying “to enable homebrew without enabling things I do not support, like piracy.”