Mathieulh`s Interview about PSP Hacking Scene

***wraggster*** · April 18th, 2010, 11:54

ThreeDog's interview with Mathieulh talks about dark alex and the psp hacking scene

if anyone has a link to the real source please post,i got this from a site who never source (so i wont them)

Personal:

1: It seems introductions could be needed so please if you will tell us a little about yourself and how you came to find yourself working on devices such as the PSP.

My name is Mathieu Hervais, I am 24, I am currently a student in computer sciences. As of how I came to be working on the psp, I have always been interested in video game consoles in an engineering perspective, I like knowing how such devices work and how they have been designed, especially their security. I have started taking a look at the psp when I first bought mine back in 2005/2006 back in Japan, I already planned on purchasing one prior to making the trip there and I had already taken a look at ps2dev forums back then, I was pretty excited about getting my hands on the unit and once I did I wasn't disappointed, there were already a bunch of released emulators back then and the sdk was already impressive, I found myself playing for a little while until I wondered how everything worked (there was still little known of the kernel at the time or the updating procedure) I believe that's how it started for me.

2: How would you personally define yourself or what you do, Are you a Programmer, a Coder, a Hacker, a Reverse Engineer or do you prefer another title?

I don't think I ever really thought about that, as far as I am concerned, you can call me however you like xD, I have done my share of reverse engineering, coding or hacking, so I guess all the terms apply.

3: What would you say has been your greatest achievement within the console/programming scene and why?

I am not sure there is one great achievement, it is more like a succession of achievements and to be honest nothing would ever had been achieved without the work and help of countless other developers whom I thank for their contribution to the scenes I have been involved with. I am no better than another, we have all achieved something and all contributed to bringing the scene to another level.

As of the projects I have been involved with, I would say Pandora from the Prometheus group was the most impressive of them. (though again it would never have been achieved in the first place without the previously acquired knowledge regarding the psp system in the first place, nor without the tremendous efforts of other prometheus members.

4&5: what's in the future for Mathieulh?

There is nothing planned for the time being, I have been involved with the ps3 for a little while now though.

PSP Related:

6: (combined): The mystery of M33 - Speculation is rife among the community and the biggest questions are: What happened with M33? What is Dark_Alex doing/Where is Dark_Alex? and can we expect future collaborations from M33, former or existing members of the team?

M33 pretty much disbanded considering Adrahil and I left the group a few months ago. Alex has for now stopped coding on the M33 custom firmwares (or having any involvement with the psp scene), There is no telling when/if he will ever resume his work (at least as far as the psp is concerned).

7: In the past you have mentioned the Utopia project, A kernel dedicated to homebrew, presumably a low memory footprint and the inability to run Sony code. Can you confirm Utopia's ongoing development? What is it's current status? Can we expect to see anything soon. Do you have anything to say to our members about Utopia? (Personally interested here as well)

Utopia has been a project I had a lot of hopes for, the idea was audacious, sadly for now it has not really come to life. As for what happened to it, initial work was provided (and is currently available at the utopia svn in : https://svn.lan.st/utopia ) but due to the extensive amount of work required to have it operational for end users, we chose to open this project and ask for the support of the community (especially as the project was meant to be open sourced in the first place), yet despite our calls and the initially provided work, no one stepped up to help, this really increased or lack of motivation and we put a stop to it, the sources remain available still and anyone who wishes to join and contribute to this project can send me an email or pm me on lan.st and I will be glad to grant them credentials and access to the svn.

8: Where do you see the PSP scene heading now, Does it have a future to come or has it had its day?

I believe it had its day, a future revision of the playstation portable hardware is likely in the making as we speak, perhaps it may renew the interest to the scene but I can't tell for sure. Right now though the psp scene doesn't look like it is going to get further at this point.

9: Are you working on a Custom Firmware personally which is intended for release?

Not at all.

10: A member asks if OFW 6.10/6.20 have already been 'hacked' with an unreleased HEN and/or if anyone has gained full hardware access yet?

There is an existing 6.20 HEN but it has not been released (and isn't planned to be released) for various reasons which I wont detail here.

11: RE: Your current status. Member Signa asked: What is your current status within the PSP scene, Are you taking a break, Working silently and he'd like to know what to anticipate from you in the future (The question also applies to Dark_Alex i guess)

I can't speak for Alex in that matter but as far as I am concerned I am pretty much done with the scene, at least when it comes to releases. I am still involved at some point through the lan.st forums or while talking to contacts I have that are still involved in the psp scene.

12: What was it like to be a part of team C+D working on the 'Prometheus project' and release something as revolutionary as Pandora?. Can we expect more developments in this area for PSPs that were blocked from using this functionality?

Well being involved in Prometheus is really a one of a kind experience, I was very lucky and greatful to be involved in it in the first place, the group gathered a lot of great minds and it's been really nice working with them all.

I do not think we can expect service mode on the later psp models unless we start getting more involved and doing things such as decapping the Allegrex R4000 CPU to dump the kirk engine. This is sadly an expensive procedure which we do not have the money nor the time to dedicate for right now.

13: Are you working with team GEN? What is your opinion on their work and do you think we'll see a 6.xx firmware from them soon?

I am not working for team GEN, I do not know nor can tell wether they plan on releasing a newer firmware neither when it will be released. Regarding their work I can say it's impressive and they have a couple of talented developers working on their end. I can't say that either GEN or M33 are more stable than one another, I believe them to be at roughly the same level, (though M33 is no longer updated at the moment) It has been however harder to code the M33 patches from scratch in the first place than getting them through reverse, but would it had been us, we may have just done the same so it isn't like I can blame them, beside if you can reverse our work, you can most likely reproduce it and bring in your own inovations in the process.

14: Can you port POPSloader to GEN for us?

Not a chance.

15: You have been fairly 'vocal' on developments with the PSP Go! Do you feel there is a future for this device? Have Sony found the correct strategy to lock out homebrewers? Do you think its just a matter of finding the correct game for the correct purpose to open the GO like previous PSP models?

Sony had a nice concept with the pspgo, the problem is they have done huge marketing mistakes on the device, they went for an all digital policy which in all of the places, would never have worked in Japan (Japanese gamers are collectors, they like having manuals, covers and discs) where the psp was going the strongest. Then they privileged the Japanese psp store content, while the other regions didn't have half the titles (including psx ones) the japanese store did, not to mention a lot of games such as for instance outrun, are unavailable on the playstation store, which means that you can't even play it on the pspgo, I do not believe it to be a good idea to release an all digital platform without the ability to back it up.

I do not think homebrewers will ever truly be locked out, the psp go is yet another psp and there are lots of hacked psp devices in the wild. The psp go is certainly more challenging in the sence that you can't really use public game exploits considering sony can remove the exploited game from their store in a matter of hours. I believe finding a vsh exploit, such as one in libtif would help hacking the device in an efficient and lasting way, nevertheless kernel exploits are getting rare and developers can no longer afford to release one on a whim. After all those years sony finally did a proper security audit on the 6.00 firmware. All I can say is that it was about time.

16: How would you rate the PSPs security system? Do you feel Sony have done well to catch up in the game of cat and mouse? Do you see a point where you will be able to sign homebrew yourself or is that far off still?

Rating the psp security system would depend on whether you would rate it from day 1 since the 1.00 release or if you would rate it since the 6.20 firmware release.

I would say overall the psp firmwares security would be on a scale of 1 to 10, 4/10 while starting from the latest it would be 7/10.

Until 6.00 sony mostly only fixed exploits when we disclosed them this was a really bad approach considering we could (and we did) have a stockpile of unreleased exploits which we could keep until a next, appealing firmware showed up. In 6.00 they finally did a proper security audit and got rid of most the kernel exploits we had. It took them years and the release of the psp go to realize the necessity of going through such a process.

The psp itself suffered from a series of security implementation flaws, the kirk timing attack was one of them, the ability to run unsigned elfs on 1.00 was another.

I do believe that rushing the release and not hiring former hackers to perform their security engineering most likely had a great role in the flaws they later encountered and the demise they faced regarding the security on their psp system.