The Imminent Threat to PSP Homebrew

[wraggster]

Uberjack one of the PSP Scenes most active coders at this time discusses what many of us agree and that is the PSP3000 will be a real threat to homebrew, one must remember that to beat Piracy the knock on effect is that homebrew is also at risk.

Heres uberjacks post:

Odds are that you’ve probably heard about the new PSP-3000 model (colloquially called “PSP Brite”) that’s due to be released soon, and one that will replace the PSP-2000 series (”PSP Slim”). The new model will include a built-in microphone and a brighter, more responsive screen - an improvement that is almost negligible when one considers the improvements between “Slim” and “Phat” (PSP-1000 series).

Like many other developers and hobbyists, I suspect that there’s more to the system than what the press release lets on - I’m fairly certain that the new PSP model will be built differently to eliminate the extremely efficient “Pandora” hack. A recent dcemu thread discusses just that - probability of the elimination of PSP’s “hackability”, and raises some interesting points, among them “will this stop piracy?”. I’m fairly certain that the answer is “no” - and not just to piracy, but hacking in general. After all, the initial hacks of the PSP centered around badly implemented loading routines in the PSP’s image viewer and GTA: LCS, and as long as there are inquisitive people, there will be exploits to be found and security holes to be exploited. While I expect to see the end of Pandora, I doubt we’ve seen the end of buffer overflow exploits - hardware (and firmware) necessary to deter/elminate buffer overflow exploits would, in all likelihood, break backwards compatibility (not to mention prove too costly).

One thing that I believe is important to remember, however, is that Sony shouldn’t necessarily be chastised for this step. Piracy is an unfortunate side-effect of homebrew development - while I’m not going to venture a guess as to how much money the company is losing/has lost due to piracy, I’m fairly certain that it’s a considerable amount. For many, like myself, the PSP is a retrogamer’s dream come true - there’s no better way to waste hours on end than by playing Legend of Zelda, a port of Doom, or any of the large number of homebrew applications. For too many, however, it’s just a way to hoard modern games.

Sony has stated in the past that they’re aware of PSP’s homebrew community, and that their problem is not with homebrew, but piracy. While I have no reason to trust any particular large company (Enron, anyone?), I have no basis to doubt this fact in the current situation - if anything, homebrew development has helped Sony sell more units. At the same time, piracy hurts those who make the PSP into what it is - the makers of the PSP games. No PSP games means much fewer sales (I don’t think homebrew alone will carry the PSP); fewer sales means no motivation to support or manufacture the PSP.

Comments are welcome.

http://0xff.akop.org/2008/08/27/end-to-pandora/

[osgeld]

doubtful

a psp with a broken umd drive can be had on ebay for less than 90$ (i bid on one that died at 65$)

if infact the psp 3k is uncrackable (again doubtful, we already know too much) good for sony, it wont magically erase the millions of "homebrew enabled" psp's already out there

those who want it, will get an older model

those that dont care will get the slim n brite

besides, i with a small selection of people, think it will be nothing to replace your psp slim's screen with this model, thus giving you 90% of the improvement (anti glare coating can be made quite easily using the right mixture of hobbiest chemicals made just for that reason, altho yes it will not match the sony version perfectly)

depending on the pinouts it may even be a trivial task to rewire a psp 1000 with the new screen (not much data is provided since there is 0 reason to do so tween the 1000 and 2000, and no one i know of has broken their warranty on the 3k yet)

sony is too late, we know too much about the sysetm, and thy are in no position to change the fundamentals, unless they screw all of their old customers

and in "video game land" that smells of certain death ... look to sega as a perfect example

-- ranting osgeld

[acn010]

time will tell....
acn010

[tinman]

It's been posted a the ps2dev forums that they still know of a few games that have exploits. The problem I think is, if Sony found a way to fully close the HEN exploit if they did devs will have to reinvent the wheel, as HEN is the core of all CFW's.

[PoorKingz]

Well they can't block buffer overflows. There must be some games with an exploit that lets us redirect the program counter and run our own MIPS instructions.

[Uberman]

C'mon, Sony! I'm not gonna keep buying your frickin' hardware while you try to fix your mistakes.

[alentris]

there's always a way to exploit a psp. whether it be a modchip, a new age of pandora, or whatever, there will be a way to run unsigned code through a psp. And look at it this way. When someone sends in a bricked psp 3k, sony isn't going to just send them a new one, they're going to have to have some back door for unbricking these new consoles...

[Veskgar]

It would be very wise if the major players in the PSP dev scene still have unreleased exploits and tricks up their sleeves. Its been hard to keep secrets under wraps though because people are greedy and attention $#@!s.

I very much want a PSP 3000 and I want it to be able to use custom firmware. I am starting a campaign to get everyone to donate just $5.00 to the development team of their choice on October 14th. This is a symbolic date as it is the North American release of the PSP 3000. I will likely be sending my $5.00 to Dark_AleX. Its up to us to keep devs excited and up to the challenge. Lets give them a little compensation for their time.

October 14th, $5.00! Remember!