Does “PSJailbreak” herald PS3 piracy?

Rumours are swirling this morning that the PlayStation 3′s security has finally been breached and “backup” software now runs on the Sony platform.

A company of unknown origin has created what it calls the PSJailbreak – a combination of software and USB dongle that seemingly allows all makes and model of retail PlayStation 3 to copy and run any kind of game code, even with the latest firmware updates in place.

While it remains to be seen whether it is another in a long line of elaborate fakes, it’s understood that multiple modchip resellers were sent anonymous packages from Hong Kong, and one of the recipients – Australia-based OzModChips – has posted two convincing-looking videos on YouTube showing the system in action.

According to the website, “Backup games to your internal hard drive or external hard drive through USB, and boot directly off GUI. Eliminating the need for expensive blueray burners and costly blank media.”

The dongle does support back-up of all Sony PS3 games, but doesn’t allow back-up of bluray movies , dvd movies , or past consoles games.

Sony is expected to release an update which will fix this vulnerability. But the dongle also disables forced software updates and will never brick your console.

The JailBreak dongle makes a strong point — Sony PS3 is hackable and vulnerable to any security breach. This must make Sony think wisely and bring-back a very popular feature which allowed users to install any other OS on the console.

That feature was mostly used by Linux users to use the powerful machine as a regular PC as well as wired supercomputers. In the last couple of year while the feature was active there we no security breach or cracking reported on the console.

It was a rock solid machine. Sony’s move to stop installation of Other OS seems to come from feared game makers who feared ‘unauthorized copying’ of the games. However, I believe that if you buy something you own it, and thus you must be able to make copies for fair use.

Sony PlayStation used to be Linux user’s favorite game consoles as it allowed installation of ‘Other OS’ through a native feature. This feature used to double up the console as a powerful Gnu/Linux machine. But on March 28, 2010, Sony decided to kill this feature.

On April 1, The company released a firmware upgrade which would disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update.

Sony was severely criticized for this move as there were apparently no reports of compromised consoles. Many lawsuits were filed against Sony, but the situation remains as such.

Now, PSJailbreak has blew Sony’ security circus. Thus the arguement that allowing installation of other OSes also goes out of the window. It’s time for Sony to regain respect and support of loyal Linux fans by enabling the installation of ‘other OS’.

It’s time to fix PS3, Sony, release the upgrade which reactivates the Other OS feature. What do you think?

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