Jailbreak Clampdown Aftermath

   Now that Sony has succeeded in stopping Jailbreak sales and distribution in Australia and is suing a mod reseller in the States, the outrage has begun. Y'know the outrage from pirates. Two of the more common comments from the outraged message board participants over the past few days are listed below in bold.

All I wanted was to do homebrew on the PS3
   Homebrew's available on the PC and you can do all the homebrew you want on that. Homebrew's also available on the Xbox 360 and the Wii but most people with modified consoles don't really use them for homebrew. They have modified consoles so they can play pirated software.

I can make my own "Jailbreak" by using the PSGroove open source code
   The guy who asked if he could burn the source code onto a disc and Jailbreak his PS3 that way probably wouldn't get the job done but yes, there are alternative hacks weeding their way through the net now. One recently announced method is Jailbreaking the PS3 by using an Android phone while another uses a Nokia N900 mobile phone with the PSFreedom source code (patched to play backups). The cat's out of the bag so DIY Jailbreak is a reality at this point. Sony's hope is that most aspiring pirates won't have the reading comprehension or the ability to follow the instructions in order to perform the mod themselves.

Sony sues US-based Jailbreak seller

   Sony has filed a lawsuit in California against a US-based reseller of the PS3 Jailbreak. The defendants named in the lawsuit are Zoomba LDC and WWW.SHOPPSJAILBREAK.COM.

The filing may be viewed through the link below. 

http://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2010cv03909/231381

The ADR Scheduling Order, VRW Standing Order, Standing Order, and the Summons Issued related to the lawsuit may be purchased for 0.99 cents each through the following link:

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit-documents.asp?ID=64147

   Sony has accused the defendants of trademark and copyright infringement and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Specifically, the DMCA criminalizes the distribution of devices that are designed to circumvent the security measures that protect a copyrighted work from being copied or in the case of the Jailbreak, "backed up" to hard drive. Zoomba LDC's contact address as listed on their Jailbreak sales site is located in Houston, TX which places the company within the jurisdiction of the DMCA.

Jailbreak injunction upheld

   Sony has prevailed against the Jailbreak - an Australian Federal Court has issued an order that prevents the mod resellers named in Sony's injunction from selling, distributing, or offering the Jailbreak in Australia.

The text of the court order follows below:

THE COURT ORDERS BY CONSENT BUT WITHOUT ADMISSIONS, THAT:

1. Upon the Applicants undertaking to the Court to:

(i)submit to such order (if any) as the Court may consider to be just for the payment of compensation, to be assessed by the Court or as it may direct, to any person whether or not a party, adversely affected by the operation of Orders 3 to 5 set out below or any continuation (with or without variation); and

(ii)pay the compensation referred to in (a) to the person or persons there referred to.

1.2 ORDERS that, until further order, the First, Second, Third and Fourth Respondents and each of them, whether by themselves, their servants or agents, be restrained from doing any of the following acts with respect to all and any Universal Serial Bus devices described as "PSJailbreak" in Exhibit PJC-1 of the affidavit of Peter John Chalk sworn on 26 August 2010 and filed herein, as packaged, and distributed or threatened to be distributed by the Respondents (PSJailbreak Devices):

(i)importing them into Australia with the intention of providing them to another person;

(ii)distributing them to another person;

(iii)offering them to the public;

(iv)providing them to another person; and/or

(v)otherwise dealing in them.

save that it will not be a breach of Order 2(a) for the First or Second Respondent to import all and any PSJailbreak Devices in respect of which any orders were placed prior to 27 August 2010, provided that any such importation is subject to the undertaking in paragraph 5 below.

1.3 ORDERS that, the First, Second, Third and Fourth Respondents and each of them deliver up to the solicitors for the Applicants, to be held until further order, any and all PSJailbreak Devices in those Respondents' possession custody or control.

1.4 ORDERS that, until further order, the First, Second, Third and Fourth Respondents and each of them continue to deliver up to the solicitors for the Applicants, to be held until further order, any and all PSJailbreak Devices that come into those Respondents' possession custody or control (including the sample device referred to in paragraph 7 of the Affidavit of the Second Respondent affirmed on 2 September 2010), forthwith upon them doing so.

1.5 NOTES the undertaking to the Court given by the First and Second Respondents by their counsel:

(i)forthwith to notify the supplier of PSJailbreak Devices (identified as China Sun Trading Limited of China, being the beneficiary of account number 817-374473-838 at the HSBC Hong Kong branch, 1 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong with SWIFT Address HSBCHKHHHKH) that any goods ordered by the First and Second Respondents are to be shipped to Blake Dawson to the attention of Peter Chalk at Level 26, 181 William Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3000 and not to the First or Second Respondents; and

(ii)to deliver up in accordance with Order 4 above to the solicitors for the Applicants any PSJailbreak Devices received.

1.6 NOTES the undertaking to the Court of Blake Dawson:

(i)to hold any such goods securely subject to any further order of the Court; and

(ii)promptly to notify the solicitors for Respondents of the receipt of any such goods and to supply copies of any documentation received with them.

1.7 RESERVES LIBERTY to the parties to apply on 24 hours' notice, including for the purpose of the First and Second Respondents giving notice on or after 9 September 2010 that they wish the matter to be relisted for the resumption of the Applicants' application for interlocutory relief.

1.8 ORDERS that costs be reserved.

Jailbreak Injunction Decision Tomorrow

   An Australian Federal Court will decide tomorrow if the injunction against the sale of the Playstation 3 Jailbreak becomes permanent. I've bet $30 on a wager against a scenester that the ban stays and the mod sellers are SOL. Why $30? That was all I had in my pocket at the time we were shooting the shit about mods and pondering the history of the universe. The Jailbreak issue is probably moot however because the PSGroove is out and in the wild.

   The PSGroove project was revealed a couple of days ago but it's an ethical hack. Piracy isn't enabled on the USB injection code but it's only a matter of time before someone re-enables the piracy features so that game dumps to HDD and backups are playable. Once a hack like that is released, it's out there forever and free for anyone to use, modify, and engineer for whatever reason. That's the nature of the internet where all of your embarrassing photos, dumb lines, and dick jokes are saved on someone's server or hard drive for all of eternity.

PS3 Jailbreak Broken

   A software developer who goes by the name Mathieu Hervais has apparently hacked and dumped (copied) the contents of the Jailbreak USB dongle and released it as an open source project under the name "PSGroove." The exploit files are listed on Github under the psgroove subfolder. The zip file that's been released into filesharing networks contains five hexadecimal data files which can be programmed into the following Atmel AT90USB microcontrollers:

AT90USB162
AT90USB646

AT90USB647

AT90USB1286

AT90USB1287

ATMEGA32U4

   The microcontrollers plug into the USB port of a PC or console to retrieve on-board documentation and run AVR program code. Disane explains the code injection process below:

"This is the disassembled PPC code more like the shell code that is being injected. The best way would be to use the lv2 dump and this to figure out how the stack overflow exploit works in the USB buffer of the PS3 after that it can be reproduced on any FW. On both slim and fat PS3s.
The JIG ID is probably passed to trigger some code pathern which the Configuration Descriptor overflows and injects the shell code after that the code gets executed. The shell code patches lv2 to run fselfs and all kinds of interesting flags which I haven’t noticed yet…"

   Skimming over the message boards and IRC, there's obvious excitement brewing today over the possibility of low cost Jailbreak clones. One poster on a popular message board asked if he could burn the .hex files onto a disc and Jailbreak his PS3 that way.

   From the instructions that were released last night:

To use this exploit:
• Hard power cycle your PS3 (using the switch in back, or unplug it)
• Plug the dongle into your PS3.
• Press the PS3 power button, followed quickly by the eject button.
After a few seconds, the first LED on your dongle should light up. After about 5 seconds, the second LED will light up (or the LED will just go off, if you only have one). This means the exploit worked! You can see the new "Install Package Files" menu option in the game menu.

Notes

• A programmed dongle won't enumerate properly on a PC, so don't worry about that.

• This software is not intended to enable piracy, and such features have been disabled. This software is intended to allow the execution of unsigned third-party apps and games on the PS3.

Love Plus game inspires micro tourism niche

   Konami's Love Plus game has already inspired a Japanese Romeo nicknamed "Sal9000" to get married to a video game character named Nene Anegasa. Now, the Love Plus phenomenon has made its way to the Breeze Bay Seaside Resort Atami in Shizuoka Prefecture. Konami has teamed up with the resort to install 12 "Augmented Reality" panels in scenic spots - the panels are capable of displaying images of Love Plus characters such as Rinko Kobayakawa and Manaka Takane on smartphone cameras.

   When a young man in love stands next to one of the Augmented Reality panels, a passerby or a like-minded friend may take a photo that shows a Love Plus character standing next to him. According to Konami, the campaign has been a success with over 2000 visitors since its debut on July 10 through the end of August.