Sony brought PS3 security breach upon themselves

This month the PS3′s security was finally busted open. The hacker community has enabled unsigned code to run. This opens the door for homebrew software and piracy. Sony is now suing the developer of the exploit, George “GeoHot” Hotz.

You wonder why it took so long to develop homebrew on the PS3. It goes like this: almost every console has had its security broken for homebrew purposes, and then piracy ensues. Sony had the perfect defense against this by giving the PS3 owners the ability to run their own OS on it (Linux). Therefore, there was no need for the homebrew hacker community to break the PS3′s security. For a nice little breakdown of all the different consoles’ security timelines check out a minute of the tail end of this talk about the Xbox 360′s security system, starting at 43:57 playtime. It will show how Sony dropped the ball on this.

Then, Sony went and shot themselves in the foot by removing the  Other OS option on PS3 Slims and later on every PS3 via firmware updates. Good job at pissing off your fans Sony! Now the homebrew community had a purpose! Not that much later now, we’ve got homebrew running.

It’s no coincidence that the PS3′s security was broken only after the Other OS option was removed. Sony has no one to blame but themselves for the rampant piracy that could (most likely will) result from this!