It has been a long time coming, but a hacking group called ‘fail0verflow' have announced that they have deciphered the private key that Sony uses to authorise code to run on PlayStation 3 systems. With access to this private key, code can be run as if it was authorised by Sony.

The hacking group announced this during a presentation at Chaos Communications Conference and with this access to the private key it opens a huge number of options, such as the ability to run linux on the console no matter what version of firmware is running at the time. While this could be used for game piracy, the hackers claim that this was not their goal.

fail0verflow are planning a demo at the conference and more details will be passed over explaining how it all works. The same team incidentally were responsible for the Wii Homebrew Channel. Hacking this private key is a very complex process and no one has yet been able to achieve it. We are pretty sure that Sony will be fuming, especially as it opens up a myriad of possibilities for games to be played, even without bluray discs.

Sony have no means yet to deal with this key being broken, but we are sure they already are having board meetings behind closed doors as to what they can do to try and block piracy.

KitGuru says: A major kick in the teeth for Sony's flagship console.

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