Confirmed:Datel hacks all models of PSP & PSPGo for Christmas
Before PSPGo owners start jumping of joy all over the place, let me be clear: this information is probably not useful for you if you thought you would get the joys of homebrews and underground PSP on your PSPGo or on your PSP3000 or on your TA88v3.
A few days ago Datel announced a new Action Replay software, compatible with all models of PSPs, including the PSPGo. The PSP scene was quite suspicious regarding this announcement. Today the product page features a Demo that anyone can download and try. I tried this Demo, other people tried the full product, and, yes, Action Replay runs on an official firmware.
It means that Datel wasn’t bluffing, and it also means that their code is signed. Only Sony is supposed to know how to sign EBOOTs, so we could think that Datel has some kind of agreement with Sony, but the documentation of the Action Replay is clear on that part:
Action Replay PSP is a 100% unofficial product and is NOT sponsored, endorsed or approved by Sony, nor any games developer or publisher.
To further confirm this, after installing the demo, you can have a look at your memory stick: Action Replay gets installed in the “UPDATE” subfolder of GAME, which is usually reserved for official Sony updates. It therefore means that Datel has figured out how to encrypt/sign EBOOTS, but needs their product to be in the UPDATE folder for some reason (easier to encrypt? Use of some specific access granted to this folder?)
Now, this is not very useful for hackers (and even less for pirates, ha). Yet another encrypted EBOOT to analyze will not bring anything. However, Action Replay allows users to patch memory with codes, so maybe something can be crafted in order to inject unsigned code in the PSP through Action Replay, which could unlock (at least) user mode (and therefore homebrews).
For the time being, it seems Datel has done what hackers have been trying to do for almost 5 years: figuring out the PSP’s encryption process. I’ll quote Silverspring here:
Seems they have done it for real. If so, it’s finally game over for SCE. There’s nothing they can do to stop it.
Probably fw updates will attempt to block it, however all Datel need to do is release an new update. They can sign any code they want now.
They’ve finally done what was the ‘Holy Grail’ of the PSP scene. Pretty impressive work
Who knows, maybe Datel will now come up with their own Custom firmware…
i have the solution to this dillema!!! They hired Dark Alex ^^
dark alex is gone.,
It seems that they used UPDATE digital sign, also it seems that this ‘UPDATE ‘ is not worldwide, it doesn’t start on my japanese slim (required proper regon update), but works on european slim.
When you start pc program, you try to chose japanese language.
I’m sure that I’ve clicked Japan, but let’s try again. Thank you.
This is the ultimate console hacking I think…That’s great!
I am going to translate your interesting article into Japanese,and I will send you my trackback.
And what about the illegal of signing as Sony? For sure Sony can sue them. What do you think?
PD: I really love your blog 🙂
PD2: sorry I posted this comment on another entry, please delete it 😛
Yeah, there’s a possibility Datel might get sued for this, but I’m sure they’ll either try to legally protect themselves OR they’ll try to make as much money as possible with the software as long as it’s out 🙂
if this is reverse engineering it dosen’t matter if sony sue them but if they’re using sony signing ilegally wow that could end pretty bad
I’m new to PSP, I have a PSP 3004 with firmware 5.70, so, with this Action Replay it’s possible to hack even my PSP? And play games downloaded on torrents? And if not, is there a way to do this? I read that now it’s possible on 5.50 firmwares, but on 5.70?
Reiichi: The only info publicly available for PSP 3000 is that you can play homebrews on a PSP 3000 up to firmware 5.03. For firmware 5.50 it is very likely to be doable (through the MOHH exploit) if some devs decide to work on it, but definitely not for 5.70.
This breakthrough by Datel, despite being technically impressive, is not for the end user, we need hackers to have a look at it first, or hope that Datel will release a homebrew loader.
Finally, please do not mention piracy here (I assume that’s what you mean with “games downloaded on torrents”), as this is not the kind of thing I want to discuss when I talk about hacking.
Anyone else find it odd that once you load it up and goto Options > Info, that it lists “Battery Tool”?
Don’t no if this means anything but datel is a pandora as well. I’ve had pandora from day 1 best thing they ever released!
yes Datel could create their own Custome-Firmware, but the problem is that datel wants to make money ^ ^.
Custome-firmware who sells a 20euro ^ ^
now we need someone to reverse engineer their reverse engineering.
happy
when i am downloading stuffs over the internet, psp game downloads are always my priority “~~
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