Native Vita Hacking: What’s the situation so far? (Part 1)

Acid_Snake

I like beer.

132 Responses

  1. TheBatman says:

    Thanks for explaining the situation.

    I now understand that in order to discover native Vita hacks, it was necessary to release over 50 Working VHBL exploits.

    By releasing these exploits, you guys now have more time to look up native hacks.

    It’s not like you could of just stopped working on PSP exploits since there were over 50 completed exploits and release them one by one every time a new system update gets released.

    Instead, it was necessary to waste them all on this single firmware.

    Brilliant

    • ChrisHighwind says:

      It helps that Sony’s apparently given up on pulling the games from the store since so there are so many games exploited at once, giving even more people a chance to put PSP homebrew on their Vitas.

    • mlc says:

      Dude, he can’t even admit fault. He’s certainly not going to admit that it was a mistake, since that would involve admitting more guilt than he’d like to feel.

  2. Cosmic Taco Cat says:

    Sorry if this is off topic. I have a my Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep ISO can I’m having trouble installing it to my vita. I’m able to install it but it has that gray default icon in the games folder of the XMB. It also has the name of the game I last installed and when i try installing it the game it had the name of would be uninstalled.

    • gamr13 says:

      What I did was, I got the ISO and put it in my save data, copied it via CMA on PC and used PSP Filer to copy it to the ISO folder on the root of TN-V 10 (I also ran the Pro Update which I don’t think is necessary as I never used it again after) moral of it – Copy the ISO to the ISO folder on the ROOT of TN-V.

    • ChrisHighwind says:

      I had that same issue too, but I believe it was due to the installed ISO and the ISO I was installing both having the same filename, as when I changed the filename of one of the ISOs, both installed separately.

  3. Dark_Alex says:

    We shall remember Acid_Snake as the one who killed off what remains of PSVITA software support. Once PSVITA is hacked properly, idiots will pirate software and with warm sales WW, this will surely kill any support it has.

    The one thing I liked about the PSP soft hacks was that it kept it away from a full native VITA hack. It gave people a thing to do with their “hacking” skills and enjoy emulators and such on the VITA. Now once this *** is done to the actual VITA, people will just pirate games and developers wont want to show any type of support.

    Not for nothing Acid, but you will go down on history as the one who ruined the VITA scene and killed off dev support like it happened to PSP.

  4. r00t says:

    It seems strange that these words are written by people who have a custom firmware for psp , you could not do the same thing for life? you could not go back to the development of native homebrew ? or you have to stay back by force ? Alex this attitude seems a bit ‘ too paid by sony. A previously she had disappeared from the scene .. UAHAuHua

  5. ChrisHighwind says:

    Webkit exploits are certainly a start. Here’s to hoping we find a way to support the Vita ourselves, since Sony seems to be taking a hands-off approach to it.

  6. ChrisHighwind says:

    Excuse me? Hacking consoles for homebrew is never a “job”. No-one has to look for exploits, and Sony would rather they didn’t. Even if such an exploit was found, nothing has to be made of it, and no-one has to make it available to the public. Homebrew developers owe us nothing, they could be doing plenty of other things with their lives, but they want to do this, despite people like you.

  7. Yifan Lu says:

    When’s my next paycheck coming in boss?

  8. noname says:

    “I’m leaving behind ePSP development in favor of native vita hacking, it was one of the reasons I gave a helping hand to qwikrazor87 into fully destroying the PSP/ePSP scene a few days ago.”

    I’m sure people will be grateful once it’s 2017 and you still haven’t succeeded.

  9. Ruben_Wolfe says:

    Guess you proved me wrong, dark knight.
    That was really interesting. I look forward for part 2!
    Well done, snake.

  10. skpg says:

    Given that sales for the Vita have been abysmal in the west, there is now even more of an incentive to completely hack the Vita. The Vita being unhackable as well as the proprietary memory cards is the main reason why sales are so low, combined with Sony’s nanny/surveillance like features (cma, mandatory kernel updates, etc) the only thing that can save the Vita is for it to be fully exploited.

  11. NeonAera says:

    Awesome read

  12. Nebu_187 says:

    very nice article, very interesting!

  13. Gooder says:

    I don’t think I understood a word I read

  14. BahamutBBob says:

    So basically, the bomb last weekend was to try and force Vita devs to look for ways to natively hack the Vita?

    I’m OK with this.

    • Acid_Snake says:

      Pretty much, we saw the opportunity to finally end the ePSP scene and move on when qwikrazor87 leaked the first exploit. With the ePSP away, this should attract attention from devs that were interested in the Vita, but native part, not ePSP, and didn’t want to do anything cause all they were seeing was the same old PSP hacks.

      • roswell108 says:

        Whether this is true or just a clever way to spin the story, it is sad that developers would avoid the Vita because the stuff they saw was too typical or not advanced enough. Sounds more like they just didn’t want to put in the effort unless they had to and that isn’t exactly the mindset for unpaid hobbies like console hacking. Again, assuming this is true.

      • Netrix says:

        Who is “we”? Also, if it doesn’t attract the attention of other devs, then it will basically have been a huge waste of a lot of work. I do hope this plan works out, though.

        • Hakumen says:

          are you ***…. no i don think so, but please read the full comment
          we are: acid_snake and quikrazor87

          • lel says:

            pretty much:
            “we” the rest of the OILIX team, maybe other people
            “qwikrazor87″=qwikrazor87

          • Hakumen says:

            written on psvita itself, not the best keyboard as you can see.

          • Netrix says:

            You should first read before insulting someone. “We” is obviously not Acid_Snake and qwikrazor87. Why would he say “WE saw the opportunity … when QWIKRAZOR87 leaked…”? The way he was saying it, and the only way that makes sense, he was referring to quikrazor87 as a third party, and not a part of WE. Are you saying that qwikrazor87 was purposely taking part in ending the ePSP scene and is now moving on WITH Acid_Snake?

      • Nebu_187 says:

        does this mean there will be no more exploits in the future? Fully behind u don’t get me wrong but destroying is not a beautifull word 😉

  15. lollypop says:

    nativehacking okey
    but what if psvita says cannot connect to pc

  16. mlc says:

    “gave a helping hand” lol

  17. Aoroxon says:

    somehw iunderstood dis cant wait fr part 2

  18. Enji says:

    The leaks were not just an inside job, but handled by Acid Snake himself, to purposely destroy the ePSP scene? That’s some Watergate *** right there. Not that I care too much now. Now that I know that the leaks were part of a plan, I feel much better about the future of Homebrew on the Vita 😀

  19. rypafire says:

    Awesome! but my nose is bleeding. lol.. let’s go for a native vita hack!

  20. Frank says:

    Continue this way guys ! By the way, what is happening to PS3 hacking on models like CECH-3001b and sooner ? WIll it happen someday to have Rogero on those ? I want is for playing PS2 games and use them on remote play on my Vita 🙂

  21. What a way to push things forward and quit all this playing with this vita PSP sandbox (my actual psp does better with homebrew/emulators) lol , Time to see what a psvita can really do, lots of work ahead… Great article Acid Snake 🙂

  22. kamika says:

    respect for your work guys,. i will wait for next update.

  23. Limen says:

    Nice read. It sounds like you’ve got a clear plan ahead, just as long as you can get past the obstacles. Good luck to ya~

    Also, completely unrelated, do PSP games running through exploit scale the same as a PSP game bought off PSN? I’ve heard Duodecim looked good on the Vita, but it seemed a bit pixelated to me running through exploit.

  24. lolwut says:

    this is what i wanna hear.. i really gotten tired of pointless VHBL because PSM is comparable or better for homebrewing with touchscreen and backtouch support.

  25. Stiffeno says:

    The King is dead (PSP), long live the King (Vita)!

  26. Stiffeno says:

    Sony is/has shut down PSP support on the PS Store, and now the scene devs have killed off ePSP development…was this done on purpose? or just a big coincidence?

  27. Stiffeno says:

    Cant wait to see the first native Vita hack! Excited already lol

  28. Akabane87 says:

    In C++ only inherited classes have a vtable pointer inside. Meaning that all non-polymorphic classes will never reference their methods anywhere. So I suppose your method explained above to exploit UAFs only works with classes that inherit from other classes.

    Found this nice tutorial of a UAF exploit use in IE.
    http://www.fuzzysecurity.com/tutorials/expDev/11.html

    Anyway about NX bit protection, is there a way to directly write the opcode region of the programm itself (ie the browser) ? In windows you can do this froom a dll injected inside the programm you want to modify, but probably the psvita does not allow such a thing, isn’t it ?

    ps : I don’t know why my message was deleted. If it is related to the extenal link please just tell me and I’ll remove it.

    • wololo says:

      I rarely delete/remove messages, this happens only when the comment is obvious spam and totally unrelated to the discussion, and/or borderline illegal (racist, etc…). In you case no such issue, I think it was just the site’s cache playing tricks on you

    • Acid_Snake says:

      All C++ classes inherit from the class Object so they will end up having a vtable anyways.

      • Akabane87 says:

        Lol your comment was shifted at the end of the comment loop as mine to yours :p.

        There is no Object class in C++, only C# and Java have one. C++0x integrates the syntax “auto” as a wild card type but it has nothing common with “object” type in c# or java.

  29. XtremeDerp says:

    Another update to Sony…u guys are really dumb! =)
    Pirated Vita ISOS running in hacked hardware in a minimum of 5.5 years, you heard here it first leeches.

  30. Acid_Snake says:

    All C++ classes inherit from the class Object, so they all have a virtual table.

  31. Mizu says:

    This sounds interesting. Nice to hear the leaks were planned and not some sort of temper tantrum like it first seemed.
    That said, I wish anyone doing this all the luck. Can it be easily hacked by Sony, I wonder?

  32. lollypop says:

    my idea of native hacking …
    correct me if im wrong …

    in their system hes the president.
    in our system hes the slave of the lord.

  33. edsrafed says:

    I’ve been following yifan lu’s hardware hacking and like him I was trying eMMc dumping. I have partial success but I’m all out of fresh bodies(vita boards). I’m currently collecting vita for this purpose.

  34. Aramaru says:

    Well… I sort of understand what are you trying to do but… mechanism and implementation are as we say in my country when we don’t understand something, “Spanish village” to me. I wish you good luck and I hope that this change of course in hacking community will attract other people… but there are just too many ifs so I’m a bit skeptical. At least you didn’t quit after that incident… and that’s good… perhaps there is slim hope of progress now, that PS vita is faring better than one year ago, especially in Japan… and with Vita Tv release in the west… which may attract more fresh and experienced blood but still…

  35. Joker says:

    I really dumb, so please forgive simple question: can sony make dumb boxes like an atari 2600 (except like portable) and just sell cartedges for their games? Why even have download games and browser?

  36. condoriano says:

    so in short, we can now hope to play ps vita game backups?

  1. September 23, 2014

    […] Native Vita Hacking: What’s the situation so far? (Part 1) – How to: Set an Xbox 360 Devkit to boot into anything! – A good  little tutorial from our buddy Fate6, shame I don’t have an Xbox 360…. Forgotten Homebrews Part 2: PSP DosBox […]

  2. September 23, 2014

    […] der bereits eine zentrale Figur in der Hacking-Szene der PSP war, schreibt in einem Post auf wololo.net, dass die Vita zwar von Sony sehr gut geschützt sei — doch es eine Schwachstelle gibt, […]

  3. October 7, 2014

    […] hat sich auch Acid_Snake zu möglichen, nativen PS Vita Hacks geäußert. In seinem Blogeintrag erklärte das langjährige Szene-Mitglied, dass via dem im Browser verbauten WebKit mögliche […]