<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" ><channel><title>Wololo.net &#187; psp dev</title> <atom:link href="http://wololo.net/wagic/category/psp-dev/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><link>http://wololo.net/wagic</link> <description>Wagic, Half-Byte Loader, PSP / PS Vita Programming, and Homebrews</description> <lastBuildDate>Mon, 21 May 2012 12:47:38 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en</language> <sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency> <generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2</generator> <item><title>Does the playstation suite make VHBL obsolete?</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/05/20/does-the-playstation-suite-make-vhbl-obsolete/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/05/20/does-the-playstation-suite-make-vhbl-obsolete/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sun, 20 May 2012 15:05:22 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Gaming]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PS Vita]]></category> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category> <category><![CDATA[VHBL]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=4425</guid> <description><![CDATA[Some of you might have read an interview of me on website Eurogamer, where I said I am not sure I will keep actively hacking the Vita myself now that the playstation suite SDK is available in open Beta. Recently, some interesting things have been released through the PSS, such as a NES emulator. Technically, [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ICON0.png" alt="" width="144" height="80" />Some of you might have read an <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-08-half-byte-loader-the-psp-homebrew-tool-thats-hacking-vita">interview of me on website Eurogamer</a>, where I said I am not sure I will keep actively hacking the Vita myself now that the playstation suite SDK is available in open Beta.</p><p>Recently, some interesting things have been released through the PSS, such as a <a href="http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=52&amp;t=11639">NES emulator</a>. Technically, Sony are giving us the tools to develop homebrews on their platform, so in theory their shouldn&#8217;t be any need for more hacks, right? Well, I believe that&#8217;s not true, and I&#8217;ll explain why.</p><p><span id="more-4425"></span></p><p>Ok, first of all, don&#8217;t worry, I did say to Eurogamer I am considering to stop hacking the Vita myself, but if you think about it, it&#8217;s not like I did much so far. <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/vhbl">3 exploits were revealed</a> in the past 6 months on the vita, and none of them were directly by me. I merely helped with releasing them and porting HBL to them, but I was not actively the person hacking.</p><p>My point here, and this is also indirectly what I meant when I said that to Eurogamer, is that for once I wouldn&#8217;t mind using my programming skills to create an official game that can make a few bucks. I doesn&#8217;t mean I&#8217;ll stop using my other skills to help with the hacking of the Vita <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';)' class='wp-smiley' /></p><p>Sadly though, my free time is not what it used to be, and it has become extremely hard for me to make progress on anything PSP/Vita related recently (I was barely involved in the <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/05/11/release-wagic-0-18-6-its-over-9000/">latest Wagic release</a>, for example). This includes both hacking and trying to program an actual game on the PS Suite. I actually only installed the PS Suite, and never found the time to even open the editor yet.</p><p>Anyways. I&#8217;m not leaving the scene anytime soon, so you can stop crying <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /></p><p>Back to why I think the PS Suite will not replace VHBL, or hacks in general:</p><p>Well, first, looking at the NES emulator that was released, I heard it is currently fairly slow, and it will be difficult to make it run better than, for example, <a href="http://www.wololo.net/downloads/index.php/download/426">NesterJ </a>on VHBL. But the difficulty is not only technical. After all, after some tweaks, maybe that emulator will run at a decent framerate. But the issue is that the PS Suite SDK Beta will end at some point.</p><p>At this point, somehow, Sony will manage to prevent people from installing those &#8220;work in progress&#8221; cool homebrews. I have no clue how they plan to do this, but if my understanding is correct, in order to install one of those homebrews, one has to connect their own PS Suite software to Sony&#8217;s server? OK, I might be completely off here, I was on holiday when most of the hype on the PS Suite was happening, so I am not really sure. But somehow, it will not be possible after the beta to install this emulator.</p><p>In a way, this is the same as <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/vhbl">VHBL</a>: VHBL is available to a limited number of people, and stops working if you update your firmware. But I am thinking that in the PS Suite case, even without updating their firmware, people might lose the ability to copy PS Suite homebrews freely (in all meanings of the word) to their Vita. At least for VHBL there is the option to keep your old firmware, also I am convinced that unless Sony does massive changes to their CMA system, we should be able to have more PSP hacks available for a while on the Vita (knocking on wood).</p><p>That&#8217;s not the only reason. VHBL comes with a gigantic library of PSP homebrews (thousands if <a href="http://wololo.net/downloads">/downloads</a> is correct). A majority of them run with VHBL. By comparison, finding games that run through the experimental PS Suite nowadays is quite difficult. We&#8217;re not going to get hundreds of games overnight, while VHBL brings 6 years of homebrews development with it.</p><p>Of course, once the PS suite gets out of beta, we *will* see hundreds of indie games on the PSN store. They will probably be of much higher quality than your average homebrew, since money will be involved. But don&#8217;t dream, you won&#8217;t find emulators in this list. <a href="http://www.wololo.net/downloads/index.php/download/426">NesterJ</a>, <a href="http://wololo.net/downloads/index.php/download/878">GPSP</a>, <a href="http://www.wololo.net/downloads/index.php/download/670">Snes9xTYL</a>,&#8230; these guys run on VHBL today, but you will never see them on the PS Suite. What about ports of games such as <a href="http://wololo.net/downloads/index.php/download/193">Doom</a>? I can&#8217;t start to imagine the nightmare it would be to port to C#, and then the legal nightmare to get it to the Vita&#8230;</p><p>A game such as <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/download">Wagic</a> would also not make it to the official PS Suite, not only because it is programmed in C++ (not C#), not only because it is borderline legal, but also because the PS Suite terms and conditions specific that after the beta, the PSN will not accept free games, or open source games (check the T&amp;C and see if I lie about this&#8230; I&#8217;m pretty sure I read that correctly). I&#8217;m not saying this is bad, but it will prevent a huge group of good games to ever see their name on the Vita.</p><p>I could go on for hours, trying to give valid reasons why hacks in general, and VHBL in particular will still be a valid alternative to the PS Suite. Of course, the main reason is that hackers don&#8217;t need a good reason to hack. I&#8217;ve seen comments saying that now that the PS Suite is out, there is no justification for hacking. It&#8217;s as if hacking ever needed a justification in the first place. That&#8217;s a gross misunderstanding of why most hackers do what they do: because understanding how the device works is what they believe to be the game in the words <em><strong>gaming </strong>device</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/05/20/does-the-playstation-suite-make-vhbl-obsolete/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>32</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>The Playstation Suite Open Beta is here!</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/04/19/the-playstation-suite-open-beta-is-here/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/04/19/the-playstation-suite-open-beta-is-here/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:53:55 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Gaming]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PS Vita]]></category> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category> <category><![CDATA[release]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=4344</guid> <description><![CDATA[Just a quick note because I don&#8217;t have much time to go in details: I just got an email from Sony saying that the Playstation Suite open Beta is (finally! It&#8217;s not like the console was out for 5 months already) now available. If you have ideas of apps or games you would like to [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Just a quick note because I don&#8217;t have much time to go in details: I just got an email from Sony saying that the Playstation Suite open Beta is (finally! It&#8217;s not like the console was out for 5 months already) now available.</p><p>If you have ideas of apps or games you would like to see on the vita and/or Android, think you have the skills to do it, and, who knows, hope you might get rich by selling it on the psn store, check their official page here:</p><p><a href="http://www.playstation.com/pss/">http://www.playstation.com/pss/</a></p><p>(wow, I&#8217;m blogging two days in a row about cool stuff that Sony is doing, what&#8217;s wrong with me lately?)</p><p>&nbsp;</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/04/19/the-playstation-suite-open-beta-is-here/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>70</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>So many exploits, so little time</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/03/15/so-many-exploits-so-little-time/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/03/15/so-many-exploits-so-little-time/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:56:54 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category> <category><![CDATA[VHBL]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=4102</guid> <description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;ve been following our /talk forums, you might be aware that we collectively have access to about 5 to 10 user mode game exploits in psp games. I know some of these exploits, others I don&#8217;t, so I cannot exactly tell how much of them are duplicate&#8230; I&#8217;ve been helping to port VHBL to [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ICON0.png" alt="" width="144" height="80" />If you&#8217;ve been following our <a href="http://wololo.net/talk/">/talk</a> forums, you might be aware that we collectively have access to about 5 to 10 user mode game exploits in psp games.</p><p><span id="more-4102"></span></p><p>I know some of these exploits, others I don&#8217;t, so I cannot exactly tell how much of them are duplicate&#8230; I&#8217;ve been helping to port <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/vhbl">VHBL</a> to some of them. Our goal is to release some of those before Sony&#8217;s next firmware update, but unfortunately I&#8217;m lacking free time to help.</p><p>I know that the exploit found by yosh (a.k.a. wth) has been ported to VHBL by yosh himself, and he should be sending the files to me <a href="http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=52&amp;t=10766">very soon for a release</a>. I&#8217;ll of course keep you guys updated, although I haven&#8217;t tested this myself yet. More recently, <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/03/08/vita-hack-a-new-psp-exploit-found/">xerpi found a game exploit as well</a> and we started porting HBL to that exploit as well. Unfortunately, that game does not import some of the critical functions required for HBL to work properly, and that might jeopardize the release. JJS has been helping on that, and I have yet to double check his work in order to see if HBL is really a lost cause on that exploit.</p><p>For more details on the ongoing works, again, check our <a href="http://wololo.net/talk/">/talk forums</a>, where you will find a handful of other hackers working on PSP Game exploits which will potentially open the door to homebrews on the Vita. Overall, I feel like I&#8217;m the bottleneck for the next release of VHBL (independently of the exploit used), so I decided to release a new tool in the HBL svn. That script, given a memory dump, a list of uids (easily obtained through psplink), and a list of functions imported by your exploited game, will generate the &#8220;exploit_config.h&#8221; file needed to compile HBL (the whole process is <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2010/09/14/port-hbl-to-your-game-exploit/">explained here</a>, and creating the exploit_config.h was, until today, the most difficult part of the process).</p><p>I will give more details on that file later on, and I&#8217;m sure we will improve it in the days to come, but basically, if you found an exploit in a game, that script should make it easier for you to port HBL to your exploit, as it generates everything you need for the compilation. You&#8217;ll just need to replace the &#8220;TODO&#8221; parts with your HBL loading address and the location of your savedata.</p><p>That script can be found <a href="http://code.google.com/p/valentine-hbl/source/browse/trunk/eLoader/tools/gen_exploit_config.rb">here in our svn</a>, and hopefully should make me less &#8220;necessary&#8221; for further ports of VHBL. The idea behind HBL was to make it easier for people to run homebrew with their exploit, not to make me the obligatory entry point to user mode homebrews <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /></p><p>It is important to mention that not all these exploits are equivalent. Some games are lacking essential imports for VHBL, which might affect compatibility. Some exploits are for games available only in one Sony store, not worldwide, etc&#8230; I don&#8217;t know how many of them will eventually be released, but stay tuned, as usual <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2012/03/15/so-many-exploits-so-little-time/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>24</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Some1, the big interview</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/12/25/some1-the-big-interview/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/12/25/some1-the-big-interview/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:09:58 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[PS Vita]]></category> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category> <category><![CDATA[security]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=3759</guid> <description><![CDATA[Today I have the privilege to interview developer Some1. If you are running a Custom Firmware on a psp with a recent firmware (anything above 6.35), you are probably using some of his work every day without knowing it. Some1 once ported HBL to an exploit, but he is mostly known for having found kernel [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/hacker.jpg" alt="" width="140" height="82" />Today I have the privilege to interview developer Some1. If you are running a Custom Firmware on a psp with a recent firmware (anything above 6.35), you are probably using some of his work every day without knowing it. Some1 once ported HBL to an exploit, but he is mostly known for having found kernel exploits in recent firmwares up to 6.60, which basically are the key to install and run a Custom Firmware on your PSP. Today, we discuss his past experience on the PSP, and his future work on Sony&#8217;s devices.</p><p><span id="more-3759"></span></p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> Hi some1, can you quickly Introduce yourself?</p><p><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em> My name is Jason, and I&#8217;m just some guy who was bored, had a psp, and wanted to learn some programming.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div><p><strong>Wololo:</strong> when did you get your first PSP, and when did you decide to start developing/hacking on it?</p></div><p><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em> My first psp was a Christmas present from my parents back in 2005, however I didn&#8217;t start developing/hacking on it till October 2009 when I wanted to play some GBA/N64 emulators on my psp.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> what was your first contribution to the scene?</p><p><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em>My first contribution to the scene was the <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2010/12/19/release-hbl-for-the-sukkiri-exploit-by-some1/">Sukiri Demo HBL adaption</a>.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> Is there a hack/homebrew that impressed you, or that you love?</p><p><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em>The Pandora of course.  In my opinion it was the most genius &#8220;hack&#8221; for the psp.  Also, my favorite homebrew is <a href="http://wololo.net/downloads/index.php/download/941">Cavestory</a>, awesome plot and gameplay.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> A few months ago, You found a kernel exploit and released a downgrader for sony&#8217;s latest firmware, the 6.60, only a few<br /> days after Sony publicized their new Official firmware! Can you give a few technical details on the vulnerability you used?</div><div><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em>The vulnerability used in 6.38/6.39 was a simple miss-check of an argument.  It checks if an argument is &lt; 2, but even when that is false, it still does more code instead of returning an error.  The one used for 6.60 however, I didn&#8217;t look much into since it was not found by me.  The kernel exploit was originally found by Davee, however, from what I can see, the way it worked was a miss-check on a cell in a structure.</div><p>&nbsp;</p><div><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> There was some kind of mystery around this downgrader, when a testing video &#8220;leaked&#8221; on youtube&#8230;can you explain why you didn&#8217;t release the downgrader at that time? You promised me you would tell me everything after the release <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':P' class='wp-smiley' /> .</div><div><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em>: The situation was quite a bit of a mess, the video release was a miss-understanding from a tester.  The kernel exploit was handed to Zecoxao by Davee, and then Zecoxoa later gave it to me to port the downgrader for it.  The reason why I didn&#8217;t want the video out was because it said &#8220;Kernel Exploit By some1&#8243;, and I always like to give credit where credit is due.</div><p>&nbsp;</p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> Are you working on something else? A new project you&#8217;d like to share?</p><p><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em> There are a couple projects I have started but I can&#8217;t find the time to finish them.  One of the projects at the top of my list is finishing a new devhook-type app made my TheLemonMan which will allow you to go from OFW 500-660 to another OFW between 500-660.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><div><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> One of the last barriers o the full psp hack is to be able to provide unbrickers for the new models of PSP. Some progress was made a while ago on the ta88v3&#8230; do you know a bit about that?</p></div><div><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em> The investigation by Davee/Proxima wasn&#8217;t so much as progress as it was a step-back.  Previously it was believed that if we (somehow) dumped the pre-ipl, all the security on the ipl would fall, now we know that, that is not true.</div><div><p>&nbsp;</p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> Tell us a secret. Something you know about the PSP that others don&#8217;t</p></div><div><em><strong>Some1: </strong></em>I would rather not comment on my unreleased work <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';)' class='wp-smiley' /></div><div><p>&nbsp;</p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> : You seem to be on a roll of finding exploits/ adapting them into downgraders&#8230; is there some kind of advice you would like to share with people who are interested to know more about hacking consoles? Any technique?</p></div><div><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em>: If you&#8217;re looking for PSP kernel exploits, you&#8217;ll need to have a good understanding of MIPS assembly, a lot of patience, and a lot of time.  Also, keep an eye out for those <em>sltiu</em>, and remember unsigned means negative values are not less than zero.</div><p>&nbsp;</p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> Will we be seeing you on the PS Vita scene?</p><p><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em> Yes, I will be buying a Vita as soon as it is released in US, and I will be involved in the scene as much as I can.  I&#8217;m also currently loooking for someone who does have a Vita so I can do some remote testing. [Note from wololo: I'm that guy, I guess <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> ]</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong></em> A final word for the interview?</p><p><em><strong>Some1:</strong></em> I would like to give a message to any and all devs already in the psp scene and new ones coming for the vita scene; do not make any type of piracy software!  I&#8217;m really getting tired of all the piracy going around, the ps3 scene (the very little that I followed) seemed to be based around mainly piracy, I haven&#8217;t seen that much homebrew for it, it&#8217;s quite sad, and I don&#8217;t want to see the Vita go down the same route.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Thanks a lot for your time some1, see you soon on the Vita side of the fence <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/12/25/some1-the-big-interview/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>35</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Playstation Suite, the SDK that will save Playstation?</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/11/22/playstation-suite-the-sdk-that-will-save-playstation/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/11/22/playstation-suite-the-sdk-that-will-save-playstation/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:34:27 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Homebrew]]></category> <category><![CDATA[PS Vita]]></category> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=3535</guid> <description><![CDATA[A few days ago, Sony started a closed Beta test of their Playstation Suite SDK, a tool allowing to create games for the PS Vita and Android. Registration is open to everybody, including (especially?) homebrew devs. Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that I&#8217;m in the whole &#8220;hacking&#8221; [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ps-vita-1.jpg" alt="" width="140" height="81" />A few days ago, Sony started a closed Beta test of their Playstation Suite SDK, a tool allowing to create games for the PS Vita and Android. Registration is open to everybody, including (especially?) homebrew devs.</p><p><span id="more-3535"></span></p><p>Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that I&#8217;m in the whole &#8220;hacking&#8221; stuff for one simple reason: my mind refuses to understand that some great hardware is crippled by bad business decisions. In the case of the PSP, that device had everything to become the best platform for emulators and indie apps, but Sony locked the PSP, and made sure indie devs couldn&#8217;t join the fun with a prohibitive entry price (dev kits cost 1500$ initially, and you had to prove you were a respectable company, sign an NDA, before being able to get access).</p><p>History, helped by Apple and Google, proved that locking indie devs out of their ecosystem was one of Sony&#8217;s biggest mistakes in the past years. They tried to fix it with the Playstation Minis, but it was too late.</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Ericsson-Unlocked-Android-Slide-Out/dp/B004N861MG">Xperia Play</a>, the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-Vita-First-Bundle-Sony-PS/dp/B005IMVP0O">PS Vita</a>, as well as their <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SGPT112US-Wi-Fi-Tablet-32GB/dp/B005FXYKOE">new series of tablets</a> bring Sony an opportunity to right this. Sony is now trying to solve the issue of device fragmentation (Android devs know too well about this issue) with a system called the Playstation Suite, which is more or less a virtual machine that will enable developers to create a game once, and run it on several platforms (for now, the PS Vita, Sony&#8217;s Android tablets, and the Xperia play, but depending on success, other non-Sony Android tablets/phones, and maybe the PS3, might join the fun).</p><p><center><br /> <iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&#038;bc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;fc1=000000&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;t=wagic-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as4&#038;m=amazon&#038;f=ifr&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;asins=B003O6EATE" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe> <iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&#038;bc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;fc1=000000&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;t=wagic-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as4&#038;m=amazon&#038;f=ifr&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;asins=B005FXYKOE" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe> <iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&#038;bc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;fc1=000000&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;t=wagic-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as4&#038;m=amazon&#038;f=ifr&#038;ref=ss_til&#038;asins=B004N861MG" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /></center></p><p>We&#8217;ve heard of the Playstation suite before, but a &#8220;recent&#8221; (I&#8217;m kinda late on this one) technical presentation in October gave lots of details on what it&#8217;s going to be. <a href="http://events.digitallyspeaking.com/gdc/online11/player.html?xmlURL=xml/201110202_1318362244736NUDW.xml&amp;token=3c6c000ab0766078310c">The presentation</a> explains it in details, but the things that got my attention are:</p><ul><li>No painful joining process. Homebrew/indie developers as well as companies are welcome, no NDA</li><li>Small entry fee (not announced)</li><li>Open forums for code discussion and sharing</li><li>PC emulator to test the code</li><li>No need to sign the content in order to test it (this one is fishy&#8230;does it mean we can distribute our content outside of the Sony store if we feel like it, just like on Android?)</li><li>C#, running in a Mono virtual machine</li></ul><p>So, it looks like Sony is finally trying to embrace the homebrew community here, by providing something that will be close to what google Market or the Apple AppStore have for devs. Yet it&#8217;s Sony, I can&#8217;t help but feel that there will be too much restrictions one way or another&#8230; and with their past, it&#8217;s difficult to trust Sony when they say &#8220;we love indie devs&#8221;. What do you guys think?</p><p>Nevertheless, this sounds like a wise move, the Vita will be <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/11/20/will-the-psvita-be-succesful/">only one device among others</a>, but Sony can leverage their existing game library on many devices, and it could be that the paystation suite will become their strongest asset in the mobile market.</p><p>For those of you who are interested, a <a href="http://www.playstation.com/pss/closedbeta/index_e.html">closed beta</a> has started a few days ago. Anybody can register, but not everybody will be accepted. To me, if Sony does things correctly, they could become &#8220;again&#8221; one of the major actors of mobile gaming.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/11/22/playstation-suite-the-sdk-that-will-save-playstation/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>13</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Is DJGodman (only) a faker?</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/10/14/is-djgodman-only-a-faker/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/10/14/is-djgodman-only-a-faker/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:20:27 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[CFW Pro]]></category> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category> <category><![CDATA[security]]></category> <category><![CDATA[WTF?]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=3482</guid> <description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s one thing me and the mods at wololo.net don&#8217;t like, it&#8217;s fakers, people who pretend to be hackers, but are just tricking gullible people. There&#8217;s one thing we hate even more, it&#8217;s GPL infringement. In the early days of the PSP scene, devs were sharing their work only to a close circle of fellow [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There&#8217;s one thing me and the mods at wololo.net don&#8217;t like, it&#8217;s fakers, people who pretend to be hackers, but are just tricking gullible people.</p><p>There&#8217;s one thing we hate even more, it&#8217;s GPL infringement.</p><p><span id="more-3482"></span></p><p>In the early days of the PSP scene, devs were sharing their work only to a close circle of fellow coders. Knowledge on how to compile and code for the PSP was difficult to get, and people had to prove they were worth the trust in order to access some of the most critical knowledge of the PSP scene. Custom Firmwares, in particular, were entirely closed source, difficult to reverse engineer, and difficult to fake (except a few hexedits or youtube videos using basic plugins that changed the firmware name or number, easily debunked)</p><p>But the scene has evolved since those days, and open source code has become the norm for many psp projects. One of these projects is the famous Pro CFW, licensed under the GPL.</p><p>Our forums have recently been spammed by posts about a  &#8220;Custom Firmware&#8221; named 6.XX GOD, created by faker DJGodman. More than a fake, let&#8217;s say that it is an &#8220;extended&#8221; version of CFW Pro, with additional plugins. None of these plugins have been created by DJGodman, mind you, but his application seems to be a nice compilation of the Pro CFW + a bunch of plugins. Why not&#8230; some people might like an &#8220;all in one&#8221; solution, all of these tools are free to use, most of them are open source and under the GPL, so it&#8217;s ok to use them&#8230;</p><p>&#8230; except DJGodman is the kind of person who thinks that adding 10 lines of C in a 100&#8217;000 line codebase is enough to claim all ownership to the software, and change the license from GPL to closed-source Creative commons.</p><p>Of course that&#8217;s not the way it works, and after repeated unmet demands to respect the license of Pro CFW, our friend DJGodman earned a nice ban from our forums.</p><p>The story could have stopped here, but he thought it would be funny to create several accounts on our forums, and come back with new versions of his &#8220;Custom Firmware&#8221;. DJGodman didn&#8217;t understand the basic idea of respecting devs, and when we told him &#8220;please respect the GPL license and publish the entire source code&#8221;, he misunderstood that with &#8220;please hide as much as you can the fact that you stole source code from dozens of psp devs&#8221;.</p><p>This is how the Pro Inferno Driver (an advanced iso driver created by Pro CFW devs) magically became the &#8220;GODriver&#8221; in DJGodman&#8217;s version, and how all credits in the firmware were replaced by bullsh*t such as &#8220;I, DJGodman, created all of this&#8221;. He even pushed the insult to our intelligence by claiming on our forums that all Pro code had been removed from his project (hint: nobody can code a new CFW overnight).</p><p>Now, I couldn&#8217;t care less if it wasn&#8217;t for the repeated personal attacks from that individual to me and other devs, which is funny but gets boring very quickly.</p><p>So I decided to dig into &#8220;6.XX GOD&#8221;&#8230;</p><p>The readme itself gives strong hints that something&#8217;s fishy. The license is under Creative Commons, but that &#8220;CFW&#8221; includes GPL code such as Codestation&#8217;s prxshot, or some1&#8242;s Kernel exploit for 6.39/6.60. That&#8217;s already a good sign we&#8217;re looking at some stolen code.</p><p>The faker took care of replacing all strings mentioning Pro CFW with strings mentioning his name instead, so a quick look into the code&#8217;s strings doesn&#8217;t show anything, but as we unpack the zipped files in the Eboot, we start to see interesting stuff&#8230;</p><p><img class="size-full wp-image-3483 aligncenter" title="godman-is-fake-1" src="http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/godman-is-fake-1.jpg" alt="" width="479" height="401" /><img class="size-full wp-image-3484 aligncenter" title="godman-is-fake-2" src="http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/godman-is-fake-2.jpg" alt="" width="447" height="401" /></p><p>No need for me to go further, there&#8217;s stolen code from Pro CFW here. Actually, 99% of the code in 6.XX GOD is a direct copy of Pro CFW.</p><p>I trust DJGodman when he says this is not a hexedit. He actually recompiled Pro CFW and probably even added some of his own code there. So, there&#8217;s genuine work in there, and people might be tempted to try his CFW&#8230;but given the quality of his support forums (the CFW section has 10 posts, including 5 that are fake accounts recommending users to download a virus, claiming it is a psp hack), I&#8217;d label this &#8220;CFW&#8221; as a huge piece of cr*p, and I  suggest you to stick with Pro CFW <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /></p><p>Welcome to the scene. Talented devs like Virtuous Flame and Coldbird share their work to the entire community, and this is how a lowlife dev-wannabe thanks them, by repackaging their work and claiming all ownership.</p><p>In conclusion, here&#8217;s a personal message to DJGodman and his followers: it seems you do have some programming skills, I&#8217;ve rarely seen such an elaborate fake (thanks to the fact that CFW Pro is open source), you should try to contribute for real to the scene, instead of packaging Pro CFW and a few plugins into an Eboot and claim it&#8217;s a new CFW.</p><p>And a final note: you didn&#8217;t get banned from our forums because we don&#8217;t like your CFW. You got banned because you&#8217;ve been disrespecting the psp underground community, continuously.</p><p>&nbsp;</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/10/14/is-djgodman-only-a-faker/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>209</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Video: TN-Hen 6.38 Proof of concept</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/26/video-tn-hen-6-38-proof-of-concept/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/26/video-tn-hen-6-38-proof-of-concept/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 26 Apr 2011 03:07:15 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category> <category><![CDATA[security]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TN Hen]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=2866</guid> <description><![CDATA[Developer HacKmaN, who works closely with Total_Noob on TN Hen, just released a video showcasing TN Hen on a 6.38 OFW. A few weeks ago, Total_Noob had announced in this interview that he was investigating Kernel exploits on the latest firmware. He then confirmed he was onto something, by showing a video running a kernel [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Developer HacKmaN, who works closely with Total_Noob on TN Hen, just released a video showcasing TN Hen on a 6.38 OFW.</p><p>A few weeks ago, Total_Noob had announced in <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/13/total_noob-the-big-interview/">this interview</a> that he was investigating Kernel exploits on the latest firmware. He then confirmed he was onto something, by <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/24/total_noob-finds-a-kernel-exploit-on-6-38/">showing a video</a> running a kernel exploit POC on a PSP running OFW 6.38.</p><p><span style='display:block;text-align:center;'><object width='450' height='365'><param name='movie' value='http://www.youtube.com/v/9fsHc18BLQs&amp;border=0&amp;rel=0&amp;egm=0&amp;color1=0x666666&amp;color2=0xefefef' /><param name='mode' value='transparent' /><embed src='http://www.youtube.com/v/9fsHc18BLQs&amp;border=0&amp;rel=0&amp;egm=0&amp;color1=0x666666&amp;color2=0xefefef' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='transparent' width='450' height='365' /></object></span></p><p>Today this video shows that porting TN Hen to the latest firmwares seemed like a piece of cake for this talented dev.</p><p>In the interview, as well as in his recent videos, Total_Noob (and HacKmaN) stated that this Hen would not be released because of the scene&#8217;s attitude towards developers and the whole debate about isos.</p><p>Comments about the video on youtube show a mix of angry people, people who promise that 6.38 users are not pirates, that they will &#8220;behave&#8221;, but we all know how it goes: as long as Hen does not support piracy, &#8220;nobody&#8221; cares about it, and most of the ones who care just come to insult the lack of iso support.</p><p>Total_Noob is now following the path of Davee and Team Typhoon, who had a working Hen on firmware 6.20 more than a year ago, but <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2009/11/12/firmware-6-10-hacked-with-kernel-access-psp-go-poc-video-by-team-typhoon/">never released it</a> because of the scene&#8217;s attitude.</p><p>As far as I&#8217;m concerned, I&#8217;ve been in the scene long enough to know this: the scene is made of 95% of morons who are in this only for piracy. <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2009/11/15/stop-whining/">I fight for the remaining 5%</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/26/video-tn-hen-6-38-proof-of-concept/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>119</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Total_Noob finds a Kernel exploit on 6.38</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/24/total_noob-finds-a-kernel-exploit-on-6-38/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/24/total_noob-finds-a-kernel-exploit-on-6-38/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:00:32 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category> <category><![CDATA[security]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TN Hen]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=2832</guid> <description><![CDATA[As you probably know, firmwares 6.37 and 6.38 allow you to play &#8220;regular&#8221; homebrews through HBL, as well as &#8220;signed&#8221; homebrews, including some backups with the fake_np tool. But these two firmwares cannot run Custom Firmwares or HENs, which offer a much more &#8220;integrated&#8221; experience, as well as the support for custom themes and plugins. [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As you probably know, firmwares 6.37 and 6.38 allow you to play &#8220;regular&#8221; homebrews through <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/hbl">HBL</a>, as well as <a href="http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=2&amp;t=1879">&#8220;signed&#8221; homebrews</a>, including some backups with the <a href="http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=29&amp;t=2236">fake_np</a> tool. But these two firmwares cannot run <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/cfw4dummies">Custom Firmwares or HENs</a>, which offer a much more &#8220;integrated&#8221; experience, as well as the support for custom themes and plugins. In order to run a CFW, a Kernel exploit is required, and the Kernel exploit that is used on firmwares 6.20 and 6.35 has been patched by Sony in firmware 6.37.</p><p>However, Developer Total_Noob announced via a video on his youtube Channel that he found a new Kernel exploit on firmware 6.38.</p><p><span style='display:block;text-align:center;'><object width='450' height='365'><param name='movie' value='http://www.youtube.com/v/Ednf75t4HWc&amp;border=0&amp;rel=0&amp;egm=0&amp;color1=0x666666&amp;color2=0xefefef' /><param name='mode' value='transparent' /><embed src='http://www.youtube.com/v/Ednf75t4HWc&amp;border=0&amp;rel=0&amp;egm=0&amp;color1=0x666666&amp;color2=0xefefef' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='transparent' width='450' height='365' /></object></span></p><p>The video doesn&#8217;t show much, and a user-mode fake homebrew could do the same, but given the source I&#8217;m inclined to say that this is legit <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /></p><p>Total_Noob states in his video that he has no current plan to release anything for now, so let&#8217;s wait a little bit <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /></p><p>Feel free to discuss this breakthrough in the dedicated thread on  <a href="http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=17&amp;t=5702">/talk</a></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/24/total_noob-finds-a-kernel-exploit-on-6-38/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>29</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Total_Noob: The big interview</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/13/total_noob-the-big-interview/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/13/total_noob-the-big-interview/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:03:18 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category> <category><![CDATA[TN Hen]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=2808</guid> <description><![CDATA[Recently I interviewed Coldbird and Virtuous Flame, the creators of CFW Pro. It is now time to take a look at the other side of the force. As you may or may not know, all the Custom Firmwares / Homebrew Enablers for recent firmwares rely on the same base: a Kernel vulnerability discovered and exploited [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/hen620.png" alt="" width="144" height="80" />Recently <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/04/coldbird-and-vf-the-big-interview-part-1/">I interviewed Coldbird and Virtuous Flame</a>, the creators of CFW Pro. It is now time to take a look at the other side of the force. As you may or may not know, all the Custom Firmwares / Homebrew Enablers for recent firmwares rely on the same base: a Kernel vulnerability discovered and exploited by Total_Noob a few months ago. Total_Noob used this exploit as the base for his largely used Homebrew enabler, <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/tn-hen-6-20/">TN Hen</a>.</p><p>I had the opportunity to chat with Total_Noob about his ongoing projects for the psp, so read along if you want to learn about the upcoming features for <em><strong>TN-HEN E</strong></em>&#8230;</p><p><span id="more-2808"></span></p><h3>Total_Noob, thanks for your time . Let&#8217;s start with the basics, can you quickly introduce yourself ?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob</strong></em>:  My name is Andy, I&#8217;m a fifteen years old student. I came to the scene sometime in 2008</p><h3> When did you get your first PSP ?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> I got my first PSP phat when I was 13. A present from my parents on my birthday. Soon, my cousin hacked my PSP and I had CFW 3.40 OE-A. I really enjoyed my homebrews.</p><h3>So, you were into hacks from the start&#8230;when did you join the scene as a &#8220;dev&#8221;, what was your first contribution?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> Hm&#8230;initially I joined QJ.net. My first plugin was MusicHold, maybe some people will remember it: It allows you to press right and left trigger, while your PSP is in hold mode. Torch, the developer of Hold+ added this feature to his awesome plugin.</p><h3>Was there a hack or a hacker on the PSP that really impressed you ?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> The hack wich impressed me (and still impresses me) is the Pandora battery. My cousin downgraded my PSP with that and it was just like magic <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /> . Every developer who worked on this project impressed me</p><h3>Let&#8217;s move on to your work on the kernel exploit. So&#8230; to put things simply, how did you find this exploit?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> 2 years ago ( or one ? ), Yoshihiro gave me a hint about a vulnerability in utility.prx. I was a noob and at first I didn&#8217;t understand where the Kernel Exploit was. In August 2010, I was actively looking for a Kernel Exploit and I stumbled upon a function in utility.prx wich was calling a buggy power function with k1 shifted. At that point I remembered that Yoshihiro had told me about this<br /> <em><strong>wololo: </strong>So from then you started working on a Hen&#8230;.</em></p><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> yes.<em><br /> </em></p><h3> how long do you think you spent in total working on the exploit + the Hen ?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob: </strong></em>Veeeeeeery much. Since October 2010 till now<br /> <em><strong>wololo:</strong> do you have an idea how many hours you spent?</em><br /> <em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> Well, I worked every weekend on the HEN, so&#8230; thousands of hours maybe? Maybe that&#8217;s a bit exaggerated&#8230;but definitely hundreds of hours.</p><h3>are you still working on TN Hen ?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> Of course I am! I&#8217;m a bit sad, &#8217;cause people think I left the scene. I invented maaany new features and I promise, you guys will be excited once you know what the features are<br /> <em><strong>wololo:</strong> Oh, so TN-E is coming&#8230;can you reveal a few features you are working on ?</em><br /> <em><strong>Total_Noob: </strong></em>Well&#8230;.I think TN-E is ready for release. But maybe my brain will tinker some new features <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> . OK, here are a few:</p><ul><li>- Added OSK Character Limit Increase (the Internet Browser OSK only supports 512 characters. This patch allows you to use 1518 characters).</li><li>- Added password control at startup.</li><li>- Added UMD patch (umd4hombrew is not necessary anymore).</li><li>- Added usbdevice.</li><li>- Added PSX multi-disc support.</li><li>- Added possibility to hide hen eboot in the game menu.</li><li>- Added version.txt display.</li><li>- Added more functions to kubridge library.</li><li>- <strong>Added a surprise</strong></li></ul><p><em><strong>Total_Noob: </strong></em>The suprise will hew you guys down<br /> <em><strong>wololo:</strong> hehe, can&#8217;t wait</em></p><h3> What was the biggest challenge when you worked on TN Hen ?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> There was no huge difficulty. Fix bugs, add patches for stability, fix bugs again&#8230; the most difficult part was probably to fix bugs I couldn&#8217;t reproduce myself.<br /> <em><strong>wololo:</strong></em> ah, good point, so how did you proceed to fix those?<br /> <strong>Total_Noob:</strong> Trial and error, send new versions regularly to the testers. Sometimes it took me a whole weekend to fix a bug! Like the 32gb Memory Stick problem (Homebrew execution crash)</p><p><em><strong>wololo: </strong>Thanks, moving on to your &#8220;future&#8221; projects&#8230;</em></p><h3> Lots of people are expecting a Hen for 6.37 (and now I see that 6.38 is out)&#8230;do you have an answer for them?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob: </strong></em>Yesterday I saw a new function wich has a vulnerability, but it is probably not exploitable. I&#8217;ll investigate more after the TN-E release.<br /> <em><strong>wololo:</strong> Ok, not sure yet if this is really exploitable, right? But at least it means some vulnerabilities are still around</em>.<br /> <em><strong>Total_Noob</strong></em>: Exactly.</p><h3>What kind of advice would you give to people who want to become console &#8220;hackers&#8221;?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob: </strong></em>Learn with practice, do NOT start with the hardest thing, such as a CFW.</p><h3>I assume you know that geohot was recently threatened by Sony (they settled the case earlier this month). Are you afraid the same kind of stuff might happen to PSP hackers?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> No, I&#8217;m not afraid. They care much more about the PS3</p><h3> are you getting an NGP?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> If I&#8217;ve got enough money, I&#8217;ll buy it for sure<br /> <em><strong>wololo: </strong>hehe, any games you&#8217;re hoping to play on that new console?</em><br /> <em><strong>Total_Noob: </strong></em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed! or God Of War<br /> <em><strong>wololo:</strong> the best part of Assassin&#8217;s Creed is Jade Raymond </em><br /> <em><strong>Total_Noob: </strong></em>Haha, yes she looks nice <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /> <em><strong></strong></em></p><h3>Thanks a lot for your answers , any final word?</h3><p><em><strong>Total_Noob:</strong></em> Yes, I am developing with my friend HacKmaN.<br /> <em><strong>wololo:</strong> Say hi to him,</em><em> and thanks a lot for your time, Total_Noob!</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/13/total_noob-the-big-interview/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>114</slash:comments> </item> <item><title>Coldbird and VF, The Big Interview, Part 3 (I swear, it&#8217;s the last one)</title><link>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/05/coldbird-and-vf-the-big-interview-part-3-i-swear-its-the-last-one/</link> <comments>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/05/coldbird-and-vf-the-big-interview-part-3-i-swear-its-the-last-one/#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:19:30 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>wololo</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[CFW Pro]]></category> <category><![CDATA[psp dev]]></category><guid isPermaLink="false">http://wololo.net/wagic/?p=2725</guid> <description><![CDATA[Missed the first parts of the interview? You can find part 1 here, and part 2 here Still with us? Great, welcome to this last part of my big interview with two of the main active hackers on the PSP scene nowadays, Coldbird and Virtuous Flame. In this last part, we discuss a bit of [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ICON0.png" alt="" width="144" height="80" /><em>Missed the first parts of the interview? You can find part 1 <a href="../2011/04/04/coldbird-and-vf-the-big-interview-part-1/">here</a>, and part 2 <a href="http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/05/coldbird-and-vf-the-big-interview-part-2">here</a> <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </em></p><p>Still with us? Great, welcome to this last part of my big interview with two of the main active hackers on the PSP scene nowadays, <em>Coldbird</em> and <em>Virtuous Flame</em>. In this last part, we discuss a bit of 6.37 hacking, and the two devs&#8217; thoughts on the NGP.</p><p><span id="more-2725"></span></p><h3>Based on your experience with CFW Pro, do you think hacking the PSP has become easier since the 1.xx era ? Or harder?</h3><p><em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> Well&#8230; in early times &#8211; 1.0 and 1.5 &#8211; no real hacking was required&#8230; And nowadays, once you did the initial hacking (with no means to debug, besides framebuffer coloring), you can always rely on psplink to help you out with breakpointing / testing&#8230;</p><p>Also, we developed our own debugging applications, one being named &#8220;Jumper&#8221;, which allows us to inject a OllyDBG like trace function into a module, to see its program flow&#8230;</p><p>I dont think its any easier to hack 6.XX Firmwares than it was back in 3.XX. A few protections were added, but its the same process involved. Just that we know a bit more about the hardware / software now than we did before.</p><h3>Many people ask me if a Kernel exploit/HEN for firmware 6.37 is likely to happen&#8230; do you have an answer for them?</h3><p><em><strong> coldbird:</strong></em> Unless we discover a suitable Kernel Exploit or Boot-Stage exploit, no &#8211; not yet.</p><p>For those that do wish to go on a 6.37 exploithunt&#8230;Search for Syscall exports that might be exploitable. Many people still dont know how we can make the jump from user to kernel. Syscalls are the only way in! <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /> For newbies, get yourself prxtool, get yourself psardumper&#8230; decrypt 6.37 and dig in.</p><p>As for us&#8230; we lack the time to do active searching ourselves. Maintaining PRO as is is enough of a job next to studying, reallife, etc.</p><h3>6.37 already allows to run user mode homebrews, and a large number of isos using a few signing tricks. We haven&#8217;t seen a patch from Sony yet, do you think they gave up on the PSP?</h3><p><em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> Nah. They just got lazy&#8230; Not too many people know that the homebrew scene even exists. The homebrew / cfw users make up a small percentage of the overall users. If I go out today, and ask 10 psp owners, I&#8217;m already lucky if 1 of them knows what a homebrew is.</p><p>They became lazy but they are still operating, and thus only do what they have to do to counteract it in measurable ways. Besides&#8230; the ISO signing algorithm by TPU and co only work with pre-generated demo headers, giving you a very strict limit in iso filesize and iso crypt codes. The only real way sony will counteract this is to keep the future released demos below the already existing maximum demo size, to not allow further isos becoming playable.</p><p>At least thats my guess here.</p><h3>What piece of advice would you give to people who want to know &#8220;how&#8221; to become a hacker?</h3><p><strong>coldbird:</strong> Hm&#8230; depends what they wish to do obviously. Well for PSP&#8230; the first thing you WILL need is a good MIPS Assembly Instruction sheet, unless you know MIPS Assembly already. No hacking without Assembly.</p><p><em><strong>Virtuous Flame: </strong></em>My advice is &#8220;Always curious. And better know nothing than half-know&#8221;<br /> <em><strong>coldbird: </strong></em>Ah our friend is talking in cryptic language again. <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> Curiosity is very important though, and a big thirst for knowledge.<br /> <em><strong>Virtuous Flame:</strong></em> I see many devs trying to crack a bug just by replacing files. If they just went deeper into the assembly they would find out a better/wider solution.<br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> Yup&#8230;</p><p><em><strong>Virtuous Flame:</strong></em> For example, one protection we had to bypass at some point was just made of two new functions added in 6.xx kernel. And it blocked us for many months.<br /> <em><strong>coldbird: </strong></em>Yeah&#8230; sheesh that took us forever. But it was so simple: Sony just &#8220;cloned&#8221; functions with different nids, to trigger a &#8220;function not found&#8221; error in older firmwares. This simple thing kept us looking for many months, because we were expecting something really difficult,  and were too blind to accept the possibility that it could be a minimal thing.</p><h3>Any &#8220;developer anecdote&#8221; you would like to share?</h3><p><em><strong>Virtuous Flame:</strong></em> During one of our experiments we found a weird bug in 6.20 utility modules<br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> yeah. <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /><br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> And evil game developers misusing it for intended crashing&#8230; <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /><br /> <em><strong>wololo: </strong>Wait, seriously? Game developers don&#8217;t intentionally do that <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </em><br /> <em><strong>coldbird: </strong></em>they do.<br /> <em><strong>Virtuous Flame: </strong></em>They used a bug fixed in 6.3x to crash any Firmware under 6.3x<br /> <em><strong>wololo: </strong>so that&#8217;s an anti downgrade feature, somehow ?</em><br /> <em><strong>Virtuous Flame: </strong></em>Yes. I guess they intened to trigger a bug from Sony&#8217;s &#8220;bug fix list&#8221;. They do nothing in the code except loading and unloading libmp3&#8230;<br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> Its just a 6.20 bug, which occurs when unloading libmp3, freezing the system<br /> <em><strong>Virtuous Flame:</strong></em> During this process 6.20 kernel corrupts its user memory, which causes random crashes<br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> they <em>[The game devs]</em> knew of it&#8230; and added it to ensure no 6.20 ofw could &#8211; using tricks &#8211; play the game.</p><h3>Are you guys gonna get an NGP?</h3><p><em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> I wont&#8230; unless someone magically donates me one or something.<br /> In that case I would continue as I already did for PSP. Take a deeper look into it when possible&#8230; and see if i can extend its featureset.<br /> <em><strong>Virtuous Flame: </strong></em>As for me, why not? I am sure Sony must regret selling me the pspgo <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /><br /> <em><strong>Wololo:</strong> <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /> </em><br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> Even if the statement of my friend sounds a bit&#8230; i dont know how to say it&#8230;We dont want to harm sony.</p><h3>Ok, that&#8217;s basically it for my questions, any final word for the readers ?</h3><p><em><strong>coldbird: </strong></em>Hm.. final sentence. Sounds important. Can it be anything?<br /> <em><strong>Wololo:</strong> definitely</em><br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> In that case, I wanna thank everyone who got involved with our development of PRO-CFW and its subprojects, like the online mode, especially my friend Virtuous Flame who sticked with me ever since the start of it. But also the others who were directly or indirectly involved in making progress in the PSP scene, be it Dark Alex, who I always looked up to, Mathieulh, Geohotz and also the early birds of the scene, like Nem who helped us get as far as we are now.</p><p>I also want to add a personal greeting of my own to Aznk, my most relyable Betatester in the PRO-Project and my girlfriend Crispy who cheers me up and gives me strength when I&#8217;m down.</p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong> Virtous Flame, any final word, or thing you want to discuss?</em><br /> <em><strong>Wololo:</strong> Ah, I have to go to bed, or my wife will kill me (again!)</em><br /> <em><strong>coldbird: &#8220;</strong></em>Again&#8221;? You a zombie?<br /> <em><strong>Wololo:</strong> Yup&#8230;she basically kills me every sunday night</em><br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> So mate, give wololo your final sentence so he can die in peace. <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /></p><p><em><strong>Virtuous Flame:</strong></em> The era of PSP may end very soon, but soon a new dawn will rise.<br /> Is this good enough ?<br /> <em><strong>coldbird:</strong></em> poethical. <img src='http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /></p><p><em><strong>Wololo:</strong> Thanks SO MUCH for your time guys!</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/04/05/coldbird-and-vf-the-big-interview-part-3-i-swear-its-the-last-one/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>22</slash:comments> </item> </channel> </rss>
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