Our scam of the day is an interesting one, as it is the first fake PS4 hack claim since the console was out. Don’t worry, many more fake hacks will come along the way, trust me on that. But this one’s special, as it’s the first one. Earlier today, rumors started spreading about a potential PS4 Hack. The initial pastebin for the “exploit” from user Reckz0r claimed a PS4 running on the Day 1 update was able to install and run a “jailbreak” update program.

The pastebin pretends to provide download links to a “PS4 Devkit” (whatever that means) and a Jailbreak package. Of course, the files do not actually exist, and no mirror is to be found anywhere. Confirming the growing suspicions of fake at this point is the fact that no mirror of the files seem to be found anywhere, something that would be a first in the history of the internet for a release that big. Well, at least be glad it does not take you to a “survey”.

If it wasn’t clear at this point that the release is obviously fake (note how you don’t even need to understand anything about hacking to see it at this point, just basic common sense: a release of this importance would have been mirrored on dozens of underground websites by now if the files had ever been online.

But to confirm it further in case you still had doubts, Reckz0r himself posted a “screenshot” of a conversation between him and “playstation” regarding the files, apparently to explain why the files have been taken down.

Here again, everybody who’s had a professional activity in their life knows that an official PR-related twitter account from a respectable company such as Sony would never contact a hacker directly like that on twitter, especially to use such petty intimidation. Anybody also noticed how Direct Messages in Twitter are limited to 140 characters? That didn’t seem to be part of the faker’s plan, that or he is really trying hard to make it obvious this whole thing is a joke.

The announcement however does have a few somewhat convincing elements. Some people claim reckz0r is a respected member of the hacking scene. Unfortunately (for him), just a bit of google surfaces a majority of respectable website calling Reckz0r out on all his fake hacks: fake Xbox live hack last year, copy/pasted leaks from other hacking teams and claiming them as his own, etc… The 23-year old script kiddy Reckz0r pretty much built his “respectability” on the fact that many mainstream blogs don’t even double check their information.

Such will be the case this time too, with already many blogs or mainstream websites reporting the “PS4 hack” without having done the bare minimum of research on the truth of the story. A few scene websites categorized the article as “rumour”, which is a step in the right direction, but far from calling the fake for what it is.

At least this is a good way for you to identify lame sites: if you went to a site that pretends/believes this hack is real, you can stop going there right now because these guys are obviously clueless.

In the “release”, Reckz0r buys himself some credibility by stating he didn’t come up with the hack, just wrote a tutorial for it. He points to another hacker by the name of x-s4nd3r as the “origin” of the hack. x-s4nd3r is a hacker who was known for defacing websites, a category of hacking that requires skills extremely different from the ones required to hack a console. That this person would be behind a PS4 jailbreak is highly unlikely, both because the skillset is different, but also probably because that person has no interest in console hacking.

All these elements add up of course: a known faker releases a pastebin with absolutely no proof of anything whatsoever, links are conveniently missing, none of the “sources” he mentions can be found anywhere, his twitter “proof” is an obvious joke, his tutorial itself is highly suspicious and contains several points that do not make sense.

Verdict: The PS4 Jailbreak by reckz0r is an obvious fake, stay away from it and every site that claims it is real

True to my philosophy of not giving free advertising to fakers, I am not pointing to any of the material posted by reckz0r, but you can easily google for it.