PS4: NoBD Updater will be free once the $225 ko-fi donation goal is reached
Update: the donation drive has now reached its goal, and the tool can be downloaded for free from the Homebrew store, or at https://pkg-zone.com/details/UDAT99998
The Ko-fi goal has been reached and as promised iv added the Free NoBD Updater (can be used Offline) to the Store site and App
in the coming days, the site with a NoBD Guide will be up at https://t.co/WFsdSCekKM along with a TuT Video
Store DL: https://t.co/i2dbjq35oh pic.twitter.com/ouTYuQacbN
— LM 🇺🇦 (@LightningMods_) May 3, 2022
Original article:
Developer LightningMods has been caught in a minor controversy recently when he announced his NoBD updater would become a paid service after the initial test phase. The developer has changed his mind on the remuneration process, and instead switched to a donation goal of $225, on popular donation service ko-fi. Once that goal is reached (currently at 80% at the time of writing this), the tool will become free for everyone. Until then, people who want to contribute to the goal can donate $10 and get a key for the NoBD updater tool before everybody else.
What is a PS4 NoBD, and how do I update mine?
It’s up to the community to fix this mess, and make it technically possible to update your firmware to the latest and greatest, by bypassing a few checks during installation of the firmware. These techniques are typically referred to as “NoBD updaters”.
There are specific requirements to run such an updater, starting of course with the fact that you need to run a Jailbroken PS4. LM’s NoBD Updater currently supports 5.5x, 5.03, 5.05, 6.20, 6.72, 7.0x, 7.5x. By following LightningMod’s instructions, you will be updating to firmware 9.00, allowing you to run the latest Jailbreak on that firmware.
What’s the controversy?
LightningMod wanted to get paid for his effort, by selling a “one time” key for each user who wanted to update their NoBD PS4. And to be clear, in general at wololo.net we have no concern with that. Their work, their choice. But the scene generally expects stuff to be free, or other means of payment than directly “buying” a license. The hacking scene has a long history of “teams” using other people’s work for a quick profit, and this is unfortunately going to be perceived this way even if the price one charges is fair. I personally feel a $10 license fee to update a stuck PS4 can be considered fair, but I understand why some people didn’t like that either.
LightningMods has reverted to a different solution, which is to reach a goal of $225 in donations, in order to make the tool free for everyone. I personally like this approach, and the goal is 80% met at the time of writing. People who donate $10 or more get a key automatically, ahead of time (you have to join a discord server here in order to contact LM – Beware though, at the time of writing, we’ve received an “invalid invite” error message when attempting to join). The scene in general seems to like this approach better, where people who can afford it can fix their PS4 right now, while others just have to be a bit patient.
After reading replies I saw some people didn’t like the licensing model,
Would it be better if I just put a goal/bounty on my ko-fi? Once reached it will be free for everyonehttps://t.co/usiLidJMWk
— LM 🇺🇦 (@LightningMods_) April 29, 2022
Also probably worth mentioning that LightningMods has published a lot of useful homebrew for the PS4, free of charge, for years, such as PS4-Store.
NoBD Updater to 9.00 confirmed working by testers
The folks who have tried LightningMod’s files so far have reported success, for example here are pictures courtesy of user PTM (theboss) on the test discord channel, who confirmed update from 6.72 to 9.00 worked as expected:
Where to donate? Where to get the PS4 NoBD Updater?
The tool isn’t free currently, but might become soon. When it does, look for an announcement from LightningMods. In the meantime, you can donate on ko-fi to reach the $225 goal, but be sure to reach out to LightningMods on Discord ahead of time to understand where and how to get your key for donations of $10 or more.
What are your thoughts on homebrew developers getting paid for their releases? Let us know in the comments below.
Update: Discord invite updated to a new one, per discussion with LightningMods
i remember LM was selling s0ny sdk’s an pup’s 😀
You can update the article again: he reached the goal, we just need to wait for him to honor the deal
Thanks, article updated!
I’m stuck somewhere in the middle of “putting a payment requirement on it is a legal nightmare that’s going to guarantee Sony is going to down on you” and “charging for a tool to keep hardware you don’t own the IP to working is morally dubious”.
Not with that stupid flag will I ever donate to the Current Cringe believers…
who cares. it’s just a flag lmao
I’m sure you’d just have a different reason not to donate.
Get off of putin’s ***, he doesn’t care about you.
I don’t donate to flag-waving people, those who really deserve support are people with humility, not selfish nationalists.
People do deserve to get compensation for their work. It’s not easy hacking such a secure system. The big problem is people always demanding stuff for free.
People should’ve just waited for someone who willingly would’ve done the initial payment plan scheme idea just to get the key and reverse engineer it and make a pc tool to make keys just like it. In other *** lightning mods.
I don’t see any problem with all of this.
Guess a lot of people would pay TheFlow and other hackers a great amount for a PS5 hack. So instead of Sony paying him 10 grand for not giving it away I guess a lot of people would donate a lot more to get it released instead. Let say 1000 people donate 20 dollars each = 20.000 dollars straight into his pockets and at the same time he would make a lot of people very happy. If you, TheFlow, reads this. Would you consider this?
This has been tried in the past, for PS vita hacks. There’s a surprisingly low amount of people willing to put their money where their mouth is. Also considering this falls in a gray legal area, a hacker would need more than twice the amount for it to be enticing, IMO. I’m sure for $100’000 they’d consider selling it to someone else than Sony. But for $20’000, I don’t think many hackers would see the appeal. “Do the right thing for $10’000, or run a complex donation drive that might fail, for $20’000, with the risk of being sued by Sony for millions…” Not a tough choice.
Not that I encourage anyone to secure $100’000 to do something that’s possibly illegal. Just talking numbers here.
But what is the difference if TheFlow releasing something for free (like he use to do) or taking donations before releasing it? I mean if we speak of the “grey legal area”? It doesn’t get more grey just because he takes donations right? What I’m saying is that the donations doesn’t have to be connected to the actual exploit.
Scenario 1: Hey guys, here is the new hack! -> Not a grey area? No chance of getting sued?
Scenario 2: Hey guys, if you like to donate some cash I can keep researching! 2 months later… Hey guys, here is the new hack! -> Grey area? Getting sued?
First of all, whether you accept money or not for a legally gray project can make a big difference on the punishment in the case you get sued, depending on your country, etc… I’m not sure it makes it “more illegal”, but it increases the severity of penalty you might encounter. (Disclaimer: Not a lawyer!)
Secondly, going through the bounty program gives you explicit agreement from Sony/HackerOne to disclose the vulnerability, in some cases. This means: 1) you get paid for your hack 2) the scene gets the hack, 3) nobody gets sued. So, yeah, there’s no question it’s a safer deal than accepting money directly from the scene and risking the lawyers to come knocking at your door.
As to why TheFloW used to do things differently before: ask him, but I would say he was younger, less aware of the legal risks (also less impacted legally, as a kid), the bounty program didn’t exist, etc… Thousands of valid reasons to explain why he has evolved.
But wouldn’t you say there is absolutely zero chance that Sony would let him disclose anything “big” (jailbreak) on the PS5? I guess TheFlow used to do things differently just becase of one thing.. the Bounty program didn’t exist. If he could have made a lot of cash before I guess he would have. I don’t blame him. Cash is king. But it kinda sucks for all the homebrew lovers.
Hopefully someone can “hack” *blink blink* his computer so his research gets released into the wild.
Yup you might be right.