A new custom made firmware upgrade for hacked PlayStation 3 consoles has been launched, and this one looks like it’s going to be pretty permanent. It’s even compatible with the 4.25 firmware release.
It’s basically based on the PlayStation 3’s LV0 keys. With the help of the LV0 decryption keys, firmware upgrades can easily be decoded. A firmware update can be transferred to PCs, decoded and then transferred back to a hacked PS3 console (via Eurogamer).
The LV0 keys have been made by a group called “The Three Muskateers”. A Chinese hacking group, “BlueDiskCFW” planned to release these custom firmware updates based on the LV0 keys and charge for them. To prevent BlueDiscCFW from profiting by selling their keys, The Three Muskateers released them.
“You can be sure that if it wouldn’t have been for this leak, this key would never have seen the light of day,” The Three Muskateers said in their statement. “Only the fear of our work being used by others to make money out of it has forced us to release this now.”
Here’s their entire statement with the keys censored (via PlayStation Lifestyle):
As this was a group effort, we wouldn’t normally have lost a word about it ever, but as we’re done with PS3 now anyways, we think it doesn’t matter anymore. Congratulations to the guy that leaked stuff, you, sir, are a 1337 haxx0r, jk, you’re an asshole.
People should know that crooked personalities are widespread in this so called ‘scene’. Some people try to achieve something for fun together and make the wrong decision to trust others and share their results with them, but ofc there got to be the attention seeking fame wh*** that has to leak stuff to feel a little bit better about him-/herself. Now the catch is that it works like this in every ‘scene’, just that in others it usually doesn’t come to light.The only sad thing is, that the others who worked on this won’t get the attention they deserve because they probably want to remain anonymous (also they don’t care about E-fame <3).
PS: This is neither about drama nor E-fame nor ‘OMG WE HAZ BEEN FIRST’, we just thought you should know that we’re disappointed in certain people. You can be sure that if it wouldn’t have been for this leak, this key would never have seen the light of day, only the fear of our work being used by others to make money out of it has forced us to release this now.
– The Three Musketeers