Andre Yoskowitz
30 Mar 2010 12:18
Yesterday we reported that Sony was set to kill off the popular "OtherOS" support feature of older "fat" PlayStation 3s on April 1st with a firmware update.
Notable iPhone hacker "Geohot" has posted today on his blog that he is working on a CFW (custom firmware) that will work around the dropping of OtherOS support, also telling PS3 owners to avoid updating their consoles, for the time being. Says the post:
"A note to people interested in the exploit and retaining OtherOS support, DO NOT UPDATE. When 3.21 comes out, I will look into a safe way of updating to retain OtherOS support, perhaps something like Hellcat's Recovery Flasher. I never intended to touch CFW, but if that's how you want to play...
Two things, some people seem to think CFW will enable some sort of piracy. It won't. It'll just be a custom version of 3.21 that doesn't lose OtherOS support. Hacking isn't about getting what you didn't pay for, it's about making sure you do get what you did.
And this is about more than this feature right now. It's about whether these companies have the right to take away advertised features from a product you purchased. Imagine if an exploit were found in Safari on the iPhone, but instead of fixing it, Apple decides to pull web browsing altogether. Legally, they may be within their right to do so, but we have to show them it's the wrong move for the future of the product and the company."