PSGroove PS3 jailbreak hack now runs off smartphones

If you have the right smartphone, you may not need to purchase any special equipment to use the PSGroove jailbreak exploit on your Sony PS3. A rework known as PSFreedom has been created to allow homebrew enthusiasts with certain Linux-based phones to run the code necessary to unlock their console.

The PSFreedom code takes advantage of a memory heap overflow hole that is able to bypass the blocks which prevent unlicensed applications from running.

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The creator of PSFreedom developed the source code using a Nokia N900 phone and it is only guaranteed to work on that specific model, though other Linux-based smartphones will likely work with a bit of tweaking.

A post over at xda-developers.com states that the hack will, “will work on MSM72K Devices ONLY. That means phones with a qualcomm CPU like the the Desire or older phones like the G1/Hero e.t.c. The main requirement of the phone is that it can run a custom kernel.”

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The G1 and the Hero are Android devices, so it's likely that the hack will make an appearance on the Google smartphone OS soon.

As far as how PSFreedom works, the developer, who goes by the name KaKaRoTo, makes it sound pretty easy… if you have a Nokia N900: “So here’s how it works.. download the .tar.gz, extract it, copy the files to your n900 (with scp, into /root), then ssh into your N900 and type : ./psfreedom-enable.sh.Then you can follow the usual procedure, unplug the PS3 from power, plug in the N900, connect the power to the PS3, then press power and *quickly* press the eject button… Then just let the magic happen!”

A post at KaKaRoTo’s blog shows a video demonstration of the homebrew code at work, along with a pretty extensive FAQ about the project.

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As far as development for iPhone, Symbian-based devices, and other smartphone platforms, KaKaRoTo tells us not to get our hopes up any time soon. However, developers seem to be all over the open-source PSGroove code, so it’s likely that someone is working on it somewhere.

Of course, there is always the risk that Sony will push out a firmware update that will shut down all of these PSGroove hack techniques at any time. Until then, modders everywhere will no doubt be hard at work getting the code to work in different ways and with different devices.

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