PlayStation 3 hack – how it happened and what it means

“Was this hack always an inevitability? Perhaps not.
Fail0verflow claims it only started to work on the PS3 system when
Sony made the decision to disable the machine’s Other OS
functionality. This feature allowed owners to install their own
Linux OS onto the console, giving them the ability to create and
run their own applications, and to load apps developed by other
users. It was an interesting invitation to the programming
community, harking back to the 1997 launch of the Net Yaroze, a
special programmable version of the original PlayStation console,
which was widely used by home coders and by universities setting up
games develoment courses at the time.

“However, at the end of 2009, George Hotz announced via his blog
that he was attempting to hack the PS3. His way in was through
Other OS. The PS3’s security ‘Hypervisor’ allowed homemade Linux to
run, but in a supervised mode with no access to lower level system
functionality. Geohot bypassed the hypervisor, and published
elements of the exploit online leaving the rest of the work to
other hackers.”

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