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Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware

Posted Apr 25, 2011 at 10:32PM EST by Ryan F.

Listed in: Rumors, News, PlayStation Network Tags: Custom Firmware, Mathieulh, PlayStation Network, ps3 hack, Sony

According to PSX-Scene moderator chesh420, Sony was forced to shut down the PlayStation Network due to a "rebug" custom firmware which allowed users to use fake credit card accounts and download PSN contents for free.

psn

In a post over on reddit.com, chesh420 says...

"Ok, I've seen a bunch of speculation of why people think PSN is down, and I thought I should just post what the community knows in comparison to what Sony is telling everyone. The truth is, there was a new CFW (custom firmware) released known as Rebug (http://rebug.me). It essentially turns a retail console into a dev console (not fully, but gives you a lot of the same options that usually dev's only have access to). Anyway, this new CFW was quickly figured out by 3rd parties (not Rebug) to give CFW users access to the PSN network again via the dev networks. With a little manipulation of the URL's through a proxy server you could get your hacked console back online. Not that big of a deal, right? Well, it also turns out that some people over at NGU found out that you could provide fake CC# info and the authenticity of the information was never checked as you were on Sony's private developer PSN network (essentially a network that Sony trusted). What happened next was extreme piracy of PSN content. Sony realizing the issue here shut down the network. Now, before you go freaking out about the latest information posted about Kotaku, no ones personal information was accessible via this hack. Not to say they couldn't get it, but no one is admitting to it being available. Anyway, that's the real reason for the PSN downtime. Sony is now rebuilding all of it's PSN servers to be more secure and (hopefully) make sure the CFW users cannot get online anymore."

He then went on to speculate that "based on a lot of facts and the outcome seems to make the most sense.
1. Rebug was released on 3/31/11.
2. First guides of how to use the dev network to get back on COD games on 4/3/11. 3. Word of "shady" sites finding a way to pirate PSN content via the dev networks on 4/7/11 (basing this on posts I had to delete on the website). 4. PSN goes down on 4/20/11

"Now, you can believe Sony's PR team which has kept you completely in the dark, or you can see the list of events above and come to your own conclusion. Now, this isn't the first time Sony has fought back against the PS3 modders from getting on PSN. A couple of months ago we had a utility called f*ckPSN that changed the necessary header information that was being sent to Sony to allow modified consoles back online. We were able to use it for about a month. Then came the new TOS, the mass e-mail to PS3 customers, and software update 3.56 and 3.60. So, once again, yes this is all speculation, but it is speculation based on previous actions and known facts.

chesh420 added that "Mathieulh just mentioned that he has been in contact with someone that has official access to the SCE devnet servers and it was posted to them today that only 3.60+ debug firmwares will be allowed on the dev network anymore. All earlier versions will be cut. If you want to retain your access you need to contact Sony and upgrade to 3.60 debug firmware."

Via [reddit]

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(2)

Only reason you don't believe it is because you have yet to witness or you have yet to fathom what hackers can do with a face cc#. That stands for credit card, and seeing as you can add money to your wallet (up to 150) I can see why sony shut the network down. You have a bunch of material being stolen from the psn store and right under your nose.

# RE: It is true... — DeltaDAWG 2011-05-02 16:28

You either replied to the wrong person or you are very confused???

# sounds like what i've been hearing — nonymousj 2011-04-25 23:57

It fits with what I've seen and heard the last few weeks. Why they took the whole network down though, instead of just the dev network is beyond me though. but most everything is beyond me. :-p I'm all for them stopping theft of content. Just get it back up soon.

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — zeron824 2011-04-26 00:03

Nope. I don't think that is the reason why. I am still rooting for the DDoS attack.

+1 # Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — Wolfnuka 2011-04-26 00:06

sounds pretty plausible...i mean think about it..why would sony shut down his servers? do you know how much money do they lose? because they are not selling games through psn... and we know that that is no good for sony...so i find this version the most believable...just protecting themselves from being robbed...that's it

# Hmm — LitoDaTaru 2011-04-26 00:13

I believe this more than I do Sony's rep. Only time will tell...

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — danielakadanny 2011-04-26 00:15

well it sort of makes sense, but why wouldn't they just release another update because if you're not running the current firmware, then you won't be allowed to go on PSN

# RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — erod 2011-04-26 00:46

it thinks its a dev console so it has special privileges. if i read correctly. and yeah they are working on that too the last part said that devs have to be on the firmware version that sony is working on

# RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — driudium 2011-04-26 09:20

The problem is there end, with there servers. A firmware update at this point would be pointless! They have to fix the problems server side first.

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — xnamkcor 2011-04-26 00:29

I think 250 is looking like a pretty good price for a HTPC. I might get a PS3 just for that.

# pluasible — crestfallen 2011-04-26 00:33

well they did state that dev accounts had be compremised or something in one of sony's earlier statements. but why the secrecy?

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — D 2011-04-26 00:34

First off, we don't want another FW. I got sick of them years ago, none of the 'features' are useful. But in any case it wouldn't matter, once the keys got out the modders could create a FW that can go online and it doesn't matter what the official FW's do. Things have to change on the hardware or the servers.

-2 # wow — Steez 2011-04-26 00:51

osnt it ironic hot his name has 420 in it and he is reporting that the servers go down on 420? lol

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — Lenny 2011-04-26 01:02

Apparently the most efficient device to take down the PSN is the PS3! No script-kiddies needed, just flash, edit, pwn!

Sad state, indeed. Hopefully they'll fix it proper this time. I actually take comfort in not connecting modded consoles to official networks. The line of thinking is, "1 to play, 1 to mod". As cheap as used/refurb PS3's and 360's are now, anyone that wants to mod can do it "legitimately" with a 2nd console while remaining a good-standing, paying customer on the other console. Theft is where the line should be drawn.

But hey, at least Sony's learning, right?

# Hmmm — Monkeyzking 2011-04-26 01:27

The reason they wouldn't just release a new firmware, is because the basic framework of the Playstsation Store, an online network, has been cracked into, and thousands, possibly millions of dollars worth of content is on that network. They're not willing to let the same thing happen to the Ps3 as they let happen to the psp. Same thing with Geohotz's harsh lawsuits. Sony isn't selfish. Think about this. What if you had to make the money to feed hundreds of thousands of employees, who in turn had to feed their families. Wouldn't you be harsh on anyone preventing you from doing that? Think about it.

+2 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — Liam Riordan 2011-04-26 01:27

If this is true, it would be a good reason to take the networks offline. That is, if this is true.

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — Demi-Robb 2011-04-26 01:54

It seeems to make sense but it's just mere speculation. There's no legit proof that this actually happened and even if it did, I highly doubt Sony will tell anyone about this. Well a least we can see why Sony doesn't want anyone modding their PS3 since they believe people will just pirate games and other software. But like I said, they're just protecting their money and saving their own asses. They're like magicians that can't do magic but can make shit out of shit. And also this is Sony's fault for their own repeated mistakes that they enjoy ignoring. But I'll digress for now and see the outcome.

+1 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — NakedFaerie 2011-04-26 01:54

I would believe anyone before I believe $ony. They are a bunch of liars.

# RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — dave1983 2011-04-26 04:22

This is why Sony is cracking down on the hackers. I don't know why everyone is pissed at Sony. Sure there might be a few hackers which want to strictly use the CFW's legally, however there will always be people trying to steal games/software by using these CFWs. If you seriously do not like what Sony is doing, then quit buying their products, rather than crying when Sony tries to stop piracy on the PS3

-3 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — justin bieber 2011-04-26 02:20

Its true. Sony just doesn't want to lose any more money so they shut down psn, not caring about their customers, but only themselves. Thats what the anonymous group was accusing sony about. kinda.

# RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — truk 2011-04-26 20:29

so they want to not lose money buy losing money? having psn down is losing them money..

-1 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — THEONE AND ONLY 2011-04-26 02:23

Anyone else find it funny these outages started 4/20?hahahahahha
Maybe sony was slacking it that day... ;)

-2 # GOODOLD DAYS — HEWRJWKE 2011-04-26 03:23

REMEMBER WHEN HACKERS KEPT TO THERE COMPUTERS AND NOT THE CONSOLE what im trying to say is you fucking hackers stay out of consoles your making this worse STAY ON YOUR COMPUTER AND HACK I HATE YOU AND YOU CAN SUCK A DICK

+1 # RE: GOODOLD DAYS — truk 2011-04-26 20:30

hack on consoles have been around since forever. it just got easier

# RE: GOODOLD DAYS — Coma 2011-04-27 20:43

Some of the developers were former hackers. Where do you think some of their inspiration comes from that allows you to play games?

It's a choice.

Play fair and get a check or;

Play both sides like some of the "scene" members in the world are doing.

-2 # Good reason? — Fork 2011-04-26 03:43

This isn't a good reason to take the entire network online. All they had to do was take the STORE offline. So obviously the problem is much bigger than that.

+1 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — John 2011-04-26 04:07

Congrats to the brilliant sh!t head that managed to screw us legit users..

# RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — UltimaXIX 2011-04-26 06:29

The fact Sony didn't know what the fuck had happened for the first few days is more than ample evidence that Sony is now just choosing to take advantage of the down time to improve security. There's no evidence anywhere that CFW is what caused it to go down, per se.

# RE: RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — undeadphillip 2011-04-26 12:14

Sony wouldn't have know what had happened because they wouldn't have suspected dev consoles to be the source of the 'hack', which they technically weren't because the 'hack' was administered by 'converted' retail ps3s (according to chesh420's post), which in turn would have made it even more difficult to determine its source).
This would also explain why the security fix is taking so long because Sony is most likely upgrading security against /verification of dev consoles which most likely involves discussions with 3rd party developers (hence the result: Sony's statement of supporting devs affected by the outage).
Furthermore, Sony's probably had to deal with a lot of its shareholders' concerns and specifications for the upgrade in security. Convincing shareholders you're a secure investment probably takes awhile.

Also, your first sentence isn't really logical. 'Sony not knowing what happened proves that their choosing to take advantage of the downtime'. What else are they going to do with the downtime - play jacks?
Besides, when people/company's get hacked they generally don't know specifically what happened for some time. It seems that PR just decided not to release speculations until they were more certain about 'what the fuck just happened'.

You do have a really good point though.

It is true that there still is no evidence proving the involvement of CFW in the psn outage one way or the other, so no one really knows anything yet.

# RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — soopergooman187 2011-05-02 11:09

that sh!t head is your very own Mathieulh

that did this to the psn, if you want to hate on anyone, hate on MATH you're obnoxious psp/ps3 coder, he made the rebug frimware and made a new one for 3.60. he posted it all over trying to show off but was stupid as he left his mac address viewable in his video. Now sony will put MATH in jail for a very long time. I hear Guatmo is very HOT this time of year. Say hello to ur fellow terrorists in there Mathieulh.
If I were the Admins for this site, I'd quickly remove anything he ever posted here. Cause you will be taken down with him and graf and therest of the psn hackers. they know you did it math. they know you did it.

-1 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — Devon Kinkel 2011-04-26 04:44

hilarious... really you should blame sony, for poorly designing their network. Yeah those people shouldn't have done what they did but Sony should be able to better defend themselves. I feel its a good come uppance for taking away Other OS, people should be allowed to do whatever they want on the system they bought (anything short of illegal) but instead they shutdown the homebrew scene which could have brought in tons of potential users...

-3 # nope — qatr 2011-04-26 06:09

Umm?

You cant do that on a dev kit it's BS.

-1 # could be true — osama B 2011-04-26 06:39

could be true, cause when i enter psn rihgt now, it says something like: FAILED TO AD FUNDS TO YOUR WALLET.

-1 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — PS360 Owner1 2011-04-26 07:28

Sounds believable, still, I will never buy anything from PSN neither with codes or anything else.

-1 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — Walo 2011-04-26 09:05

Sounds plausible.

on a side note, why do people want to cheat so badly in COD? really, all of the internets say they hate that game but they still want to play it and cheat on it like it was sex.

-1 # RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — undeadphillip 2011-04-26 12:19

Because cheating makes you infamous, duh.

Cheating in video games is like posting on 4chan - You do it because you think no one can stop you from doing whatever you want and because you think it's funny.

There's not a lot of thought behind it.

-1 # RE: RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — HangmanSwingset 2011-04-26 15:45

If you want to be infamous and have nobody stop you, play Halo Reach with Lv72 Blackguy and myself. Plasma Pistol pew pew and Hologram all the way.

# RE: RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — UltimaXIX 2011-04-27 03:57

Cheats are funny when they're odd. For instance, the glitch in MW2 that let you run around the maps at lightning speed, shanking everyone. There's nothing funnier than a US Navy-Ninja.

The glitch that increased the range of the shotgun to a crazy distance, on the other hand... lame.

-1 # RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — dude ushouldnt kno 2011-04-26 09:37

i jus wanna kno when the fuck psn is back up im bored as hell on rainy dayz wtf

-1 # RE: RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — HangmanSwingset 2011-04-27 02:29

Read a book? Masturbate?

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — justimber 2011-04-26 09:49

PSN is free....and hackers still found a way of stealing paid PSN content.

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — DIMESACK420 2011-04-26 10:48

fuck still down i guess i got to hang my self psn will never work but at the least psn didnt go down like xbox did and it was down two weeks and on xmas and new year. its been FIVE FUCKING DAYS AND WE NEED ANSWERS NOW...... i got to kill some campers..... just give me a date u ASSHOLES. i would sell my ps3 but i got like over 3000 dollars and like oh lets say 25,000 hours at the least. and i also have the 1 ps3 with all the card slots u know the big bad ass 1 and i got the slim ps3 and the new 1 so i got no netflix and some ppl and my hulh wont work. so every 1 can suck it i payed 4 a fuckiing ps3 so u need to tell me what th3 fuck is up my information is on there and so is my credit card and my facebook and much much more ..... I DONT FELL SAVE BECAUES U TELL US NOTHING . at the most show me some light on this. I STAND BEHIND U ALL THE WAY PSN FUCKING ROCK. BUT NEED TO KNOW IS MY CREDIT CARDS AND STUFF SAFE OR NOT THIS STUFF IS MY LIFE I CANT BUY MY WAY OUT LIKE U CAN... PLZZ GIVE A NEW UPDATE SAYING THAT R INFO IS SAFE IT THE LEAST U CAN DO FOR I GROW UP WITH PS AND IL DIE WITH MY PS3 IF IT GOS DOWN IM DOWN AND I CANT MOVE SO I STAY HOME AND WORK AT HOME AND I JUST NEED TO KNOW WHEN PSN WILL BE UP

ps im waiting on the newMW3 when does it com out and the new R EVIL RACON CITY ???

+1 # Why blame Sony? — m0d-fella 2011-04-26 11:48

I think that I'm actually going to side with Sony on this one.

Sony also mentioned that PSN shutdown because of 'external attacks' and it sure wasn't Anonymous this time but PIRATES via rebug cfw!!

So the flame war needs to be turned away from Anonymous and directed against these damn pirates! Fucking bastards, they're the reason why we can't get online.

# we are still online — bawbag 2011-04-26 15:18

right just thought id mention that we are al still online as when you put a game in your console if theres an update for it, it will still update hence the system is not totaly down just the online gaming and store parts, i know this cos ive updated 2 games today so far

# RE-we are still online — m0d-fella 2011-04-26 18:20

That's good to know. Btw, netflix is still accessible. Thank goodness that I'm not a plus member cause they're getting screwed right now.

# Really now — realtests 2011-04-26 17:32

No one should be blaming Sony for getting hacked. Most hackers' motto is "Nothing is unhackable" and they are right. Hackers wanted to exploit PSN so they tried tirelessly until until they succeeded. It's not Sony's fault that people wouldn't stop until they broke the bank. It's like blaming a bank that gets robbed for not having enough security. The fact of the matter is that if a group of armed robbers is smart, prepared, wants the bank's money and tries hard enough, they will get the money - you can't blame the bank for getting robbed. Blame the jerks who wanted free games and your credit information - that's plain theft. Sony may just be another corporation hungry for your money but at least you have to agree give it to them first.

# RE: Rumor: PSN outage due to rebug custom firmware — notrebug 2011-04-26 18:58

It's not because of rebug (at least not the biggest issue). On the PlayStation Blog, they say that someone somehow got hold of several user's personal information like name, address, email/password, and maybe credit card information.

# I donno — lunas 2011-04-27 04:39

i think that it is more likely sony saw they were being robbed blind by the credit card spoofing the rebug firmware has and sony shut down the psn of their own will to stop the runaway piracy this caused on a much wider scale than normal...

What is beyond me is why it all is down and they didnt leave the multiplayer room servers up like turn off the store and leave everyone with the ability to do multiplayer...

# A gift for Sony — TLC_Nyk 2011-05-01 17:55

A great oppour_tunity to upgrade everything just to make sure no more leaks. Like a ship you have to dry dock it to make repairs its a all or sink situation

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