While surfing on reddit i found these pics of the full devkit set! PS4, PS3 & even PS VITA! I have never seen devkits so fresh! Glowing and never touched. Which model is your favorite? I would surely like a DECH-4000AA Source:http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/210fb8/woot_got_my_sony_ps3_ps4_and_vita_debugging_and/
Nice pictures you found there. I wonder whether the PTEL-2004 and DUH-T1000AA also require perpetual reactivation like their TOOL counterparts...
Unless things have changed, I'm pretty sure they do (at least the old PTEL did, really annoying when sony loaned one for an event but didn't update the key before sending. =|)
The guy who posted the pics on reddit is an indie developer so he would be able to activate those systems without any problems. They would be useless for non-licensed/home brew developer thou. Hopefully there will be cracks for them in the future
Yes, all the sony stuff is designed to be worthless if stolen and when antiquated. It also prevents resale when revisions come out. They ship out ps4 slim, and six months later all ps4 fat devs stop working and are trash.
There will never again be usable dev hardware that leaks out to us. The protections will just get stronger and stronger, too, if you simply say that they'll get cracked. Eventually, every retail console is going to become an Xbox 360 on steroids in terms of security. With dev hardware, they can be even worse: it would not surprise me if they started putting GPS hardware inside dev consoles. They can configure the GPS hardware so that it erases a key in battery-backed SRAM like "Capcom Suicide" CPS2 arcade boards if it either detects that the system has moved more than 300 feet or the console's case has been opened. For dev hardware, you can be extravagant with your protection systems, since you're already overcharging developers for the hardware. I may sound paranoid, but that's what people said in 2000 when I predicted that consoles would eventually start using asymmetric digital signatures, NX memory pages and runtime RAM encryption to block hacks.
I doubt they'll add GPS just for developers, being able to use the exact same hardware for retail and debugs saves them too much money. I believe they'll just carry on as they are, it seems pretty successful. In time we'll be able to factor the retail keys.
The GPS hardware could be an external dongle. It just needs to be secure. Also, some systems have places on the inside that such devices can easily be connected - the original Xbox's debug variant had an LPC header, and hypothetically a GPS unit could attach to it. If I were Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo, I would design the system to erase keys when the activation expires, even with the power off, such that there is literally information missing from the device. Years later when factoring improves, it won't matter, because you won't have necessary information. Also, I would use ridiculously large keys, say RSA 32768, of several different algorithms as longer-term security against computing and mathematical advances; a 30-second key verification process is fine for an operation only done every 90 days. One of the secondary signature algorithms I would use is Lamport signatures, since their security is entirely that of a hash function, and probably won't be broken by quantum computing even if it does exist. Case intrusion detection is something the companies would want on retail consoles anyway. Not only is it a deterrent against modding, it's also a deterrent against embarrassing businesses showing up, such as shops offering repairs for 360 red rings and PS3 yellow lights of death. Cost and incompetence are the main reason my Machiavellian vision isn't true yet. Then again, nobody really has disclosed what's been found in the PS4 and Xbone - that, or nobody cares =)
The RSA idea is logical. But in regards to breaking the system because you opened it...eh that would LOSE business out the ass. I would never buy a system that restricted me like that. Also the GPS makes sense too
