Malware Renders PSP Useless – Owners of PlayStation Portables (PSPs) who may be inclined to alter their devices so they can play unauthorized games should beware of the software they use to do so. Anti-malware company Symantec reports that one of the programs that claims it allows gamers to circumvent PSP security measures is actually a piece of malware that will wipe out the gaming handheld completely.
Symantec has dubbed the program Trojan.PSPBrick because it deletes four critical files and leaves the message, “Your PSP 2.0 is hacked, please reboot.” The PSP will not, however, be able reboot without the deleted files, rendering it useless and thus a “brick,” as gaming insiders call it.
Why do I get the eerie feeling this “virus” was developed by Sony to punish those who try to hack their PSPs?
You knew PSP was in trouble when they were happy to be playing 1980’s games on it.
Why doesn’t Sony simply open the platform and sell a bazillion of them?! If they natively played divx movies I’d buy one. But because of all the draconian restrictions I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a fork.
But it was the restrictions that lead Sony to fall way way WAY behind Apple in the portable music player market. Apple released the iPods that natively played MP3s without restriction. While Sony released an entire series of DRM infested crap. To this day I don’t think Sony has a portable music player that natively plays MP3s without any restrictions. If they do, can someone point it out. Thanks!
Remember when we all the “genius” futurists were so sure that the Japanese were going to do ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING better than we Americans?
Well, just look at Sony. They seem to be their own worst enemy. They make such good hardware and then they cripple it.
I’m a big minidisc fan. I use it both personally and professionally. It’s a MD is a great piece of hardware but Sony cripped it with their “MagicGate” DRM nonsense which forces owners to use the hopelessly designed software.
Rumor among the minidisc fans is that the format will be abandoned by Sony. That’s been obvious for years, except maybe to the deluded hardcore fans.
Not sure what kind of FUD Ima Fish is spreading, but I listen to mp3s on my PSP, as well as play games and watch movies.
There is a real downgrader for the PSP (yes I’ve used it). It’s a two-step thing.
The first one is the actual exploit that uses a buffer overflow. All this does is set the PSP to appear to be running version 1.0 of the firmware. The next step is load and run the normal 1.50 firmware update from Sony. That’s it.
So never download an all-in-one file that claims to downgrade your PSP in one fell swoop. That’s likely a tojan, since downgrading doesnt work that simply.
The reason why this trojan exists is simple. There are a lot of mean jerks out there they enjoy pissing people off, even if they get no benefit from it. I doubt Sony has anything to do with this tojan.
Okay, I am not trying to be devils advocate here, but why should I care? If Chevy does not honor your warranty becasue you turbocharged your Chevette it is not news at all.
The only news should read, “People dumb enough to install things they do not understand are mocked by many.” Now that would be a good headline.
As for a Sony music player that will play MP3s without restriction, my PSP will do that. I don’t know if that counts though,
OK, so I posted this to a handheld gaming forum I frequent, and a friend of mine responded with this:
“This is actually pretty interesting. I used a piece of software called MPH Downgrader to change my PSP from a 2.0 version to a 1.5 version. This was literally hours after the hack was released a couple weeks ago. And I’ve been able to use my PSP to still watch movies, listen to music, and play legitimate PSP games… all while having Genesis and SNES emulators available to me at the same time. So over the weekend, I decided to update my Symantec Antivirus definitions and run a scan on my computer…. Here’s what I found:
Symantec discovered the “Trojan.PSPBrick” virus in the files that I used to downgrade my PSP. Here’s the text straight from the virus scan:
overflow.tif
D:\MPHDowngrader\PSP\PHOTO\
Trojan.PSPBrick
And absolutely, the overflow.tif file is the file I used to change my PSP version. And it did not ‘brick’ my PSP (as gaming insiders call it).
So, the conspiracy theorist in me says that Sony had a hand in getting this file defined as a virus to make people uneasy about making the version modification. Or, (more likely) perhaps the antivirus apps are just doing a blanket sweep of anything that will mess with your PSP and defining it as a ‘virus’. All I know is that if you’re looking to downgrade your PSP version, and you run antivirus software on the files necessary to do so, you’ll likely find that anything you scan will show up as being malicious, whether it actually IS or not.
(And no, I’m not advocating the use of MPH Downgrader, or any other software… I’m just giving you an account of what I’ve experienced.)”
http://paleface.net/z/sngp/messages/95705.html
To Michael Reed –
Turbocharging a Chevette would be akin to soldering a different CPU into a PSP. This is just a software thing, and Sony could fix it for the cost of shipping, and plugging the PSP into a PC for a few minutes. Or, what they should do, is give the customer the software to reflash their gear, as many companies do.
Of course this is nothing new. Sony is famous for having the least reliable gear, and the crappiest guarantees to back them up.
I used to work at an electronics store, and I’ve only seen two busted Gamecubes. Both had the same problem; a lightning storm fried the analog video output, in the same storm in fact.
One was owned by a friend of mine. He just bought a component video cable, and the problem was solved. Good thing since it was an imported system, Nintendo would not honor a guarantee.
The other guy sold me the Cube sans controller. I was thinking I could fix it.
It turns out I didn’t have to because the machine was less than a year old, so after dropping it off at a local Nintendo authorized service center, it only took a few days for Nintendo to ship me a refirb, for free, in which I installed a region switch.
Both Cubes are still working.
To contrast this with Sony…In the Xmas of 2001 my store had PS2s returned with dead drives less than a week after purchase! This is the best kind of PS2 break down I suppose since the Sony guarantee is only 90 days.
Nintendo will also honor system returns because of burnt out pixels. Sony? Not so much.
People at the store would actually say to me, “Gee, I don’t know why they make them so unreliable.”. Well, I do, because you keep buying the things, jack ass.
I heard basically the same thing from a guy who had, for the second time, replaced the plastic upper intake plenum on his Pontiac, barely avoiding total engine failure. He will of course buy another GM product next time he needs a car, even though the guarantee sucks, and so does the reliability, so the GM comparison is not totally off.