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New piracy technique on PS4 in Brazil confirmed real, Sony might take legal action

http://wololo.net/2015/05/13/new-pi...rmed-to-be-real-sony-might-take-legal-action/

Wololo said:
We’ve revealed a few weeks ago that some electronic stores in Brazil were advertising a way to copy pirate video games onto your PS4 for a fee. Although the technique was not described in details (these stores wanted, after all, to make a profit out of the scheme, not share it for everyone to get it for free, or for Sony to patch it), we’ve been in touch with several members of the hacking scene, as well as customers of these stores, who have all confirmed the existence of the “hack”.

Yesterday, journalists at UOL Jogos, a trusted site in Brazil, have confirmed that the hack is real, as they have verified it themselves on a test console (original article, in Portuguese, can be found here). It needs to be emphasized that this is not the well known “account sharing” trick, but a new kind of hack.

Small electronics store in some streets of Sao Paulo will charge from R$ 300 to R$ 400 (about $100 to $150) in order to install 10 pirated games on your console. The UOL journalists have confirmed the hack to work on their own console.

Sony are not totally ignoring the issue of piracy in Brazil. It seems they are aware of the “account sharing” technique (and how some stores are monetizing it) and already sending cease and desist notices about that. It is safe to assume they will at least do the same for this new piracy technique, and will probably be looking into ways to patch the hack. As a reminder, people on the PS4 hacking scene have told us that the technique they knew about has been patched on 2.51, so it seems the technique used by Brazilian stores is slightly different from that.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
So this is basically taking the account - system linking thing with offline games and exploiting the hell out of it by just cloning one system to another. That's an insane form of piracy.
 

Striek

Member
Could be interesting if true, but it seems unlikely multiple stores and store owners could be involved without anyone leaking it for weeks.
 
Is this a result of the exorbitant pricing of the PS4 and games in Brazil?

Or just hackers hacking?

A bit of both, I am presuming.

Can understand why Brazilians are frustrated about game prices. But this isn't the right way to go about it as this will increase cost most likely.
 
It's just using the primary account 'hack' to buy games from other stores I'm guessing.
No. Doesn't sound like it. It is said the same in article that this is not account sharing.

What it sounds to me is that they have found a exploit that can allow them to activate license for games on the PS4 for any account.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Probably.
The link describes the actual process.

They clone the hard drive and then flash the new PS4 with the original PS4's NAND/BIOS. The new PS4 is then basically the old PS4, with the licenses for the 10 games available for offline play.

I guess the one big thing is that your PS4 is basically useless other than for playing those 10 games and perhaps other disc based games after the process... but then again, I suppose that was the case with PS3 piracy/CFW as well.

I figure that Sony must have some way to adjust the licensing process to prevent this from happening... either that, or basically force the always online thing that we've been afraid of since the announcement of the original Xbox One. Or maybe this is so minor that they won't bother alienating everyone to try to stop a few hackers/pirates.
 
When did the ps2 start getting hacked, early on or late in the game?

I remember having a chipped ps2 my brother got and i remember buying games for like £2 from Saudi Arabia.
 

Hasney

Member
When did the ps2 start getting hacked, early on or late in the game?

I remember having a chipped ps2 my brother got and i remember buying games for like £2 from Saudi Arabia.

Within the first year IIRC, especially if you count swap tricks.
 
The link describes the actual process.

They clone the hard drive and then flash the new PS4 with the original PS4's NAND/BIOS. The new PS4 is then basically the old PS4, with the licenses for the 10 games available for offline play.

I guessed that this would be the technique

Probably pretty simple too
 
The link describes the actual process.

They clone the hard drive and then flash the new PS4 with the original PS4's NAND/BIOS. The new PS4 is then basically the old PS4, with the licenses for the 10 games available for offline play.

I guess the one big thing is that your PS4 is basically useless other than for playing those 10 games and perhaps other disc based games after the process... but then again, I suppose that was the case with PS3 piracy/CFW as well.

I figure that Sony must have some way to adjust the licensing process to prevent this from happening... either that, or basically force the always online thing that we've been afraid of since the announcement of the original Xbox One. Or maybe this is so minor that they won't bother alienating everyone to try to stop a few hackers/pirates.

So if you already have a PS4 stuffed with content, you'll lose all that? And no online. I can't see that taking off.
 
Hmm does the PS4 have any hardware bundles where the included game is digital and available right on power up? I'm trying to thing here but only download codes come to mind.

If that hard drive that provides that is OEM and badly written so that each one has the same license key there might have been a way found for making that key work on other games. But like I said download codes prevent that kind of thing (plus give consumers the choice to give away said code if they prefer the noise of the disc drive) though it does make the set-up take longer.

Edit: Oh flashing the NAND so a cloned hard drive accepts licenses. Can a hardware revision help here? (like how drive were changed to try and prevent modchips in previous generations)
 

Meaty

Member
A bit of both, I am presuming.

Can understand why Brazilians are frustrated about game prices. But this isn't the right way to go about it as this will increase cost most likely.


We are talking about a country where a game costs a third of minimum wage, the people who cant afford it dont really care if this will increase cost, theyd never buy non-pirated games either way.


Not really defending it, but I can totally understand why a person would go that route.
 

Dr. Buni

Member
tumblr_n6bcibC4Ak1rm97r4o1_400.gif


How old is the PS4, 2 years at most? Is it the console to be "pirated" in the shortest amount of time?
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I guessed that this would be the technique

Probably pretty simple too
Yeah, I have no doubt that you could replicate this with Xbox One or even Wii U. It's a very brute force method.

So if you already have a PS4 stuffed with content, you'll lose all that? And no online. I can't see that taking off.
Basically the new PS4 is only used for the games that they shop sells + disc games (assuming they don't force firmware updates on new games like they did on PS3).

I would hope that if people with these consoles took them online, Sony could detect it and ban it (since they would all be "the same"), but I imagine that the #1 thing people are told is to never go online with these consoles.

Edit: Oh flashing the NAND so a cloned hard drive accepts licenses. Can a hardware revision help here? (like how drive were changed to try and prevent modchips in previous generations)
I assume so... it's what stopped PS3 CFW essentially.
 

Road

Member
From what I understand, you can't play pirate ISO of games.

They buy games legally with a master PS4 and account. The hack enables them to clone these master PS4 and account to your PS4.

Your PS4 works normally online and you can update games, but if you want a new pirated game, you'll have to bring your PS4 to store so they can make a new clone including this game.

The Brazilian article doesn't mention if you can buy legal copies without having to go to the piracy store, but it says you can add your account to the PS4, so I imagine buying legally is still an option.
 

leeh

Member
Sony should do bug bounties, like MS, to divert people from using this maliciously and just doing it to earn a lot of money.
 

Derpcrawler

Member
1. Install 10 games for 150USD
2. Never go online nor update in order to keep using them
3. Get console hardware ban
4. ?????
5. PROFIT

This is genius, spend $150 to save what, $450 total if you take only new title releases (where do you have like 10 new title releases even during same month, other than holiday season?) then never update your consoles and keep playing same games offline forever, also making your $800 a brick that you can't even resell since it will be HW banned as soon as it goes online (I remember PS4 cost a lot in Brazil).
 

ViciousDS

Banned
tumblr_n6bcibC4Ak1rm97r4o1_400.gif


How old is the PS4, 2 years at most? Is it the console to be "pirated" in the shortest amount of time?

People account share all the time.....but with primary and secondary not complete console copies. This method is just a big step from the simple way and allows infinite sharing....until patch


Plus you are major fucked for updating and going online
 

joshcryer

it's ok, you're all right now
So if you already have a PS4 stuffed with content, you'll lose all that? And no online. I can't see that taking off.

Niche piracy? Is that a thing now? I agree, just thinking it's silly. It's not even worth it when you consider how much PS+ gives stuff away. Spend half the cost to sub to PS+, buy a game you really want, win win.

I bet Sony starts banning consoles with the same false ID. Odds are the shops aren't connecting their consoles online but surely a couple of people are going to connect theirs online (accidentally). Shouldn't hurt legit users if they do those kinds of bans.
 

Sijil

Member
If this propagates, it will sell more and more PS4 in third world countries. One of the reasons why most people in my country chose a 360 over a PS3 was the ease of hacking and modding the 360 and the fact that it happened quickly.

Sony of course would do anything to stop it since they rely on software sales to make a profit out of the PS4.
 

DrKelpo

Banned
is this like a "hack" you can easily do at home? i mean, if that knowledge spreads sooner or later, is that a big deal like the r4 on the ds?
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
If this propagates, it will sell more and more PS4 in third world countries. One of the reasons why most people in my country chose a 360 over a PS3 was the ease of hacking and modding the 360 and the fact that it happened quickly.

Sony of course would do anything to stop it aince they rely on software sales to make a profit out of the PS4.
This method is so niche compared to JTAG/CFW that there's no real market for this. It's not like you can just play any game you want, and simply doing the old trick of requiring the latest firmware to boot up Uncharted 4 or whatever new game comes out will kill this method for newer games.

is this like a "hack" you can easily do at home? i mean, if that knowledge spreads sooner or later, is that a big deal like the r4 on the ds?
The article talks about using raspberry pi to copy and flash the NAND, so... I mean, you're talking about people who can open the console and know how to use a raspberry pi. Seems much more difficult than the last gen hacks anyway.
 

Frodo

Member
1. Install 10 games for 150USD
2. Never go online nor update in order to keep using them
3. Get console hardware ban
4. ?????
5. PROFIT

This is genius, spend $150 to save what, $450 total if you take only new title releases (where do you have like 10 new title releases even during same month, other than holiday season?) then never update your consoles and keep playing same games offline forever, also making your $800 a brick that you can't even resell since it will be HW banned as soon as it goes online (I remember PS4 cost a lot in Brazil).

Is there anything stopping them from installing more than 10 games?

And even if there is, couldn't they just pay another $150 in the future and get 10 new games?
 

recks

Member
"You leave the console here, and we put 10 games on your HD", starts explaning. "We put a chip on the PS4 board, plug the chip on our laptop, formate the HD then copy the games. After that we remove the chip and give the console back to you."

What we do is transform a PS4 into a clone of another PS4. It copies [the data] from the bios and the processor and clone it on other consoles. So everything a PS4 buys, can be copied to another.

From the original article.

Yeah, I completely believe in this.
 

Qvoth

Member
read about this earlier on /v/
seems legit (unironically)

ps3 got hacked (took the hackers quite some time though) and i don't think it did much, it's probably going to be the same for ps4
 

Syntsui

Member
Piracy nowadays is pretty useless considering you can't play online. I can't imagine having a console and not playing with everybody, enjoying events etc. I don't know how popular the PS3 Piracy is, but I guess not as spread as the xbox360 is.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Is there anything stopping them from installing more than 10 games?

And even if there is, couldn't they just pay another $150 in the future and get 10 new games?
The article says they are charging 15 dollars per game. I think the only thing that would stop this is basically finding a way to ban the original console, so that it cannot make purchases that can be cloned over to the other PS4s.

Why are games so expensive there? Sorry but i'm not really aware of the economics of selling consoles in Brazil.
Goods not manufactured in the country are heavily taxes, IIRC.
 
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