George Hotz, aka Geohot, known for creating jailbreaking/unlocking tools for the iPhone and iPod touch, claims to have hacked the Playstation 3.

The Playstation 3 has been relatively safe and secure for the past 3 years but over the last 5 weeks Geohot has opened up the beast, learned its inner workings and now claims to have full read/write ability to the entire system memory.

"I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip."

With lots of reverse engineering ahead of him Geohot isn't telling anyone exactly how his hack works, keeping his hand close to his chest while he completes his work, ensuring that Sony won't release firmware updates to hamper his progress.

"As far as the exploit goes, I'm not revealing it yet. The theory isn't really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder."

This also means that once Geohot releases a hack to the public Sony will probably be able to remove or revoke it temporarily with firmware updates, and it becomes a game of cat and mouse to see if the hackers can keep up to the new security measures implemented with each update or hacked users will have to remain on older firmware to continue using the hack.

What does this mean for the PlayStation 3? It opens up the possibility for third party software to run on the system. This means people can design applications, games, or change the system software in any way without Sony's approval.

But what about piracy? The Xbox 360 has had to deal with rampant piracy, some of which has occurred pre-release day. Torrent Freak posted a "Most Pirated Games of 2009" list but it was notably missing one system, the PlayStation 3. Xbox 360, PC and the Wii were all there with huge numbers of pirated copies of top games being ripped off the site for absolutely zero dollars, but PlayStation 3 was still locked up safe from the world of torrents. But what about now? Will we be seeing torrent sites filled with PS3 game images? Probably. Once this hack hits I guarantee there's going to be a flood of Blu-ray burner sales.

Would the higher costs of Blu-rays deter rampant pirating as seen on the other platforms?

Source: GeohotPS3 Blog

I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip.