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By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News
The PlayStation 3's security has been broken by hackers, potentially allowing anyone to run any software - including pirated games - on the console.
A collective of hackers recently showed off a method that could force the system to reveal secret keys used to load software on to the machine.
A US hacker, who gained notoriety for unlocking Apple's iPhone, has now used a similar method to extract the PS3's master key and publish it online.
Sony declined to comment on the hack.
"The complete console is compromised - there is no recovery from this," said pytey, a member of the fail0verflow group of hackers, who revealed the initial exploit at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin in December.
"This is as bad as it gets - someone is getting into serious trouble at Sony right now."
The group, which has previously hacked Nintendo's Wii and says it is vehemently against games piracy, said that it had developed the hack so that it could install other operating systems and community-written software - known as homebrew - on the powerful machine.
"The details we provided and information and techniques we disclosed would have been enough to install Linux," he said. "We have no interest in piracy."
Following the presentation, US hacker George Hotz, who has previously hacked parts of the console, used a similar technique to extract the master key. He has now published it on his blog.
This formerly secret number is used to "sign" all games and software that run on the system, to authenticate that it is genuine and approved by Sony.
However, once the key is known it can be used to sign any software - including unofficial software and games.
"I hate that it enables piracy," said Mr Hotz. "The publication of the key is more academic than anything else."
The number also works for Sony's handheld console the PlayStation Portable, said Mr Hotz.
Developers have already started releasing tools to develop new software for the PS3 using the hacks.
Source: BBC News (click the link for the full story)
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