How the Sony Playstation Portable PSP Security was defeated | MVG 

You're the doom port guy? Dude, your port was the first homebrew I got running on my 1.50 PSP. Absolutely legendary.

Fun Fact: The first time I played DooM was on PSP. Never knew it was your port!!

I wonder if a really smartass dev could: 1) Make a game with a backdoor disguised as an oversight 2) Release on console of your choice 3) Leak the "discovery" into the homebrew community 4) Sit back and laugh as your sales figures soar into high orbit

Running Win95 on an overclocked PSP made me the coolest kid in school. Also Tekken 5

I remember "making" a pandora battery by cutting a few of the connectors on a standard battery to cause the short that forced the PSP into safe mode. Was the very 1st hardware hack I ever did. Thanks for this trip down memory lane!

When he said "a very popular first-person shooter", I immediately thought Doom. That game is the king of ports. It conquers every platform.

"Just like hello world every system needs Doom." Any computer without Doom on it isn't a computer. It is simply incomplete. Doom is as necessary as a motherboard to a computer.

Sony: "we had fixed our psps from hackers" Hackers: *"there's another"*

SONY: lets see how they can hack this update Hackers: BATTERY!!!! SONY: WTF!?!?!?

DooM HAS TO run on EVERY Single System with a Display!!!!

Damn, I remember being ~10 yo and, having no cash to spend on a Pandora's, looking up guides on how to open up the battery, cut a circuit, do a custom firmware installation, and then use a graphite pen to restore the circuit. It's still amazing to me that it worked.

You are a goldmine of information, my man.

I was a teen when the PSP released and I remember picking one up and following the hacking scene closely. It was a really exciting time and this was a wonderful retrospective, thanks for the great video!

The PSP was amazing, had so much fun modding my PSP back in the day and introduced me to so much interesting topics. Dark Alex was basically my childhood hero.

Wait a minute... Nem? Nem as in the creator of Nem's Tools for the Source Engine?? Holy shit this guy gets around

Pandora’s battery softmodding was my side hustle when I was in the Army.

Modders will never give up, never. They will beat any security, no matter how long it takes. A PS3 CFW released a week or so ago that works on ALL PS3 consoles. lol

The PSP was one of the first consoles that I modded as a young teenager, which subsequently sparked an interest in software. Years later, I am now working as a full time software developer and those early days tinkering with the PSP definitely had a hand in that. The original Xbox was also a tremendous system for that. It was fascinating to see how much more usefulness you could squeeze out of the hardware that would have been otherwise somewhat limited. Great video, as always!

Ironically. These consoles where these situations happen. End up being the most memorable consoles in our childhood.

Sony: *Releases a firmware update* Hackers: "Ahh call an ambulance! But not for me."

The memories darkalex lol

good old PSP time, one of the best handhelds ever for me

I remember me and a friend hacking the psp at the same time using a YT tutorial video and skype 🤣🤣

Oh dude! I can't believe the Doom port was your work. It was one of the first homebrew games I had played in my life! Honestly, learning to mod my PSP as a kid is the reason why I am a software engineer today.

Bonus fact, the Pandora's battery exploit was discovered because Sony forgot to take it out of a customers system that they returned, I believe for repairs. Went something along the lines of "Hey internet this battery looks weird, *insert story*. It got sent to a member of the hacking community that figured out it was to be used in combination with a Magic Memory Card which was reproduced shortly after. 14 year old me was the go-to kid in school for putting a custom firmware on anyone's PSP who asked.

I remember modding my battery and creating a magic memory stick! Pretty amazing how Team Noobz figured that out. The PSP was the peak of handhelds IMO.

"Oh hey, we can homebrew the PSP, what should I m-" Doom.

This has brought back so many amazing memories with my friends Story time: At Christmas me and all my friends got psp's for presents and the first thing i done was look at modding them, wasn't long till every person in my street had a modded psp and we all sat in our friends back yards playing the games that we all could play together over ad-hoc, even took some of them apart and swapped like buttons and front case parts. Those were the days

I remember having to make my own pandora battery, that shit was scary for my young mind.

At the risk of reviving old drama, there are a few things wrong with your video: 1. The MPH downgrader is a blatant rip off (including the actual code) from my and Yoshihiro's SXT downgrader, this is also the very reason as to why we have never heard of MPH after the release of "his" downgrader. 2. Team noobz did not release the Pandora hack, team C+D (which I and most team members were a part of) did. 3. Firmware 1.00 did have an executable trust policy enforced on PRX, only vanilla ELF encryption wasn't enforced 4. As a clarification SE, OE and M33 firmware were all created by the same team (Dark_Alex, Adrahil and I) that is from 2.71 SE to 5.00M33. All existing cfw are still mostly based on our code. Which was either published or leaked (through private sharing to other developers) on multiple occasions. I shall add that SE, OE and M33's core and patches are for the most part based of Devhook patches 5. Before CFW were even a thing a solution to run the latest firmware from 1.50 existed called Devhook, developed by Booster, which was revealed much later on, to actually be an alias of mine. Devhook works by abusing the reboot.bin functionalities used by Sony to reboot the psp's modular kernel everytime a game is started or exited (to get back to the vsh), there is no such thing as multi tasking on a psp.

I remember Dark Alex and cutting batteries open to mod them. Great times.

Sony: "launch thousand missile attack" Hackers: "Pandora's Battery" Sony: ちくしょう

Man, Pandora batteries bring some memories. Everyone was making them and hacking their PSPs.

Adrenaline is a gift from God to play on Vita

Wish I still had my psp. I freaking love that thing. And somehow I didn't even know it was modable. Had it for a few years and ended up selling it to a friend for a Christmas gift for his son. Didn't really want to get rid of it, but making a kid's Christmas was enough for me.

8:26 Dark AleX!!!, Now That's a Name that i've Not heard in a long time, a long time!

Ah! The GTA savegame exploit was what I did to hack my psp back in the day. Nostalgic

I imported a second hand 1.5 from the US (to UK) Still working today :)

I played DOOM on my PSP back in the day. Now I know who made that possible.

You forgot to mention that the only reason why the Pandora battery was discovered was because a Sony representative/tech left it in a psp that was being fixed and returned to a customer

It always baffled me to learn that the ds sold more than the psp, in europe every kid on the block had a PSP, half of which were modded. Edit: apparently the situation differes from country to country. I grew up in Romania and i am pretty sure the situation is similiar with most of Eastern Europe.

I had a pandora battery. My psp gave me so much fun back in the day. Til the day it finally died. I miss that old boy.

The PSP was the best handheld system I've ever had. It was also the first time I've ever gotten into system hacking haha. I had AIM, RU-vid, and a plethora of emulators to roms to isos, oh man... that brings back a lot of memories. Dark Alex ftw!

thank you so much for doing so! you spawned an entiry mod community back in the days. there were maby 100 possible doom mods back than (from counter strike to everything) and all this started by your port. great job.

3.71 m33-2 best firmware of all time

Been waiting for this one!! I recall the early PSP days fondly!! Thank you for the amazing content as usual.

Hey I appreciate you guys efforts back in the day. I was heavy into this stuff and wanted to thank the community and the forms for that run back in the day.

Might sound silly but man I appreciate the camera, seating and head positioning. Makes the editing look so nice and keeps my attention fluid. Really solid content here

dark alex, team pro, pandora, 1.5 fw, man... those were the days, i remember using my pandora battery to hack psp's for my classmates... i still use my psp slim to this day, one of my all time favourites. And great video, MVG, was very happy to relive those days!

You and MLiG are the only people I’ve ever supported on patreon. I regret nothing. I only regret not being able to support you guys more.

This brings back so much nostalgia. The psp was my first foray into homebrew. My first hack was doing the solder on my battery to enable the pandora exploit during the 3.xx era. I was only 14 back then and I used to charge my friends a fee for the same service. Good memories. Love the video man.

I actually made my own Pandora’s battery on a psp-2000 by taking a utility knife to a certain circuit. When I was done installing cfw I took a pencil and connected the circuit back together by just shading it in with the graphite. It was crazy

All my good memory of PSP coming back! Thank you for the video.

Wow this was great trip down memory lane indeed! I remember following all of these exploits in the psp hacking scene way back in middle school.

13 years later and I still want to go back and mod one again it was the perfect portable

This takes me back. I was a crazy psp hacker back in day. I even converted many friends to the psp scene. Some even going farther than I did. It truly is an amazing device and even reminds me of the nintendo switch, switch lite especially. Truly ahead of it's time. Also, I'm so glad you mentioned Dark Alex! Damn, it's been a hot minute since I heard names like that. There is a psp exploit/homebrew timeline online somewhere and it is truly a crazy story of what happened then.

Seeing some of those names from "the days" bought back some serious nostalgia for me. Great video! Now I just need to find some adePSP archives for his LCS cheat engine mods.

Loved the storytelling of this video. I paused the video and bought a PSP GO from eBay before finishing it.

psp was my go to handheld, i dont do much with the homebrew scene but whenever i see one of you videos about whatever console i have to watch it so much information.

Thanks for this video! I dug up my old PSP the other night on the Dark Alex 3.5 mod and it's still awesome...I don't think any other video game platform comes close to how amazing the PSP exploits were back in the day...I miss those days!

I remember back in the day I had a ‘pandora battery’ that when you put it in the PSP it would install a firmware that you could then install pirated games onto, not that I did of course...

Very interesting! Its always nice to see quality videos from you every Monday morning

I was all up on the PSP scene for a long time! Super fun! I still have my development environment set up. 'member how nerve racking downgrading was before Pandora and CFW recovery? 'member IRShell? 'member Lan.st? 'member CXMB? 'member when they found the web browser and PS1 emulator before Sony announced them?

What a time that was. Man I remembered most all of this

Pretty interesting, I remember the time when I installed all this stuff on my PSP, it was amazing! The best portable console to me, at least, the only one I still use now. Good work, you brought me so many nostalgic memories 👍

Dark_Alex!! Man, his CFW releases were absolutely incredible

Great video, dude. I remember being in middleschool and having this one friend who was super into modding his PSP. He showed me so many cool things. I ended up buying another battery to make my original into a Pandora Battery by opening it up and removing one of the connections inside. It was pretty weird opening up a battery to be able to play homebrew! After that, a whole world of possibilities opened up. Now my PSP's power light doesn't even turn on when I plug it in, and I suspect it's because I stored the console with the battery inside.

Such a good episode, SO MANY memories, I know I played your Doom at some point as well, ran dark alex firmware, seeing all those old websites and softwares was super cool! Keep up the great work!

Wow, this is a really good video. Well done!

I remember when I first hacked my PSP via a TIFF downgrader. I didn't learn about homebrew until I was on version 1.52. I still have a PSP-1000 model with the PRO-C CFW on it. I don't think I'll ever get rid of it.

My favorite PSP homebrew app was IRShell. It used the built in IR port to send files and control devices. Loaded with thousands of remote controller codes, I used to control TVs and cable/satellite boxes everywhere I went (schools, waiting rooms, restaurants, etc.), use it as a wireless (line-of-sight) controller for my PS2, or send rom files and game saves to my wife's PSP.

Ah the days of Dark Alex and his custom firmware releases. I even modded one of my batteries to make it a "pandoras" battery. Great times.

The PSP modding days were my favorite BY far! What a glorious time to have that machine, it was so capable! So much goodness!

Man this brings back some good ol memories. I had a lot of fun with the psp's homebrew.

so glad i stumbled on one of your videos awhile back. love learning the history on some of this stuff. thanks man!

This throws me back to middle school! A lot of great evenings were spent chatting on myspace and watching homestarrunner videos on my PSP. Modding my PSP really gave me an appreciation for the inner workings of computers at the time. At one point, I even had a pandora's battery and magic memory stick and I would flash PSPs for other kids on the bus before school.

Ahh, i remember that hunt for the 1.50 psp's back in the day when i was looking to get one. Man, that brings back memories

Actually the 6.60 pro custom fw is not the end. Sometime after that, another team actually found out a way to write down the custom fw without bricking the psp 3000's (and the 2000s wich came with the protected boards) wich couldnt initially be flashed, only patched in ram non-permanently. And that one is actually pretty recent. (2015-6?)

The PSP was amazing. When I got my PSP-3000, the first thing I did was download the custom firmware. I was able to run so many games through just a simple app. Still have it to this day. Great video!

Man, I love your Mistakes Were Made series. Excellent work.

Ahh, Dark Alex. Now that is a name I've not heard in a long time...

What an adventure the PSP hacking scene was ...

This takes me back. I was the kid in high school you went to for upgrading your psp to custom firmware. I even got into modding with sound reactive and pressure reactive shoulder buttons, added a second analogue stick and even took out a umd drive and put in a decent sized 2w speaker. And now I am an electrical engineer...

Watching this gave me so much nostalgia! The PSP was an amazing system and the whole custom firmware thing got me into "tinkering".

That GTA Liberty City Stories Theme Song, it just warms your soul.

Yay finally some more PSP content :3 I just love the Psp. It's such a great handheld and easy peasy to modify.

man this is throwback, this stuff brought me to your channel, great work on the vid

Back when megaupload was a thing and 009 system tutorial videos. But wow, i never knew i would see the face of the person who ported room to the psp. Really, big fan. I never would have played the original room of it wasnt for you. Really had a great time!

arrr man the memorys of making Pandora batteries. the first few I made where dangerous AF befoul the ability to soft mod them came out >__

MVG; I've got class to get too. Now is not the time

Amazing video, spent my afternoon watching your other videos similar to this about other consoles, very interesting, I got into the PSP scene when the firmware was 6.20 I believe, I had no PSP prior to that so I missed on all of this and I was even too young to remember, it was nice to now know the fully story, I also just got a PS Vita a few months ago and I am very curious about how all this started, how we got to this point in which it is so simple to run homebrew and use things like SD2Vita, hoping you make one about it next!

This brought me back to being in school and getting a PSP and doing all these mods. I remember being so excited for each new homebrew release. This was one of the best handhelds ever. I miss it.

You forgot to mention the m33 and GEN Firmwares. EDIT: He showes the m33 firmware in the video, but didn‘t mention it when he talks. Since I was just listening to the audio of that video, I didn’t notice that, I‘m very sorry Fun Fact, m33 was also dark alex :D

This bought back great memories, you forgot to talk about the master key being leaked publicly

I just found your channel today. This video really makes me want a PSP again. I miss my old one.

This was an awesome video. I remember going to gamestop in freshmen year going through all their used psps to check a hacking compatible firmware lol. The guy was like wtf. Awesome times. Wish the video was longer! Or for other systems like the psvita.

I remember waiting for 6.20 CFW (I think it was Prometheus) on Christmas, it was best gift I've received :D

Oh, the old PSP. Such a beautiful machine. I still have mine with a 5.50 CFW, but I want to upgrade it to 6.61 Infinity.

4 years after this video was posted and it's the first time I've seen it. Great video. Brought back some awesome memories for me. It was an exciting time as a PSP owner.