PS3 firmware 3.42 to stomp all over PS Jailbreak piracy? Probably. For a bit, anyway...

As confirmed byeXophase, the firmware locks out all current USB-based jailbreaking solutions. But rather than the end of the PS3 hacking drama, I suspect this will only be the beginning. The thing is, while this update locks out the currently released versions of Jailbreak, the cheeky piece of programming at the centre of this whole debacle has now been released asopen source code, albeit with certain functionality (such as those all-important "legal back-ups") disabled. Which means that the world's hackers are now free to adapt and rework it as many times as they like. Which means that it will probably now start mutating like a virus in order to get around Sony's current and incoming security measures. If it hasn't already.

Remember that whole tennis match of coding that Sony found itself in with hackers over the PSP firmware? The one that went patch-crack-patch-crack-patch-crack-patch? (check out ourbrief history of games piracyif you don't) Well here we go again, I reckon.Brace yourselves for a lot of updating. And as a quick example of the open-source Jailbreak in action, here's some crazy man running it off a graphical calculator. Now if he can just use it toget some RPGs installed...