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The Universal
Media Disc (UMD) is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use
on the PlayStation Portable. It can hold up to 1.8 gigabytes of
data, which can include games, movies, music, or a combination
thereof. Despite Sony's best efforts, the UMD format has been cracked. Using a combination of insecure firmware and reverse engineering, the Sony PSP can now use a variety of homebrew games, and illegal copies of games and movies. Each disc uses a file system whose format follows the ISO 9660 standard. The ISO image can then be stored on a Memory Stick, and run via a special disc emulator program. The ISO images cannot be burned to UMD discs as UMD writables and burners are not available. The UMD drive won't read CD-Rs or DVD-Rs. |
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Despite Sony's best efforts, the UMD format has been cracked. Using
a combination of insecure firmware and reverse engineering, the Sony
PSP can now use a variety of homebrew games, and illegal copies of
games and movies. Each disc uses a file system whose format follows
the ISO 9660 standard. The ISO image can then be stored on a Memory
Stick, and run via a special disc emulator program. The ISO images
cannot be burned to UMD discs as UMD writable and burners are not
available. The UMD drive won't read CD-Rs or DVD-Rs. Sony has attempted to halt this type of exploitation by updating the firmware. Version 1.51 of the PSP firmware attempts to patch the exploit. Recent games also come with a 'software switch' that force users to update before the game can be played. This has also been circumvented: some applications for 1.50 report the firmware version as being more recent than it actually is, bypassing the need to update. As of August 2005, the first batch of pirated UMD ISOs have reportedly been seen in Hong Kong for as little as HK $20 (less than US$3, €2 or £1.50). |
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