Brief
- A vulnerability exploitation chain named Relapse has been released on GitHub with a MIT license, allowing for the execution of custom code on firmware versions 7.00 to 13.60 of the host located at PS5.
- It is not a persistent solution for cracking: users must run it again after each restart, and hosts updated on or after September 16 are not compatible with it.
- On August 21, Sony stated to a federal court that rational consumers would not be misled into believing they own digital games for which they have paid.
Someone has finally managed to do it. There is a public PS5 cracking solution, named Relapse, which is applicable to firmware versions 7.00 to 13.60. All that's required is to modify DNS and wait for a few seconds to complete the process.
This timing is rather delicate for Sony. Just a few weeks ago, Sony admitted in court that players actually do not own the games they purchase digitally.
Piracy is obviously the most immediate concern. Users on the r/PS5_Jailbreak subreddit are already discussing which games can run on Relapse. It may also allow players to run copies of games that they have not purchased.
The disclaimer of this repository states that this project is intended solely for "educational and security research purposes" and does not support piracy.
This is a relatively crude method of cracking. It is in the form of “tethered”, which means that once a restart occurs, all functions will stop until the vulnerability exploitation is run again. The repository also warns that “WebKit” may “require multiple attempts”, and at the kernel stage, it could cause the host to freeze or crash.
The project description also warns that using this tool may lead to system failures, data loss, or account bans. Users should be aware of these related risks.
Ownership issues
For Sony, this timing is quite awkward. In a class-action lawsuit filed in June with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, four PlayStation users alleged that the “Buy Now” button misled them into thinking they owned these games. Sony’s response was that it “cannot reasonably argue that a rational consumer would assume they had obtained ‘ownership’.”
Sony, citing the licensing terms, stated that the relevant software is 'licensed for your use, not for sale to you.' Its main request is to transfer the dispute to private arbitration, and as of now, the judge has not made a ruling on this motion.
Relapse touches on the other half of the ownership issue. Litigation deals with what you bought in the store; whereas cracking is about what you can do with a machine that you have already paid for.
This has always been a topic of long-standing debate, especially from the perspectives of consumer rights and repair rights. The most famous case regarding such cracking litigation occurred between Apple and iOS, the cracker Justin Freeman. The latter ultimately won the case, despite Apple making its operating system more resistant to cracking with each update.
CERSA, the research director, stated that when you purchase digital assets from the platform, "the platform ultimately retains control over those assets." Relapse During the period when the host was still running on the old firmware, a portion of that control was returned to the users.
Hosts updated to the 14.00 firmware released by Sony on September 16 are not compatible with Relapse.
