PS3, Linux Used to Catch Child Pornographers
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: ps3, linux, child, kiddie, porn | Themes: Digital Entertainment
Old PS3 Phat has skills to catch child predators.
Over the past week, most PlayStation 3 consoles have been chugging along playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. But all the while, some other PS3 consoles have been helping to stop child predators.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center, also known as C3, is now using the computational power of the PlayStation 3 to crack the computer passwords of suspected child pornographers.
"Bad guys are encrypting their stuff now, so we need a methodology of hacking on that to try to break passwords," said Claude E. Davenport, a senior special agent at C3. "The Playstation 3 - its processing component - is perfect for large-scale library attacks."
Prior to the PS3, the team was using a Tableau/Dell server combination that cost more than $8000. Clearly a group of networked PS3s is far more cost effective.
Naturally, cracking a child predator's password requires software that's more specialized than what's found on the PlayStation Store. C3 uses Linux on the PlayStation 3 to run its cracking software. Sadly, the newer PS3 Slims do not support the installation of Linux, so the enforcement body is now looking to buy 40 more original PS3s to add to the 20 it already has.
Might these agents be playing a skirmish round on their breaks, or perhaps pull a Wii Bowling drug bust event? Not likely.
"There's no controllers hooked up," Davenport said.
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Not that I agree with child porn and sickos because I don't but good luck with that on some of the freely available 1024 bit encryption methods available now.
I would be happy to donate my PC power to stop child predators. Let me know how I can help!!
Not that I agree with child porn and sickos because I don't but good luck with that on some of the freely available 1024 bit encryption methods available now.
No one will argue that child pornographers are exclusively smart, I bet they can crack 90%+ of their suspects with a dictionary attack. They said nothing about brute forcing the encryption, a dictionary attack sidesteps that so the key size is irrelevant.
ironically, even if they only get 1% of what they are after them I am all for the money going into it...
Wouldn't multiple modern GPU's with hundreds of cores each be a more cost effective solution to brute force cracking?
Who thought a $400 game system would be a good option? You don't need the graphics abilities, the blue tooth, the blu-ray, hell even the harddrive.
I would be happy to donate my PC power to stop child predators. Let me know how I can help!!
LOL coming soon to a GPU near you: Pedo@home, since cancer research is so last year.
Hacker sits at PC and sets up program then passes the process to his newly acquired set of PS3's he/she bought off ebay and launches attack on target. Sets up hidden camaera on pc to overlook living room in full view of Wii. He/she breaks into target and is also setup to catch authorities playing his Wii should they break down door and haul he/she away.
"Sadly, the newer PS3 Slims do not support the installation of Linux, so the enforcement body is now looking to buy 40 more original PS3s to add to the 20 it already has."
Sony should introduce a Cell-based blade server just for large-scale computation. It wouldn't be a profit loss like re-purposed PS3s and be more efficient.
As long as they have a warrent. I just worry about the illegal uses it implies, especially with the government using it. I agree we need to get rid of the child porn, but this kinda worries me
Well at least some good is comming out of the PS3 hardware
As long as they have a warrent. I just worry about the illegal uses it implies, especially with the government using it. I agree we need to get rid of the child porn, but this kinda worries me
I don't think they are hacking into the machine remotely I think they have already confiscated the allegid machine (which they need a warrant anyways).
Wouldn't multiple modern GPU's with hundreds of cores each be a more cost effective solution to brute force cracking?Who thought a $400 game system would be a good option? You don't need the graphics abilities, the blue tooth, the blu-ray, hell even the harddrive.
This tech your talking about "gpgpu" is really only good for visual stuff like converting MPEG-3 to MPEG-4 ect. For what there doing a cpu like the ps3's is better the a gpu.
Sony should definitely make a server using the cell chips. They should build a few and donate it to the child-porn busting cause. It could be good PR for them.
What would be truly awesome is a device that can find the child-porn creeps, infiltrate their computer and electrocute them through their keyboard. Anybody remember the anti-theft device from Robocop
"Sadly, the newer PS3 Slims do not support the installation of Linux, so the enforcement body is now looking to buy 40 more original PS3s to add to the 20 it already has."Sony should introduce a Cell-based blade server just for large-scale computation. It wouldn't be a profit loss like re-purposed PS3s and be more efficient.
I agree.
But... though not Sony but I thought somebody already did that....
Was it IBM (BladeCenter QS22)?
Instead of linking a couple of local consoles, they should implant some sort voluntary of seti@home program. 40 PS3 is nice, a couple million is better.
On the other hand, I'm slightly scared of what it could do. They claim they crack the passwords of "suspected" child pornographers, but, In a society where everyone is guilty unless proven innocent, maybe too many people will fit in the "suspected" spectrum...
"Sadly, the newer PS3 Slims do not support the installation of Linux, so the enforcement body is now looking to buy 40 more original PS3s to add to the 20 it already has."Sony should introduce a Cell-based blade server just for large-scale computation. It wouldn't be a profit loss like re-purposed PS3s and be more efficient.
i believe they started doing it a little. i think i remember seeing last year a Sony vaio that had both a cell and x86 CPU but i believe the cell was just used for multimedia.
Wouldn't multiple modern GPU's with hundreds of cores each be a more cost effective solution to brute force cracking?Who thought a $400 game system would be a good option? You don't need the graphics abilities, the blue tooth, the blu-ray, hell even the harddrive.
Hmm, buy a GPU and be locked into whatever changes Nvidia or ATI come up with for CUDA/STREAM or, buy a complete ~1.8 Teraflop Linux box for less (its $300 now btw) and continue using the code that was written in C decades ago...
Sony is losing money on the deal since they aren't buying games. They are taking a Risk because the new PS3s don't support alternate OS's, but knowing the government they put this requisition request in back when the PS3 was 20 gigs.
And with a GPU, your CPU would still be a bottleneck since it's the only thing that can ask, is this key right?, when you attach or virtually mount an encrypted hard drive you're trying to crack. With multiple CPUs, each CPU takes its turn asking while the others are processing the answer to the question.
I'd like to donate my CPU cycles to help too but that would put my PC under state and federal networking guidelines (no thanks).
Aliens vs. Child Predators. Coming soon!
can you run VMWare ESXi on the the George Forman Grill PS3's?
not enough ram Antilycus... wouldn't be worth it.
I wonder how many ps3's our government or other governments are using to try to hack eachother?
Why PS3s?
Lol yea. Forget stem cell research or research for cure for cancer... let's spend money and time to catch pedos.
reeeeeealllllyyyyy oooooollllllddddd neeeewwwwwwssssss
Lol yea. Forget stem cell research or research for cure for cancer... let's spend money and time to catch pedos.
Hell, let's forget stem cells, cancer AND pedophiles! Let's spend billions of dollars to find some buckets of water on a planet we can't possibly live on for the forseable future!
good excuse to game on the job
Why not a 8P motherboard with 6 sexacores?
Or a speciality order from IBM for their newest cell processors.
4,096 bit encryption anyone?
Put the cell CPU on a blade server? Sell it for cpu-intensive applications? Leave it to IBM: "On 13 May 2008, IBM announced the BladeCenter QS22. The QS22 introduces the PowerXCell 8i processor with five times the double-precision Floating Point performance of the QS21, and the capacity for up to 32GB of DDR2 memory on-blade."
The problem is as many have stated, the IBM version is not cost subsidized, and in fact much MUCH more expensive than the same CPU power when drawn from an array of PS3 systems, as long as you are dealing with problems that are easy to parallel (as brute force cryptanalysis certainly is.)
Nvidia 9800GT can bruteforce 4 million MD5 hashes per second, even though MD5 is comparitavely weak I'm sure it'd still hvae a fair go at it.
Shouldn't that be LC3 or L0phtCrack-V3?
I also have a hard time believing 60 PS3s are a better choice than a few fast, but regular computers with a bunch of cores
Isn't that because they're wireless?