F-Secure bricks a PSP on camera

If you were ever curious as to exactly what was entailed in a PSP-bricking (for the uninitiated, that's when running some code that kills your PSP entirely), famed antivirus company F-Secure (who we hope you should well know by now) plunked down the $250 to do an on-camera bricking, for, um, educational purposes. It's not pretty. In fact, you may want to shield their eyes if you've got children (or gamers) in the room. The lesson to learn here? Always use protection, kids—never run unverified arbitrary code.

Watch [14MB WMV]

[fistpittingnork @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Half that video was starting/ending credits, but it was neat to watch a brick sesh.

[Jammie @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Emm...It says that the file cannot be found a may have expired when I click the link. Any help?

[John Molina @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I'm glad I don't run arbitrary code on my PSP.

[Dave Zatz @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Good thing Best Buy takes returns.

[jc @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Isn't there a way to reflash the PSP's bios? Why can't the system files be reinstalled?

[WickedP @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

jc,

It can...by Sony, for a price since you've now voided the warranty.

I like the closing caption: "One PSP was harmed during the production of this film" ...too funny

WickedP

[grim.r @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I think they are obligated to perform proper burial rites. The PSP's perennial fate should be sealed along side it's brethren with mortar into a wall.

[Tom @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Those bastards, with all those poor kids out there who can't afford a PSP. There's gonna be a special place in hell for PSP murderers.

[Deputy Doffoos @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

OOOHHHH NNOOOOEEEEZZZZ!!!1!!11111!

[Jake McMahon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Hahaha. That was great.

[NekoTsukimi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Two thumbs up! Great family fun~ I almost felt my heart drop thinking about $249 (plus any taxes, shipping, etc) gone down the drain in less than a second. I feel sorry for the real PSP users that were punk'd into bricking their systems XD

[Keith @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I laughed. I cried. I give it two thumbs up.

[paralipsis @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Anybody else curious as to what that flash of text actually said?

I'm not so curious as to try mind you, but curious nonetheless

[Jared Schwager @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

That was great. Although I would have gladly taken that PSP and sent it to Sony to have it fixed. :P

[Jamie Thingbox @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Dear God!

I hope someone will come along and sell me a product to protect my PSP from arbitrary code from third parties. I wonder if F-Secure knows of anyone planning on doing that?

[Dominic @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Does anyone know the source of the verb brick? Did it come about with the PSPs or before that? Wikipedia yielded nothing.

[neo.cerberus @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

the text says something like "team xploit has F*cked your psp." it was on pspupdates.com a while ago, search there. My friend bricked his psp this way - I laughed so hard i cried, i told him not to run it but he did it anyway.

[lupinstel @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

We use the word "bricked" because saying that something was "paper-weighted" doesn't roll off the tongue as well. It is a "brick" because now does nothing but sit there.

[Rob_ @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

#13

from what i can see, it seems to read:

PSP XX 2.0 Exploits back the 2.0 firmware
Thank's to XX for the 2.0 exploit :)

(XX = unreadable)

the amount of psp's i had to brick to get that...

[OTAM @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

If there were tons of games to play on the PSP then we wouldnt have this problem because people wouldnt be bothered to fucking around with homebrew and old ROMS.

I hear about tons of DS games everday but all I ever hear about for the PSP is Wipeout and GTA (which isnt even out yet).

[Jen @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Is there no way to access the drive directly and put the system files back? I mean, if it's a brick you might as well take it apart and play with it...

[DarkFader @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

NOOOOOO!!!
What's next? A DS bricking video?

[Tom Robinson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

What a lame attempt at a publicity stunt. Yeah it was interesting, but they obviously did it to draw attention to their little "research" firm.

[Phoenixfury @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Notice that clear sheild in front of the PSP? I think this is an amazing precaution.. God forbid if the PSP exploded as it was bricked. LOL In a way I kind of wished that happened, that would have been cool!

[Eric Bostrom @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

f-secure is by no means "little"

[Alex @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Oh man, #17 that was hilarious. but yeah I couldn't figure out what the XX's were either.

[Andy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Here's a screencap for all those trying to figure out what it says. Good luck.

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/2885/pspbrick7to.jpg

[Hunty @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I'll see you PSP bricking video, and raise you one PSP smashing video:

http://mga.sorobangeeks.com//news_pics/133/psp_cassee.mpg

today is crying fanboy day. :)X

[YourTechSupport @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

How anticlimatic. I was expecting something like.
"PWN3D J00 STUP1D N00BZ LOL!!!111ELEVEN - Love, PSPhaxx0r" or something.

Not.... "Thanks to some guy for the exploit", makes it look more like someone POOCHED A DOWNGRADER and released it anyway.

Hmmmm.

[tobikow @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

is it posible that sony might have realeased that program? it would make me less inclined to downgrade.

[Jak @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

The next time [engadget] wants to do test and films then send me the PSP and i'll do it for you. :D
Please Im desperate for one, and have no money.

[svuntcake @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

The text:

PSP IDEA 2.0 Exploit Hack the 2.0 firmware
Thanks to [illegible, maybe toa2r4o] for the 2.0 exploit :)

[Galley @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

That certainly was thrilling. I want 3 minutes and 20 seconds of my life back.

[collegetoad @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Now...thats Amazing...bricking a PSP, whats next? Ipod?

[tiuk @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Anyone else getting Sharper Image flash adds in the top left of their browser on Engadget? Using Firefox so I don't think I've been spywareowned.

[Jason Anderson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Goddammit! STOP USING WINDOWS MEDIA TO MAKE VIDEOS!

[Joseph Collum @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Man, this is seriously low...espcially who work their asses off to get hold of a PSP, well good thing I stay away from Homebrew, i recently got a White PSP and I dont wana White Brick thanks!

[Meditator @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

got psp model p-1000 with fw 1.5 original from sony, japan. no restriction was set to emulators, no need to downgrade, but want to get updated and then this happens (had not heard about cause owned it just for five days) now i send email to sony to get this fixed cause i did not do something illegal, i was using a "computer" which damages after upgrading fw. no, i read some threads and i guess it will be not hard to fix it cause afaik sony repairs it for money to european users ... so it seems to be a additional income for them ... but this is only cool for them not needing too much time for one... so my idea is that it boot ups and shortly accesses the memory stick. perhaps theres a way to get known what it looks for and places a boot bin/rom there which loads up a dump back to bios and, additional installs current fw. what do you think about? let me here, how far is the way done to this? every day more and more get bricked and more and more are working on that, so tell me ur experiences. i got a jap psp, have a 1.5 and 1.0 japanese dump, elf files and some ideas to script but until now coding is not my favourite so i just start up and guess out in the world are so many real crazy programming guys that this should be fixed within days??? what we are living on ONE planet if we do not help us? ;)

[fistpittingnork @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Half that video was starting/ending credits, but it was neat to watch a brick sesh.

[Jammie @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Emm...It says that the file cannot be found a may have expired when I click the link. Any help?

[John Molina @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I'm glad I don't run arbitrary code on my PSP.

[Dave Zatz @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Good thing Best Buy takes returns.

[jc @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Isn't there a way to reflash the PSP's bios? Why can't the system files be reinstalled?

[WickedP @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

jc,

It can...by Sony, for a price since you've now voided the warranty.

I like the closing caption: "One PSP was harmed during the production of this film" ...too funny

WickedP

[grim.r @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I think they are obligated to perform proper burial rites. The PSP's perennial fate should be sealed along side it's brethren with mortar into a wall.

[Tom @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Those bastards, with all those poor kids out there who can't afford a PSP. There's gonna be a special place in hell for PSP murderers.

[Deputy Doffoos @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

OOOHHHH NNOOOOEEEEZZZZ!!!1!!11111!

[Jake McMahon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Hahaha. That was great.

[NekoTsukimi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Two thumbs up! Great family fun~ I almost felt my heart drop thinking about $249 (plus any taxes, shipping, etc) gone down the drain in less than a second. I feel sorry for the real PSP users that were punk'd into bricking their systems XD

[Keith @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I laughed. I cried. I give it two thumbs up.