Thread

PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

344 points · 227 comments · alexjplant

arnaudsm · 1789570645 · focus · HN ↗
Misleading title, there's another major reason: it's an embargo agreement violation that jeopardizes Linux support on PS5.
<a href="https://x.com/theflow0/status/2099987019954831744" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/theflow0/status/2099987019954831744
1. sva_ · 1789571343 · focus · HN ↗
  > The scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don't even understand. Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony.
  Sounds like he is salty that somebody found an exploit using LLM that he found manually (which probably took a significant amount of time.) I can partly understand it, but I mean that's also just the game that somebody else might find an exploit, LLMs just make it easier. LLMs finding bugs is not a bad thing, just sucks for enjoyers of open source software in this particular case.
  You can probably find more though.
  1. deletedie · 1789571627 · focus · HN ↗
    Rather, he's annoyed because the LLM User submitted the exploit to Sony (to get paid) and killed the only known viable path forward for development.
    Qiu_Zhanxuan · 1789571931 · focus · HN ↗
    yeah, and tbh he should be, one douche ruined it for the rest of us
    Den_VR · 1789572130 · focus · HN ↗
    Any noticing what it paid?
    xethos · 1789579953 · focus · HN ↗
    "Everyone else enjoying this got screwed, but how much did the one guy get paid do we think?"
    Having the money to pour into an LLM to find this tautologically means it won't have been a life-chaning amount of money, and does not engender support for the person that reported the exploit to Sony
  2. tetromino_ · 1789571889 · focus · HN ↗
    > Sounds like he is salty that somebody found an exploit using LLM that he found manually
    Nope. He is salty because someone made public the secret exploit that Linux-on-PS5 apparently relies upon to bypass Sony's hypervisor protection. Now Sony will fix the exploit, and there will be no more Linux on the PS5 until another exploit is found.
    sva_ · 1789572047 · focus · HN ↗
    Okay, I misunderstood. But it wasn't particularly secret if 'noobs' had access then?
    MSFT_Edging · 1789572856 · focus · HN ↗
    It sounds like he had already found it the old fashioned way, then the noobs sic'd the LLMs on it, found it, and he told them "hey chill, we knew about this, don't ruin it" and they ruined it.
    To quote Dr Ian Malcolm:
    "If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now [bangs on the table]"
    voidnullvalue · 1789580532 · focus · HN ↗
    That quote logically implies that people should be paralyzed to act on any novel information. There is no such thing as a discovery that occurs in a vacuum without some prior art. "Standing on the shoulders of giants"
    Then again, its a silly illogical movie
    MSFT_Edging · 1789648298 · focus · HN ↗
    I disagree. It's pretty clear the complaint is the lack of responsibility or care for the dangerous science at the center of the movie.
    The complaint wouldn't be remotely the same if Hammond was taking the power he was playing with seriously. His character is the villain, he ignores every warning and almost kills his grand children.
    In the case of the PS5 Linux project, the researcher who has worked towards the skills required to find these bugs has a greater respect, moved slower, had time to think.
    People playing with the enormous power of LLMs finding hypervisor bugs and throwing it in the fire have no respect for the work.
    bothers · 1789575871 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    sva_ · 1789581533 · focus · HN ↗
    The vagueposting is off the charts. Whats the point of posting shallow dismissals?
    If two people independently from you find the same exploit using LLMs, it was clear that it'd leak at some point.
    wuhhh · 1789578864 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
  3. gbil · 1789572269 · focus · HN ↗
    >I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.
    This guy has used on working with people that understand the scene, it seems that they were in contact, they agreed on something and then the next day they did something different.
    This is really important in the context of what happened and probably the cherry on top of the current "hacking" cake, with the bar being lowered so much that anybody can jump in with some minor skill and luck and get something just for themselves.
    charcircuit · 1789591136 · focus · HN ↗
    There was already a third party that found the exploit before it was reported. It's clear that it was essentially not a secret anymore.
  4. lightedman · 1789574247 · focus · HN ↗
    "Sounds like he is salty that somebody found an exploit using LLM that he found manually"
    No, he's salty that this last remaining hypervisor exploit is going to get patched, causing his PS5 Linux project to get wholly-fucked as now there will be no (currently-known) way to sideload the OS. Reading comprehension is very important here.
  5. DaSHacka · 1789574250 · focus · HN ↗
    I think you've hit the nail on the head. I've seen this behavior from others in the space before too, it's not a one-off. They refuse to use LLMs themselves, and state as much publicly "I simply don't need to resort to using the slop machine, my skills are superior", yet FUME when others they deem as "lesser" are able to use it to achieve the same results as them, oftentimes faster.
    I can guarantee this post would not have been made had he not been the one to find that vuln first.
    bothers · 1789575237 · focus · HN ↗
    In this case, the "same result" was killing the project for money. But yeah, lol he mad, xd, etc. What a quality contribution.
    DaSHacka · 1789577994 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not the fault of the model, though. Even knowledgeable people that found everything manually can (ir)responsibly disclose it to the vendor for a payout.
    Just look at the iOS jailbreaking scene and how Apple repeatedly poached all the devs until there was no one left, killing it off well before LLMs.
  6. Shorel · 1789576965 · focus · HN ↗
    No guarantee at all that a new exploit will be found, and even much lower probability that a suitable lead developer will be found. The slop kiddy was just an asshole TBH.

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