Unlocking games consoles is a common way for users to open up the system, but in the past, such efforts have been quickly thwarted. This hack is equivalent to stealing a master key, say experts.
It comes as Sony heard that one of the mass lawsuits brought against it in the US had been dismissed by the judge. Access to the inner workings of a games console means people can utilise its huge computing power in novel ways.
For example, the United States Air Force has networked 1,700 PS3s to create a powerful supercomputer. But often the unlocking - called jailbreaking - is seen as a means to allow users to play pirated games.
The hackers behind the publication of the so-called LVO decryption keys call themselves The Three Musketeers. They say that they decided to release the information after it was leaked and fell into the hands of Chinese hackers who had planned to charge a fee for the code.
Source: BBC News
