Mmm, nerd-cred.

The PlayStation 3's been on the market for a substantial length of time and still the system's yet to be hacked, and subsequently pirated. But a group of hackers claim to have breached the PS3's impenetrable defences with a USB plug-and-play device that bypasses Sony's copy protection.

The PSJailbreak (which we won't grace with traffic) purportedly allows PS3 titles to be loaded from the hard-drive. It also can block Sony's mandatory firmware updates, protecting itself from obsolescence. While homebrew folks will enjoy the potential of cracking open the console, this could introduce a whole new piracy issue for the PlayStation 3. And piracy sucks because in the end everyone gets screwed.

OzModChips has a video of the hack in action (though they appear to be using a debug system). Seriously though, don't be pirates. We hope if this thing is real that Sony cracks down hard.