There are rumors flying about that firmware version 3.56 was not “minor” at all as it was described by Sony. There seems to be a neat little addition or two that was added to help Sony fight against homebrew that allows piracy.

First thing is that Sony has enabled a rootkit, that once a PS3 connects to the PSN network, it can then verify the files required and/or bypassed from the newest firmware versions etc. There is no perfect way to forge this and even if code is written to bypass this option, Sony can still see PS3’s that connected to PSN without accomplishing this step giving them the heads up anyways. What this basically means is that if you have custom firmware then you will not have PSN access very soon.

Secondly, it seems that Sony has installed a trojan horse of sorts in your PS3 that allows them to control it remotely to force download proper firmware as needed. This one is a bit shaky and I’m not 100% sure of what laws govern this procedure if any. Basically Sony can see you are bypassing their firmware, they can take your PS3 and force it to download the newest firmware options. A bit of a touchy subject here, but brutal nonetheless.

So it seems if you want PSN access, stay away from customfirmware. This will at the very least fix the online cheaters, trophy cheaters and such which is a good thing.

No patch is needed to enforce this either. Its all done on Sony’s end.