PS3 Used to Crack Encrypted Hard Disks

Federal agents typically used $1,100 computers to crack passwords to the seized hard drives of suspected child pornographers. Now they're using $300 PlayStation 3s to pull off the same task.

"Bad guys are encrypting their stuff now, so we need a methodology of hacking on that to try to break passwords," Claude E. Davenport, an agent in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center, told Joseph D. Szydlowski of the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire. "The Playstation 3 - its processing component - is perfect for large-scale library attacks."