U.S. Government uses PS3 to thwart child pornographers

Sony has another reason to touts its PS3 as the console that does everything. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center also known as C3 uses the cheap $300 PS3s to crack passwords of computers of alleged child pornographers.

A warrant allows the government officials to seize the suspect’s computer but due to Fourth Amendment they can’t force suspects to reveal their passwords. In such a case, cracking password is the only option.

There are up to 282 trillion combinations in a six-digit password and breaking the correct combination is only possible when a machine can process heaps of data quickly. Networked PS3s used by C3 processes 4 million passwords per second, making it a cost effective solution compared to the $8,000 Tableau/Dell server combination that was used previously.

C3 plans to buy more original PS3s because of its flexibility to run Linux.

[Axcessnews via Slashdot]

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