Fulu offers $10K to crack PS5 locks for Linux

A new $10,000 bounty is targeting the PlayStation 5—not to run pirated games, but to turn Sony’s console back into a general-purpose computer. Ownership advocacy group Fulu, led by Louis Rossmann and consumer advocate Kevin O’Reilly, said Tuesday it will reward the first person who can bypass Sony’s software restrictions and potentially make it possible to install an operating system such as Linux on the PS5.

Fulu puts up the first $10,000 for each bounty and says it will match donations up to another $10,000. Since launching in late 2025, the group says it has paid out two bounties so far: one tied to Google’s outdated Nest thermostats and another involving DRM-enabled Molekule air purifiers.

“Make PlayStations computers again.”

O’Reilly told WIRED the effort is about restoring owners' control over hardware they bought.

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“Let’s go back to general-purpose computing and understand that if we own the hardware, we should be able to put the software we want onto it.”

The announcement lands after Sony said in early July that it was ending production of physical discs for all new games on its PS5 consoles. That decision drew criticism from gamers and advocacy groups that prefer physical media and object to PlayStation terms stating that buying a digital game does not mean the customer owns it.

O’Reilly said those concerns are feeding broader anxiety about long-term control over the console.

“A lot of PlayStation owners are concerned about what’s going to happen to their consoles. They fear that they can get rug-pulled at any moment.”

Fulu is also framing the bounty around hardware reuse. With the ongoing RAM shortage pushing up costs for consumer tech, O’Reilly argued that existing devices like consoles should be easier to repurpose for other computing tasks.

“Gaming consoles have significant amounts of computing power. Why can’t I repurpose that? If I’m trying to vibe code or set up agentic AI systems, why can’t I use this box, this computer that I bought—that I own—to do what I want to do?”

There is a legal catch. Circumventing software locks can trigger Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 1998 law that bars bypassing digital protections and carries potential fines and even jail time. Fulu says bounty winners only need to prove they have a working method; they do not have to publish it if they fear legal consequences. That means a successful PS5 jailbreak might never be released publicly.