Zazenora
Member
Hey, I didn't go through this entire discussion so I apologize if this has already been mentioned.
First off, you are always at risk using your main PSN account on any playstation 3 system that is HAN enabled, or otherwise modded in any form or fashion including custom firmware.
I have seen some deterrents that can be used to hide your activity such as erasing your game history that is stored internally in the PS3, which is used for showing certain games related to ones you've played, as well as other advertisement on the store. These however aren't fullproof either, there's always the risk of something unknown to us that sony could be using to check any user's activities.
I can give a few suggestions on how to protect your main account, although these may not be ideal to you if you are interested in collecting trophies. The only way I can think of to 100% secure your main PSN account would be to keep it off the system completely during your usage of the HAN exploit.
While these measures may be extreme for the normal user, you could do the following:
Factory restore your PS3 before installing/using the HAN exploit.
Only have your HAN USER account on the PS3.
This would keep any association with the exploit and your main account from happening, but again this still wouldn't be 100% as there could possibly be some sort of logs internally that doesn't get erased from the factory restore, or they could possibly see some form of history with IP addresses/mac addresses or something.
You take on the risk of a ban from using HAN, but depending on what you want to do with HAN, the risks may not be so bad.
I've had problems signing into PSN before even installing HAN, and now it seems I'm even more restricted as I haven't even been able to access the store as it keeps saying they are currently doing maintenance. Not sure if this has anything to do with using the exploit, but it's probably better for me to not get online anyway. I mainly enjoy single-player games such as RPG's, and most games that are still playable online on the PS3 I've grown bored of.
Also with regards to trophies, there is probably some form of timestamp or something similar that contains some kind of information that could potentially be linked to using the exploit. Don't take my word on this though.
On another note, if you value your PSN account as in the trophies you've obtained or have invested money in it buying games or DLC, I highly advise that you keep it as far away from the exploit as possible.
I have my main account on my HAN enabled PS3, and I've also accepted the risks and possible consequences that can follow with doing so. I do play my backups using my main account, and have even accidentally installed a few backups while on my main account... This is not recommended by the way, but as an extra precaution I've made the choice to keep my PS3 completely disconnected from the internet at this point to prevent any further activity from being logged on their end.
If you're interested in collecting trophies on your main account for personal reasons, and not so much for actually having them show up on your account on PSN, I suggest using a web server such as PKG Linker or any of the other alternative solutions to be able to activate HAN offline.
Unless you keep your system completely offline and your main PSN account off the system entirely, I really see no 100% sure way to protect your account. It's all up to you to weigh the risks and benefits of using HAN and what you want out of it. It's impossible to really know what sony could be doing to monitor one's activities on any given system.
If any of this information is wrong, I apologize and feel free to correct me, these are just my thoughts from information I've gathered on this topic.
In the end, it's really up to you to decide on how you want to attempt to use HAN. I hope this helps with your question somewhat.
First off, you are always at risk using your main PSN account on any playstation 3 system that is HAN enabled, or otherwise modded in any form or fashion including custom firmware.
I have seen some deterrents that can be used to hide your activity such as erasing your game history that is stored internally in the PS3, which is used for showing certain games related to ones you've played, as well as other advertisement on the store. These however aren't fullproof either, there's always the risk of something unknown to us that sony could be using to check any user's activities.
I can give a few suggestions on how to protect your main account, although these may not be ideal to you if you are interested in collecting trophies. The only way I can think of to 100% secure your main PSN account would be to keep it off the system completely during your usage of the HAN exploit.
While these measures may be extreme for the normal user, you could do the following:
Factory restore your PS3 before installing/using the HAN exploit.
Only have your HAN USER account on the PS3.
This would keep any association with the exploit and your main account from happening, but again this still wouldn't be 100% as there could possibly be some sort of logs internally that doesn't get erased from the factory restore, or they could possibly see some form of history with IP addresses/mac addresses or something.
You take on the risk of a ban from using HAN, but depending on what you want to do with HAN, the risks may not be so bad.
I've had problems signing into PSN before even installing HAN, and now it seems I'm even more restricted as I haven't even been able to access the store as it keeps saying they are currently doing maintenance. Not sure if this has anything to do with using the exploit, but it's probably better for me to not get online anyway. I mainly enjoy single-player games such as RPG's, and most games that are still playable online on the PS3 I've grown bored of.
Also with regards to trophies, there is probably some form of timestamp or something similar that contains some kind of information that could potentially be linked to using the exploit. Don't take my word on this though.
On another note, if you value your PSN account as in the trophies you've obtained or have invested money in it buying games or DLC, I highly advise that you keep it as far away from the exploit as possible.
I have my main account on my HAN enabled PS3, and I've also accepted the risks and possible consequences that can follow with doing so. I do play my backups using my main account, and have even accidentally installed a few backups while on my main account... This is not recommended by the way, but as an extra precaution I've made the choice to keep my PS3 completely disconnected from the internet at this point to prevent any further activity from being logged on their end.
If you're interested in collecting trophies on your main account for personal reasons, and not so much for actually having them show up on your account on PSN, I suggest using a web server such as PKG Linker or any of the other alternative solutions to be able to activate HAN offline.
Unless you keep your system completely offline and your main PSN account off the system entirely, I really see no 100% sure way to protect your account. It's all up to you to weigh the risks and benefits of using HAN and what you want out of it. It's impossible to really know what sony could be doing to monitor one's activities on any given system.
If any of this information is wrong, I apologize and feel free to correct me, these are just my thoughts from information I've gathered on this topic.
In the end, it's really up to you to decide on how you want to attempt to use HAN. I hope this helps with your question somewhat.
