PSP's firmware a file was posted online which allowed new PSPs running firmware version 2.6 to downgrade to 1.5 so they could then be hacked using older methods. This reportedly caused more buzz in the community than any recent official offerings for the device. Dark_AleX Dark AleX (aka Dark_AleX, Dax) was a Serbian programmer who wrote homebrew applications for the PlayStation Portable. Dark AleX, as well as other variations of the name, is a pseudonym under which he worked. One of the drawbacks of downgrading the PSP is that new official media may require the presence of a new firmware edition. Dark_Alex had released a Custom Firmware called "Dark Alex's Open Edition firmware" or "Custom Firmware (CFW)" which opens the firmware and allows users to use the existing feature set of the current edition. Sony quickly patched the firmware again, continuing the cat-and-mouse game with the hackers and users. In 2006, Sony released six updates to the system firmware and in 2007 they released another six updates. In July 2007 Dark_AleX officially stopped his work on the PSP, citing perceived problems with Sony as one of the reasons for his departure. Some people even suggested that Dark_AleX was paid by Sony not to release any more custom firmware, but Sony denied this. Custom Firmware allows the running of unsigned code such as homebrew applications and UMD backups, emulators for other consoles, as well as PlayStation games when the disc images are converted into PSP format. Half Byte Loader Half Byte Loader (also known as HBL) is an open source software project that aims at loading homebrew for PlayStation Portable handheld console through user-mode exploits. It does not provide any mechanism for loading official games or ISO images. HBL was built from scratch to be easily portable to any user-mode exploit. The project was created and started by m0skit0 and ab5000. It is currently maintained by wololo. HBL was created initially for the Medal of Honor Heroes exploit. An alpha version was released as open source by m0skit0 and ab5000 in November 2009, which ran very simple homebrews. When the Patapon 2 demo exploit was found and leaked, wololo joined the project and proposed to port HBL to this new exploit. The AdvancedPSP forums, which hosted the project, were shut down by the hosting and the project moved to wololo/talk forums. wololo also created a new public SVN repository for HBL