With all of the flash revolving around the reveal of Sony's new Next Generation Portable, the news that the company also revealed a new version of firmware for the PlayStation 3 sort of slipped through the cracks yesterday.  The firmware update (version 3.56 for those keeping score at home) offers no new features, but it does apply new security measures in the wake of the private cryptography key crack.  While surely not a permanent fix, it did allow for the Powers That Be to detect anyone cheating at Call of Duty: Black Ops and deal out the appropriate punishment: a permanent ban of the compromised PS3 from playing Black Ops online.  RipTen's Garrett Hartman has the news and the anguished misspelled cries of those who were banned.

Call of Duty: Black Ops hackers are getting hit hardest with a permanent console server ban – many of them have expressed their “innocence” on the Official PS3 Call of Duty: Black Ops Forums.

scaryscar6:

I dont know what happened i was just playin it normally. i installed the patch and played for a while and I went to have my shower and when i came back i was permanently banned! Somone please get me unbanned! It might of been my frineds though because i lent him my ps3 a couple of days ago because his ps3 got YLOD…

Imma_Wreck_You:

Hi i understand all of then terms and conditions of playing call of duty black ops, but my PS3 has been banned.. and i dont understand why? there a few people here who play online in this house but none of us can anymore. how can i get some help? or who do i need to contact.

Based on this small sample size, I think we can determine that the average Black Ops cheater is illiterate and has the worst friends in the world.  After all, those friends are the ones that caused the poor player to be banned from the game, not the player him/herself.  Now what sort of friendship is that?  But seriously, I've gone on record several times about how much I despise cheating at online games, so I can't say that I find this punishment unfair.  If you do the cheating crime, expect to be kicked offline.

(via Reddit)