Well, you can't say there aren't many uses for PlayStation 3, as not only is it a favorite gaming device for many users, but has now been established as a high-tech tool in fighting crime. AXcess News reports that Sony's consoles are now being used to crack passwords on various archives most notably those from people charged of pedophilia.

Claude E. Davenport, special agent with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center said: "Bad guys are encrypting their stuff now, so we need a methodology of hacking on that to try to break passwords. The Playstation 3 - its processing component - is perfect for large-scale library attacks,".

Apparently, while a warrant will take care of the right to seize and search computers, the Fourth Amendment will allow the "bad guy" to decide whether he wants to share his passwords, and as expected the most common answer is "no". Breaking encryptions is of course not an easy task, as it requires some serious math, but the twenty network PS3 consoles at FBI's HQ can process 4 million possible passwords per second.

Given the fact that a simple six digit password would require 281,474,976,710,656 permutations, it's no wonder that FBI is looking at expanding their PS3 collection, and although other consoles can be used, PS3 is ideal as it allows for installing Linux. Unfortunately, the PS3 Slim isn't good enough, as they won't allow for Linux.

More here.