Hacker Yifan Lu claims that he has found an exploit that has the potential to allow homebrew software to be run on the Sony PlayStation Vita. Lu is the same hacker that cracked the security on the Kindle devices from Amazon.

The preliminary code is available to view and Lu is asking for assistance in creating the homebrew loader. The plan is for the homebrew loader for the Vita to be based on the PSP software Half-Byte Loader. PSP Homebrew titles can be run on the Vita using this software, but with the planned enhancements it would open the Vita up to running new programs using Vita game code.

Of course, the problems with the homebrew loader are that the technology will be used to run pirated software on the Vita. While that is a possibility, Lu claims on his Twitter feed that this isn’t his intention, and he can’t control what others might do. In the end, we will have to see where it leads. Right now it is too early to know where and how this will end.