I would say they can pretty much count on it :D

but not even it ends there but also as a bonus:

that all those Game "back up's" that content they backed up

 may no longer run on your PS3! ON OR OFF LINE!

Idiot tax.

What a waste of money. Firmware update will make it useless and you risk getting banned. Is it really worth it?

it will work offline if you don't update the firmware

hehehe, as far as you know,,lol

lets just say thay can stop content on external flash drives and on external hard drives from playing..I have seen it happen first hand, so when i say that there is a good chance that the content will not work off line there is a good chance they can stop it. even if you unplug your device before you go back online thinking you can still keep the content and it will play the next time you power up the device.

or you uninstall the software on the device from your machine...there is only one sure fire way and that is to keep the PS3 off the internet for good, which is fine if you want to loose other function's but that would be the only sure fire way to keep it from being effected.

even than the new games may infact have codes in the bootstrap to effect this devices ability to run correctly with the backup content.

They only way the use of an external USB drive could be detected (not for the purpose of booting, but for the purpose of activating debug mode) would be with a firmware update, presumably the forthcoming 3.42.

It's a given that the update will detect the presence of debug mode on any PS3 connected to a network, PSN or just the internet (PS3 connects automatically by default unless WiFi is disabled/ethernet unplugged), which will likely result in a PSN/console ban similar to what MS does with XBL.

So basically if you want to juggle between keeping debug mode active (and being able to play games off internal HDD) and connecting to a network, you'd have to uninstall debug mode and unplug the device every time you connect to any sort of internet based network to avoid detection. This is not to say that any future firmware couldn't also detect the presence of game images on internal HDD, resulting in the same console ban as the presence of debug mode.

So... you'd have to erase any game images as well in this hypothetical situation before connecting to a network to avoid detection.

In short, you're better off just buying a second PS3, used or whatever, specifically for offline use. Same boat as those who consider the use of Linux to be so essential that they're still using firmware 3.15 offline.

Future games will likely require the installation of firmware post-dating 3.41, meaning, they will not be compatible with debug mode until the makers of debug key makers update key firmware to match.

Not only that but the PS3 keeps track of what you played or have played in the past..think about that for a sec...the PS3 it's self keep's track of what you have played or are playing!

The trophy system is basically a user visible record of play habits on a given console.

Of course most probably don't see it that way, but yes; it's a tracking system. Maybe not as specific as say Steam (which tells you how many minutes you've been playing any game installed in your collection), but that data is probably still being stored somewhere on PSN servers if not locally in the console itself.

I think the thing to take out of these likelihoods is that there's no point in bothering with debug mode (which is the heart of the jailbreak) unless it's on a console that will stay offline until makers of debug mode keys write compatible firmware for each PS3 firmware update released by SCE. Presumably debug key firmware would have to hide or delete trophy updates or any other sort of logs of game play stats.

Lot of trouble just to play legit back ups or illegal copies, but hey, people have been working on this for what, four years?

hehehe, as far as you know,,lol

lets just say thay can stop content on external flash drives and on external hard drives from playing..I have seen it happen first hand, so when i say that there is a good chance that the content will not work off line there is a good chance they can stop it. even if you unplug your device before you go back online thinking you can still keep the content and it will play the next time you power up the device.

or you uninstall the software on the device from your machine...there is only one sure fire way and that is to keep the PS3 off the internet for good, which is fine if you want to loose other function's but that would be the only sure fire way to keep it from being effected.

even than the new games may infact have codes in the bootstrap to effect this devices ability to run correctly with the backup content.

Lot of trouble just to play legit back ups or illegal copies, but hey, people have been working on this for what, four years?