When Sony issued a recent PlayStation 3 update removing the device's ability to install alternate operating systems like Linux, it did so to protect copyrighted content—but several research projects suffered collateral damage.

The Air Force is one example. The Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York picked up 336 PS3 systems in 2009 and built itself a 53 teraFLOP processing cluster. Once completed as a proof of concept, Air Force researchers then scaled up by a factor of six and went in search of 2,200 more consoles (later scaled back to 1,700). The $663,000 contract was awarded on January 6, 2010, to a small company called Fixstars that could provide 1,700 160GB PS3 systems to the government.

if they are serving a specific purpose with a custom os on them I doubt anyone will be needing to connect them to the PSN to play call of duty.

I can see no reason why these will have been flashed beyond the level they were supplied at. its quite possible that sony has even supplied them with custom firmware or a stable downlevel version

If it is only upgraded via the PSN then the USAF system should be okay. As you say they will not be connected to play games.

If it is only upgraded via the PSN then the USAF system should be okay. As you say they will not be connected to play games.

if they are serving a specific purpose with a custom os on them I doubt anyone will be needing to connect them to the PSN to play call of duty.

I can see no reason why these will have been flashed beyond the level they were supplied at. its quite possible that sony has even supplied them with custom firmware or a stable downlevel version