George Hotz is in the middle of what could be a long, punishing legal battle with Sony, and his money is running out. “Media, I need your help. This is the first time I have ever asked. Please, if you support this cause, help me out and spread the word,” he wrote on his newest blog entry. “I want, by the time this goes to trial, to have Sony facing some of the hardest hitting lawyers in the business. Together, we can help fix the system.” Ars Technica contacted Hotz’s lawyer to make sure this plea for cash was legitimate, and attorney Stewart Kellar confirmed that yes, the money raised goes to Hotz’s legal fund to fight Sony. It also appears Hotz has friends with deep pockets; the first round of fundraising is already over, and more lawyers will be hired for Hotz’s defense.”
Please don’t promote donations for this big douche that’s morally responsible for the PS3 piracy problem. As a gamer, this really insults me. You shouldn’t encourage that kind of people who parades around claiming “He had no idea this would happen”.
There’s a real fight for PS3 owners and that’s the lawsuit against Sony for removing the OtherOS feature. You should promote that instead. It’s best to just ignore the hacker with the inflated ego.
If you weren’t so stupid you would realize they are the same fight. You should have the right to do whatever you want with the hardware you own. PERIOD.
Except the most obvious like bashing someone in the head with it.
I disagree. People should be free to use it as a weapon if they choose. However this wouldn’t change the fact that they’d still be accountable for GBH et al.
The same is true for piracy. PS3 users should be free to use their console as they choose but should they choose to use it to play stolen / pirated games then they’d still be accountable under theft of goods / copyright breach.
EULAs should not limit usage of specific hardware. It’s the job of laws to dictate what shouldn’t be done with /any/ hardware. (eg you don’t sign an agreement prior to buying kitchenware yet it’s still illegal to stab someone with a knife).
However we all know that corporations like Sony think they have the right to dictate law.
Yes, but you should not cheat PSN and their software ecosystem that is NOT YOURS.
As a developer I have not respect for Hotz, because
his actions (and actions of fail0verflow) broke the system security and pushed legitimate customers to a risk just to serve selfish interests.
I do not even speak of piracy here.
Edited 2011-02-22 08:55 UTC
Sony should ban anyone using hacked consoles from the PSN, not sue people for modifying the hardware that they own. The online cheats are an entirely different problem and need to be dealt with as such.
They’re going about this totally wrong and I hope it ends up going against them, as the jailbreak case did for Apple.
They do.
http://www.psnathome.com/general/ps3-hackers-can-now-ban-legitimate…
So how many customers did they sued?
They are sued the ones, who directly damaged their business and a brand. Who did not comply with license.
Pirated software is not a problem?
So what they do wrong?
I’ve fixed your post for you:
Yes, but as a developer I have no respect for Sony because their actions broke OtherOS and pushed legitimate customers to a risk just to serve selfish interests.
I do not even speak of piracy here.
<quote>because
his actions (and actions of fail0verflow) broke the system security and pushed legitimate customers to a risk just to serve selfish interests.</quote>
Allowing people to run homebrew and giving OtherOS back to them is selfish? Wow.
Corporate re-education: complete.
Hotz hasn’t cheated PSN or their ecosystem.
You know who I have no respect for? Big corporate developers who cant even follow a textbook and implement cryptography right.
The customers was already at risk, they just didnt know about it.
Edited 2011-02-22 11:12 UTC
I believe a more easily understood analogy is of the automobile.
You bought, paid for it, and now you want to modify it.
Whether your own modification or one purchased, you should have every right to modify it.
Anyone can break the law with a car, modified or not.
It is the intent of the owner. (Dare I say NRA).
A modification to the automobile, of some degree is not illegal.
Some states require inspection to stringent standards of action. IE: The brakes work.
If you have modified the brakes and they work to legal standards, ‘no problem’.
The engine Sony sells you is its hardware.
Sony’s gas is it’s software.
You should be able to put the gas of your choice in it, modified or not.
Fair and equal law for all except for when national security is at risk.
I don’t think national security is a risk on a PS3.
Just Sony trying like hell to manipulate our jurisprudence.
PS: I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advise.
If it were up to you, no one would be able to play DVD’s on Linux, BSD, or any of the other hobby OS’s either. It’s basically the same fight: being able to do what you want to do with what you’ve bought legally.
So, explain to me, how does cracking your PS3’s security system hurt other people? If these so-called legitimate users are only buying games from retail stores & PSN, how exactly would a cracked system hurt them??? Yeh, that’s what I thought, it doesn’t.
The problem with common sense is that it’s rarely actually common…
Yeah, I guess the guy is absurd for thinking that once you buy a piece of hardware, you actually own it. He should know better than that, right?
And what if the hardware was open right out of the box? Would you then blame Sony for the piracy problem, or would you do the sensible thing and blame the people who are actually doing the pirating?
I wonder… What is the current comment downvoting record ?
Hello,
I like the Okami game, from which your forum avatar comes, but I still have to disagree with what you say
Best of luck to him.
I hope he gets out of this unscathed.
I’m not a gamer but I am dead against corporations flexing legal muscle like that.
I haven’t purchased anything Sony for a long time as I don’t agree with how they deal with such matters.
Remember bleem! ?
Heh, yeah if Sony vs Bleem! taught us anything, it’s that Sony won’t let a little thing like being ethically and legally in the wrong from slowing down their litigations.
OT: I actually still have my copy of Bleem sitting on my shelf.
Geohot : “if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me. any of you 3. it’d be fun to be on the other side.”
Obviously the position is not to be taken, Sony fights back and do not want to hire him as security consultant. Get the point…
Kochise
Yes, I guess they’ll hire complete security nincompoops instead, like they do now.
So, if some naive person is jumping under the road-roller, will you complain what road-rollers are too heavy and it was so unkindly to roll-out his brains over asphalt?
In other words you have not suffered from his actions directly or indirectly, nor you actually care.
I bet if you did, you would not wish “Best of luck to him”.
Nicer mental picture, too bad it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Exactly how are people “suffering” from what Hotz did?
It’s amazing how many people are blaming Geohot for piracy and cheating. Just go browse around Ars Technica or Slashdot. It’s just so horrifying to see how full the world is of downright stupid people.
Geohot created a CFW for PS3 but DID NOT enable BD emulation nor ps3_home because those are not needed for homebrew and only needed for piracy and/or running backups. Then OTHER people took Geohot’s CFW, created LV2 patcher and cheats, and then again OTHER people used those to actually cheat in games.
People should either blame those who created the actual cheats themselves or the people using them! Blaming Geohot is like blaming Microsoft for allowing cheating in games. As an addition, cheating NEVER REQUIRED CFW to begin with! It was perfectly possible even before that, simply because the game servers don’t sanitize input and thus it’s easy to point your PS3 to a proxy that modifies the data on the way.
As for the OtherOS class-action suit: it is the same law that Sony is getting sued under as they sued Geohot and thus the two suits are linked, only that Sony is the defendant in one and Geohot is in the other. Supporting either of the cases is important exactly because they both hang under the same law and consumer rights are at peril.
Welcome to the internet.
You’re speaking nonsense. That’s almost like blaming the actual guilty party instead of the scapegoat. That’s just silly.
Stop confusing people with facts. That’s so passe. The Internet is about flaunting your ignorant opinions as godgiven truths while bending over for big business. Your morals are obsolete.
Morals are obsolete!
To paraphrase Lewis Black “If Big oil was going to give you 300 million dollars, you’d be glad to be Big Oil’s bitch.”
Seriously though, the fact that corporations themselves are almost like a greedy child that wants his candy, and doesn’t want to share with the other kids and that they tend to have more rights because they are greedy children is just one more step toward the corporate controled governments of the cyberpunk genre.
Bring on the implant skills!
Touche!