Geohot Hints at Plans After Sony Settlement

[wammnebu]

i think sony just vassalized him...

 

[JDKJ]

Why the heck am I supposed to "trust" him if he can't even say what's going on?
It's not my problem he signed some gag-contract.
Good for him he "boycots" sony now though. That'll teach them. I care so much.

You indirectly raise an interesting point and one which I've been a-pondering: who leaked the confidential settlement stipulation to the psx forums?

By process of elimination, I'm inclined to first rule out both Stewart Kellar and Kilpatrick Townsend because, as attorneys, I can't readily see them putting their ability to practice law at risk by violating a slew of ethical rules.

That leaves SCEA and Hotz in the line-up. SCEA has motive because the terms are so favorable to them and represent a clear victory over Hotz and one which they may therefore want to publicize. Conversely, Hotz has less motive for the opposite reasons. I'm almost inclined to eliminate Hotz, but in the back of mind there's a nagging suspicion that, between the two of them, Hotz is far and away the dirt-bag of the two and the one more inclined, I think, to do some shady shit. Tough call. But if had to place some chips on the felt, my money's on Hotz. Which, if that's the winning bet, makes his conveniently asserted claims that he "can't talk that because it's confidential" nothing more than more of his patented and trademarked bullshit.

Anyway, it's certainly one o' things that make go, hmmm.

EDIT: After checking the docket, it appears that the stipulation that's been making the rounds wasn't filed under seal. There's "something" filed under seal that went along with the stipulation and order, but it doesn't appear to be the document that everyone has. Drat!! A perfectly good conspiracy theory down the drain!

 

[RowdyRodimus]

So let's see, I can buy a PSP until the new one comes out and I can buy that one too. I need to pick my mom and dad up each a walkman mp3 player (you can't play games on them but damn if they aren't easy to use and well made) and get a new Sony TV. Thanks GeoHot, now all my money will be earmarked for Sonys coffers for a while.

Why? Because I hate you, everything you stand for (which isn't consumers rights btw, it's doing it because you can and getting notoriety for it) and you calling for a boycott just makes me want to buy more products from them. If you voted Republican, I'd have to swallow my pride and vote for the leftist candidate I could just to spite you, you douche canoe.

 

[Emergent]

So pretty much if you do something you know will be used illegally but that wasn't your your intention, that makes it OK. Too bad the law doesn't feel that way. Just ask Limewire.

Dammit, you're right. We should totally outlaw VCRs, DVRs, CD and DVD burners, and the internet. They can all be used for illegal purposes, so we should hold their creators, developers, producers and distributors liable.

Apple and oranges, nice try though (not really)

As a reasonably intelligent person who was knowledgeable about the technology Geohot couldn't have possibly thought "Gee waaay more people will use these codes to install Linux even though most PS3 owners haven't, nor plan to, and the number of those who will pirate will be minuscule in comparison."

I'm sure you or someone else will retort "Well you can't say for certain what Geohot's thoughts were at the time." and such a statement is true and would work in court.

But seriously there's no way, again in the reasonable logical mind of an adult, that he thought this would be used mostly for installing another OS. Prior to the PS3 being cracked the sole motive for cracking the PS3 was to augment and curtail the security of the PS3 to enable pirating. If you're gonna pirate just be real about it. Don't hide behind BS claims of fighting for a greater cause, and paint Geohot as some hero standing in the shadow of an evil corporation.

Okay, so let's set "BS claims of fighting for a greater cause" aside, Sony was seriously playing dirty pool here. Hotz didn't tamper with evidence, he didn't skip out on depositions (He did go to South America. He also came back well before he was due in court. He's allowed to do that. Free country, blah blah.), and he didn't actually pirate any games, especially not in California.

What he did was assist a non-US group in "jailbreaking" the PS3, almost exactly like what was done (and ruled to be legal) for the iPhone, and release the details of how to do so, stating that the intended purpose was to allow users of the PS3 to access functionality that had been locked remotely and after purchase. That is all he did.

We don't restrict the manufacture of cutlery and screwdrivers because people can be physically murdered with them, even though there are a great many fatal stabbings with those items EVERY DAY around the world, and no matter what you do with the information Hotz released, it's less detrimental to society than that.

This isn't rocket science.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

I'm sorry, but this is complete bullshit. I supported this guy because even though he wasn't some poster child, I believed he could actually make a difference in the way sony looks at their customers, but it seems I was proven wrong. *shrug*

I'm not going to even try and voice my disdain, or reason over this, and just leave it at me being pissed.

 

[RowdyRodimus]

Okay, so let's set "BS claims of fighting for a greater cause" aside, Sony was seriously playing dirty pool here. Hotz didn't tamper with evidence, he didn't skip out on depositions (He did go to South America. He also came back well before he was due in court. He's allowed to do that. Free country, blah blah.), and he didn't actually pirate any games, especially not in California.

What he did was assist a non-US group in "jailbreaking" the PS3, almost exactly like what was done (and ruled to be legal) for the iPhone, and release the details of how to do so, stating that the intended purpose was to allow users of the PS3 to access functionality that had been locked remotely and after purchase. That is all he did.

We don't restrict the manufacture of cutlery and screwdrivers because people can be physically murdered with them, even though there are a great many fatal stabbings with those items EVERY DAY around the world, and no matter what you do with the information Hotz released, it's less detrimental to society than that.

This isn't rocket science.

Your analogies are not directly detrimental to Sony's support through companies.

It was a dumb idea to make jailbreaking iPhones legal and it's a dumb idea here. Companies need control over their products because that acquires support from companies. If they lose control over it, companies are less likely to develop software for it.

Remember, you do not "own" a PS3. Not legally anyway. You bought the permission to use it. As ugly as that sounds, it really makes no difference to a customer who is honest. Only those who jailbreak and pirate their software. And that's how it should be.

No, you do own the hardware, the actual physical piece of plastic, wires and metal. What you don't own is the programming that makes it work, those you are buying a license for. Sony doesn't care if you paint it, chop it into little pieces or throw it in a fire. What they do care about is if you mess with the programming and distribute how to do that.

 

[JDKJ]

Okay, so let's set "BS claims of fighting for a greater cause" aside, Sony was seriously playing dirty pool here. Hotz didn't tamper with evidence, he didn't skip out on depositions (He did go to South America. He also came back well before he was due in court. He's allowed to do that. Free country, blah blah.), and he didn't actually pirate any games, especially not in California.

What he did was assist a non-US group in "jailbreaking" the PS3, almost exactly like what was done (and ruled to be legal) for the iPhone, and release the details of how to do so, stating that the intended purpose was to allow users of the PS3 to access functionality that had been locked remotely and after purchase. That is all he did.

We don't restrict the manufacture of cutlery and screwdrivers because people can be physically murdered with them, even though there are a great many fatal stabbings with those items EVERY DAY around the world, and no matter what you do with the information Hotz released, it's less detrimental to society than that.

This isn't rocket science.

Your analogies are not directly detrimental to Sony's support through companies.

It was a dumb idea to make jailbreaking iPhones legal and it's a dumb idea here. Companies need control over their products because that acquires support from companies. If they lose control over it, companies are less likely to develop software for it.

Remember, you do not "own" a PS3. Not legally anyway. You bought the permission to use it. As ugly as that sounds, it really makes no difference to a customer who is honest. Only those who jailbreak and pirate their software. And that's how it should be.

Why was it "a dumb idea" to allow for jailbreaking a smartphone? There's the upside of breaking Apple's stranglehold on iPhone applications with little risk of piracy (unless there's a booming market out there for pirated applications).

 

[Blind0bserver]

I give it three weeks before one of the people that donated money for legal fees tracks him down and tries to bash his head in with a pipe.

 

[JDKJ]

No, you do own the hardware, the actual physical piece of plastic, wires and metal. What you don't own is the programming that makes it work, those you are buying a license for. Sony doesn't care if you paint it, chop it into little pieces or throw it in a fire. What they do care about is if you mess with the programming and distribute how to do that.

You own the permission to use the hardware design and software contained.

Fair enough?

Not really. The two are separate and apart. You can't lump them together that like. Not technically. Hardware is hardware. Software is software.

 

[JDKJ]

I give it three weeks before one of the people that donated money for legal fees tracks him down and tries to bash his head in with a pipe.

Is that before or after they take his wallet?

 

[ShadowKatt]

i never like this guy. he's smart enough to jail break the ps3 but not smart enough to relise pirates will use it to pirate games?

No, he knew that people would use it for that, but that was never why he jail broke his PS3. He's never once endorsed pirating games yet that seems to be all people focus. Then there's the people who think because he's a hacker that he's of the type that hacks and cheats in games, when he's not.

I call a settlement a victory for George and the rest of us. For one Sony can't bring it's legal banhammer down on him for doing what was already deemed legal for the iPhone.(let's face it the deck was stacked in Sony's favor no matter how right he was) Second, Sony can't set the legal precedent that they still own your console after you've bought it.

In this case everybody wins; Sony gets to satisfy it's rage over being shown up by a college kid and George walks away with only the legal requirement that he not distribute the jailbrake code anymore; which matters little since it's already spread through the internet. Something Sony could have easily accomplished in the beginning with a simple C&D; would have saved them alot of bad PR.

Uh, where have you been and where do you get half the ideas you have?

Sony asked the court for all Hotz records. The judge gave it to them.
Sony asked the court for all the IPs connected to Hotz. The judge gave it to them.
Sony asked the court for Geohotz's property. The judge gave it to them.

Sony HAS set a precident that they can come here and bully people. If you fight back, the court has their back. Geohotz has undermined the credibility of anyone who speaks out against Sony and their litigous bullying. There is no win-win here. It's only one "win", and that's Sony's. They are obviously not scared of bad PR, and with the stunt Geohotz just pulled, whatever bad PR they garnered from this just went out the window.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Ever since I was a little kid I've been playing Sony published games on my Sony PS1. Since then I'm still playing games on my Sony products.

In short...screw you!

 

[justnotcricket]

I have a few (tangentially) related questions - these are totally genuine, I figure some people here might be able to give me a quicker rundown than me scouring the interwebs

1)So, when Sony took away this OtherOS thing, why did they do it? Did they think it wasn't worth supporting cos not enough people used it or something? I mean, there had to be some reason.

2) If people want OtherOS back, have they, I dunno, pulled together a petition or something? Or done something less exciting but more legal to try and get it back? Moreor less the 'more flies with honey than vinegar' approach. I mean, I can understand becoming annoyed if you got together a petition and Sony was still like 'Yeah...no', but even then, is what they did in taking it away actually against the law? Or just annoying?

3) Are the people who are angry just the people who bought the PS3 in order to install linux on it, and then an update or something took that ability away? Or has Sony done something else?

4) Genuine question, not trolling: Why would you install Linux on a PS3? I know people say 'world's cheapest supercomputer', but in order for that to work don't you have to do what the air force did and buy like 300 of the things? Which might be cheap by SC standards, but not by the average punter's income?

I freely admit that I have no particular issue with Sony, because I use my PS3 (and my TV is Sony too, actually) for playing games that I bought. I've never had anything negative come of it or been disadvantaged by them in any way, so I'm having trouble seeing why people hate Sony so much. But I'd like to understand, if it's something I should know about.

 

[JDKJ]

I have a few (tangentially) related questions - these are totally genuine, I figure some people here might be able to give me a quicker rundown than me scouring the interwebs

1)So, when Sony took away this OtherOS thing, why did they do it? Did they think it wasn't worth supporting cos not enough people used it or something? I mean, there had to be some reason.

2) If people want OtherOS back, have they, I dunno, pulled together a petition or something? Or done something less exciting but more legal to try and get it back? Moreor less the 'more flies with honey than vinegar' approach. I mean, I can understand becoming annoyed if you got together a petition and Sony was still like 'Yeah...no', but even then, is what they did in taking it away actually against the law? Or just annoying?

3) Are the people who are angry just the people who bought the PS3 in order to install linux on it, and then an update or something took that ability away? Or has Sony done something else?

4) Genuine question, not trolling: Why would you install Linux on a PS3? I know people say 'world's cheapest supercomputer', but in order for that to work don't you have to do what the air force did and buy like 300 of the things? Which might be cheap by SC standards, but not by the average punter's income?

I freely admit that I have no particular issue with Sony, because I use my PS3 (and my TV is Sony too, actually) for playing games that I bought. I've never had anything negative come of it or been disadvantaged by them in any way, so I'm having trouble seeing why people hate Sony so much. But I'd like to understand, if it's something I should know about.

1) OtherOS was making piracy more possible than it was without it, so Sony removed it.

2) PS3 owners have sued Sony in a number of class actions because OtherOS was removed, alleging false advertising , unfair trade practice, etc., etc. But that probably won't ever get OtherOS re-installed. That just gets them some money to compensate them for the loss.

3) Updating your firmware is generally what removed OtherOS from consoles that had it. Now, they don't even manufacture PS3s with it. Why people are upset runs the full spectrum. There are, I imagine, at one end of the spectrum some people (probably very few) who did legitimately want to run Linux. In the middle are probably the people who wanted to play pirated materials. On the other end of the spectrum are the fucking idiots who don't even own a PS3 but just like to hate on Sony.

4) Homebrewers, mostly (i.e., people who create their own games from scratch). The use Linux to write their code. But there probably aren't many of those out there.

 

[RowdyRodimus]

No, you do own the hardware, the actual physical piece of plastic, wires and metal. What you don't own is the programming that makes it work, those you are buying a license for. Sony doesn't care if you paint it, chop it into little pieces or throw it in a fire. What they do care about is if you mess with the programming and distribute how to do that.

You own the permission to use the hardware design and software contained.

Fair enough?

Yeah. I really didn't mean to sound like such a dick there. It's just that since this whole thing started people have gone so far as to say Sony can come to your house and take your PS3 for any reason. They hate the idea of corporations that they will say anything to make them seem to be the bad guy, part of which is stretching the truth to the point of breaking it by saying stuff like "Sony owns your PS3" instead of "Sony owns the programs used to run your PS3". Honestly they seem to have a victim complex where they know they are doing something wrong, but want to play it off as they are the victims fighting against their evil oppressors.

 

[JDKJ]

Is this little a-hole's 15 minutes up yet? I look forward to never hearing from him again, and sit in his place where he belongs with the Hansons and Vanilla Ice.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, diddy, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding, ding, diddy, ding, ding.

That's a classic. Guaranteed to git the party bumpin'. Vanilla Ice, himself, might have been been a fake-ass wannabe, but "Ice, Ice, Baby" is a classic. That shit sold enough to make it No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart when rap was still way, way, way, underground. Hard to argue with that kinda success.

 

[JDKJ]

And this point, quite frankly, none with you.

Don't start none, won't be none.

EDIT: @JDKJ's edit: if you don't like having your points debated rhetorically, please cease backing your arguments up with logical fallacies and outright fabrications such as claiming to know what the defense, judge, and prosecutors were thinking, frequent appeals to authority, and outright attacking the person of another (seriously, you owe dan an apology).

Once a-fucking-gain, you are taking what I clearly state and twisting it into a pretzel to suit your narrow purposes. I said that I was weary, not of your rhetoric, but, rather, your silly-assed rhetorical ploys worthy of no one beyond the level of elementary school. Thanks for proving my point.

And if you'll kindly trot your ass over to the thread, you'll see where I long ago and before you started insisting on it sincerely and profusely apologize to dan for mistakenly attributing to him something that he never said. What more would you like me to do, Shylock? I've already given up the required pound of flesh. Unfortunately, you don't get any blood with it. So do us both a favor, please, and retire the "you need to apologize to dan" song and dance from you limited repertoire.

 

[Vanbael]

I give it three weeks before one of the people that donated money for legal fees tracks him down and tries to bash his head in with a pipe.

I will wager a box of air that it will be 2 weeks, and with a wrench, in front of his computer.


All in all, Geohot pretty much is a douche bag, and I will gladly continue to play and use Sony products. I have no problem with Sony, Sony has no problem with me.

 

[JDKJ]

I give it three weeks before one of the people that donated money for legal fees tracks him down and tries to bash his head in with a pipe.

I will wager a box of air that it will be 2 weeks, and with a wrench, in front of his computer.


All in all, Geohot pretty much is a douche bag, and I will gladly continue to play and use Sony products. I have no problem with Sony, Sony has no problem with me.

I'm betting on Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the library.

 

[justnotcricket]

Questions...

1) OtherOS was making piracy more possible than it was without it, so Sony removed it.

2) PS3 owners have sued Sony in a number of class actions because OtherOS was removed, alleging false advertising , unfair trade practice, etc., etc. But that probably won't ever get OtherOS re-installed. That just gets them some money to compensate them for the loss.

3) Updating your firmware is generally what removed OtherOS from consoles that had it. Now, they don't even manufacture PS3s with it. Why people are upset runs the full spectrum. There are, I imagine, at one end of the spectrum some people (probably very few) who did legitimately want to run Linux. In the middle are probably the people who wanted to play pirated materials. On the other end of the spectrum are the fucking idiots who don't even own a PS3 but just like to hate on Sony.

4) Homebrewers, mostly (i.e., people who create their own games from scratch). But there probably aren't many of those out there.

I see...so if people are winning their cases against Sony for false advertising etc, why doesn't everyone just do that? I know instigating legal proceedings is expensive, but it doesn't seem like GeoHotz's approach has done anyone any favours either. And I can't believe he actually thought he was going to get away with what he did, just based on the fact that Sony doesn't allow jailbreaking (whether they should or not).

I did wonder how many people this OtherOS thing actually affects. I'm not saying they shouldn't complain, by no means, but I suppose that's the rice I pay for reading a gamer/computer fan forum =P The rage over it seemed disproportionate to the number of people I could actually imagine using that function, and perhaps *only* having a pS3 for that reason.

Can't homebrewers work something else out with Sony? I'm not a homebrewer myself, so I really have no idea about making stuff for a platform that I didn't build. Well, that's not entirely true - I work with a lot of laboratory equipment that I write my own programs for, but then the manufacturers tend to build the object with that in mind, I suppose. I guess licences to develop for Sony are rather expensive...? ;-P

Also, does the firmware update happen automatically when you connect it to the internet or something? Or in games? So, I have an old PS3 that's never been connected to anything but my TV - does that mean that I have this OtherOS thing still (which tbh, I never knew existed until I saw threads like these)?