GeoHot's Lawyer Responds to Sony's Claims

[Scorched_Cascade]

/throws mud "See that your honor, he's dirty!"

*shows suitably doctored photos*[.southern drawl] and a freedom hating communist too. My poor daddy, rest his soul, would be spinning in his grave at the thought of these abuses this young "gentleman" has done did in the name of free speech. If the court has any honor they would condemn this here man to the gallows tree.[./accent]

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

But why did he feel it was necessary to remove the controller cards at all..?

And, that aside, whether the part was easily replaced or no, isn't tampering with evidence still tampering with evidence, even if the bit you tampered with was still just a stock part?

I admit, I don't like this jerk .. but still something seems screwy about messing with the parts at all, at the very least as if he were being spiteful to a neutral third party by trying to inconvenience them, or indeed, to hang-up the legal process somehow.

It makes no sense but, still.. why?

Very simple good chap, it stalled SONY. He had time to fuck off to south America, have some fun, stall SONY for a stock part, and now that SONY decided to try and mislead, he actually does look a bit better.

This is a possibility, not necessarily the truth

That and Sony can afford the crap themselves why should he save them any money when they want to bend him over and take him all the way to the bank.

He was told to give them the parts. Even if it's a stalk part. If Sony sues me for god only knows what and lets say I need to hand them a part, I can't simply dismantle the part and say "Oh, I figured you could go BUY one of the parts I was supposed to give you, just cause" He has the give the WHOLE thing.

I never mentioned him having to give them money for the parts, but taking a piece off the object that he's supposed to give them just for the sole purpose of telling them to go buy it is retarded.

Retarded yes but it is a spiteful method of lashing out at an opponent you cannot harm.

Essentially a middle finger thrown in sonys direction.

I was not accusing you of saying he had to pay for it i meant sony is trying to ream him in the lawsuit so this was kind of a way to say "Fuck you go do it yourself"

Also out of curiosity since sony cried wolf on this would the stuff on the drives be inadmissible? I don't know why but i feel that if even claimed to be tampered with it is supposed to be inadmissible.

Well, taking a look at the claims, SONY said that he's left them incomplete evidence and that he'd left the country and was unable to give him the complete parts as he was gone.

Interestingly enough, though the words are twisted, they can TECHNICALLY be seen as a bit accurate. SONY can defend that "Yes, a part was missing and we thought that maybe he'd left the country and taken the part with him, therefore removing his ability to present the part" the part was a stock part and it CAN be purchased, but then SONY can say "Why should we have to buy the part simply because he felt like removing the part before giving it to us. Why didn't he just keep it in one piece?"

So yeah, SONY is still marginally covered. If SONY had simply said "HE RAN AWAY FROM US!" I would count the evidence inadmissible. But now if GEO asks for the evidence to be null, the Judge can say "SONY's intent was to ensure you didn't leave with any other important parts or information. Why did you remove the controller cards in the first place? Then SONY wouldn't have said anything"

SO I'd say the evidence isn't out yet, but it's a possibility

 

[ZombieGenesis]

Now, go to the thread about this guy being a lowlife, thief. All those people who said this guy was a lair and a con artist, YOU PEOPLE ARE FUCKING DUMB! There is always two sides of a story, and they both can be lies!

Quite true. Still, the middle ground seems kind of obvious as far as I can tell.

GeoHot DID crack open the PS3, probably DID agree to a PSN agreement. Sony is going to press that their removal of features included in the sales contract was lawful, which it also wasn't. In a perfect world, Geohot would be fined for giving away the rootkey (which IS bad, anyone knows that) and Sony would be fined for removing features they advertised as a sales point.

Everyone would learn a lesson, hackers would be more careful, corporations would stop assuming they still own what they sell, worlds a better place.

It's not going to happen though.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

...So, the claims of him still having a PSN account, and therefore violating terms of service within, can still be held up by Sony's Lawyers? Because the whole vacation thing might hold fair, but that wasn't their argument, that was just general grandstanding and mudslinging. He'll come back and still be in a lawsuit, that hasn't changed.

 

[Baldr]

To tell the truth, I believe Sony's lawyers did not know about this trip or they would have put in an injunction to stop the trip. So when they find out that he left the country, I could understand the mud throwing.

 

[acosn]

I find it pretty hilarious that a corporation like Sony can't figure out how to make a computer work. Don't they build those things?

At this point I'd throw out the case because clearly Sony doesn't have a case if they have to resort of falsifying evidence and basically lying through their teeth rather than build an actual case.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

Now, go to the thread about this guy being a lowlife, thief. All those people who said this guy was a lair and a con artist, YOU PEOPLE ARE FUCKING DUMB! There is always two sides of a story, and they both can be lies!

Quite true. Still, the middle ground seems kind of obvious as far as I can tell.

GeoHot DID crack open the PS3, probably DID agree to a PSN agreement. Sony is going to press that their removal of features included in the sales contract was lawful, which it also wasn't. In a perfect world, Geohot would be fined for giving away the rootkey (which IS bad, anyone knows that) and Sony would be fined for removing features they advertised as a sales point.

Everyone would learn a lesson, hackers would be more careful, corporations would stop assuming they still own what they sell, worlds a better place.

It's not going to happen though.

Just imagine if this entire court case got Dropped. If SONY would just agree that "We'll let you play with your toys, as long as it doesn't lead to piracy. Show us what kind of sweet home brew you have in mind" and the hackers could share their ideas with the world? Wouldn't that be great? If we could just settle this case peacefully?

But SONY is being a dick, and HOTZ is.... well kinda being a dick... and no one is gonna come to a settlement

 

[similar.squirrel]

I don't get the problem. He modded/tampered with the console, that breaks the user agreement, he has opened the console to piracy. In what way is he not guilty?

He's most likely guilty, but that doesn't make the laws a good thing.

 

[fanklok]

Pang Tong's ploy has failed.

Pang Tong's unit has been routed.

This has gone from stupid to utterly fucking ridiculous, it's a tie you both lose.

 

[mjc0961]

Yep, see, I knew it. Sony was full of shit all along. It's what Sony does. They just never learn that it blows up in their face and then they are hated even more than they were originally.

I just wish the judge could do something like slap them with a fine or dismiss their case entirely for these kinds of actions. This kind of deliberate lying and misrepresenting the truth shouldn't be tolerated when they're trying to sue some guy into oblivion, specially when he didn't even do anything to deserve being sued in the first place.

I'm going to go see if there are any blenders big enough for me to stuff all my Sony products in; I'm getting quite sick of their nonsense. At this rate they'll probably sue me next because I use their earbuds to listen to an iPod instead of a walkman.

But why did he feel it was necessary to remove the controller cards at all..?

And, that aside, whether the part was easily replaced or no, isn't tampering with evidence still tampering with evidence, even if the bit you tampered with was still just a stock part?

I admit, I don't like this jerk .. but still something seems screwy about messing with the parts at all, at the very least as if he were being spiteful to a neutral third party by trying to inconvenience them, or indeed, to hang-up the legal process somehow.

It makes no sense but, still.. why?

It's not tampering with evidence though. Tampering with it means you're changing it or destroying it. If Sony asked for HDDs and he gave them HDDs, that's not tampering, that's complying. If they weren't smart enough to ask for his controller cards too (a separate part which can be very expensive), why should he help those fuckers out and give them free parts? They wanted the HDDs, and they got the HDDs. Not his fault if they're too stupid to read the data on them properly. What's next, they can't read the drives because the computers they are trying to connect to have no RAM, so they go and say he did something else wrong by not giving them free RAM too?

GeoHot DID crack open the PS3, probably DID agree to a PSN agreement.

Or giving Sony's track record, they probably lied about any of his PS3s signing up for a PSN account too. They lied about everything else we heard yesterday. Hell, since the only info they had was "someone used that PS3 to make an account, and we don't know who but we're just going to say it was GeoHot because it makes our case look better", they already did lie. But I wouldn't be surprised if they're lying more about it than is already obvious.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

SO I'd say the evidence isn't out yet, but it's a possibility

Alright. So possibility that's what i was wondering. 90% of my law comes from common sense and TV dramas so...

But since that part held no case sensitive evidence and that piece could be bought/replaced with a part they had in backup storage it was just sony crying wolf to make the case look better by comparison.

In any case i hope sony gets whats coming to them for allowing the lawyers to pull that shit.

Eh... When a lawyer cries wolf most courts ignore it anyways. Notice how this allegedly took place a week ago and the courts waited for the other side? They wouldn't just decide, or worst case scenario, they'd send a letter to Geo saying "Oi, SONY says this, what's going on?"

It's lawyer play, SONY knew it wouldn't get them anywhere, but look at the forum yesterday, it got people talking. Everyone knew this wouldn't affect the case in the least. It's too weak a piece of news. It's just the elitists and those with little/no understanding of law and those with a high opinion that get worked up

 

[Scorched_Cascade]

Pang Tong's ploy has failed.

Pang Tong's unit has been routed.

This has gone from stupid to utterly fucking ridiculous, it's a tie you both lose.

Ah Pang Tong is involved? That explains it...crafty devil got Geohot and Sony to tie their ships together so that the flamewar could rage across both.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Lawyers in America using language that paints their opponent in a negative light? On purpose?

THE NERVE!

Seriously, though - if there's one thing GeoHot should do, it's to find a better photo of himself so that when his picture is used, it doesn't make him out to be some kind of nerd-thug/gangsta geek.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Pang Tong's ploy has failed.

Pang Tong's unit has been routed.

This has gone from stupid to utterly fucking ridiculous, it's a tie you both lose.

Ah Pang Tong is involved? That explains it...crafty devil got Geohot and Sony to tie their ships together so that the flamewar could rage across both.

I don't know whether to consider it absolutely geekish or just weird that I know exactly what you two are talking about. And that was a nice game for the SNES, made me want to look up who Zhuge Liang was.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

SO I'd say the evidence isn't out yet, but it's a possibility

Alright. So possibility that's what i was wondering. 90% of my law comes from common sense and TV dramas so...

But since that part held no case sensitive evidence and that piece could be bought/replaced with a part they had in backup storage it was just sony crying wolf to make the case look better by comparison.

In any case i hope sony gets whats coming to them for allowing the lawyers to pull that shit.

Eh... When a lawyer cries wolf most courts ignore it anyways. Notice how this allegedly took place a week ago and the courts waited for the other side? They wouldn't just decide, or worst case scenario, they'd send a letter to Geo saying "Oi, SONY says this, what's going on?"

It's lawyer play, SONY knew it wouldn't get them anywhere, but look at the forum yesterday, it got people talking. Everyone knew this wouldn't affect the case in the least. It's too weak a piece of news. It's just the elitists and those with little/no understanding of law and those with a high opinion that get worked up

That's the point of crying wolf in court. Unless the judge is biased for you it will only get you anywhere with the people and could be viewed as attempt to pollute the jury pool. That is its only purpose as you said a judge would just(in a perfect world) itch slap them and tell them to sit down.

For the most part I don't see this fooling a jury either. I mean, I'm the sure juries are already picked, and you'd be surprised how neutral those fuckers can be. I guess nothing can really be done till the next update

 

[Asehujiko]

I don't get the problem. He modded/tampered with the console, that breaks the user agreement, he has opened the console to piracy. In what way is he not guilty?

EULA's aren't laws, him ever agreeing to signing one is a highly contested point and acting as a news outlet for fail0verflow =/= being fail0verflow. That and the fact that the court of California isn't supposed to have anything to say over a person from New Jersey.

Don't really get why he's being defended by anyone.

He's kind of fighting a landmark case about an EULA(which he didn't sign as far as we know) trumping laws.

But why did he feel it was necessary to remove the controller cards at all..?

To stick them into his replacement HD's?