The Other PS3 Hacker Is (Probably) Headed to Jail

[BDNeon]

To sum up all the posts supporting graf_chokolo:

"We're butthurt that the legal system doesn't like our rampant efforts to pirate everything and we think they're corrupt for putting a stop to it"

Breaking anti-piracy measures is supporting piracy you idiots. It doesn't matter whether or not he did it himself, he provided the tools to do so for everyone. Just like how it's illegal to sell firearms without regulation and paperwork, doesn't matter if you aren't using the guns yourself, you're enabling others to use them illegally. It's nothing like the apple jailbreaking case because in that case they only enabled you to put your own software on it while not managing to crack the measures restricting you from running pirated apps. There's no issue with allowing a platform to run your own stuff, it's only when you disable the protection that prevents you from running pirated content, or modifying copyrighted programs in a way that would enable you to cheat and ruin other users experiences online.

If you think your little hacker holy war is gonna get Sony and the international legal system to back off and legalize piracy you're even more delusional then the religious extremists.

Because this is what you honestly fail to understand, computers may facilitate the way our world operates but they are not THE world, there is a physical world outside of those computers that we live in, and in that world there are police and government organizations that are not going to simply dissolve because you hacked their website.

The idiocy of it all is just mind-numbing

"Piracy is just a side effect of jailbreaking"

Oh yeah? Does that mean it's ok to discharge a gun into a large crowd of people, since people getting shot is only a "side-effect" of my actions?

 

[Seejur]

Ever heard about "guns don't kill people, people kill people"? U should...

 

[CleverCover]

Sooooo...how long until LulzSec hacks Sony for this "offense" against "internet freedom"?

Bets? Any takers?

If I understand my internet groups right, we could expect anonymous in on this as well. Lulsec just does it for the luls, not the protection of anything.

But we're in agreement that Sony will get hacked again because of this court case by someone or some group with a computer, internet, and too many hours on his/her hands?

 

[infohippie]

SONY may need to fight this SoB to the death and then beat back his reanimated corpse. I got a feeling he won't cave and this fight might hurt SONY.

Screw Sony. There's nothing wrong with what he did and I take my hat off to the guy for standing by his principles. If Sony weren't trying to maintain such an iron grip because they were wetting themselves about piracy, Egorenkov wouldn't have needed to jailbreak his PS3, and it's admirable that he has helped get the information out to allow others to jailbreak theirs.
As long as companies continue to treat their customers as thieves, and as long as they keep trying to pretend a sale doesn't mean we actually own anything, cases like this will keep happening.

 

[Signa]

Sooooo...how long until LulzSec hacks Sony for this "offense" against "internet freedom"?

Bets? Any takers?

If I understand my internet groups right, we could expect anonymous in on this as well. Lulsec just does it for the luls, not the protection of anything.

But we're in agreement that Sony will get hacked again because of this court case by someone or some group with a computer, internet, and too many hours on his/her hands?

HA! Undoubtedly. I'm just not 100% sure about this story, because this is the first time I'm hearing about one of the failoverflow guys getting in trouble. Geohotz obviously stole a lot of the attention, but I would have thought that some news would have reached me. Also, I didn't know jail was a possible outcome from lack of funds when declaring bankruptcy seems to be the far more common action.

 

[SoulSalmon]

You know if you don't update the firmware, it doesn't remove that feature, right? Right? Oh right then, you evidently didn't. And if you aren't on PSN or jonesing for some online gaming, you don't have to update the firmware, the console doesn't 100% force you.

It just bars you from online gaming, which is the trade-off you have to make. My friend found it worth it, he hasn't updated his firmware in damn nigh forever, for that trade-off. It's just a matter of what you want more.

So, no, the people bitching about it, have no ground at all even in the slightest. They're just people who want to have their cake and eat it too at this point. What's done is done, Sony isn't going to magically revert it. They've made their stance quite clear. And it isn't even removed unless you want to play your games online. Y'know, what the console was originally intended for. Or patch your games. It's 100% up to you, the user. What do you want more?

It's not so much "have your cake and eat it too" as much as it is "Buying your cake with both chocolate and cream and then being forced to give one topping back"

I'm just going to have to assume this post is a troll (more precisely sarcasm), because if you're arguing in Sonys defence then you're doing a terrible job :/

I mean the main argument AGAINST Sony is right there: "You don't HAVE to lose OtherOS... you can lose acess to Patches and Online Multiplayer instead, make a choice, you can't have BOTH of the things you bought it for."

 

[BDNeon]

And Sony is COMPLETELY within their right to refuse PSN service to whoever they wish.

They gave you the option of refusing to update your firmware to continue getting access to their proprietary service or opting not to update to continue using OtherOS.

The hackers just conveniently prefer to gloss over that fact.

 

[Signa]

And Sony is COMPLETELY within their right to refuse PSN service to whoever they wish.

They gave you the option of refusing to update your firmware to continue getting access to their proprietary service or opting not to update to continue using OtherOS.

The hackers just conveniently prefer to gloss over that fact.

Hardly a fact and more of a cop-out.

 

[Pat8u]

I heard that in a sdyney court its legal to be your own lawyer without having the right degrees

ot:arggh sony I was begginning to enjoy online play I beginning to think that sony hates hackers since the psn incident and pls change the title to modder since that is what he was doing. hackings things like dos attacks (maybe im wrong)

 

[fractal_butterfly]

Don't worry, German Prisons ain't that bad ;-)
But I don't really think, that he will go to jail. He didn't do it for the profit (he didn't, did he?), so he will likely get about 100 Hours of civil service. Not that bad. Even if he can't afford a lawyer, he will not be ultimately doomed. In germany the lawyer is not as important as in the US, there are little important differences.

 

[adamtm]

The guy didn't hack the network, he hacked his system to restore OtherOS. That's what fail0verflow is known for.

Something that I'm not clear on: what good is putting Linux on a PS3? I can see why it would be an interesting challenge for a single hacker to take on, but aside from the aforementioned software piracy, what's the practical application? What legal uses of a hacked PS3 would there be that isn't already possible on a computer?

some examples:

http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/ps3.html

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/213076/u-s-military-building-ps3-supercomputer/

I.e it (was) a cheap alternative to creating large clusters of machines to conduct large-scale computations and research instead of buying comparable systems like CRAY provides.

This way small research teams with tight budgets could create their own clusters in stead of having to buy or rent computational time from larger clusters all over the world.
Animation companies would also consider buying several PS3s to run their own RenderFarm instead of renting hardware, i do not know how viable it would be as the RAM requirements for that line of work would be probably higher than what the PS3 can handle but it would be worth thinking about.
A RenderBoxx solution would cost you in excess of tens of thousands of dollars while you can pick up 10 PS3s for around 3.000$, the same would be the case if you would buy Nvidias TESLA-based solutions for GPU computing.

This was very useful technology.

 

[donfuhrer]

Because YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR!


I HATE that cliche saying! Fact is: You couldn't download a car.

Spoiler: sorry couldn't resist

[/spoiler]

The legal way to do this seems to be to buy 2 PS3s and update one's firmware, or they can just buy one if they just want to use it for non-game purposes. Everyone's happy right? :p

 

[RA92]

I was speaking of hackers in general. Events of late have left me somewhat unsympathetic.

There's a huge difference between hackers modifying consoles and crackers breaking into remote servers.

 

[BDNeon]

The guy didn't hack the network, he hacked his system to restore OtherOS. That's what fail0verflow is known for.

Something that I'm not clear on: what good is putting Linux on a PS3? I can see why it would be an interesting challenge for a single hacker to take on, but aside from the aforementioned software piracy, what's the practical application? What legal uses of a hacked PS3 would there be that isn't already possible on a computer?

some examples:

http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/ps3.html

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/213076/u-s-military-building-ps3-supercomputer/

I.e it (was) a cheap alternative to creating large clusters of machines to conduct large-scale computations and research instead of buying comparable systems like CRAY provides.

This way small research teams with tight budgets could create their own clusters in stead of having to buy or rent computational time from larger clusters all over the world.
Animation companies would also consider buying several PS3s to run their own RenderFarm instead of renting hardware, i do not know how viable it would be as the RAM requirements for that line of work would be probably higher than what the PS3 can handle but it would be worth thinking about.
A RenderBoxx solution would cost you in excess of tens of thousands of dollars while you can pick up 10 PS3s for around 3.000$, the same would be the case if you would buy Nvidias TESLA-based solutions for GPU computing.

This was very useful technology.

And what part of those uses requires being able to connect to PSN and use recent games, etc? What's stopping them from continuing to use the old PS3s on old firmware without updating? Because as far as I know, nothing is. If they really do only want the PS3s as a renderfarm then why do they need modern firmware and PSN connectivity?

 

[Strazdas]

sadly, you cant sue sony for being greedy idiots. jailbreaking systems should not only be legal, it should be commendable. its merely enabling users to use the product they bought the way they should have been from the get go.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Sony would probably be better of selling a blank slate PS3. No OS on it or anything so people can do what they want with it.

Cause as it stands (like it or not) Sony has the right to dictate how it's software can be used. Same with Microsoft, Apple and any other company. You dont like it? deal with it... Or get into politics and change the system dont sit here whining and crying foul just because Sony wont bow to peoples every whim.

 

[Von Strimmer]

I heard that in a sdyney court its legal to be your own lawyer without having the right degrees

ot:arggh sony I was begginning to enjoy online play I beginning to think that sony hates hackers since the psn incident and pls change the title to modder since that is what he was doing. hackings things like dos attacks (maybe im wrong)

Pretty sure thats legit in any Australian court. It's frowned upon but it can be freely done.

 

[adamtm]

And what part of those uses requires being able to connect to PSN and use recent games, etc? What's stopping them from continuing to use the old PS3s on old firmware without updating? Because as far as I know, nothing is. If they really do only want the PS3s as a renderfarm then why do they need modern firmware and PSN connectivity?

Nothing, except you can't know which firmware you will get in the PS3 until you bought it as its not on the package.

Afaik, PS3s manufactured past 2010 have firmware 3.21+ pre-installed i.e. they have the functionality disabled by default and you can -NOT- roll back the update (unless you hack it, like the guy in the article thats going to jail for it).

This means you either have to:

A. buy second-hand hardware pre 2010 (not really an option if you are buying in bulk, also your mileage may vary with second hand consoles and their quality)
B. find a retailer that has pre 2010 PS3s in stock that he didn't get sold (unlikely and bothersome for retailers to actually check and still a gamble)

Additionally this brings with it the problem of the pre 2010s having older hardware, no support and no updates for the hardware like for example the region-free blu-ray fix in 3.30 or the SDK update leading to reduced RAM usage in the same update.
Oh also, theres only a fixed number of pre-2010 hardware manufactured, ie. if all that hardware breaks or gets used up by consumers, its game over.

Cause as it stands (like it or not) Sony has the right to dictate how it's software can be used. Same with Microsoft, Apple and any other company.

See this is the problem, its not about how its software can be used, but about how its hardware can be used. It sets a dangerous precedent of having your hardware locked down for a certain use by -means- of software, compare it to this idea:

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/23109-apple-bans-fanboys-from-filming-live-events

Wouldn't you cry foul?
Why doesn't anyone cry foul on this?

Is this your preferred future? Its not mine.

This is a battle between IP law and property law.

 

[Bostur]

The real issue from the point of view of Sony, of course is not related to piracy at all. Consoles are sold below cost, with the expectation that they cover the difference on the sale of games. So they don't want people to use the console as cheap PCs, without buying any games.

It's all about consumer lock-in. "Here have a cheap console now go buy some expensive games". The exact same thing happened with printer cartridges, and presently with cell phones.

All this could be avoided if they used transparent pricing, and the price of the devices actually was based on the cost of making them.