UPDATE: PS3 Hacker GeoHot Claims He's on Vacation

[Iwata]

If after all this you're still sticking up to the guy, let me know how the weather's like in your planet.

Cold, rainy, but overall fairly pleasant.

So we're supposed to trust Sony - that is, the company who are attacking him in court - in regards to his whereabouts and actions?

So basically, any accusations you can throw at someone else are suddenly evidence?

Oh no. See, the problem is that so many people are so eager to jump in and support the Lone Rogue when he faces off against The Evil Corporation, that they never actually bother to stop and ask if they should be doing it in the first place. Because sometimes The Evil Corporation is actually trying to protect its property, and the Lone Rogue is just some douche who'll cry for help because, dood! He's fighting evil SONY here!

And then of course, do the logical thing, flip off all his supporters, tamper with evidence and split.

But hey, at least you feel better when you wear that anti-capitalism shirt, amirite?! I mean, you must HATE money, if you gave it to him!

On a side note, his douchiness pours out of every photo I've ever seen him in.

 

[BRex21]

and so he ran...

and the motto of the story is, if the police arrest you for knowingly breaking the law, flee the country.

This is whats wrong with these forums. The police didnt arrest him, its a civil matter and he is free to leave the country. He didnt flee, sony KNEW he was on vacation and the only word we have that he even did anything wrong in regards to the "evidence tampering" is sonys word. Which from the sounds of things wasnt tampering so much as not including peices of hardware that werent actually on the warrant.

 

[alinos]

Do I even need to mention that the same act, jailbreaking, is legal on a mobile phone. Where's the difference?

JailBreaking is legal because it allows you to change service providers and that is the only reason. Most likely if it hadn't been restricted to AT&T he woulda had his arse sued then. Because one can certainly not claim homebrew on the iphone.

It's Much the Same as R4 carts being legal in australia because they remove any Regional Restriction's placed on games.

Unfortunatly due to the stupid FTA that australia signed with the US before the US economy turned to shit, you now can only remove the Regional Restrictions without removing piracy and since the company's decide to entangle them to the point where it's nigh on unachievable. They have essentially closed that loophole

His property, his choice.

Sure it's his choice to crack his property, it is not his choice to give the 11 secret herbs and spices out so you can do the same, because that is what we are talking about here, its the magic code that protects sony. and when you make the only console that hasn't been cracked for years your understandably irked when someone goes and does it in a way that basically screws over every game since you can have hackers and whatnot

 

[Nurb]

Fuck Sony.

If they weren't dicks to begin with and telling a customer what they can and can't do with their own damn property, he wouldn't be in this mess.

Corporate greed and control of customer actions is the crime here, so yea, fuck Sony. They deserve to be pirated.

 

[Vanbael]

The plot thickens.
More popcorn?

 

[Solid Reece]

Not to worry. Sony's hitmen are going to follow.

47?

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

I thought the Escapist would support the rights of gamers.
Yeah he fled, but that's not the point. Sony is still in the wrong.

"Sony has proof that Hotz created a PlayStation Network account and therefore agreed to the PSN User Agreement"
So what? The PSN UA is BS!

Really? Give it up man. He's tampered with evidence and fled the country? What will it take to convince people like you that this guy is a class A criminal? He obviously used the donation money to buy a place in S. America. And he tampered with evidence to you can't even say the Sony didn anything wrong now based on what they have.

 

[RA92]

Not to worry. Sony's hitmen are going to follow.

47?

47, 48, 49, 1337... all of 'em.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Fuck Sony.

If they weren't dicks to begin with and telling a customer what they can and can't do with their own damn property, he wouldn't be in this mess.

Corporate greed and control of customer actions is the crime here, so yea, fuck Sony. They deserve to be pirated.

Strictly speaking, the US Government is telling people what they can and can't do with their own damn property. Sony is just exploiting that fact far beyond the point of reason.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Wooooooow.

This guy just screwed a lot of people out of some money here. The people who donated to his "legal case" must feel really stupid. Looks like the pirates got pirated here. That'll teach them to support a criminal.

And to think people believed him when he said he was a freedon fighter.
And wasn't it just 2 days ago he said that Sony was misleading the courts?
If you support this guy now you must be insane. You can agree that Sony may be being dicks about the situation but you can't condone straight up robbery, evidence tampering, and incurring a bench warrent.

 

[RA92]

Innocent people do not run.

True fact.

Tell that to all the Jews who ran in WWII.

And 'true fact' is a bit of a tautology. 'Fact' can't be false.

 

[Kagim]

Fuck Sony.

If they weren't dicks to begin with and telling a customer what they can and can't do with their own damn property, he wouldn't be in this mess.

Corporate greed and control of customer actions is the crime here, so yea, fuck Sony. They deserve to be pirated.

Once again. This isn't about "Telling people what they can do with there property" this is about "Releasing security information to the public"

If this guy had simply released a mod or third party program to do the same thing it wouldn't be illegal, it would simply be a mod. Sony could ban you from there network, but that's it.

He however released security info. That's actually a pretty serious crime, and a whole different game.

All it means is if you want Sony support you need to play by there rules, if you want to modify your system Sony isn't held responsible for any cock ups and sony can ban you from the servers. Which is understandable. Sony shouldn't be sued because your third party program clashed with there update and fucked over your system. Sony has no reason to allow people with third party programs on to there servers which could lead to players cheating and ruining the game experience.

If you release security information to the public, then they can sue you. Which is what happened.

Was Sony right to remove linux functionality? No. Was Geohot right to release security information to the public? No.

This isn't corporate greed versus FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

This is Corporate over reaction versus consumer being a stupid shit.

What Sony did was wrong, but breaking the law wasn't the right way to go about solving it.

However sony isn't trying to say "You can't mod your stuff!" they are saying "Stay off our servers, don't release security info."




... Christ i wonder how many times I am going to have to repeat myself today....

 

[Defense]

And guess whose money he used to flee?

Thats why you dont give out money on the internet children.

I thought the Escapist would support the rights of gamers.
Yeah he fled, but that's not the point. Sony is still in the wrong.

"Sony has proof that Hotz created a PlayStation Network account and therefore agreed to the PSN User Agreement"
So what? The PSN UA is BS!

Really? Give it up man. He's tampered with evidence and fled the country? What will it take to convince people like you that this guy is a class A criminal? He obviously used the donation money to buy a place in S. America. And he tampered with evidence to you can't even say the Sony didn anything wrong now based on what they have.

Actually, I think he closed the donations after he got the $10,000 needed to fight against Sony. He probably had some money with him set for spring break before this debacle started.

 

[harvz]

i dont like the taking of peoples money and then fleeing but still...the only devices he has ever jailbroken were so incredibly restrictive, if it weren't for jailbreaking, i wouldn't have bought an ipod touch, i would have gotten a new mp3.

 

[t3h br0th3r]

I thought the Escapist would support the rights of gamers.
Yeah he fled, but that's not the point. Sony is still in the wrong.

"Sony has proof that Hotz created a PlayStation Network account and therefore agreed to the PSN User Agreement"
So what? The PSN UA is BS!

We support gamers, not common criminals. This guy tampered with evidence, resisted a court order, committed fraud, and fled the country.

if not for us knowing that he was a real hacker, we would assume this to be the actions of a con-man on Law and Order.

 

[Redgethebat]

Okay, the PS3 hardware is your property. Feel free to hack it all you want.

HOWEVER, PSN and Sony's online services ARE NOT your property, they are Sony's, they are letting you use their property under a series of terms and agreements which you have to agree to.

You can do whatever the fuck you want with the PS3 hardware. You can mess with that all you want. But PSN and the internet, that is a different story. It's not YOUR servers, or YOU playstation network, it's Sony's servers, and last time I checked, Sony owns playstation network. If you hook up your PS3 to PSN, then you have to agree to the terms and agreements. If you break those terms and agreements, then you should be punished for it.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Most of this appears to be based on "Sony's claims", i dont hink they are an unbiased party in this matter. I'm not saying its untrue, im saying i would like to hear it from a source that hasnt already tried circumventing the law.

The thing is since it's a video game related case (very low on the U.S. courts' importance level) the U.S. courts aren't going to be giving out news. Sony's info is the best we've got.

 

[Aris Khandr]

I cant believe that some people here still support him. He tampered with evidence, they tracked his purchased ps3 to his psn id proving he lied about agreeing to Sony's terms, he took the donations and fled. People are still making excuses for him.

Never underestimate the power of the "stick it to The Man" ideology.

 

[Dastardly]

PS3 Hacker GeoHot Owned by Sony, Flees Country

It's a real stick in the eye of all the piracy apologists that rushed to fund (or at least defend) GeoHot's actions. Give him money to support a cause, and he just takes it and runs to Rio. Turns out a pirate is just like a cheating girlfriend (or boyfriend): If they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you.

 

[Nurb]

Fuck Sony.

If they weren't dicks to begin with and telling a customer what they can and can't do with their own damn property, he wouldn't be in this mess.

Corporate greed and control of customer actions is the crime here, so yea, fuck Sony. They deserve to be pirated.

Once again. This isn't about "Telling people what they can do with there property" this is about "Releasing security information to the public"
......

He bought the hardware, it's his property, he has every right to take it apart, see how it works and tell others how to do it too. That "Security information" was on his hardware. People can share info on how to crack cable boxes and cable company DVR consoles, and it's perfectly legal in that case (So long as you don't steal cable service and they own the box).

And Modding has the same effect as releasing "security info": it curcumvents company supplied software to make it do what you want. It's the same damn thing

So yes, this is a company dictating what a person can do with their legally bought hardware and software on it, and dragging them into court over it is wrong.