UPDATE: PS3 Hacker GeoHot Claims He's on Vacation

[Hijax]

For the record, i support Hotz. Anybody should have the right to do what they want with their own hardware, and if you choose to do something illegal, then that is you breaking the law. If i choose to use my laptop to, say, pirate a game or a movie, or hack another computer, then the company behind the movie/game, or the guy whose computer i hacked, can bring me to court. Not Acer, or Microsoft.

However, this does not look good for him, i'll admit. Leaving the country, even if it's a civil case(and thus perfectly legal), and tampering with his computer, gives Sony lots of ammo for the case. And if he agreed to the UA, and it says he can't modify his account, then he's got almost no case, period.

Also, what's with all the people blaming him for not using his vacation money for the case? A: Going to court with Sony is going to be a lot more expensive than a vacation. And i don't know if it's just me in Denmark, but i usually get nonrefundable tickets(they're cheaper, for one). I agree that he should have got a refund if he could, though.

 

[pdgeorge]

On the whole "Is releasing information dangerous and does it make you responsible" Argument.

Well I want to give you all a very familiar scenario about the Nuclear physicists that descovered how to create nuclear weapons. It's true that Nuclear power plants are a force of good and knowledge that should be shared, but weapons? The only reason Scientists told their leaders they could make them was out of fear the OTHER scientists would inform THEIR leaders first.

Now? Now we have a stockpile of Nuclear weapons, for a Cold War there was the fear of everything going south and killing us all. Don't ask me who you would blame for this, what you think is irrelivant. Who do you think THEY blame?

THEMSELVES.

Information is DANGEROUS in the wrong hands, whether you think that releasing the rootkit was good or bad the fact of the matter is Mr. Hotz has to take responsibility for doing it. The bad that stemmed from it, AKA the Pirate crowd? the onus is on his shoulders because he gave them a means to an end.

Always remember, Information is power, at the right time it can end us all.

*like*
Long story short: Do something, be willing to suck it up and accept the consequences.

Geohot released something that might be dangerous, so he should be willing to accept the consequences.
This guy doesn't seem like an utter idiot, so how could he not foresee that releasing this would result in piracy. (Oh sure, he said "don't pirate" but let's be honest, you can say something and not mean it, or even more logically, you can say something and people won't listen to you)

and while people are saying 'Sony shouldn't get involved in this if it's just people modding their own consoles', remember that this opens up a wide door for piracy/hacked games which effects Sony's entire service

 

[etherlance]

I bet he went to south america and took those missing components with him so that he could destroy any and all incriminating evidence that is on them.

 

[Arehexes]

On the whole "Is releasing information dangerous and does it make you responsible" Argument.

Well I want to give you all a very familiar scenario about the Nuclear physicists that descovered how to create nuclear weapons. It's true that Nuclear power plants are a force of good and knowledge that should be shared, but weapons? The only reason Scientists told their leaders they could make them was out of fear the OTHER scientists would inform THEIR leaders first.

Now? Now we have a stockpile of Nuclear weapons, for a Cold War there was the fear of everything going south and killing us all. Don't ask me who you would blame for this, what you think is irrelivant. Who do you think THEY blame?

THEMSELVES.

Information is DANGEROUS in the wrong hands, whether you think that releasing the rootkit was good or bad the fact of the matter is Mr. Hotz has to take responsibility for doing it. The bad that stemmed from it, AKA the Pirate crowd? the onus is on his shoulders because he gave them a means to an end.

Always remember, Information is power, at the right time it can end us all.

*like*
Long story short: Do something, be willing to suck it up and accept the consequences.

Geohot released something that might be dangerous, so he should be willing to accept the consequences.
This guy doesn't seem like an utter idiot, so how could he not foresee that releasing this would result in piracy. (Oh sure, he said "don't pirate" but let's be honest, you can say something and not mean it, or even more logically, you can say something and people won't listen to you)

and while people are saying 'Sony shouldn't get involved in this if it's just people modding their own consoles', remember that this opens up a wide door for piracy/hacked games which effects Sony's entire service

Yeah people seem to forget that having root access means you can pirate games really easy. I thinks it's funny we say pirates are evil, yet we all want root access to a system which to be honest doesn't really need it. I use the homebrew on the psp and to be honest it really sucks, same for the DS, hell same on the dreamcast. I can never find decent home brew that gets "dropped" in a alpha or beta stage. I think it's really silly that people are fighting this hard over a system that
A)Is harder to mod then a PC
B)Wasn't ment to be hacked(are you saying it's ok to have the keys to sony door, well lets have the keys to the military computers also)
C)To be honest what will you guys do with your modded PS3 outside of piracy or backing up your games you own. I mean I own a flash cart and a modded psp and it's mostly used to store games I buy so I don't have to carry them(I am a lazy mo'fo). I tooled around with the programming stuff but to be honest how many of you will honestly say you will use a hacked game system to play homebrew only and never every play a pirated/downloaded game even if you own it(if you rip it that's another basket of fish). If you really wanna complain someone answer me this, why the hell did verizon lock the droid x so you can't f'ing root the bloody thing, now those google phones are made to be dev phones (the nexes one/S are dev phones). That is something that bugs me more then "I can't hack my ps3".

 

[uppitycracker]

Sony is gonna look REALLY SILLY when it just turns out he went to go visit his South American family

jeez, people, it was a joke. clearly illustrated by the "" thrown in the mix!

feel free to say "I told you so" to all these people here.

HAHA wow, well in that case.....


TOLD YOU SO!!

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

I quoted the update, you are obviously not very bright. If he needed money sooooo much, he should have canceled his vacation and used that money and the donations. That would be the honest thing to do. Essentially, everyone who donated helped pay for his Spring Break.

EDIT- Maybe I should start taking donations to pay for my responsibilities, that way I can afford to take a vacation to the Caribbean.

Wow, blatant ad hominem attacks. Those are fun.

I was aware that you were quoting the update. That's why I made reference to the update and the fact that you seemed to be invested in the idea of burning Geohot in effigy despite it. Yay, reading comprehension!

Now let's see how well I can ad hominem: I'm noticing that you're posting fairly inflammatory comments. I also notice that you have 40 posts to your name. This leads me to believe that you were previously banned, probably for being volatile, ignorant, and generally unpleasant in discussions. Looking at your current behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if you had to start another account soon.

Have fun with that.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

What about his PSN ID? Is that spin? Where his tickets non-refundable? Is getting sued not a very good excuse to get a refund from the airline? Does that excuse him from having his supporters pay for his responsibilities while he is out and about having fun for Spring Break?

1. Gasp! He clicked "yes" on a EULA. Those are legally binding. Oh, wait, no, they haven't been tested in court.
2. Hey EULA boy, did you read the fine print on the tickets?
3. So, how much did you pay for his defense fund, monty?

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Oh, I did not donate nor will I ever donate money to an able bodied person. I work hard for my money and I believe everyone else should. I find what he did unethical, if you are ok with him using his supporters that fine by me.

I'm okay with it. I'm glad it's fine with you. Thanks for the endorsement.

If someone wants to pay for Geohot to be able to represent himself in a court case, where the outcome of him winning will set a precedent that will prevent companies like Sony from using abusive EULAs to restrict what I can do with hardware, then I don't really care how much of a douche George Hotz may or may not be. It's a non-sequitur to me.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

EDIT- My question is, didnt he lie about not having a PSN ID? Whether he agreed to the EULA is irrelevant to my question. MorphingDragon explained that that might not be too reliable, so I whether he had one or not might still be up for debate.

Why, exactly, do you think the PSN account is relevant, if not for the user agreement? I suspect you're just playing the "many mindless reasons" game.

Im glad you support people who use other people's money to pay for his responsibilities while he's out having fun, so that you may get what you want. It clearly speaks volumes about you.

That I care more about the future of technology than whether or not some student is a douche?

Yeah, it says I'm not a frivolously vengeful troll.

 

[SnakeCL]

Honestly, I couldn't care less about what people do with their consoles after they've purchased them.

However, I think it would be perfectly within Sony's rights to create an update that bricks any system which logs onto PSN with custom firmware.

If you want to write homebrew, or play Doom 2 via an emulator on your PS3, go for it. Just don't try to sign onto a private gaming network and ruin MY gameplay experience.

I'm all for consumer rights, sure. I'm also all for my own rights as a consumer, to enjoy a system I payed for, for the reasons I bought it in the first place. When someone else's need to do things with hardware that it wasn't originally offered for sale to do, impedes my ability to do things that it was made to do, that's where I have an issue.

 

[Dana22]

1. Gasp! He clicked "yes" on a EULA. Those are legally binding. Oh, wait, no, they haven't been tested in court.

Actually thats for the court to decide based on the case. You also forgot DCMA.

precedent that will prevent companies like Sony from using abusive EULAs to restrict what I can do with hardware

He isnt sued for what he has done with his console, but for "hacking" the hardware key and realising it to the public, and for creating the jailbreak and releasing it to the public as well.

If he kept all this for himself, nothing like that would happened.

 

[michael87cn]

Hey guys, I did something I was informed at the time was wrong. However, I'm too poor to face the consequences on my own. I might even get my just deserts if you guys don't donate your hard earned money to me!!!1111111

Donators: Aw poor guy heres some money

*2 weeks later*

WEEEEEEEE VACATION!!!!!!!

*I know he had the vacation planned prior to this lawsuit, HOWEVER IF you can afford vacations to south america you have no business begging people for money. He deceived people.

 

[8-Bit Grin]

Hahaha, told you he would just flame the HD and run. Yes you can recover data from an HD, but if you no how, you can completely destroy any data on one, beyond recovery. Just that the average computer user doesn't know.

Anyway, dumb move. Ah well.

Take a sledge hammer to the drive until it's completely crushed, then proceed to microwave it on high for 5 minutes.
Place into pan with water and 2 tablespoons of salt, stir until water has evaporated.

Done. You now have ready made HDDs that will never provide anyone with data ever again.

I think the point is to make it seem as un-suspicious as possible.

This is blatantly obvious.

If you wiped it well, no one would even know you'd tampered with it.

... Let alone do something wrong.

 

[Popido]

So, do you go into a restraunt theif pirate.

No.

I go to the McDonald's and order a hamburger. Then I remove the pickels and DIE!

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

1. Gasp! He clicked "yes" on a EULA. Those are legally binding. Oh, wait, no, they haven't been tested in court.

Actually thats for the court to decide based on the case. You also forgot DCMA.

Yes. That's part of what's at stake. As for the DCMA... that doesn't really have anything to do with any EULA.

precedent that will prevent companies like Sony from using abusive EULAs to restrict what I can do with hardware

He isnt sued for what he has done with his console, but for "hacking" the hardware key and realising it to the public, and for creating the jailbreak and releasing it to the public as well.

If he kept all this for himself, nothing like that would happened.

I don't see how that's any different than the iPhone jailbreak community, which was deemed lawful by congress.