UPDATE: PS3 Hacker GeoHot Claims He's on Vacation

[Declan Skews]

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

Doesn't matter if he is visiting his family or w/e. Fact is he will probably have violated at least one court order to do so. Dude's going down for that one.

 

[Jumwa]

Sounds like a lot of broad conclusions are being drawn from solely what Sony's lawyers have said.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

He did the correct thing. An individual can't get justice in our corporate owned legal system. Sony has infinite money, they can just drag the case out indefinitely until he can't pay his lawyers anymore. Then they make you agree to damages you can't possibly pay, or settlement conditions you can't possibly keep such as never using a computer.

Then if you fail to live up to the judgment terms that is a contempt charge which is a criminal offense. So in effect Sony can put YOU or the people you care about in prison for pissing them of. If you think this is an acceptable outcome of modern society then you are a part of the problem.

Just look at the complaint, if you take out the unjust charges that the DMCA allows then there is nothing substantial left.

And if you are one of the few abominable people who think the DMCA is a good think check this out and maybe it will knock some sense into that thick skull: https://www.eff.org/wp/unintended-consequences-under-dmca

In my opinion a corporation should have to go before a judge and prove documented economic damages before it can take any action against an individual.

Tampered with court evidence, ignored a court order and fled the country during a legal battle. Mis-use of funds raised for legal defense.

I know the first two are ILLEGAL. So lets see how his money works now. That last one if seen the wrong way can be fraud, because people gave their money to him under the assumption that he was using it to fight for consumer rights, and he instead runs away to another country. He can go to jail.

Yep, he did the right thing. Real smart... Way to beat the man

I guess you could say that all that donated money...
*puts on sunglasses*
Just went south.

YYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, had to

 

[SilkySkyKitten]

You know what, I really want to support this guy, since if Sony wins this case it'll be a huge "Fuck You" to consumers everywhere.
(Supporters of Sony: just wait until the day Samsung/Toshiba/etc. says you can't play a PS3 on their TV because the PS3 is from Sony, or HP/Dell/etc. says you can't use that flash drive in their computer because it's not an HP/Dell/etc. branded flash drive. That's basically the kind of thing that will be considered acceptable if Sony wins this case.)
The problem is, this guy is making it harder and harder to want to support him.

I guess I'll just say I don't want Sony to win in any way, but I don't really like GeoHot in the slightest either.

 

[Subzerowings]

He left his home and family to escape legal proscecution?
I would actually agree with him if the punishment included imprisonment, though I'm not aware about the specifics of this case.
In the end, he did what he thought was right and I think that is commendable.
I will not be the judge of morality.

 

[Aeshi]

He fled the country? Strange thing to do for somebody whose supposed to be "innocent"


Nice one Sony!

 

[Azuaron]

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!

If you think it's BS, don't agree to it and don't use their service.

Easy. As. That. PSN isn't exactly vital for life. If you want to play in their sandbox you have to play be their rules. Otherwise, get out of the sandbox.

 

[uppitycracker]

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

Doesn't matter if he is visiting his family or w/e. Fact is he will probably have violated at least one court order to do so. Dude's going down for that one.

it was a joke, and i haven't seen anywhere that the courts were prohibiting him from going anywhere. they'll usually mention that somewhere along hte lines if it is an issue. but again, no reason to take that comment seriously.

 

[Azuaron]

So geohot continues to be a muppet. Did anyone seriously expect him to win this court case before he fled?

The more interesting story is the length Sonys legal team went to prove he owns a ps3.

Let's be precise about this: Sony's legal team went through a lot to prove he had a PSN account and, therefore, agreed to the PSN EULA.

But, yeah. Don't piss of people with legal teams.

 

[Antari]

Well you have to admit this will certainly save him some legal fees. Atleast in the short term.

 

[Jark212]

He probably would have just gotten a slap on the wrist at most, but now he's in some serious shit...

 

[Xanthious]

Can't say I blame him for running. Better to set up shop in some non extradition country and tell Sony and this corrupt legal system to shove it up their collective asses. Why participate in a system that's so fucking corrupt that it comes down, not to who is in the right, but who has the most money.

The only way to not lose in a rigged game is not to play at all. That seems to be the route he's taking. I say good on him. Fuck the courts and more importantly fuck Sony. It was pretty clear they didn't intend on making this a fair trail from the start so now, if they choose, they can continue with this sham all on their own.

 

[Albino Boo]

If they prove that he owns a PS3 he done for. If he owns one, then he has entered in a contract with Sony and breached it.

Uhm, no. That was never true. It was obvious that he owned a PS3. We all knew that; he couldn't crack one without owning one. But buying a PS3 doesn't mean you have entered into a contract with Sony. It's only signing up for the Playstation Network that does that.

And as Sony still hasn't sufficiently proven that he has done so (only that SOMEONE used one of his PS3s to create one; they have yet to provide proof who that SOMEONE is, so at this point it's only an assumption that it's his), he didn't do anything wrong on that front.

Ok so if you buy a PS3 and doesn't work then you cant take it back because you have no consumer rights which are based on the existence of a contract between buyer and seller. Those highly paid lawyers taking out a class action against Sony about the other 0/S issue fitness for purpose of that contract are just ignorant compared to you. You agree to Sony's terms and conditions when you open the box and unless you show that those terms are illegal you, which no attempt has been made, its game over. You don't have sign anything or tick a box for a contract to exist.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I still support him on the grounds that I don't believe what he did should even be illegal in the first place.

internet high five

And I'll just leave this here

 

[IamQ]

Ah, justice is soon to be served...

 

[AugustFall]

Yeah, starting lose faith in this guy. Personally I say if you buy it do what you want with it. However pirating, and hacking games during online play are not ok.
I had hoped this dude was above board but it's not looking so good now.

 

[loremazd]

Can't say I blame him for running. Better to set up shop in some non extradition country and tell Sony and this corrupt legal system to shove it up their collective asses. Why participate in a system that's so fucking corrupt that it comes down, not to who is in the right, but who has the most money.

The only way to not lose in a rigged game is not to play at all. That seems to be the route he's taking. I say good on him. Fuck the courts and more importantly fuck Sony. It was pretty clear they didn't intend on making this a fair trail from the start so now, if they choose they can continue with this sham all on their own.

Oh please. The only thing Sony did was try to see if he made a PSN account so they could prove he agreed to their terms of service. That's not corrupt, and judge doesn't get any more or less money if Sony wins or loses.

And no, not good on him, he took people's money and ran. He stole from everyone.

 

[miva2]

i didn't know this guy was this retarded
well, his 15 minutes of fame are over.

i really like the title of the article

 

[Exocet]

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.

Used to drink with a bloke who freelanced in forensic data recovery for law enforcement and private investigators and he said 95% of the hard drives he got handed were single reformats with busted up cases... which did absolutely nothing to destroy the data and could easily be restored in less than a day (and that's assuming a full HD platter swap into a working HD).

Magnets aren't too bad but they have a tendency to leave big chunks of artifact data.

We experimented with ways to destroy data beyond his ability to recover it and came up with a few good ones, including one that reinforced my belief that there isn't a problem that can't be solved with detcord.

To further advance that topic,how do you think dipping the HD in an electric-conducting liquid(salt water,for ease of access in a household environment) and running current through it hold up to profesional data recovery?

Or is the only solution the application of explosives,and if possible fire to go with it.

 

[InsomniJack]

This is hilarious. It's like a version of The Social Network that's been directed by Uwe Boll instead of David Fincher. Fantastic. Can't wait to see how this one ends.