Sony to Get PS3 Hacker’s PayPal Records

Shamb1es said:
Good lord some of you goons are going to end up leasing the air your breathe from a company like this. Trying to tell me I can't control my own property, good lord
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I am not supporting or defending what Sony is doing, rather just trying to clarify that some people are misinterpreting the situation (if you were referring to me). The solution to what you are talking about would be to simply not purchase products from companies who do not wish for you to modify said products. Easier said then done, but its the truth. No one is forcing you to buy a PS3 but If you choose to buy one and Sony doesn't want you doing something on it then its on you abide by that. Its not like you were forced you to purchase a PS3 and then said "oh and btw, if you hack our proprietary software to view pirated content and then distribute that information across the internet we will sue you". ;)
 
Darth_Penguin said:
Isn't it less about what you are doing to the physical purchase and more about what you are doing to the software that is on the physical purchase? This is not the same as you taking apart your PS3 and installing some leet cooling fan or upgraded processor. This is about modding software which is not allowed to be modded under the TOS which you agreed to. Like others had said earlier, this would not have become so big had this guy just kept it to the small community that was interested in it.
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Just because the TOS says something doesn't mean it is legal, though. I think some of these TOS's need to be challenged.

And regardless, it's his system, if he wants to modify the software on it that is his business as far as I am concerned. If Sony doesn't want them to be on their network, so be it, ban them - that's fine. But HIS system is still his property.
 
WBurchnall said:
Right, and you think there's no terms of service agreements you sign when you purchase a car? All that paperwork you need to fill out and sign your name too with the fine print, warranty and other information is meaningless and not the close equivilent of a PC ToS agreement?

Right. Computers invited fine print? As if!
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What?
There are 0 TOS agreement on a car are you kidding me? If you modify your car you'll unquestionably void any related warranties but that's at the owners discretion. Even on a lease, if you f up the car that's between you and the lender and probably unwise but not illegal. The only thing I could see is if I revrse engineered a engine control module to put in my own brand of vehicles, but now were talking corporate politics. Have you ever seen the grass roots car ecm hacker communities? The manufacturer surely encourages that type if thing because it just promotes demand for their vehicles. There are hundreds of for profit supermarket software developers that hack the own systems and they *might* have to get permissions but I highly doubt it.
 
Rizen said:
Just because the TOS says something doesn't mean it is legal, though. I think some of these TOS's need to be challenged.

And regardless, it's his system, if he wants to modify the software on it that is his business as far as I am concerned. If Sony doesn't want them to be on their network, so be it, ban them - that's fine. But HIS system is still his property.
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TOS should be challenged as they appear to merely confuse someone into agreeing without actually understanding or reading said TOS, nonetheless it is why you always hear about "reading the fine print".

His system yes, not his software. Like most software I'd be willing to bet you are only granted a license to use the software on the PS3 and if what he did involved modifying that software even to allow the removal of it so that he could put Linux on then it is no different than someone modifying Windows or any other software.

If he would have kept it his business and not made it public this wouldn't have ever been mentioned.
 
WBurchnall said:
Right, and you think there's no terms of service agreements you sign when you purchase a car? All that paperwork you need to fill out and sign your name too with the fine print, warranty and other information is meaningless and not the close equivilent of a PC ToS agreement?

Right. Computers invited fine print? As if!
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Modifying a car just voids the warranty, depending on what you modified. The problem with PS3 hacking is that people connect the hacked consoles up to PSN or play "backup" games on them. If this really was all about people running OtherOS as a hobby, Sony wouldn't give a shit.
 
(for the post above)

im soooo sick of these ASSES saying CFW users shouldnt be online.not everyone can afford a game let alone another ******g system.**** THAT i bought my system the day of the release i can do what i want to it. and you think since you have 2 systems your above evryone else BULLSH*T you are apart of the problem not the solution just cause u get another ps3 you think its okay to have a hacked system you are a MORON.and wow you dont download pirated games but you still backup games pretty much same thing. instead of downloading from internet you just rent it and back up your still illegally using the game.
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Rizen said:
They shouldn't be allowed to legally dictate what anyone does with a physical purchase.
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no shit, Sony doesnt care you if blow up your PS3 with a M82, or melt it in an oven. the SOFTWARE is what is copyrighted and being modified here.
 
You leave your front door open and you get robbed and it's the robber's fault? Secure yourself 1st before pointing fingers.



Sony should fix what's broken, like their systems. The guy's done nothing wrong as it's his own property.
 
JL6speed said:
You leave your front door open and you get robbed and it's the robber's fault? Secure yourself 1st before pointing fingers.



Sony should fix what's broken, like their systems. The guy's done nothing wrong as it's his own property.
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the software is not his property, he didnt make it. modifying it isnt allowed. Sony are a-holes for gutting this kid alive legally speaking.
 
JL6speed said:
You leave your front door open and you get robbed and it's the robber's fault? Secure yourself 1st before pointing fingers.



Sony should fix what's broken, like their systems. The guy's done nothing wrong as it's his own property.
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LOL, c'mon dude, please use common sense. Just because I choose to leave my door open does NOT give somebody the right to steal from my house. Oh and btw, our judicial system says its the robber fault. Your logic is ridiculous. Sony is selling you the product, you own the physical hardware. You do NOT own the software loaded on to it. Get it through your head. :rolleyes:
 
Darth_Penguin said:
If you choose to buy one and Sony doesn't want you doing something on it then its on you abide by that.
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Not necessarily. A TOS that claims that they can strip you of legal rights is nullified by the law itself. Should the court find that you can modify what you bought, it won't matter two shits what Sony doesn't want you to do.
 
Majinhoju said:
it is strange how aggressive sony is being regarding this. microsoft just unleashed a banhammer preventing modded consoles from connecting to xbox live and called it a day.
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It's funny how this all started. Sony took away the Other OS feature, and people hacked it. Now, Sony is going ape shit over it.

The reason they're shitting themselves, is because developers have little reason to support the console to begin with. This just adds more reasons to that list. It's not like the PS3 is enjoying strong game sales, like the 360 does. Too many people bought the machine for something other then gaming. Sony realized this, and killed the other os feature.

Sony has never been known to side with consumers. They don't realize that consumers are reading this, and are angry. They're already angry about the missing other os feature, so this is just pushing them into that direction. Sony is essentially killing the PS3, and probably any future gaming product they make.

Oh wait, this thing plays games right?
 
The biggest issue I have with this is the fact that if I buy a piece of hardware, I should be able to modify that hardware including dictating what software is run on that hardware. I don't want to modify the software, I want to remove it and run my own. Just like buying a computer, I want the choice to run Windows, Linux or any other O/S I want on it, doesn't mean I want to hack the code to Windows.

If thats not what he was in trouble for, if he did modify the software and not replace it, then excuse my ignorance.
 
bucket said:
Is this the guy that re-enabled the "install other OS option" the PS3 used to have in the first place? Why does Sony have such a hard-on for this guy and anyone involved with him?

Jesus.
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Well, that and enabled the free wheeling piracy of games.

Btu yeah yeah, it's all about the linux, which is why bit torrent is so popular: downloading distros for their PS3s!

Do agree that they're making a example of the guy, which is weak.
 
Tanis143 said:
The biggest issue I have with this is the fact that if I buy a piece of hardware, I should be able to modify that hardware including dictating what software is run on that hardware. I don't want to modify the software, I want to remove it and run my own. Just like buying a computer, I want the choice to run Windows, Linux or any other O/S I want on it, doesn't mean I want to hack the code to Windows.

If thats not what he was in trouble for, if he did modify the software and not replace it, then excuse my ignorance.
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He exposed the private (root) key that opens the platform. Which, IIRC, makes game piracy trivial.
 
Could someone explain to me how this is any different than jailbreaking an iPhone? Pretty sure Apple declared that was illegal until it went to court. Why is this any different?
 
Sorry for the double post but I posted this before and never got a good response, maybe someone will chime in now:

I don't understand how geohot has all these haters? His tools like blackra1n and limera1n set the precedent for iPhone jailbreaking legality, how is the PS3 any different? He wanted kernel access to his PS3 the same way he wanted root access to his iPhone. Sure, with jailbreaking comes piracy but it's not any different for any other device! Jailbreak your iPhone? Download any app you want for free using Installous and the crack store. Does this mean that jailbreaking is evil and is only used for piracy? No. iPhone 3G's cameras can't record video out of the box. Only after jailbreaking my iPhone 3G that I got on launch (which locked me into a 2 year contract with AT&T) could I use use my iPhone's camera as a video camera. Was the iPhone 3G advertised as a video-recording capable device? No. But can it be? Yes. Was my AMD Phenom II X555 processor advertised as a quad core CPU? Can it be? Yes.
 
Don't Microsoft has some kind of protection on their xbox system too?

I'm pretty sure Microsoft would have done the same thing had someone targeted their console
 
niconx said:
He used Paypal? Maybe he isn't so smart after all...
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I'd say it's risky to use any American company for anything, especially if you live in America.

We're getting closer and closer to being North Korea all the time. The government and corporations (don't know if there's much of a difference anymore) seem to be able to pull our information at whim from Paypal, twitter, Google, etc.
 
Although the legalities of what GeoHot did is something to be settled in a court of law, I do wonder as to what sort of precedent this sets.

Sony has managed to get everyone's information who donates to him, or even looked at his site?
Attempt to find some real world parallels and it will expose the absurdity of their position.
If someone made poor decisions, and had to defend themselves and took to begging on the street to ask for a dollar, how absurd would it be if a police officer can then take footage from a street cam and submit it to a court of law.

I understand and agree with sonys policy of protecting their ip, but I'm hoping that just as they intend to make an example of geohottz, I hope that someone makes an example of them. The way things are going, I'm sure to be disappointed.
 
Reverse engineering and OS for the purpose of interoperability is perfectly legal. Although it seems the courts are bought and paid for already, geohot's only real improper act is dissemination of the key as far as I can tell.
 
ianken said:
He exposed the private (root) key that opens the platform. Which, IIRC, makes game piracy trivial.
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If I find the key to your house on the ground, I'm under no legal obligation to inform you. In fact I can give the key away if I want. I can make hundreds of copies of it, attach a little label with your address to the keys, and toss them around various parts of the hood for burglars to find, and I still haven't broken any laws.

If one of them uses the key to break into your home, that person just broke the law. If someone uses the root key to pirate a game, then they just committed infringement. Giving out the root key in and of itself isn't illegal to my knowledge, using the root key for infringement is, so Sony can go suck a big one.

Besides, I think Sony should be sued as well for removing the other OS feature, which is part of what people paid for. If you bought a car with a remote starter, Ford couldn't stop by your home a couple years later and take it out because they don't want you to have it any more because it made some flawed component in their vehicle fail. They'd have to eat the costs repairing it. If you paid for a product with X feature, then it's part of the product. The manufacturer does not have the right to arbitrarily disable features of your property whenever the fuck the want to. If they don't want the stop people form getting this feature, they can exclude it from all future versions, but as for the ones they already sold, it's water under the bridge.
 
fattypants said:
Not necessarily. A TOS that claims that they can strip you of legal rights is nullified by the law itself. Should the court find that you can modify what you bought, it won't matter two shits what Sony doesn't want you to do.
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Of course, but what is Sony doing here that is different then any other software maker TOS? I guess actually pursuing a civil case against someone? Someone was going to set the precedent at some point, right? Jammie Thomas was made an example for the RIAA, The Hurt locker torrenters were made examples by the Movie industry.
 
Ok, time to join the party.

Screw Sony. Spit spit. Sony is dead to me.

Saved me $300 as I was going to add a PS3 to my living room next month. Now I think I'll just save it up for a new video card for the desktop instead.
 
TOS agreements are useless, particularly to consumers.

Last weekend I was driving to somewhere I had not been before, so I needed to use the Ford Sync in my Escape to get voice routing directions. I mashed the button, said "Services". It dialed, and before I could say "Driving Instructions" it said "The TOS for this service has changed. You can read them at www.blahblahblah.com, I can read them to you now, or you can say "I Agree".

WTF... I'm in traffic, lost, trying to get somewhere before a certain time, and this freakin' thing wants to read me a TOS.

Of course I just said "I Agree". I doubt 1 out of ten would do any different.
 
GORANKAR said:
Reverse engineering and OS for the purpose of interoperability is perfectly legal. Although it seems the courts are bought and paid for already, geohot's only real improper act is dissemination of the key as far as I can tell.
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It states in the TOS you may not reverse engineer any software associated with SCEA.
 
canna said:
If I find the key to your house on the ground, I'm under no legal obligation to inform you. In fact I can give the key away if I want. I can make hundreds of copies of it, attach a little label with your address to the keys, and toss them around various parts of the hood for burglars to find, and I still haven't broken any laws.

If one of them uses the key to break into your home, that person just broke the law. If someone uses the root key to pirate a game, then they just committed infringement. Giving out the root key in and of itself isn't illegal to my knowledge, using the root key for infringement is, so Sony can go suck a big one.

Besides, I think Sony should be sued as well for removing the other OS feature, which is part of what people paid for. If you bought a car with a remote starter, Ford couldn't stop by your home a couple years later and take it out because they don't want you to have it any more because it made some flawed component in their vehicle fail. They'd have to eat the costs repairing it. If you paid for a product with X feature, then it's part of the product. The manufacturer does not have the right to arbitrarily disable features of your property whenever the fuck the want to. If they don't want the stop people form getting this feature, they can exclude it from all future versions, but as for the ones they already sold, it's water under the bridge.
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Actually you would be charged with criminal facilitation, grand lacerny and conspiracy to commit burglary and grand largely if the house was robbed.

Second you would sued and you would lose.

Willful blindness is never a defense

And the minute you pick up the house keys a duty attaches

Largely only requires that you cause the owner to be deprived a substantial value of the item
 
ikarinokami said:
Actually you would be charged with criminal facilitation, grand lacerny and conspiracy to commit burglary and grand largely if the house was robbed.

Second you would sued and you would lose.

Willful blindness is never a defense

And the minute you pick up the house keys a duty attaches

Largely only requires that you cause the owner to be deprived a substantial value of the item
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canna's example was completely retarded. A more appropriate example would be along the lines of it not being criminal to make duplications of keys to your own fucking house, so you can access it and make modifications to it. The fact Sony used the same key for every "house" they sold just makes it easier for the home owners to get access to what the fuck they paid for.

The example is still completely retarded since we're just playing with the word key, but the point is, we're buying PS3s, not leasing them. Disseminating the information which allows any owner to do what they want with their property shouldn't be criminal.
 
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110310172538157

This is an interesting find. If this one goes through it could be good news for Geohot.

163. It is virtually impossible to use the “Other OS” for piracy because the PS3 is specifically designed to avoid allowing piracy through using the “Other OS” feature. When the “Other OS” feature is enabled, the software prevents the proper operation of the gaming feature to avoid allowing the features to interplay. In order for a hacker to pirate a game, it is necessary to perfectly emulate the operating system for which the game is designed, including the API, which is the interface for the game OS that supports all of the features of a game. However, when the Other OS is in use, the API and other hardware features are blocked, including the graphics chip in the PS3, which makes it impossible to run a pirated game on the Other OS. As of January 2011, Sony had yet to identify a single instance in which someone used the Other OS to pirate protected content.
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mikefxu said:
I am glad Sony is beating a dead horse, ripping it out of the grave, cremating it, eating it and shitting it. I paid good money for a PS3 and if they prosecute people that circumvent intellectual property to the fullest extent of the law, it benefits me. The user base for the PS3 linux OS was small. Most of the people bitching about them taking it away never even installed another OS on their PS3.
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You clearly do not understand what this case is about or what it will mean for consumers like your self that you seem to hold so dearly.
 
DarkStar02 said:
Could someone explain to me how this is any different than jailbreaking an iPhone? Pretty sure Apple declared that was illegal until it went to court. Why is this any different?
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the PS3 is not an iPhone so NOTHING can be compared between these two products. And apple 'voids' the warranty if they know you jailbroke an iphone, but its as simple as wiping the phone clean before taking it to a store.

DarkStar02 said:
Sorry for the double post but I posted this before and never got a good response, maybe someone will chime in now:

I don't understand how geohot has all these haters? His tools like blackra1n and limera1n set the precedent for iPhone jailbreaking legality, how is the PS3 any different? He wanted kernel access to his PS3 the same way he wanted root access to his iPhone. Sure, with jailbreaking comes piracy but it's not any different for any other device! Jailbreak your iPhone? Download any app you want for free using Installous and the crack store. Does this mean that jailbreaking is evil and is only used for piracy? No. iPhone 3G's cameras can't record video out of the box. Only after jailbreaking my iPhone 3G that I got on launch (which locked me into a 2 year contract with AT&T) could I use use my iPhone's camera as a video camera. Was the iPhone 3G advertised as a video-recording capable device? No. But can it be? Yes. Was my AMD Phenom II X555 processor advertised as a quad core CPU? Can it be? Yes.
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you're modifying copyrighted software that is not your own. period.
 
ikarinokami said:
Actually you would be charged with criminal facilitation, grand lacerny and conspiracy to commit burglary and grand largely if the house was robbed.

Second you would sued and you would lose.

Willful blindness is never a defense

And the minute you pick up the house keys a duty attaches

Largely only requires that you cause the owner to be deprived a substantial value of the item
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Really though,, the bottom part of my argument is serious, I figured the top part would be detectable as sarcasm, I guess not.


I think Sony should be sued as well for removing the other OS feature, which is part of what people paid for. If you bought a car with a remote starter, Ford couldn't stop by your home a couple years later and take it out because they don't want you to have it any more because it made some flawed component in their vehicle fail. They'd have to eat the costs repairing it. If you paid for a product with X feature, then it's part of the product. The manufacturer does not have the right to arbitrarily disable features of your property whenever the fuck the want to. If they don't want the stop people form getting this feature, they can exclude it from all future versions, but as for the ones they already sold, it's water under the bridge.
 
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