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California Student Arrested For Console Hacking
jhoger writes "Matthew Crippen was arrested yesterday for hacking game consoles (for profit) in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He was released on a $5,000 bond, but faces up to 10 years in prison. This is terribly disturbing to me; a man could lose 10 years of his freedom for providing the service of altering hardware. He could well lose much of his freedom for providing a modicum of it to others. There is no piracy going on, necessarily — the games a modified console could run may simply not be signed by the vendor. It's much like jailbreaking an iPhone. But it seems because he is disabling a 'circumvention device' it is a criminal issue. Guess it's time to kick a few dollars over to the EFF."
oh right, they're just "doing their job"
The DHS wants you to think of them like this: http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm
But this is what they really are: http://www.ice.gov/
No quarter to tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
And hundreds, if not thousands, of violent crime offenders go without jail time every week. I love a functining legal system.
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It's terrifying to me (and a sign of the times) that we can't do what we please with the material we've paid for. Sure, violating copyright is counter productive in the long-run, which is why we have it, but tinkering with stuff has a long proud history. Imagine if the guy who invented pneumatic tyres was taken to court because it violated the bicycle company's right to sell him replacement solid rubber rims? I doubt this guy was doing anything innovating, but he sure won't be doing so now.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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more like he was jailbreaking an Iphone for idiots who don't know how to do it but they just want it done. so they pay this guy to do it for them.
Its not my fault, someone put a wall in my way.
The land of the free. On less Trollish note, it's time you do something about this corporation laws, I can't understand how the freedom of a business comes before the freedom of the people.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
This is behavior you'd expect from the Mafia. It just underscores the fact that there's not much difference between our government and an organized crime syndicate.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Industry and trade associations estimate that counterfeiting and piracy now cost the U.S. economy as much as $250 billion a year and a total of 750,000 American jobs.
I mean, aside from being pulled out of thin air that is?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
And Now they expect you to only lease hardware as well?
If he owns an xbox he should be able to do whatever he damn well pleases to the xbox, it is the same as any other computer. It's fair for the company (microsoft/sony/nintendo) to make it so that their games will not work on a hacked system, they shouldn't have to guarantee the games will work unless you use their specifications, but it's not fair to take him to jail even if the modifications allow him to use unsigned software. hell, I build computers that have the capability to play pirated games all the time. How is this different?
PS: in before RTFA, he's modifying consoles for financial gain, how is this different from building a computer for financial gain?
This is insane. This kid is looking at 10 years for modifying hardware while another story linked right at the bottom of the same article describes a cop getting a one day suspension (with pay) for running down a child with his car
Ok, I'm going to say something that I'm certain will be enormously unpopular here - what he was doing is a crime and he almost certainly knew it was. Sorry. He got caught breaking the law.
Now, should it be a crime? Should it be a crime with a possible 10 year penalty? Should law enforcement resources be wasted on inane garbage like this while there are real, serious criminals out there that are still walking free? I think the answers to all those questions are obvious (at least I hope they are...) but the reality is what he was doing is a crime and thus he broke the law. I would hope people will be sufficiently bothered by this situation (and the ten year sentence for something so insignificant while people who commit violent crimes get much less time...) that they will be motivated to write their government and demand a change. If enough people raise their voice, maybe, just maybe, the government will pay attention. As it is, the only voice they hear are those of lobbyist for major media companies who want laws like this on the books. They got their way and now this guy is (presumably) guilty of something that shouldn't be a crime, but currently is...
Uh huh. Let's not bother to read the article, shall we?
Look, the sentence this guy is facing is ridiculous and the law needs changing, but we don't have to pretend that he's just some nerd modding a console or two for his homies.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"they [Piracy, counterfeiting and other intellectual property rights violations] can also pose significant health and safety risks to consumers"
Robert Schoch, ICE/DHS (from the article/link)
health and safety risk!?
wait, what - piracy/counterfeiting poses a health/safety risk because the ps3 game they buy is safe for them? then whats with all the warnings?
nintendo has warnings, playstation has warnings, xbox has warnings. not to mention the ratings for games being "safe" (laughs) for certain age ranges/restrictions.
what about the RF radiation from electronics?
the RF radiation from most consoles these days (wifi, bluetooth controllers, etc)?
From the article
Counterfeiting and piracy have grown in recent years in both magnitude and complexity, according to ICE.
That's nice. Now how is that connected to the "crime" of modding a console? How is what he did connected to piracy other than the strained connection that modding consoles inevitably leads to piracy which he should be held responsible for? Even if you buy that, how is any of it inolved with "counterfeiting"? No one is stamping out illegal copies of games to be sold as the real thing here. Wrong issue entirely.
Some estimates indicate that 5 percent to 8 percent of all the goods and merchandise sold worldwide are counterfeit.
Again, a completely irrelevant fact mentioned only for the purpose of trying to connect his "crime" to a larger and more obviously illegal sounding one.
I wish mainstream news outlets would hire people to do research and write informed articles, because the alternative seems to be just parroting whatever the alphabet soup of government agencies tells them about the issue. Though, I guess now I know to watch out for those counterfeit modded game consoles.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
>> âoePiracy, counterfeiting and other intellectual property rights violations not only cost U.S. businesses jobs and billions of dollars a year in lost revenue, they can also pose significant health and safety risks to consumers,â he said.
Health and Safety risks? Give me a f*&%ing break... at least with regards to Intellectual Property. Sure, counterfeit aircraft replacement parts pose a real safety problem (and it's a real problem... go after that one, guys!), but copying videogames?
If the guy was overtly doing this to enable the use of pirated games, then sure, he's guilty. But if the majority of his work is to enable homebrew or emulation software, they should set him free and give him a pat on the back. I lose all sympathy for the copyright holders when they try to use FUD about "Health and Safety" to prop up their failing business model.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm sure glad that the Homeland is secure from this miscreant.
Joe Public will read this story and think "so what, some kid who helped destroy game company profits got his comeuppance," but the technically astute on this site will notice that this law, while currently applied to a trivial domain like game consoles, will be affecting the whole computer industry for years to come. The iPhone, like most game consoles, has a mechanism to prevent unsigned code from running. It is protected by the DMCA. The Kindle from Amazon is probably protected by the DMCA.
Your legal ability to do what you want, with the hardware you own, is slowly being eroded by new hardware with DRM baked in, and lawsuits like the one in the article. The issue is about personal freedom as much as it's about piracy.
...then people who modified generic PCs to run "unauthorized software" would receive the same sentence.
Frightening.
This space left intentionally blank.
That would be similar to someone putting performance parts on their car and a cop pulling up and arresting them for street racing on the basis that they would be using said modifications to do so. No crime has been committed unless it has become illegal to modify purchased devices and hardware. I know they say he was circumventing parts of the hardware that protect copyrights of games against piracy but I do not see how that is against the law unless it is proven without a doubt that he did so with piracy in mind.
I've been involved in a Civil Liberties group that reviews and lobbies legislation for appropriate changes prior to them becoming law, something quite different from the EFF. From my initial conversations organisations like this are in need of people with a technological bent to advise them on the ramifications of technology legislation before it passes into law.
It's not the first time I've done it and I've found that if you you are polite to the ministers involved they are quite responsive and will listen to what you have to say and if they see your name often enough they will ask you for advice, they asked me. It's interesting to see the changes you suggest actually either make it into law or not make it into law due to your lobbying.
Thing is, it's not a game. If you don't act then, incrementally, freedoms will be whittled away. If it's not by the lobbying of a special interest group (for example Microsoft with the Xbox) then it will be by a knee jerk reaction to something else that has happened. Once it's passed into law it's very unlikely that it will *ever* be rolled-back.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
You don't want to go to jail? Don't break criminal laws.
You don't want people to break criminal laws? Don't write shit laws.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
The whole tone of your post makes it obvious which side you're on. Shoveling scorn on one side of an argument while proclaiming to be neutral is intellectually dishonest.
Ten years for hacking consoles? He should have stuck to arson and murder, he'd have gotten less than five.
The problem is, that someone will spin that as
"64% of people were FURIOUS that this nasty little toe-rag was hacking consoles and cheating the companies out of their God-given profits!!!"
It's now 82% furious, by the way.
The summary made some good points, but your reply contributes nothing to the discussion. I'm not sure why you were modded insightful. If you think a discussion on this topic is going to be pointless, why are you here?
I can't comprehend how this should be a *criminal* offense.
Really? This person is so dangerous we need to lock him in a metal cage for ten years?
I agree if we allowed people to completely, freely, brazenly enable piracy on a commercial scale, there might be some damage to the production of video games that might hurt us all. Confiscate the guy's hardware, take his profits, and figure out how many consoles he sold, and fine him the cost of, say, two or three video games per console.
Honestly, it's this kind of batshit-insane loss of all perspective that makes young people hate The Establishment so much. I swear, if prison times reflected actual *physical peril* that someone represents to society and fines represented *actual damages* (plus a slight disincentive (like 10%, not 10,000%)) the relationship between authority and youth in this country would be dramatically different.
You are sooooooooo wrong. Downloading an iso to replace the original DVD I legally own but innocently scratched is not a violation of the copyright nor of the license. In criminal law, you must prove the intent and the actual criminal facts ; you should never deduce from a neutral fact which outcomes can be both legal and criminal that it is criminal by itself. Of course there are statute laws that criminalize simple facts, because it makes the prosecution job easier, but this is a sloppy job and should not be tolerated in a free society. This type of justice has only be extensively used in red dictatorships like soviet Russia, and it's disheartening to see it invade our 'still not so long ago' free societies.
Quantity doesn't really mean anything, I've got 6 computers, that doesn't mean that I am selling 5 of them. How many of those "...more than a dozen..." are actually running? or in a closet? covered in 3mm of dust?
...Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony video game consoles.
Well MS hasn't been involved that long, but what if some of the "Nintendo's" are NES/SNES, are the "Sony's" PS1's? I'd still have a Commodore64, Atari, NES, Sega Genesis, etc if I hadn't moved, and I likely wouldn't be doing anything with them.
...illegally modified Xbox, Playstation, Wii and other video game consoles
Fine, but what constitutes "illegal", are they all modded? or were some of them just sitting there without there shells "potentially modified" or some shit? I'm not saying the guy is innocent, only that the article is full of fuck all, and uses the classic tactics to enrage (frankly, idiotic) people like trailing off into
"Piracy, counterfeiting and other intellectual property rights violations not only cost U.S. businesses jobs and billions of dollars a year in lost revenue, they can also pose significant health and safety risks to consumers," he said.
Like this guy modding consoles caused your favorite store to close, and is going to make YOU lose your job, and hell fuckit, he might even give you cancer. KILL THE BASTARD.
He deserves a fine, and nothing more.
The fact that it is criminal at all is ridiculous. Either my property is mine to dispose of as I wish, or it isn't. If it isn't then we should just declare ourselves communists and have the truth of it out.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Besides the fact that this shouldn't be illegal...
The most frightening part of this is that you can kill someone and get less jail time. How can this be seen as a greater threat to society than killing someone?
Look, we all know that the DMCA is evil and has been repeatedly abused. This is not one of those cases. The guy was modding consoles for profit. You can go on and on all you like about homebrew, but *you* know, *I* know, and *everyone else* knows that's not why he was doing it. He was doing it so cheap bastards can play copied games. This has nothing to do with your rights. If there was no DMCA, he'd be gotten on other laws - this was just the most convenient one. He's a stupid-ass student criminal, plain and simple. Now, feel free to debate the severity of the sentence - that's legitimate. But defending him as some noble kid who got put down by "the man" just hurts our cause. Pick your battles, people.
And also, stop putting out the crap of "why aren't they working the important cases?". Ever think that some officers/agents are assigned to different areas based on their expertise? And perhaps putting these cops on the homicide or gang squad isn't going to catch a killer or shut down a gang any faster? To put it in terms you'll understand, you don't want the guy who wrote Notepad working on the kernel. Just because you have resources spent on many tasks, does NOT mean that putting them all on a particular task will get that task done any sooner or better. I would have thought technical people would have understood resource allocation better, but the amount of stupid and kneejerk reaction around here really surprises me sometimes.
Welcome to Slashdot. I must be old here...
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
If you agree that the actual facts of the case don't matter and it's fine to just make shit up, why not say he's blind and has never touched a console in his life?
Yes, the law itself shouldn't care, but let's not pretend some random falsehood for no reason, when the law is perfectly stupid on its own.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I misread this as actual news, not a ranting editorial by someone about what it MIGHT be about..
Fact is, the kid broke the law. You can hate the law, and work to change it, but that doesn't change the fact the kid broke the law.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Uh, they do that. There are thousands of laws. Many not enforced in practice.
If they enforced them all, they might not even get out of their neighborhood. Might be a bit like Robocop when he was loaded with hundreds of directives :).
According to the laws in Michigan, committing adultery would get you a life sentence. Seems the courts and prosecutors there are talking about repealing the relevant law. So that's selective prosecution as well.
But you know, maybe one should take a poll of betrayed spouses (and maybe even their children) and ask them what their opinion on adultery is. Do they view it as less or more negative than being mugged at gunpoint? How about being beaten up (but resulting in no broken bones or major scarring)? I won't be surprised if many of them would get over being mugged at gunpoint far more easily.
The average sentence for robbery in the 1st degree when armed with a deadly weapon (not necessarily a gun) appears to be 10 years.
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2000/rpt/olr/htm/2000-r-0510.htm
Of course one has to factor in that a robber could in theory more easily rob more people than a person could commit adultery with. Perhaps a robber is a danger to more people and thus should be put in jail for longer?
Seriously? Are there legitimate applications for modifying an odometer other than cheating people?
There are legitimate reasons to jailbreak an iPhone, or a game console: running unsigned binaries on equipment you own.
The government shouldn't take your liberty to protect a business model.
So yes, it is definitely a legal grey area. Basically, it is illegal to sell/make modchips and provide modification servcies in the United States IF their primary and only real purpose is to get around a copy protection measure.
Console modification has the primary purpose of enabling the play of legal imported games and fair use backups, as well as enable the use of homebrew code that GREATLY expands the capabilities of the system (a perfect example of this is Xbox Media Center for the original xbox) and thus isn't just about bypassing a copy protection measure to enable piracy. In fact, if you have an original xbox and your hard drive dies, the only way to replace it is with a chip or with a TSOP flash, as the stock bios doesn't recognize non-locked hard drives (and the drives don't just have to be locked, they need to be locked with the key stored on the onboard eeprom). A modchip/tsop flash with a modified bios lets you bypass all that nonsense and just use any standard IDE/ATA hard drive with the system.>
The DMCA is a seriously terrible law to begin with. It fundamentally changes the way traditional copyright has always worked, and violates consumer rights in the name of helping big business. To quote one of my law textbooks on it:
As a side note, nowhere does the DMCA say it is illegal to USE or BUY modchips, just to make and sell them. So that leaves the end user (you) in the clear so long as they're not using it for piracy.
The sellers and makers of "anti-circumvention" devices and services on the other hand seem to be where the law is aimed at, and while I honestly don't believe the DMCA applies to chips and modding servcies, apparently the US government and the gaming industry disagree.
The only precedent for chip sales and the DMCA I could find was a September, 2006 case in which Sony sued Divineo (SCEA vs Divineo Inc, et al(457 F. Supp. 2d 957; 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74878; 81 U.S.P
Yup. Helping slaves escape used to be against the law too. All those people should have went to jail and have the full weight of the law thrown against them as well.
FWIW, I used to think that way too - you break the law, pay the price, and work to fix the law. Then, started thinking about people who just want to sit down at the front of the bus... or drink from a water fountain...
But cops don't wear Level IV body armor. Level IV body armor is usually a heavy metal/ceramic "impact plate" that covers only the most vital organs in the center of mass. It is generally only found on military infantry, or occasionally on very few SWAT teams. Level IV impact plates are really heavy, bulky, and uncomfortable. They are completely impractical for a patrol officer, and even rarely found in SWAT/Entry teams.
Level III or IIIA soft vests, which is what 99% of cops actually have, is only effective in defending against handgun calibers and shotguns. This is usually 'good enough' for cops since handgun calibers compose the majority of their threat. But don't think cops are trotting around in level IV impact plates, because they're not. The worlds best IIIA vest can't even hold up to 'small' centerfire rifle calibers like 5.56 NATO, 7.62x39mm. And even Level IV impact plates can only take a couple shots from big game calibers like .30-06 or .300 Win Mag before failing.