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."

Comments

Re:The cops that arrested him must be proud

[ildon]

He could have been arrested for jay walking with a 10 year maximum prison sentence and arresting him would still not be morally equivalent to putting someone on a train Auschwitz.

He will have a fair trial, likely with a jury of his peers if he chooses to fight it, and, if it really is "some kid tinkering with his console" either get acquitted or, at worst, some probation, a fine, or community service. If only the Jews in Poland had received that much "moral wrongness"...

Re:The cops that arrested him must be proud

[PRMan]

While a lot of people have been killed in the name of religion throughout the centuries, it is nowhere near "billions". And the only people to come close to billions in the last century were all atheists (Stalin, Mao) or followers of eugenics teaching (Hitler).

So while the religious may be dangerous at times, they seem a lot less dangerous than the irreligious.