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Xbox 360 Jailbreaker May Need Real Jailbreak
An anonymous reader writes "Back in July, the Librarian of Congress officially made it legal to jailbreak your iPhone (or any phone). So why is it that the government is trying to prosecute Matthew Crippen for jailbreaking Xbox 360s? If convicted, he could face up to three years in prison, and lawyers are trying to prevent the author of a book about jailbreaking the original Xbox from testifying in Crippen's defense. What kind of law says it's okay to jailbreak the phone in your pocket, but not your gaming console?"
Gah, Apple! Making all these locked down devices like the iphone and the xbox...
What kind of law says it's okay to jailbreak the phone in your pocket, but not your gaming console?"
The kind of law "sponsored" by Microsoft, Sony, and other industry lobbyists.
As long as I am not publishing their source code, or distributing their copyrighted binaries, then fuck'em.
On the other hand, if I am publishing their source or binaries then I should expect a response, although jail time seems extreme to say the least.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
The Library of Congress specifically made Iphone jailbreaking permissable, for the reasons given above. As with all things legal, a specific permission isn't just instanlty transformed into general allowance to do whatever the hell you want. The Xbox was not included in the permission granted and therefore such hacking is a violation of the current statute until found otherwise in a court.
The fact that Crippen is making money from breaking the law, and in likelyhood abetting a little casual piracy, suggests he's going to get made an example of.
Jailbreak is fine, otherwise the old media will go back to calling it 'hacking', in the bad context.
Good-bye
As far as I'm considered, when I buy something (phone, game console, computer, whatever) it's mine to do with as I please.
Whether I want to modify it, or throw it off a cliff, is no longer any of the company's business. That's not to say it excuses piracy (which is an entirely separate matter altogether), but put simply, they have my money, and I have their product. Our relationship should there be at an end.
I really don't care what the lobbyist-bought-and-paid-for law says on the matter.
For your phone you can "jailbreak" in order to install non-pirated software or connect to a different carrier.
For your xbox you can "jailbreak" to investigate security flaws. Note that "running homebrew software" is not investigating security flaws, neither is running pirated software.
The Library of Congress gets to make this stuff up: http://www.copyright.gov/1201/
Come on, the law is so weird, it has to be real. Fiction has to make sense.
An example: ever hear of Relevant Conduct? I've talked about this before. Here's the scenario: you get caught with a small bag of weed. You get arrested. While being booked some Fed sees you and says "hey! Aren't you the guy who mowed down all those nuns and orphans with an AK at McDonald's last week?" You deny it, but he's sure and you are charged with mass murder. You go to trial, and win. You are found not guilty after two minutes of deliberation. There was no evidence and the witness said it wasn't you.
But since the McDonald's was in another state, the case is federal, and you get six months for the weed. Think you'll do it in some easy Club Fed? No way, you have mass murder as relevant conduct. I am not kidding: your custody can be affected by dismissed or acquitted charges. You have been found not guilty, but it's on your Pre-Sentence Investigation and the Bureau of Prisons will send you to a much tougher place: after all, you're a murderer! So, you go to a USP, and are dead in a week.
As I've posted, I recently did five years in the feds, and rather than be close to my home in a Camp, I was sent to a disciplinary FCI as far away as they could send me, due to charges which were dismissed. The xBox thing does not surprise me in the least...there is so much bad law on the books, which is one reason we have so many people in jail.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Man at risk of prosecution for Xbox 360 hacking.
Slashdot editorial guidelines: if it has "iPhone" in the story, that's the lead angle.
If they decide that it *should* be legal to jailbreak video game consoles, and they add a new exception for it, then would that not also make the sale of modchips explicitly legal?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Here is the one they're after.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Not all laws take intent in to account, but many do. Why you do something can be as important as what you do. If you kill someone it can be anything from justified self defense, which isn't chargeable, up to 1st degree murder, which can net a death penalty in some places. What it depends on is the specifics of your actions and what you meant to do. In all cases the other person is dead, the major action and outcome are the same. However WHY they are dead matters.
If someone is trying to kill you and you kill them, justified. If you kill someone through an accident perhaps involving some negligence (like you hit them with your car because you weren't looking) manslaughter 2. If you kill them through direct action, but didn't mean to (like you are beating them up and it goes too far), manslaughter 1. If you mean to kill someone, but don't plan it (like you catch a guy with your wife) murder 2. If you plan out and execute killing someone, murder 1. They are just as dead in all cases, but your reasons and surrounding actions matter.
Things can also be legal or illegal depending on their intended use. Water pipes/bongs/hookahs have a long tradition of use with tobacco and they are legal in the US for that use. Smoke shops can sell them, and people can buy them. However they are drug paraphernalia and thus illegal if used to smoke marijuana, or other controlled substances. So go in to a smoke shop and ask for a bong to smoke weed, they'll toss you out. Reason is they can get in trouble for selling it if they know it is intended for illegal use.
Lockpicks are similar. You can own your own lockpicks, no problem. All locksmiths do, and you'd want them to learn. However if you imply that you are going to use them for something illegal, they won't sell them to you and if you do use them for something illegal they are burglary tools and thus not legal.
Our legal system takes intent in to account, and takes other circumstances. So there is nothing contradictory about saying "An individual can jailbreak their phone for the purpose of adding functionality and that is perfectly legal," and also saying "A person cannot sell Xbox 360 breaks for the purpose of enabling the illicit copying of games."
There's also the question of what a jailbreak does and doesn't do. In the case of the iPhone, it allows for fairly significant functionality, like installing Flash. Legally this is called a "substantial non-infringing use" and hence is a DMCA exemption. The 360 hack? Does it do anything other than let you play copied games? If not or if the uses are only superficial, then it probably isn't legal.
Now if you don't like the law, think it should be changed, the answer is to let your representatives know. They are the ones who make the laws, they can unmake them.
He modified his own property. That is what he did. Now, whether this allows others to potentially 'steal' money that only exists in the future of an alternate dimension where the artist/business made more money (the piracy is bad because they steal "potential profit" argument) is irrelevant. It can be used to play backup copies, yes. Now, no one can legally play their backed up games in fear of getting in legal trouble because lobbyists have an illogical fear of 'piracy'. Useless. Pirates will do this whether it is legal or not, and people who have legitimate uses for it could suffer. In some ways, it sounds similar to DRM.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Phones have other uses than playing games (playing games is rather a minor functionality), but the only real usage of jailbreaking game console is, you guessed it, playing pirated games.
Go figure.
Just what MIcrosoft always wanted, rentable software. This is progress?
It has no use outside of piracy and playing "backups.'
Isn't creating backups a part of fair use?
It is, but circumventing DRM technology to use those backups somehow isnt. It's a pretty tricky plan.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It takes a sick groupie to keep buying stuff from people who are trying to put you in jail for using your own paid for product. Just say no with your wallet. There are plenty of inexpensive desktops, laptops and other devices that officially support Linux or even come with it pre installed. Or you take free old hardware from your friends, coworkers, Goodwill and other situations where the original vendor doesn't benefit or the indirect benefit is offset by public good. Eventually some company, big or small, will get the message that there is a need for a different kind of product. And serving even one in 100K people on planet earth can sustain a small business.
No he didn't modify his own property, he is selling the service of modifying everyone elses property, ie he is profiting from it, that is usually where the line is drawn, he has gone from screwing around at home to a commercial entity.
Redudant. They are nothing more than a make-work program designed for the sole purpose of thuggish intimidation.
Even worse, they're using the Boy Scouts to develop their own version of the Hitler Youth, right in my own backyard.
In this case jailbreak is not fine. He wasn't jailbreaking the Xbox, he was charging people to mod it to play backups/pirated media. Jailbreaking is generally accepted as removing device enforced limits on what 3rd party software can run. The mod he was using still will not allow homebrew or other non approved software to work.
Too bad the typical circumvention to make a backup it what is necessary to allow the backup to be restored.
DMCA is bullshit and the majority of the population just needs to force a class-action civil suit against the government for it.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"he is selling the service of modifying everyone elses property"
With their consent? If so, what I said above still applies. If people really want to pay him to do that, that is their own choice.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Where did he learn the skill?
"Google, man."
It's a conspiracy, man! Google is controlling people's minds and making them do things!
my guess is a similar ruling that allows Region-free DVD players into Australia, the line between making it work ie enabling functionality, and breaking copyright 'protection' systems.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
There really is not a difference between jail breaking your phone to allow you to run pirated games, and selling Xbox 360 mods to allow you to install whatever apps you like. I don't know what unapproved apps are available for the 360, but I still run XBMC on my XBox1. In fact, XBMC has always been the most used app on my Xboxes.
Why is "backup" in scare quotes?
After the red ring of death, one of the most common technical problems was the scratching of discs, due to Microsoft trying to save 25 cents per console. It's definitely a problem I observed before the RROD took out my Xbox 360, and being able to backup my $100 games (the price of a new console game here in Australia) would definitely be welcome.
Don't fall for Microsoft's lie that "backup" is code for "pirated".
Note that as far as I'm aware, that's only the case in the US.
In Europe, you are given explicit rights to circumvent DRM for fair use. In France, there even was a proposal to force the manufacturer to provide information on how to circumvent it for that purpose, but of course it was scrapped.
Because Apple is the new blac^W Microsoft.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Actually, it would allow homebrew software. His mod was an extension of the soldering mod that allowed users to install linux on the original xbox, instead modified for the 360 hardware. All the mod does is stop the xbox from checking if it is a factory made, xbox manufactured game when you load a disc (somewhat like how a jailbroken iphone can use non app-store apps) and instead it will run whatever you stick in there, from game backups to a bios bootloader.
Also, the article states that he would only mod for backups, and if piracy were brought up it would be a "no-deal".
Believe it or not, but I'd love to mod my Wii so I could create & play backups of all the discs I bought, because I don't want buy them again when my kids accidently scratch my Mario Kart discs when they play them.
And I'd gladly pay someone for the service too (after all, he's spending time, and he's risking to brick my hardware, so there's some liability as well...).
The only real solution is to pass a law that makes all kinds of DRM illegal. Any technology whose only purpose is to make the usage of the product more difficult and cumbersome (yes, that includes unskippable DVD ads) should be banned.
I should own it. be it a phone, a console, a car...
If I choose to put a 5.0 cammer engine in the car *I bought* and forego the warranty, It's my choice. I won't go to prison for it. (oops, already did it in my friend's 2k4 Marauder, added a supercharger too, so guess I'll go to prison for life now...)
When I buy it it's mine to do whatever the fuck I want with it... If I want to set it on fire with thermite, jailbreak it, or else...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
The same kind of law that makes it illegal for some loving long-term monogamous couples to get married, while others can, for example.
Seriously, looking for logic, proportion and consistency in legal statutes is pointless at best, maddening at worst. A large number of laws are written by people with interests to protect, or beliefs to promulgate, rather than any notion or desire for justice.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Back in July, the Librarian of Congress officially made it legal to jailbreak your iPhone (or any phone). So why is it that the government is trying to prosecute Matthew Crippen for jailbreaking Xbox 360s?
I got dinner from Arby's tonight. So why is it raining outside?
The prime interest of a politician is, and must be, to get reelected. After all, fail at that, and you aren't a politician anymore. So it takes precedence. Ultimately that means keeping the voters happy. Now if the voters ignore the shit you pull, well then you can do as you please. However if voters hold them to account, then they'll do as they are told (or be replaced by ones who do).
So, if you keep that defeatist attitude, and espouse it to others, then yes, you'll have say at all. However if you wake up and realize that indeed the voters DO choose who is in office, then you'll realize that isn't the case. No, you as a single person cannot change things all on your own. However you shouldn't be able to, this isn't a dictatorship. Doesn't mean you can't make a difference. Let them know how you feel, and let your friends know to do the same. If enough people care, change will happen.
This crap of "Oh lobbyists control everything and there's nothing we can do!" is only true if people let it be true. Your vote, your voice, is just as important as anyone elses. However if you just bitch about it and act powerless, well then you are.
Remember that having only a small amount of power (which is all a single voter has) is not the same as having no power. It only becomes no power if your attitude demands it be such.
Fixed that for ya. The word you wanted was "money".
No sig today...
I wish MS would give us a legitimate way to install games to the HDD and not need the disk present to play. Even if it was something like a one-time-use code that ties the game to your gamertag, still no good for used games but it would work with new games and prevent me having to switch disks when I change consoles or go visit friends/relatives with consoles. If they don't, people like this come up with non-legitimate ways to do it so they're only hurting their paying customers by not offering this (at the very least if MS offered a way to do this legitimately they could argue against the stock "it's only for backups" excuse).
Nothing new about that.
And as mobile and console gaming converge, I wonder how they will continue to justify a distinction that essentially gives one company a competitive advantage over another.
Now how do you get the ignorant masses from running out and purchasing/licensing DRM infected gear? There is no warning label on such goods that state "WARNING: If you modify this device you may go to prison" Maybe there should be a campaign to educate consumers in such a fashion. Who is going to sponsor it? Maybe EFF? How many people on Slashdot donate to the EFF? I do. Every time the make news I donate again. People can thank the EFF for it now being legal to jailbreak their Iphones. Just a quick google search shows some of the valuable work they have done and you can go here to see a list of that valuable work. I urge every Slashdotter to Join the EFF and help them fight the RIAA/MPAA/BSA juggernauts. Any little bit helps.
The crazy thing is, if MS had officially supported installing apps like XBMC, they would now own the living room. It was such a great app and so ahead of anything else at the time, hell, it might even have saved HD-DVD if it was all seen as part of the XBOX family of functionality. Instead they locked everything down to go chase the shadows of pirates, I wonder how much that will end up costing them when the final tally is made.
Of course this is a big deal because Microsoft has been able to bribe^h^h^h^h^h give campaign contributions to enough key politicians including state attorney generals, congressmen, and state legislators that they can pretty much have their way in terms of what laws are written and when they are enforced. Money==power and in this case the "golden rule" applies: "He who has the gold makes the rules". Microsoft seems to have a fair bit of "gold" to spread around, as long as the politicians get their fair cut of the profits.
Ever wonder why Microsoft suddenly has almost no problem with the anti-trust lawsuits any more? Bill Gates thought originally that political campaign spending was a waste of money until the legal troubles started to come up, and then Microsoft set up one of the largest corporate lobbying groups in D.C. and established a couple dozen "political action committees" strictly for the purpose of getting sympathetic congressmen re-elected. And then all of Microsoft's legal problems disappeared like the morning dew. Did you really think Microsoft changed its business practices through all of that?
This prosecution is all about that political influence and how Microsoft now controls the judicial system because of its continued political activity. Opinions of ordinary folks be damned when a Microsoft lawyer can get a phone call direct to a senator or lead prosecutor to make sure their opinion is heard while you or I of more modest means would be sent through a maze of petty bureaucrats and politely or not told to go away because of our lack of importance.
It seems amazing that you can go to prison for "intellectual property" violations... which normally are strictly a civil court issue that can only make you go bankrupt. Seriously, how does sending somebody to prison fit within the congressional authority "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"? If America was a real republic rather than a corporate kleptocracy, things like the U.S. Constitution would matter and the law that this is being prosecuted under would be declared unconstitutional. "Anti-piracy" laws should not be made a criminal matter and can't really be justified as such.
don't forget the tendancy of the xbox to scratch the hell out of discs sometimes
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
In America, the Library of Congress has been given the duties of collecting the registration deposits for anybody wishing to formally register their copyright with the U.S. congress. If you wish to apply for copyright (as opposed to simply letting copyright be automagically applied upon putting content on a "fixed medium") you need to fill out some forms and send a couple copies of whatever copyrighted material you wish to have enforced to the Library of Congress.
This organization, the Library of Congress, is a very interesting organization. It is not an executive branch agency but rather falls strictly under the authority of the legislative branch entirely, and is governed by a committee of congressmen where the "Librarian of Congress" is appointed jointly by the President pro tem of the U.S. Senate and the Speaker of the House. The U.S. President has no say at all in the operations of the Library of Congress.
Originally, this library was a simple resource that members of congress would use to either pass some time or to research legislation (back when members of congress actually wrote their own legislation). In other words, an ordinary library but one that had some interesting people as regular clients. The original collection was started through a donation by Thomas Jefferson, burned down by the British in the War of 1812, and then rebuilt again. In an effort to establish the library and to cut down on expenses, congress (since it does write the laws of the country) set up a tax^h^h^h donation system where every publisher who wants copyright enforced in America would send a copy of their book, movie, or other publication to the Library of Congress... done for the express purpose so Congress wouldn't have to pay for any of the books in this library. As a result, the Library of Congress now has the single largest collection of books and copyrighted material in the world.
The reason why the opinion of the Librarian of Congress matters her is mainly due to the fact that over time the role of the librarian has expanded beyond merely a conservator of these books but also to be a legal expert in terms of copyright law and to be the main source of opinions over what is legal without having to go to the court system. The opinion of the Librarian of Congress matters in terms of judicial rulings and has been given over time extra authority that would typically be found only with the executive branch of government. It is this additional authority that has been granted to this political office over time which is why the Library and the Librarian of Congress matter in this case.
Also, the article states that he would only mod for backups, and if piracy were brought up it would be a "no-deal".
Lol. Just like the head shop up the street that sells all those wicked, color-changing bow^H^H^H tobacco pipes!
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
... when you can be charged with the possibility of jail time for simply soldering computer components together for hire.
This guy isn't responsible for what people do AFTER he performs a hardware modification.
Except that exactly this isn't possible on 360. By modding the DVD-ROM (which he apparently did), he cannot run his own software - he can only run copied games that are already signed by Microsoft. This is totally different from what bunnie did on the original xbox.
Sony could have prevented the whole PS3 jailbreak fiasco without exposing their games to piracy if they had simply given homebrew/hobby developers the same access to the hardware as their commercial developers.
The drive to jailbreak the PS3 was purely because of the restrictions placed on the OtherOS environment. (OtherOS has no access to the RSX graphics hardware and restricted access to the Cell SPUs.)
First some background:
All software in the PS3 is cryptographically signed, and Sony already has multiple signing keys for different applications. Software is either signed by the programmer with a key present in Sony's SDK during development, or signed by Sony for production releases.
There are three main types of PS3 hardware.
PS3 TOOL is the development machine. It has an extra processor in it that runs a debug monitor allowing manipulation of the Cell and RSX. Tool can run programs signed with Sony's SDK key or signed with Sony's release keys. Tool also has twice the RAM of a retail PS3 and a blu-ray emulation function. It cannot play Blu-ray movies.
PS3 TEST is a development test machine intended for use in QA. It does not have the debug processor, and is identical to retail hardware with the exception that it has a second ethernet interface for use with debugging software, it has the blu-ray emulation function, and it can run programs signed with Sony's SDK key or the release keys.
The last version is the garden-variety retail PS3.
The blu-ray emulator used in TOOL and TEST lacks the cryptographic signature present on retail disks, so if you make a image of a retail disc and try to load it with the emulator, it will fail to decrypt.
Only executables signed with the SDK key can be used with the blu-ray emulator. This means you can't use a tool or test machine to pirate released software.
Here's what Sony needs to do:
First, make a homebrew/hobby developer package and sell it. The SDK and TOOL provided ABSOLUTELY MUST be absolutely identical in every way to that supplied to commercial developers. Pricing should be high enough to make a profit, but low enough to be obtainable. Say, $1500-2500 or so. There should be no software support entitlement (to control costs), and a non-disclosure agreement on any proprietary technologies in the SDK.
Second, make a homebrew/hobby version of the PSN. There is already a developer version of the PSN, and this would ensure that everyone stays separated. Access to the homebew/hobby PSN must be conditioned upon acceptance of the non-disclosure agreement. Then create some message boards or forums in the PSN. This would enable the hobby/homebrew programmers to communicate with one another while being assured they are in compliance with the NDA. Consider allowing commercial developers access to the hobby/homebrew PSN as well, so if we find anything interesting they get access to it too.
The third item is the only item that is really new. There should be some sort of release mechanism where games can be released from the homebrew/hobby community to the rest of the world running retail hardware. This shouldn't be free - Sony needs to pay their bills, and it would discourage releasing crap that sucks. Homebrew releases should be prevented from generating profit for the programmer, to keep commercial developers from using the homebrew SDK as a cheap substitute for the commercial SDK. The homebrew developer would pay Sony's QA costs, and once the QA passes, the release is cryptographically signed and becomes a free item in the PSN online store. If the game has serious commercial potential, perhaps an agreement could be made between Sony and the programmer for a full commercial release, with Sony keeping the majority of the proceeds. This is so there is an incentive for upgrading from the homebrew SDK to the commercial SDK if you are interested in making a profit.
It is of EXCEEDINGLY VITAL importance that the only difference between a commercial SDK and homebrew SDK be the software support entitlement and ability to generat
So it's now illegal to have backups? I suggest you look up fair use rights.
a better car on is putting your own car stereo in vs the one that same with the car and doing that can send you to jail as they clam the other stereo can play backup / music from a HDD or CDR. Even if you play free music and or your own music.
Crippen was arrested before jailbreaking of the iPhone was legal. Even if the iPhone decision can be made to apply to the XBox360, he committed his offense and was arrest when it was still illegal.
How people feel if they baded app store lock in / high dev fees in exchange for a mod chip lock down?
Let say there is more then 1 app store and the other app store is not allowed to any censorship (other then apps that let you hack the system to bypass the app DRM? and only for that with NO BS that can be slapped on any thing) and NO HIGH dev fees like apple $99 /year + 30% is a little to high maybe just a % maxing at like 20%-25% or $99 / year max with a 100% free zone for free apps?
Is anyone else concerned that homeland security arrested him? Weren't they created to fight terrorism in response to 9/11?!? And, what on earth does it have to do with "Immigration and Customs"? It sounds like the ESA went to an organization that they knew (1) had nothing important to do today, (2) would have the least capability to understand the issue involved and (3), would have a tendency to overblow the importance, and (4) be desperate to throw someone in jail.
Open Standards Portal
The kind that Microsoft paid for, not Apple, obviously. Gotta pony up if you want legal protection.
I'm guessing the submitter has little to no exposure to laws.
Like anyone can even know that
Games bought via XBox Live for download work that way -- the purchase is tied to your XBox Live account and the target device, so no disk is needed.
If they let you copy the disk, then you could resell the disk and keep playing the game. Given the way the used game market works, the market for game purchases would evaporate overnight.
I suppose if we could go back a few years and put Slashdot in the past, someone would post the following about serial killer Ted Bundy:
Ted Bundy is going to be executed by the state of Florida. His crime? He dared to defend himself in a legal trial rather than pay an attorney to represent him. So to make an example of him, the state is executing him.
Of course this completely covers up the fact that he got the death penalty because he happened to kill a lot of women and was a serial killer.
Anyway, as always an accurate summary of the article itself is too much to ask. Basically the guy is being prosecuted because it's felt that the purpose of his work was to allow people to play illegally copied games. He's got arguments against that that might hold up in court. But it's the whole possibility of infringing that has gotten him into trouble. It would probably be the same thing if jailbreaking an iPhone allowed you to download and use commercial apps without paying for them. Nobody in the government seems to care that he modified his console. It's the "now it can play pirated games" thing that got them interested.
And, what on earth does it have to do with "Immigration and Customs"?
What's sick is that here in California, some former maid of one candidate went on TV and admitted that she [1] was an illegal alien and [2] produced and used fraudulent Social Security documentation and driver's license, and committed identity theft, and not a peep out of ICE. Forget everything else about the sick little drama- a woman went on TV and confessed multiple felonies, but nothing happened because it does not run counter to the moneyed interests (who love sub-minimum wage labor that has no citizen rights).
But modify a toy and offend a big company and, oh boy, look out. The G-men are all over that one.
You might find it interesting to read Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Cory_Doctorow_novel)
"[The protagonist] helps develop a clandestine wireless network, X-Net [so named because it is built on Xboxes], that avoids DHS monitoring using anonymity and encryption. Using the X-Net as a secure communications medium, he organizes teenagers and twenty-somethings who are upset with the police state tactics imposed after the [plot elements]. They develop innovative uses of existing technologies to foil DHS monitoring and cause mass confusion and embarrassment to law enforcement."
I'm positive Homeland Security has read this book. They're probably just cracking down now before things get out of hand.
No doubt in my mind the anti-circumvention law is broken. It was from day one, and the need for a 3-year review of exclusions demonstrates this. A better law might simply make circumvention an aggrevating factor in an underlying act of infringement. I would even be ok with assigning liability to Person X who circumvents a copyright protection for Person Y, if Person X should reasonably expect that Person Y is going to use the circumvention to infringe a copyright.
However, as of today the law is what it is. The attitude in TFS is ridiculous, and reflects an ignorance of the DMCA exemptions that is perpetuated every time we summarize this particular exemption is the "jailbreaking exemption".
First, the exemption does very specfiically talk about mobile phone handsets and software on that type of device. You can call this arbitrary, but that's the result of overy-focused lobbying.
More to the point, while the law does allow for inconsistencies, I'm not so sure this is one of them. After all, not every act of cell-phone jailbreaking is covered by the exemption, and I doubt a person running a business to jailbreak other peoples' phones would be able to shield himself with the exemption. You can argue whether that activity should be covered, but I'm willing to bet it's not.
I point this out because this guy wasn't busted for jailbreaking his own console; he was busted for selling the service of jailbreaking others' consoles. The exception that covers the "app interoperability" part of jailbreaking specifies narrowly that the purpose must be legal, and while he says (with a wink and a nudge) that he won't aid pirates, I don't know that he can state any narrow purpose when he's not the one making use of the circumvention.
And if that sounds backwards - that he should have to prove non-criminal intent - well, I believe that's the nature of an affirtmative defense, which is essentially what the exemptions are. The prosecution has to prove (beyond a reasonable doubt since this is a criminal charge) that he committed an act of circumvention, then I'm pretty sure it's up to him to prove that an exemption applied.
All of this is a symptom of the underlying broken law, of course; but that's not to say that this guy would walk if the law were "right". If circumvention were a civil matter, and if it were only illegal when linked to an underlying act of infringement, then someone wanting to offer circumvention services might be able to write up contracts requiring the client ot state a legal intent and to indemnify the business against claims resulting from infringement related to the circumvention. I don't get the sense this guy was running that thorough a shop, though, which means he might still have ended up on the hook.
Except that I honestly thought that (in terms of the iPhone) that it was a literal unix-type jail. I was wrong - the AFC mode was setting the filesystem read-only, and the "jailbreak" as it were basically puts AFC into restore mode. It was almost 2 years after the fact before I realized that it wasn't a literal jail.
Now that the terminology is being thrown around so liberally, it irritates the crap outta me.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
But my Top tobacco always tastes better when I smoke it out of a $300 glass pipe!
"But this one goes to 11!"
Congress has delegated the 'fair use' exemption for copyright to being decided by the LoC.
They're in charge of defining exactly what exemptions copyright has. (Or, rather, they can add them...they can't take away ones in the law.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
By modding the DVD-ROM (which he apparently did), he cannot run his own software - he can only run copied games that are already signed by Microsoft.
You mean like backups of his licensed software? You just made a pretty strong argument that there are non-infringing uses of this hack.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The feds are getting real itchy with all the aftermarket parts manufacturers "off-road use only" disclaimers, and I betcha we'll see a decline in the quantity of parts that provide an actual performance upgrade once they ban the "off-road" or "racing only" sales to regular folks... I've got some of ^^ on my car and it's a lot more fun! Conversely, I can say for sure it's more likely a heavier polluter than it was from the factory, but at 45mpg (still) and double the power from stock, I am disinclined to care.
Ocean is land, covered with water.
But my Top tobacco always tastes better when I smoke it out of a $300 glass pipe!
Don't forget the double bubbler! The Top is SOOO SMOOTH that way! And you can add ice cubes!
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
If you people would just read the first paragraph, you'd see this bit:
[arrested] on accusations of running a home business of jailbreaking videogame consoles so they can play pirated games.
He wasn't arrested for jail-breaking his xbox. But then again, this is slashdot. Summaries need not be accurate as long as the ends justify the means.
Exactly right. This has NOTHING to do with Apple, iPhone, jailbreaking, etc. This is a guy selling mods that exist SOLELY to run illegal copies of software.
Of course nobody around here thinks companies should make any money and information just wants to be free and all that, but still...
He was modding the DVD-ROM from what I read, that means no homebrew, the game/software must be MS signed.
Why would you mod an Xbox for homebrew software? it is pointless as they let you do it for free anyway, just download the XNA studio for the 360. The only purpose of the mod is backup/pirated games and NO the mod to the rom firmware does not suddenly permit homebrew disks, the disks still need to be signed they just don't need to be authentic.
Why?
Perhaps because it's easier to show legitimate non-infringing use of a jailbroken phone (use on compatible but unofficially supported operators) than it is for the Xbox (use for unsupported video codecs).
Sure, people jailbreak both devices for illegitimate reasons: piracy of apps and games.
Sure, people jailbreak both devices for legitimate reasons: adding functionality.
I think the difference is that the iPhone is a quad band world phone. There's absolutely nothing to prevent it from working on the many, many compatible carriers worldwide except for Apple's contractual agreement with AT&T in the US, and the arbitrary and intentional restriction Apple has placed on the devices they sell in the US to support that agreement. Jailbreaking enables a fundamental freedom for the user: the ability to use on an operator of their choice, independent of Apple's contractual obligations.
It is less clear that the non-infringing alternative uses for the Xbox are as fundamental, or that the restrictions you can circumvent by jailbreaking it are as arbitrary. It's not as if the Xbox 360 contains support for a lot of codecs other than WMV, but that these have been hidden or disabled-- they were never put into the device in the first place, unlike the GSM radio in the iPhone which is capable of supporting other operators besides AT&T. It's not as if the many hobbyist applications to which an Xbox 360 may be put are fundamental to the purpose and use of the device-- unlike a phone owner's choice of network.
Phone jailbreaking enables a fundamental consumer choice that is part of having a free and transparent market for phones and phone service.
What essential consumer choice does jailbreaking a console enable? What role do jailbroken consoles play in the marketplace?
Actually, you can install homebrew software, linux, flash custom firmware and many other hacks doing *basically* what he was arrested for (there are a number of variations, and as the articles don't illustrate his exact hack I dont know which one he was doing, although all of the variations are very similar.)
modding the xbox dvd drive/firmware http://www.xbox360-hacks.com/forums/about3565.html
installing linux on the 360 http://www.xbox360-hacks.com/forums/about2731.html