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Sony Files Lawsuit Against PS3 Hacker GeoHot
Kayot writes "George Hotz, or, as he is known on the internet, GeoHot, has been served court papers. Shorty after Team fail0verflow discovered faults in the PS3's TPMs, Geohot and others figured out how to extract the long sought after holy grail encryption keys. Apparently Sony is not pleased and is very keen on defending their poorly defended system with the US legal system. The basis is that GeoHot released programs that allow the signing of homebrew which can be used to make PSN-like games out of normal PS3 games. However GeoHot has never supported any form of piracy and in fact has taken a constant stance against it."
Again, the "enabling" provision of the DMCA pops up. It's like these lawyers have never heard of the phrase "necessary but not sufficient." Yes, GeoHot's tools can be used to enable piracy, but they're not enough on their own. You also need a computer. Maybe Sony should sue computer makers for contributing to the problem. Regardless, the lawsuit is over so far. They weren't seeking damages, just a restraining order over the information. GeoHot decided to put the information back up on his site, so we'll see what happens there.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
From all that I have read and followed the ONLY reason it has not been cracked earlier was because OtherOS existed and removed the need to crack it from those that actually had the skill to do so. The second they removed "OtherOS" they gave a huge number of experts a reason to crack it.
Sony did it to themselves.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B
riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D
pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19
R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17
n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1
K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D
Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70
Sorry Sony, don't know how that happened. My cat jumped on the keyboard.
Not forgotten at all. The original exploit by Geohot was an awfully long way from producing something that was actually usable as a means of playing pirated games on the PS3. It was one of the small cracks that had appeared in the wall and as a pay-off for 5 years of effort, it was pretty poor. The nature of the attempts to break through the PS3's security barriers changed dramatically following the removal of OtherOS. I don't deny, however, that the sheer, brazen anti-consumerism that Sony manifested in yanking the OtherOS feature from all PS3s will have had a massive "red flag to a bull" effect.
The problem is that they may have picked the wrong person.
What if the EFF or another firm helps him pay legal costs to fight this? He isn't pirating material, nor distributing pirated material. Sony advertised a feature and sold consoles under the guise you'd have that feature, and then removed that feature.
GeoHot didn't hack the PS3 until Sony removed functionality.
And while you can argue circumventing copyright measures is illegal for any reason according to the DCMA, this isn't a criminal case, and a federal judge has already opened the door saying jailbreaking an iPhone to get additional functionality (not piracy) is legal.
Sony could actually hurt their own case by allowing a judge to rule against them.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
oops?
erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19 R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17 n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1 K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70
OMG! That's illegal! I'll use a quote to show everyone the thing that is illegal so they don't type it accidentally. Just doin my civic duty.
GeoHot didn't hack the PS3 until Sony removed functionality.
actually geohot is the reason why sony removed otheros, he was the first to discover a vulnerability exploitable from linux, then he disappeared only to come back a few weeks ago
this is the news that geohot hacked the ps3 in january http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/01/25/0654253/PS3-Hacked
and this is the removal of otheros from march http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/0227251/Install-Other-OS-Feature-Removed-From-the-PS3
George Hotz's work has been mirrored by Carnegie Mellon professor David Touretzky, known for his excellent work towards freedom of speech on the Internet through his publication of The Secrets of Scientology. Dave Touretzky has repeatedly shown himself willing to accept whatever the MAFIAA et al will throw at him.
That exploit was minor and didn't allow you to do much of anything. He published a small exploit that he saw. The moment Sony removed OtherOS GeoHot said he was motivated to fully crack the PS3 to enable custom firmware.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
And I'm tired of people not bothering to read up on anything before commenting on it. The hacks that Geohot and the fail0verflow team performed were done on a similar timeframe to hacking the Wii/360, i.e. 12 months max. The reason it didn't show up for 4 years was because nobody was trying very hard, thanks to the Other OS feature allowing you to run your own code out of the box. The fail0verflow team very clearly made this point during their CCC presentation, which is in the link to their original story in the summary.
I like to think of online DRM as something akin to a college -- you pay for lessons until you learn something.
I am not a lawyer (yet... hopefully next week, though,) so this isn't legal advice as much as a deconstruction of their complaint. In terms of mistakes, their first mistake was to sue the members of fail0verflow. It's true that one of them lives in the US, but three of them live in Europe, where the courts are extremely protective of their own citizens. They're gonna have problems with the fact they are trying to sue them under the DMCA (not applicable in Europe), service of process (to serve process on them will literally take months, and if they mess it up, the foreign court could ignore the judgment), proper forum (they say that the EU members have signed a TOS with SCEA, when logic would dictate, seeing as they live in Europe, that they signed one with SCEE, and so they should technically be sued in London or somewhere like that), and personal jurisdiction. They also have to contend with the DMCA exceptions.
The first claim for relief involves the DMCA, which I never studied in law school, and so I'll defer to people who actually know that to explain why that claim wouldn't work. The second claim is where things start to slide into the realm of insanity. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was a law designed to make it illegal to break into systems that the person DOESN'T OWN. Breaking into your own system (just like breaking into own house), is not supposed to be illegal. So, the only way that this claim would work is if Sony had an ownership interest in the PS3 that they sold you. The fourth claim is rather similar, just based on California state law. The seventh claim for relief is where they go into some strange parallel universe. There, they claim trespass. Trespass is when you invade someone else's property. But how could it be their "property" when they sold you the system? After all, the UCC's implied warranty of title gives any good-faith purchaser for value a clean title to the goods they have purchased. They did access the system, but they bought the system. This means that once you buy the system, you own what's in the system. Well, not everything, mind you, seeing as Sony still owns the actual copyright to the software on the system, but you get the point. What they are essentially claiming here is that the EULA that they require to sign before using your PS3 gives them back an ownership interest in the system sufficient for them to be able to raise trespass claims.
Normally, this kind of thing is dealt with through an EULA (meaning, hacking is a breach of contract), but here they seems to be claiming that the EULA grants them an actual ownership interest in what they sold you. If they were to get relief on those claims, what's to stop others from including contracts included with what they sell you from saying that to use what they have sold you, that you must acknowledge them as the owner of what they just sold you? I dunno, this just seems like another chink in the very concept of private property. Oh well, discuss.