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Geohot To Turn Over Computers To Neutral Third Party
intellitech writes "This will make a lot of you feel better. Groklaw is reporting that both parties have come up with a stipulation in Sony Computer Entertainment American v. Hotz regarding what Hotz must do about handing over his computers. The new Preliminary Injunction (PDF) now says that he is to turn his materials over to a 'neutral' third party, not to SCEA's lawyers, and after the neutral party combs through them, it all is returned to Hotz. All but whatever they 'segregate' out of them. He won't get that back until the end of the litigation, should he prevail, which this court at least currently thinks is less likely than that Sony will. There will be a hearing on Hotz's motion to dismiss on April 8, 2011."
No. The moral of this whole episode is Don't Buy Sony.
Seriously, is extending the use of hardware worse for Sony?
For example, I own a Sony Mylo 2, payed U$300 for it: a platform that wasn't a lost-sale approach like PSP and PlayStation, but actually had it's profit mark upon first sale. This platform (Mylo 2) runs a closed-source Linux that Sony didn't have permition to use, has ceased from being updated despite having a higher profit margin than other Sony products, has a 600MHz CPU+64MB Ram with just under 1GB of solid-state that perseveres for all applications, and despite running Linux it has been useless to this day while others have bought Sony's true lost-cause known as PSP. Sony lost money on PSP because the jailbreaking allowed use of any ROM or Homebrew, and no money was made on sale of commercial ware from Sony, while actual competitive products like the Mylo 2 get absolutely ignored.
Why does Sony get away with so-much as stealing Linux onto a Mylo 2 that they refuse to open-up, and they prosecute anyone that ports applications to it without their devloper kit, yet with PSP they continually re-patch from anyone jailbreaking it for playing Homebrew and ROM's that none payed for?
Mylo 2 is perhaps a platform with much more potential than any PDA Phone until Open Pandora arrived, yet Sony just continually stifles it's progress.
I believe that would be classified as willful destruction of evidence, which is a criminal act.
Would he not just have deleted anything to do with Sony along time ago? Or better yet, worked from removable media.
This is a civil case, however deleting evidence after being told to hand it over is a criminal offence
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That's a good way to automatically lose your case and get the steepest possible punishment. Judges hate, hate people who destroy relevant evidence, and even if you securely erase the data itself, forensics teams can often tell that you erased something in the first place (and if he did that, Hotz would have to explain why he didn't have any data relating to this project he spend so much time on). I'm sure it's possible to erase things in such a fashion as to avoid leaving evidence that I ever performed an erasure, but I sure wouldn't want to chance it in his situation, especially when it doesn't look like Sony has an especially strong case.
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Has anyone thought he may not have to delete anything? They need to prove he was attempting to circumvent copyright protection devices. My understanding of the situation is that he was trying to restore the ability to boot to linux on the PS3, a feature that was included on the device when he purchased it. If that's all he really did then there isn't really anything to find on his computers other than contacts and login credentials for various accounts that Sony was certainly interested in.
Yeah, everyone seems to be missing the fact the DMCA violations require the intent to violate copyright, not just the ability to do so. If he was hacking with any intent other than stealing games it's perfectly legitimate, even under the DMCA.
Who has heard about this and can still meaningfully declare to stop buying from Sony? Nobody, that's who. Everybody "in the know" already boycotts Sony, so Sony doesn't have to give a rat's ass about anything anymore: Their customers don't care.
My family doesn't buy sony, because as the family techie, I tell them it's not worth trying to deal with them and I get them a system that has the capabilities they want and doesn't depend on brand.
So my boycotting is essentially 40-50 people boycotting. (Hey, I've got a big extended family)
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Uhh, as far as the 3.55 stuff, geohot merely released a FW update that enabled the "install PKG from USB" feature in XMB and some signing tools. Both of those have very valid uses other than piracy, and neither enable piracy in and of themselves. That's like saying that releasing a hex editor or decompiler is illegal because you could use it to crack PC games.
Actually, geohot went so far as to warn people *not* to try making the changes that are necessary for backup managers to function because he had seen that 3.55 FW had some memory protection tricks in place that could brick your PS3 if you tried to patch the LV2 syscalls needed for backup managers (and thus easy piracy) all willy-nilly. I believe exactly what he said was something like "OMG OMG OMG OMG DO NOT PATCH LV2 OR YOU WILL BRICK YOUR CONSOLE" (I know I'm quoting the OMGs, at least -- the wording of the rest might be a little off).
So, FW patch that let's you install signed software from USB + signing tool to me does not = piracy, but rather any capability to run homebrew. Given the fact that he's never enabled any of the stuff necessary to make piracy simple, and outright states tat he's against piracy at every turn, I'm not sure how you get to your conclusion.
kmeaw, hermes, and KaKoRoTo however are the ones you should be looking at.
Personally, I wish all civil and almost all criminal cases operated on this principle.
Any subpoenaed evidence or any evidence caught in a police raid that wasn't obviously relevant should be turned over to a neutral 3rd party for sifting, with only evidence relevant to the case turned over to the police or plaintiff.
I would make two exceptions:
1) Evidence of a future crime, but only for the purposes of stopping that crime. For prosecution purposes, the evidence would be treated as "tainted" and could not be used to prosecute unless it was admissible under some other rule like "inevitable discovery."
2) Evidence of a past un-related crime or non-criminal civil offense where an identifiable victim needs victim-services or restitution, but with a similar stipulation as #1. The victim would be allowed to pursue civil actions and restraining orders using this evidence. One a lawsuit happens, a lot of information enters the public record and for particularly offensive acts, the information gets into newspapers. The criminal may be spared prison and an additional criminal record but he'll still have his reputation impacted.
Yes, this will lead to injustices but my interpretation of "unreasonable search and seizure" means if the police think you are guilty of crime A, and but for the search related to crime A they would never have found out about crime B, then the criminal courts should be treated the same for crime B as if the search related to crime A never happened. BUT it's even more unjust to deny a victim the necessary services once you, the police or a neutral third party, know they are a victim.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Wait a minute here... surely there's a question of whether or not there ARE any "Circumvention Devices", that being a term defined by 17 USC 1201. By requiring Hotz to turn over "Circumvention Devices" the judge is requiring him to either
a) Concede the point here and now OR
b) Risk contempt of court charges for not turning them over.
I didn't realize purchasing a preliminary injunction was so cheap.
I see the "Honorable" Susan Illston is still giving us a demonstration of what "due process" looks like nowadays; first issue a broad ex parte injunction, THEN hold a hearing, then ratify the original injunction with only minor changes, requiring the defendant to cede the case to comply. No opinion was published, so apparently we're not going to get to see her "reasoning" in this case.
...it didn't provide access to all the superjuicy bits - even if they weren't exactly needed for homebrew..
What, like actual hardware accelerated graphics? IIRC, it just provided a framebuffer. Try uninstalling your video drivers and then playing any game.
you really ought to just get a dev license and start making some serious money.
Not everyone's in it for the money, and then you're subject to Sony's rules about what is and isn't allowed on the console. Do you think they'd ever allow something like XBMC?
before long, SONY realized their hacking was getting awfully close to not just unlocking some additional functionality, but also to unlocking piracy.
Interestingly, if you look at the timeline, piracy was about the first thing to fall. It was never the motive, otherwise you'd think these guys would stop.
So they removed OtherOS.
And thus, the first serious effort to hack the PS3. Before they removed OtherOS, it was this invincible platform, people were much more focused at hacking other systems since the PS3 already let them do something, at least.
Keep in mind, the people who made the first attempt are not the same people who ran projects like this.
You also say this casually, as if it's an OK thing for Sony to do, as if it's theirs to remove anymore. If I'd bought a PS3, I'd expect OtherOS to be a feature I bought it with. No matter that Sony had a pissing contest with some hackers, what they're doing here is trying to take back a feature I fucking bought. It's not terribly different from breaking into my car and stealing the stereo back because they've heard some people do evil things with stereos.
...I can do that on a generic PC, laptop, tablet.. you know.. the -real- hacker-friendly hardware.. why bother hacking the PS3 at all if NOT for the piracy?
For the things you can't do on a PC, laptop, tablet, etc. Never mind that, again, it was sold open. How would you feel if Dell took back your ability to run other OSes on your laptop, and locked you to Windows ME?
See if another console developer ever tries to be hackerfriendly again.
I would hope that other developer would take a look at the timeline. The PS3 certainly wasn't harder to hack than any other console. It's now been ripped open harder and deeper than any other console -- Sony is suing because that's what they know how to do, because they know very well that they can't put the cat back in the bag, that they can't just release a patch and call it done. And of course, as a nasty side effect for Sony, piracy is now possible.
But this didn't happen for years. They bought themselves years and years by being even marginally open. If they'd given more access to the hardware, there'd likely be even less incentive to hack it. It's not likely that they'd have kept it closed forever, but it's pretty clear that the only reason the PS3 remained uncracked for so long while other platforms were routinely pwned was OtherOS.
Everybody whining about the homebrew.. get a fucking PC and have at it
Why should I have to? I mean, I have a PC. You're talking about getting another one, trying to make it small, quiet, and cool, while adding enough power to play games, then getting a controller and trying to find PC games that play well from the couch with a controller, then setting up something like MythTV and buying a remote...
Never mind the people who already bought a PS3 for that purpose, back when it was actually reasonable to do. Or the people building clusters out of them. They should just, what, suck it up and throw all that shit away, and then go buy whatever h
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