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GeoHot Asks For Donations To Fight Sony
mede writes "In an interesting turn of events, Sony might have stumbled into a tough nut to crack. George Hotz (aka GeoHot) famous for his iPhone hacking achievements, is planning on fighting the big corporation on removing his free speech rights at utilizing his fully paid for hardware. Hotz has always claimed being anti-piracy (since iPhone activities) and says he has never pirated any game or even signed PSN agreements. He's asking for donations to fight Sony back and try to achieve something similar to what was previously accomplished by the EFF with regard to cellphones. I've already donated."
My small contribution to a great cause.
This is just a media event for Geohot to launch his music career. I bet he'll sign with Sony.
Paypal is NOT a good method to ask tech-savvy people to donate through
Paypal is nearly as hated as Sony.
Give me a postal address and I'll send you a couple of nice $20 bills
Isn't this kid's hack the reason every PS3 game is now rife with cheats?
No thanks, I'm rooting for Sony on this one.
My $50 is a small price to pay if it helps him win the case and set a precedent that leaves me free to discuss Sony's cryptographic failures.
Evil people are out to get you.
I am trying to weed out the fucking donation link amongst ~*8 links (and maybe ones i dont see) sprinkled and 'beautifully' embedded in the sentences as part of sentences in the summary and articles.
why are people doing this ? is it 'cool' when you embed the links with their link texts being parts of sentences ? what about usability, user friendliness ?
holy cow.
if someone can link the donation link in an non hipster, uncool, plain way, i will be grateful.
Read radical news here
$5 for sticking up for my rights. Wish I could do more.
" Hotz has always claimed being anti-piracy (since iPhone activities) and expresses has never pirated any game or even signed to PSN agreements.."
What the fuck is this gibberish?
http://geohot.com/#2/19/2011
Don't like PayPal, don't have much to donate but hope $5 helps. Tired of lame lawsuits over people tinkering with stuff they legally own. Hope you win, GeoHot. Sony: I'm almost considering buying a PS3 (and I don't even play video games) just because I wanna hack one up now. You should help people out instead of trying to beat your own user base to death with their own Sony (TM) devices.
I see this leading to unsubsidized consoles, while that would be good for the hacking/homebrew community i doubt the platforms would be anywhere near as ubiquitous if they charged the full cost + profit for the consoles.
Please use your free speech rights and leave it in the comments here. Thanks.
since when did Sony become the Federal Government?
I see nothing in the linked article(s) about "free speech rights." What did I miss here?
I like microcars
I'm the one who submitted this story in trying to raise awareness and get you to raise funds from the slashdot community.. You deserve backup from many people to stand a good fight vs. sony..
Be careful, George.. You have a very strong opportunity to make a difference.. No one is saying you shouldn't benefit from it after it's over.. In fact, YOU SHOULD..
But take cautious steps in the middle.. You've appeared one time too many as being too media and attention centric.. Focus right now and enjoy the benefits later.. Listen to older people..
mede
The PS3 and iPhone both contain more parts in cost than their retail price reflects. So, when something is sold at a loss you can expect there to be some form of vendor lock-in in order for the add-on products to make back the money lost.
If you want an open computer, buy the parts and build it yourself. You'll pay a whole lot more than $300 for it.
Repeat after me: Not every business plan is viable or continues to be viable as times change.
The PC market does fine without subsidies, let console players pay the full price of their hardware so they stop saying how cheap their hardware is compared to a PC, while typing said message from a PC.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I didn't know leaking trade secrets, like say, a crypto key, was a free speech issue.
Good to know that all of my lawyer friends are completely wrong on this one and that Geohot has set me straight. Now I'm going to exercise my free speech rights and leak some trade secrets.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Don't normally do this, but to preserve the right to tinker - of course I will contribute, and I did.
The Guilty is not a place to throw one's money. Besides, I want to see you hang for your crimes. Sony is only trying to make our lives better, and to make a little money so it can make them better still. You seek to destroy this, and with it, what is MINE !! Die GeoHot Die !!
1,2,3,4,5
It may not be too late to get your money back. This has nothing to do with the right to tinker with your private property, quite obviously. Not sure how you could have gotten that idea other than listening to a bunch of silly rhetoric.
What is your point? That these companies have a business model that is based on not selling their products for a profit? That they want to use the force of law to force that business model to be profitable?
I feel absolutely no remorse for these companies.
Palm trees and 8
1,2,3,4,5? That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage! - President Skroob
I'm not a fan of any of the console vendors but I'm really not a fan of Hotz. Trying to cloth his activities as free speech rights is always dubious but then asking for help is even more so. Its like modifying my car to the point it no longer street legal the going "Waaaa! they are after me! Donate money to me so I can stick it to them!" No thanks, you did this to yourself for fame so enjoy it. This isn't a free speech issue but a civil dispute where if I look into the motives of both I find them both repugnant.
In the end, I've determined both parties suck in this case and choose to side with neither.
I'm nigerian prince mustafa-el-sad, please give me your dollars.
The Donate button can be found on the top of GeoHot's webpage http://geohot.com
and also at the top of his new blog http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com
(both linked in the article)
if you are feeling grateful now, donate to the legal defense
The iPhone A) does not cost less than the sum of its parts (see this story for the actual cost of parts of an iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, both of which are higher than they are sold for) B) is sold on a two year contract to a consumer at a much lower cost than it would be without contract C) makes unknown amounts of money for Apple from AT&T and now Verizon.
/. no less). They were sold at a loss for a long time, and Sony is still probably trying to recoup their losses on that, but they get money off of every game sold as well.
The PS3 is NOT sold at a loss anymore and has not been for well over six months (see this story on
Get your facts straight before you claim such things.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
but i had $65 to spare and threw $25 to the EFF and $40 to George. Times like this its good to remember that it was the EFF that primary fought for the freedom to Jailbreak devices that WE own. And with all the successes they have been getting lately I encourage all on Slashdot to give what they can to support the EFF.
I heard Sony loses money for every PS3 sold, so I went ahead and brought one to help out the cause.
What's wrong with Hotz's activities? Are you saying he should not be allowed to do whatever he wants with the hardware he owns? He purchased his PS3 fair and square, from a retail vendor. He never signed any contract with Sony (nor even agreed to any EULA or ToS or similar bullshit).
Sony is the villain in this picture, they distributed a malicious update that DISABLED the perfectly functional OtherOS feature in existing fat PS3 consoles. They advertised those PS3s for years as being able to support OtherOS *and* being able to connect to the PlayStation network. Then they took these actions which force each PS3 owner to choose either one or the other, rather than keep both like they were originally advertised. That's bait-and-switch. As the owner of a fat PS3, Hotz was totally justified in hacking the hardware to reenable functionality of his console that was maliciously disabled by Sony. Anything he learned during that process (including crypto keys, etc.) can be shared freely because he never agreed to an NDA with Sony.
All these companies that think its OK to sell a piece of hardware and then use the legal system to prevent the OWNERS of that hardware from doing whatever the fuck they want with it, need a fucking reality check. And if you feel bad for them losing money because Hotz has given everyone back the ability to run whatever software they want on their Sony-subsidized computing devices, well maybe Sony should not have based their business model on holding their customers hostage.
5788769866732
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
I like the fighting spirit. But as small a community as we are, do you think we could go up against such a big corporation? More power to GeoHot. Aren't there any engineers in Sony who see how ridiculous this is? Can you please convince the execs to see how much more profitable it would be for Sony if there was more innovation on their platform?
I built a Linux based gaming Console for $230. Your point is invalid.
I'm not saying they are losing money on it, but they are not selling it at a sufficient profit to be doing well if that was all they made. They charge a per-game license, just like all the other console makers (hell they practically invented the concept).
You have to remember there's a difference between not losing money on the hardware and making a reasonable amount of money. The cost of the hardware isn't the only cost, there are all kinds of support costs on the back end for a company. If a piece of hardware costs me $100 to make, I can't sell it for $101 and make a profit unless I sell an amazing amount of them, and probably even then. The per-unit cost isn't my only cost.
I'm not saying an unsubsidized console is impossible, but I think people kid themselves about the price. It would probably be a good bit more expensive than what you see now. Computers can give you a reasonable idea since they are unsubsidized.
This is some of what Sony has accused Geohot with:
* Violating 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids bypassing access control measures;
* Violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which forbids accessing computers without authorization;
* Guilty of contributory copyright infringement for encouraging and helping others to crack PS3s as well;
* Trespassing on Sony's ownership right to the PS3
* Misappropriating Sony's intellectual property
I would say all of the above are very much to do with the right to tinker with ones private property (yes I realise that last bit sounds like a euphemism, it isn't ;) ).
See RC4/ARCFOUR. RC4 was a trade secret of RSA. Nobody else could implement it because nobody knew how. However, it got leaked online. How the leaker got it is unknown. Maybe they reverse engineered it, maybe someone in the company leaked it, maybe there was hacking, who knows? However at that point, others got a hold of it and messed with it and sure enough, it made streams that were like RC4. So other implementations (ARCFOUR) were made.
At that point, the trade secret was no longer a secret so they didn't have control over it. Too bad, that's life.
See the US more or less gives you two choices when you have a special process or technology:
1) Patent it. In this case you are granted a limited time exclusive right to your technology, in exchange for all the details being public. During the limited time you can decide what is done with it, and take people to court if they violate your patent. However once it is up, people are going to be able to implement it since you had to publish the details to get your patent.
2) Keep it a secret. This is just as it implies, you don't tell anyone how it is done or how it works, so only you can do it. As long as you keep it a secret, it remains yours and that can be forever. However, if the secret gets out, well then too bad, isn't a secret anymore and others can have at it.
So while individuals can be punished for leaking trade secrets, if they are under NDA, or for stealing them via industrial espionage, someone who is just using the secret is in the clear because it isn't a secret. If they wanted something the courts enforce control over that's a patent.
I would love to know the actual number of slashdot readers who do donate. The comments about sony abusing it's power are ripe on these boards. Some of it rightfully so. I've recently started donating to projects I find interesting such as cyanogen mod and other idea's found on kickstarter.
I'll be donating a little geohot's way even i'm jealous of the bastards L33t Sk1llz ;-)
You're right - it's much worse. It's about the right to communicate with your peers about your tinkering.
01189998819991197253
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
click the "Donate" button on his page: http://geohot.com/
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
He's helping people crack the PS3. That's illegal, kiddo. Look up the DMCA.
It's also helping to ruin a gaming experience for which millions of people have paid millions of dollars. He's fully in the wrong and deserves to be gravely penalized for it.
this ours, this our technology, this is our history, this our research, this is truth.
we must donate
dont just disagree, think and read
See, I'm twice as generous as you, because I just handed to George "grits" Hotz two more than you. Plenty more where that came from.
Anyone willing to give moar than mee?
Why isn't this covered under the recent jailbreaking decision?
Instead use that money to buy yourself a gun, some ammunition, and start shooting every Sony exec you find.
The message will be made VERY CLEAR at that point, and it will go down in history as a future reminder to ALL CORPORATIONS that you don't fuck with the citizen's right to speak.
I'll personally drop a quarter million on the guns if you don't have them. Just pass a background check and you'll be the proud owner of a .45.
SONY NEEDS TO DIE.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Go get'em Geohot
Even donations?!?!
SONY is damn right.
The KID must learn once and for all.
Damaging programmers should not be seen as heroism.
I would support this, and intend to do so. He's fighting to give us the power to use open source software, do it!
I'm not writing that to brag, I'm writing it to motivate. Think of what you can afford to give, and then add a few more bucks. This is potentially a huge turning point for those of us that care about technological freedom. Step up to the plate, every little bit counts.
He's helping people crack the PS3. That's illegal, kiddo. Look up the DMCA.
Did you even read the post to which you've replied? He mentioned DMCA as the first point on the list.
Yes, this is illegal under DMCA. But DMCA anti-circumvention provisions are an abomination in the first place, and if there is any chance to throw them out as unconstitutional, it's well worth donating.
It's also helping to ruin a gaming experience for which millions of people have paid millions of dollars.
Millions of people pay millions of dollars into Nigerian scams, too. Making it harder for them to do so "ruins their experience", but it's not wrong.
What will be interesting to see is if Sony (who have already tried to fast-talk the court into allowing discovery on paypal donors/blog commenters and youtube video watchers) decide that they want to find out the names and addresses of everyone who pays to support geohot, and then try and bring them into the whole show to try and show that he's soliciting pay for his alleged activities.
They already tried to got a court order to wipe this info from the entire internet (until hotz's counsel told the judge how impossible that was) so at this stage, I wouldn't bet against a "asking for donations for your defense is the same as asking for pay for your infringement" argument. Unless there's a strong precedent that this doesn't apply (something some of our american friends would know better than me.)
"How fine you look when dressed in rage."
If they want to sell something at a loss, that is their business. I pay the price charged in the shop, afterwards it belongs to me.
What next, are you such a slave that you think that you OWE the supermarket to buy candy because they sell bread at a loss leader so if you only buy bread, you are stealing?
Grow a spine.
Sony sells the PS3 as a normal product, no contract no special deal (PSN is not part of the sale). Really, if I sell a coke to you for 10 cents, you now owe me? No, only willing slaves think like that. Those who think they owe brand loyalty and all that crap or think EULA's are worth the paper they are written on.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hmm, It's probably a mistake but I will give you my IP, it's 127.0.0.1
I don't have a lot, but I know what's right and what isn't.
Geo kick their ass!
Geo kick their face!
Geo kick their balls into outer spaaaaaaaccceeeeee!!!
This space unintentionally left blank.
Obviously there are severe moral issues with the suggestion above...however, there are always people who for whatever reason decide that comments like that are a good idea. This is a pragmatic reason for why it's not: you'd be turning Sony executives into martyrs, and the media story would really be about how "all these people who are protesting for consumer rights are really nutso terrorists."
To the poster above: fuck you. You say shit like that, people with certain mental illnesses take you seriously, and the next thing you know people are dead because of a stupid comment you made on slashdot.
To be clear, I am not critizing what he did tinkering with any of his consoles. What I am criticizing is martyring himself on the internet. He is not a fool or foolish to believe that Sony wouldn't be forced to act.
Its not a popular stance on /. but I don't care for the action of either here. Sony and other console vendors have draconian DRM. Hotz can do what ever he wants to his consoles in his house but the moment he went to the internet with this another issue because it forces Sony's hand. Just like the guy who tinkered with his care enough to not make it street legal and the cops want to arrest and the state wants to take away his license complaining he needs money to fight THE MAN is a giant whatever from me. And again I have to reiterate this isn't a free speech issue either but a dispute between two parties in contract. Both can rot in court for all I care and I don't want nor should I even bother to care to get involved.
If you want to see a people fight the good fight for free speech, look no further than recent events in the new where people are protesting on the streets of middle eastern countries. Hotz vs Sony isn't even on the same scale.
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
I don't have a PayPal account since their Wikileaks shenanigans. If I donate with my credit card is PayPal involved?
See yah Sony.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If you buy them all, it's like buying all the empty Large Soda Cups at a Restaurant, then filling them with water (or Whiskey, if you're Irish) you brought with you in a large gallon jug, and then the soda companies get no orders to deliver more syrup to make Soda.
Eventually, everyone thinks the platform is dead to commerce.
The DMCA is fine, and it is constitutional. And the comparison between Sony and Nigerian scams is really quite moronic -- and insulting, since it's MY gaming experience (which I paid for) that I was referring to being ruined by the cheat/hack trash that now litter the game lobbies like rats.
Again: Hotz deserves to be sued and a judgment entered against him.
I think I'll be doing the $20, seems like a good amount. I like this. It's like the old saying of "vote with your wallet". But in this case, since courts and senators here are not bought with votes but with money, I suppose we're "voting with our wallets" in the truest possible form here.
It just worries me that it's going to take a LOT of $20 bills to do this poor guy any good. Tell your friends.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
You need silver bullets to kill those jews.
.. because Sony will willfully violate security and privacy by allowing anybody on PSN to "change" their emails to another other WITHOUT confirming that the changer owns the new address.
Then, deny anything is wrong, sink trouble tickets asking about it, and willfully do nothing until at least brought up through BBB.
I would donate "46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2" dollars if I had it
unfortunately, I don't.... and yes, since I'm a computer geek, I use hexadecimal
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
Already donated.
To Sony. Let's see how effective Hortz's jailbreak will be when he's in prison.
The DMCA is fine, and it is constitutional.
Looks like we're going to find out.
Again: Hotz deserves to be sued and a judgment entered against him.
Yeah, I mean, how dare he ruin your "gaming experience" by exercising his right to free speech? What next, let Nazis speak out freely, too? The nerve!
In all seriousness, though, if you pay for "experience" and it's being ruined by cheaters, then you should raise that up with Sony, as they're the ones who took your money. If they promised no cheats (which is impossible), then take them to court for breach of contract.
He won't see any of my money. I was watching as he continued to talk about being able to do what he wants with his hardware. Then watched him to say I know this info is going to lead to piracy and yet still proceeded to do exactly what would lead to it. I know it's not his fault but making it as public as he did was all about him being in the spotlight and not shit about anyones "rights". So he wanted attention. Now he has it. Enjoy it hotz. Your fighting against someone because you found and divulged corporate secrets not methods to obtain it. And you don't think they have anything against you?
Why isnt there a link to the donation page, or information on how to donate. Thats seriously Lame.
I just got a PS3 for my birthday yesterday. It went back to Target today. Geohot got a donation. I also have an iPhone. I appreciate what he's done on every front, including pushing the iPhone Dev Team to release exploits as they become known, not horde them waiting for Apple.
Sigh. Ill suck it up and use them to screw with Sony, but Paypal is definitely on my list of companies I avoid spending money with.
Dude, you have some seriously messed up pr0n on your computer.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Remember when the press came out to support Larry Flint because if he lost the ramifications would be horrible? I have the same feeling about these sort of court cases.
So you're going to ask a bunch of people too cheap to buy games to fund your legal defense?
But hey, maybe I'll send him a million or two.
Zimbabwean.
Cash on delivery.
Sony needs to be taken down a notch or two right about now. Hopefully George, the EFF and his attorneys will give Sony a kick in the derriere.
I've read Slashdot for years and never made a comment. I finally broke down today because Sony is WRONG! I have donated as much as I could, and understand that I will be donating more in the future. Please fight the good fight, and let the line be drawn here.
As I said in the bioshock movie fund last week, everyone's $10 works if it's geeked enough! :) Many many other things worth our money out there, fraps for one.. it's time to give something back.
Yes, this is illegal under DMCA. But DMCA anti-circumvention provisions are an abomination in the first place, and if there is any chance to throw them out as unconstitutional, it's well worth donating.
There is the possbility that a win by Sony will anchor the DMCA even more solidly in place.
DMCA is pretty solid as is, with a number of prosecutions already. So I don't think it's going to do it any worse. It's just that no-one has explored this angle of defense before, and it's pretty much the only one remaining. Either it works - and then this part of DMCA goes away - or we know that it's here to stay (and campaigning for its legislative repeal is the only option). Either way, certainty is better than legal limbo.
Oh, to be pedantic - this is strictly about anti-circumvention provisions in DMCA, not it as a whole. There are other things there that make a lot of sense and would best be kept (e.g. the whole liability waiver for service providers and the associated take-down procedure).
Absolutely, there is, and if that happens to be the outcome then the next step should be stronger action to change the law.
I know, I know, in reality the next step will be "piss and moan about it on the internet", but at least at that point the law is ironclad and we know
a) where we have to fight to get our rights back and
b) that we really don't own these devices in the eyes of the law, and to treat them as rental machines in future (or stay away from them completely)
Hate sony or not, making this a free speech issue is just ignorant.
Dear Sony SUCK MY MOTHERFUCKING DICK You won't be getting one god damn red cent from me now.
Donated for this worthy cause... I hope he manages to give Sony hell :)
46DCEAD317FE45D80923EB97E4956410D4CDB2C2
Your going to have to use some sort of "wrapper" class for that, but if that were "stored" in a 8 byte value on a continuous non-truncating basis (bear with me), after the maximum value, well it may be negative none the less...after multiple "overflows".
Just donate 20.00 and if your feeling bold, interpret that "20" as a hexadecimal value.
(Cheers, your joke was funny.)
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
While I like the work that GeoHot has done and have been a beneficiary of his work this seems a little contradictory.
It is great that GeoHot is fighting for free speech but seems odd that he is using Paypal, a company that refused to process payments for Wikileaks. Wikileaks were publishing the same information as both The Guardian and The New York Times. It seems quite clear that Paypal is no friend of free speech.
Maybe he ought to use a payment system that allows micropayments from thousands to achieve his goal such as http://flattr.com/ ?
Slashdot Beta should die a painful death.
okay, here's flamebait.
Actually I'm quite surprised about the opinion slashdotters seem to be taking. It seems as if (almost) everyone is thinking that hacking must be allowed at all costs and if the hack succeeds the results and how to do it must be made available to everyone. While at some level - to point out and discover security holes etc... - I agree with and even find hacking ethical, but hacking either just for the fun - and then publishing it - of it or to benefit in any other way is just plain wrong. Granted, the distinction isn't always easy but not in this case.
I assume that there are at least some slashdotters who make software for a living and even try to sell it. How would you feel if someone took the result of your hard work and hacked it such that everyone could use it without you ever seeing any dime of it? I would feel frustrated and wouldn't believe the guy if he said 'I did it just for fun, I do not promote piracy in any way but what the heck, I'll just distribute it so that anyone can see what a great hacker I am and I'm naive enough to think that people will just look at it and never ever use it.'.
Did the posters here ever stop to think how much money, and more importantly, jobs are to be lost if everyone pirates games? And I'm not thinking about the big companies here but the small ones - like the guy who wrote Angry Birds? Sony makes the console and provides the infrastructure. Sure, they take a percentage of every game sold but the majority goes to the companies and individuals that actually make the games and try to make a living out of it. In this sense, Sony is not only protecting their own platform but also standing up for every other company and individual making stuff for the PS3.
How would most people here think if the same guy hacked your bank account and published the details for everyone to see but at the same time tell them to not use it 'because I do not promote stealing'? Wouldn't you do everything in your power to stop him for publishing the details?
Do not get me wrong, I love playing games, find in general that they are way overpriced and I do think Sony is making too much of a fuss about it - it was bound to happen some time - but Hotz willfully and willingly opened the floodgates by publishing the details and now he has to pay the price. It is naive to think that this has no consequences.
Feel free to donate anything you want, I can't (and won't) stop you from doing so but please think a little bit further before you do.
While I totally support Geohotz and his fight, I sent money to Sony.
I don't want it to be use in the PS3 fights, but I have no control over that.
My problem? Everquest 2.
New expansion comes out tuesday, and I bought 3 copies of it. (it's funny though, how some years ago it went from being $20 for an expansion to having to pay $40 for the whole game every expansion. Bastards, but then, we know that, don't we?
But what I don't understand here, is how Sony can sue Geohotz for not doing anything illegal?
I mean, they got it so the court says give up your computer and crap, based on Sony saying Geohotz broke the law. So it means, that Sony decides what the laws means, takes you to court, only then to have the courts say, No, the law means this. Seems like bullshit to me.
and yet, I am supporting Sony.
God I suck.
Be seeing you...
With these donations coming in, it might as well be called "Everyone v. Sony"
so i have to wonder how many people donating or supporting the cause have seen geohotz g4 interview or this lovely little video, because it makes it plain to see geohotz is nothing more than an arrogant attention lover.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iUvuaChDEg&feature=player_embedded
But I only have a MasterCard and a Visa, will the payment go through?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm considering making a donation, but it seems hopeless as long as either: - One needs any money at all to get justice - One can use money to get injustice through any kind of trickery in court - In other words, as long as 'resources' play a significant role in court decisions. OTOH, I don't expect recent IP and anti-hacking laws to be consistent or sound, and investments like this may be required to eventually level them out...
All the luck for you friend, from Paraguay.
I want, by the time this goes to trial, to have Sony facing some of the hardest hitting lawyers in the business.
I am sorry, but this really does sound like the poor kid is truly out of his depth. He really does have no idea how the real world works.
If he has a half decent case that stands a chance of winning, he could do worse than asking a few principled lawyers that I can think of for legal advice. The first one that comes to mind is Ray Beckerman, he could surely take this poor kid aside and try and explain to him from a pro-individual perspective if he stands any chance of winning against Sony in this one. I would love to think the poor kid does, but I doubt it thanks to the DMCA and god knows what other crap the US Govt has passed on behalf of the big corporations that openly bribe politicians through lobbyists.
The problem is that if he has a big puddle of cash to spend on lawyers, he will certainly find hard hitting lawyers to say his has a case and take it all the way to the supreme court, but they may be lieing just to get at his money. The only way to get really good, honest lawyers is to have a decent case and get one to take it on principle or to have a lawyer who is YOUR lawyer and represents you regularly so he want to do the right thing by you in order to keep you as a customer.
If you have a one off puddle of cash to spend on lawyers, you will get many takers who just want the puddle of case and do not care about how they get it. They may well tell you what you want to hear (ie - you stand a chance) in order to take whatever you can get in donations.
I dont read
Before getting sued by Sony, geohot's words were:
"if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me. any of you 3. it’d be fun to be on the other side."
So, if things turned out the way geohot hoped for, he would have been hired by Sony and would have been one of those behind Sony's next DRM scheme, earning big cash. But things did not turn out that way and now that very person is calling the other side for help, arguing about freedom and the rest.
Geohot deserves no support from the community. He's playing double standards, and should be treated by the rules of the game he chose to play.
If Geohot vs. Sony goes to court, I guess we will find out which concept of ownership the law actually supports.
Because not all business models are actually protected by law, even if Sony would very much like that. Granted, Sony probably have a good chance at winning, but they are not automatically in the right.
C - the footgun of programming languages
There was never any contract or promise. But Sony spent a lot of money to create a very secure platform that obviously was fairly difficult to crack.
And there were no cheats until this clever little faggot posted his hack for the world to use and thereby opened the system up to any idiot who wanted to cheat.
This isn't "free speech". You're not "free" to crack somebody's closed system and post the how-to online. That's illegal, and justifiably so -- without such laws the only thing manufacturers could do to protect R&D investment would be an absolutely fool-proof security system. Even if there's such a thing, it's not necessarily cost-effective and there's no reason why our system of laws has to say that it's only illegal to break through a security system if the system unbreakable.
The law has been tested and although it is not perfect, it is also not unconstitutional, and in this case, like many others, it is correctly singling out conduct that SHOULD expose one to a lawsuit.
So, ideally, this kid deserves at least a decade of problems with his finances and reputation, although I'm sure millions of idiotic supporters will turn him into a celebrity.
You and 16 of your closest friends could always each donate the value of one byte..
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
From his website's FAQ:
Why should I care about your personal legal troubles?
You shouldn't. For example, if I was taken to court for sex crimes in Sweden, I would never ask for donations.
Yeah, lose potential donators by taking sides in a controversial topic.
I wonder why donations are already closed.
OK, they closed because he has enough and doesn't want Sony to get the extra in a worst case scenario. Smart.
***********
Oh ya, and the password is ****************
Life has many choices. Eternity has two. What's yours?
I tried, but after I hit submit, Firefox changed them to *'s.... they looked right in the preview.... odd.
Life has many choices. Eternity has two. What's yours?
Why would I donate $$$ to some guy who wasn't smart enough to work anonymously?
Your DVDRs wouldn't do those kids any goods. You'll need to buy a much more expensive 2.5" HD for them to stock the (up to 43GB) games.
46DCEAD317FE45D80923EB97E4956410D4CDB2C2 [base 16]
= 16471181235629961000 [base 10]
= 01000110110111001110101011010011000101111111111 00100010111011000000010010010001111101011100101 11111001001001010101100100000100001101010011001 10110101100100000100001101010011001101101100101 1000010 [base 2]
= 20 bytes
= 10 words
= 5 dwords
= 2 qwords and 1dword
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot