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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.
PayPal is the only real option for people asking to RECEIVE money if they're not in the USA or the UK. Google Checkout is NOT available in any other country.
I know a few Nigerian Princes that provide a more tech-savvy payment method.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
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.
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.
If you're referring to multiplayer, it's been done for years with a comparatively simple method: packet alteration. Run your internet connection through a proxy server that is configured with software to alter specific outbound packets. No console hacking needed.
You wouldnt know HBGary by any chance?
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Mailing cash around is orders of magnitude more work than sending money over the internet, and far less secure. Expecting people to do that for you is a recipe for disaster.
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.
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 reason that every PS3 game is rife with cheats is because those games were designed poorly. If the security were implemented server-side instead of client-side, no amount of console modding would make cheating possible.
Que?
Sony's dicked around a lot of people, but Paypal's done so much worse than Sony. Denial of numerous non-profits own money such as Wikileaks, obscene service charges, shady privacy policy...
What the hell do you have to do to be more hated than Sony around here?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
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.
I'm sure they'll return the favor...
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Sending physical cash via snail-mail is the worst possible thing you could do.
Not to mention that banks require a fee much higher than the exchange rate to convert cash to your country's currency. Send 10 Canadian dollars to GeoHot (who lives in New Jersey, according to Wikipedia) and his bank will most likely take 10 to 15% away from those 10 Canadian dollars (which are worth 10.1348 U.S. dollars according to Google).
I'm with.. stupid?
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.
The recoup in costs for an iPhone is the 2 year agreement you must sign in order to get the phone.
Sony, much like Microsoft with the Xbox 360, now ban anyone found to be using a hacked PS3 from the Playstation Network. "O noes mah onlien gaeman is filled wit CHEETARZ" is a short-term problem that won't be around for too much longer. "Holy crap my right to free speech and my right to modify my own possessions have just been torpedoed in the legal system" is a much MUCH longer-term problem that would take a lot of money and time to reverse. For Sony to win this one would set a scary precedent. Imagine a world in which you can only install approved software on your PC; if you try to write your own applications or games and the manufacturer of your computer gets wind of it, your door gets kicked in by the police and everything gets confiscated.
Please kids, try to see the bigger picture before you post your ignorance for all the world to see. It'll save those grownups who feel compelled to do so the time of trying to explain it to you.
Also, $20 donated here. I'd be interested to see the stats in a few months; I hope he posts them.
Don't normally do this, but to preserve the right to tinker - of course I will contribute, and I did.
since when did Sony become the Federal Government?
Perhaps when Sony's "GDP" surpassed the government's? j/k ;)
I see nothing in the linked article(s) about "free speech rights." What did I miss here?
Sony got a restraining order against Geohot, in an attempt to stop him from talking about how he did the hack. Sony also seized all his hardware. Tbh, this is more of a fight against anti-circumvention, which is an aspect of copyright (eh, what?) which contradicts hardware owners' rights to do with their physical property whatever they wish (e.g., jailbreak an iPhone or PS3 that they legally own).
because inherently you have the right to alter things you own....EXCEPT when that device is suddenly covered under the DMCA, and suddenly it's illegal to do something with your own device. The grounds on which he is being sued on are based on unjust laws. If the DMCA had been passed 100 years ago it would be illegal to work on your car, to renovate your home, or to alter your clothes.
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
Sony's getting the government to restrict Hotz's speech.
the court(Judicial Branch of government) banned him from talking about the entire subject in public.
You have a problem with him reverse engineering the inner workings of a device he legally purchased and then sharing that information publicly?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The thing with trade secrets is that you're only bound by the NDA if you actually signed it.
If the company gives you the trade secret, without making you sign an NDA, but puts it inside a box, it's their fault if you open the box and get the trade secret, not yours.
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
Funny, when last I checked, if you reverse engineer Coca Cola and discover their secret formula, you are allowed to disseminate that information. What makes a crypto key any different? Geohot did not break into any Sony offices to compute the key.
Palm trees and 8
If you seriously believe the iPhone's BOM is higher than the unsubsidized retail price I have a bridge to sell you. When you buy one via AT&T or Verizon, it's the carrier eating the cost to fool you into thinking you got a deal with your contract.
Then why doesn't Apple disable the locks on devices bought without a contract?
I paid $600 for my N900. This lock down has nothing to do with recouping costs.
then you aren't seeing the bigger picture. This is about companies being able to sue anyone they want into silence, while that person didn't break the law at all.
What trade secret? Published keys were already "published" by Sony, because a defective security implementation. It is like writting a number in the box and forbidding you to tell it to others. Geohot just told others what was the keys for his console, and the fact that these keys were the same for all consoles is just Sony's fault. In my opinion Sony deserves this and much more, because of fuking their customers (I still hold PS3 firmware 3.15, for using Linux, but not being able to play new games, because the *requirement* of firmware update). By the way, I have no intention of buying anything produced by Sony, including their media brands (e.g. Columbia Pictures).
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
As it turns out, you can modify a car so that it is not street legal, and you can then send information on how you did that to other people. This is a free speech issue: Geohot did not break into Sony offices or commit any sort of industrial espionage in order to compute the signing key; his only apparent violation of the law was to post a copy of what he had computed on the web. When posting something you computed becomes illegal, then there is a serious free speech problem.
Palm trees and 8
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.
WTF is trade secrets? The man found out some interesting information and posted it. No harm done.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
I heard Sony loses money for every PS3 sold, so I went ahead and brought one to help out the cause.
rofl @ mailing cash . . . .
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
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.
in this case, yeah, your lawyer friends would be wrong. maybe you should let them know that.
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.
So when exactly did geohot ever sign any agreement to keep their crypto key secret?
he's not their employee.
he has no privileged access.
If I analyse coca cola in a lab and figure out their secret formula I don't have to keep my findings secret because I've never signed up to any agreement with coca cola.
It's not my responsibility to keep their secrets secret.
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.
And in order to get that price, you sign a contract. The only thing you sign when buying a PS3 is the receipt for your credit card purchase, which is most certainly not a contract with Sony. When you enter a legally binding contract with Sony upon purchasing a PS3 requiring you to buy at least four games, they have a right to complain. Until that time comes - which it won't - they can enjoy a nice steaming mug of STFU.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I didn't know leaking trade secrets, like say, a crypto key, was a free speech issue.
Writing and talking are considered speech. By extension, so is communicating with people over the internet. The constitution claims to protect free speech (from the government). The government ignores this and does as they wish anyway. If anything, your "lawyer friends" were warning you that the constitution is no longer relevant.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
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.
"O noes mah onlien gaeman is filled wit CHEETARZ" is a short-term problem that won't be around for too much longer.
Do you live in the real world? Microsoft is STILL fighting about cheats. Not to mention people like Valve have to continually update their anti-cheating software. There is no way that cheating is a "short-term problem"
The thing with trade secrets is that you're only bound by the NDA if you actually signed it.
You are misinforming people. Please stop. NDAs are simple contracts covered by contract law. Trade secrets, on the other hand, apply to everyone because places like California have passed laws making it illegal to knowingly disclose trade secrets. It has NOTHING to do with having signed a contract and applies to everyone in the jurisdiction, not employees of the company in question.
First, I think Geohot should eventually be vindicated.
The DMCA. I think a crypto key will be portrayed by Sony as a device in the same way that a key that starts a car or unlocks your house is a device. Once they establish that, they will use the DMCA to try to silence and punish him.
There are a few differences though. First, the key is quite literally just a number. It isn't a digital representation of something physical. Secondly, Geohot has been consistent when talking about cracking the PS3 and never implying or suggesting that this is for piracy.
What I think will ultimately be Sony's undoing is their removal of the OtherOS feature. This provides a pretty significant non-piracy motive for cracking the PS3.
You're right - it's much worse. It's about the right to communicate with your peers about your tinkering.
Funny, when last I checked, if you reverse engineer Coca Cola and discover their secret formula, you are allowed to disseminate that information.
Not in California or other states that have passed trade secret laws.
And I threw in the most relevant link of them all, viz., the link to fucking donate.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
01189998819991197253
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
You mean like in Korea where indie devs have to pay a criminally high fee even if the game is freeware?
Why isn't this covered under the recent jailbreaking decision?
The LAW restricting my rights to what i do with my personal property should NOT HINGE ON THE MANUFACTURERS BUSINESS MODEL. It none of my fucking concern how Sony projects to make profits on things they sell me. I own it, im free to do with it and modify it as I please. At the end of the day the PS3 IS a computer. There is no other way to describe it. Because Sony sells it at a loss (which they dont anymore) does not change the fact that it is by any definition a personal computer.
Good-bye
i would put it that the shysters of the world are focusing more on electronic transactions than they would on cash in the mail.
geohot could post his bank deets and we could zap it into there directly...
be microsoft.
Paypal has never let me down.
You should try my banks online payment system!
- First, you need your personal id number, which anyone can get from open databases.
- Next you need a keycode generator keychain thingy that doesn't even have a pincode and is easily stolen.
- Thirdly you need your personal password which in my bank is the same as the phone pin for dial-your-account making it dtmf snoopable. Also, using it on your phone opens up a world of spying.
Now, if I don't bring my key-gen around with me, I have no way of using my card online, not even my Visa or MasterCard!
If I do bring it, I still need a browser that supports their specific version of Java, and it doesn't work on multiple versions of Chrome and Firefox...
There's a line between safety and usability. Besides, we are talking money here. It's traceable. Follow the money and you find the crooks. I'd rather have an automated system dial me up and ask if my "large" or "reapeated" transaction is really my own, than needing a tonn of false security systems that waste my time.
Oh and I hereby claim that "An automated system to contact, in any viable way, an accounts holder to verify/approve or otherwise safeguard a transaction, or transaction possibly out of the normal, repeated or otherwise, to be an idea I came up with on my own and post online for the benefit of everyone, but to the direct proffit of no singular institusion or person. It is public domain unless already patented by some idiot, in which case the patent is obvious and should be nulled."
Just because you make a law does not make it right or in line with the rights in the constitution. Fair dealing, in my personal opinion, sides with geohot. And he's got another $50, from me, to help make his case. You have to be careful not to be blinded by the maze your lawyers and their corporate friends have set up to separate common decency and fairness from the world of big business.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Well, maybe internationally, but at least in Slovenia, mailing an envelope costs ~40cents, while banks (and, ironically, the post office as well) will charge well over an euro for a transaction to another bank. Of course I'm not smart enough to comprehend how can processing and delivering mail cost more than changing a couple of number in a computer, but that's probably just me.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
...and for those arguing that it is, the real difference is that you didn't get THEIR secret, you derived your own formula by analyzing their product. If you discovered that some chemical engineer from Coca Cola had left his chemical composition documentation on the bar when he went home, and you looked at it and reproduced the formula from it, that WOULD be violation of trade secrets (in some places).
I've done thousands of international transactions and I can tell you that you are just plain wrong. In fact I've always gotten much lower exchange rates through my bank when I withdraw money overseas, I don't even bother exchanging money anymore.
Also, if you're going to cheat, you may as well watch a movie, you fucking griefer assholes.
You got it all wrong, games are actually more like movies with cheats.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Until PayPal decides to freeze your account and take your funds hostage on a whim. They can and will do this for no apparent reason and there is nothing you can do about it, as they have shown time and time again. Then you have these things called checks, money orders, Western Union, and wire transfers....
I would support this, and intend to do so. He's fighting to give us the power to use open source software, do it!
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.
They're free to do so - vendor lock-in, DRM, whatever. It's all fair game.
What isn't fair game is putting in place a law that lets them criminalize anyone who deals away with their DRM and lock-in. If their business model is unsustainable without such a law, that's too bad, but they don't have a right to a profitable business model. They can still sell the consoles for full price.
I'm sure Hotz appreciates your generous donation. I hope one day we all will appreciate it through an open and free country.
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
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.
I don't have a lot, but I know what's right and what isn't.
the question i would ask, what consitutes a trade secret in a commercial electronic device using mathematic algorithms to protect content? whats the secret? is it patented?
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
The courts do have the right to do that, but in this case it doesn't make any sense. The information is already out there, and having Geohot shut up is pretty much only going to help him. There are occasions where it's legitimate, but in this case it seems a bit of a waste of effort.
Really, what we probably ought to have is a "get geohot to shut up" fund before he gets himself into any more trouble, than he already is in.
Geo kick their ass!
Geo kick their face!
Geo kick their balls into outer spaaaaaaaccceeeeee!!!
This space unintentionally left blank.
and?
no design documents were stolen or left in a bar.
they examined the hardware and used a flaw to derive their own signing key... which also happened to be the same as sonys.
still no violation of trade secrets.
This is messed up
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.
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*
No he just made it really easy for people to ruin games like MW2. Read about the lobby hack before blindly defending him.
Hotz was trying to jailbreak the ps3 before OtherOS was removed. It was actually Chinese pirates that found the original exploit and Hotz took it further and released the keys online which led to millions having their online experience ruined. But /. likes to pretend it was some heroic story.....gag.
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.
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.
What if I want to donate more than I feel comfortable sending through PayPal?
I'm excited! Email me, we'll figure it out.
Or you could read what he wrote and send him an email? It may not be exactly what he was talking about, but it's worth a shot if you're actually interested in helping.
Alex the Stoner?
Yes, I'm a stoner because I have a medical script for medical cannabis due to debilitating post-operative pain.
I love how you post anonymously, as if it shields you from your own stupidity!
Real men identify themselves.
The government already knows who I am, as I've had multiple talks with FBI, SS, courts, judges, governors, etc. You apparently do not know who I am.
You amuse me.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Sony lacks the honor for such an action.
Seriously, you think people that value money over the rights of individuals would even be capable of such an honorable act?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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.
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.
No, this kid's hack is the reason you can do things like run homebrew and linux again. Like you could when you first bought your PS3, before they updated firmware to prevent it from allowing you to do the very thing it was capable of doing when you bought it. What other people have done with the ability to do what you want with your own hardware is their own doing; not his.
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.
The Guilty
Wow that was fast! The story's only a few hours old, and already the trial is done?
Sony is only trying to make our lives better, and to make a little money so it can make them better still.
Yes Geohot, stop going after the non-profits! We should be donating to Sony (out of curiosity, do they qualify as a charitable organization? Tax purposes).
Karma be damned.
Sony: I'm almost considering buying a PS3 (and I don't even play video games)
Then they rather you not buy one. Their PS3 works via the razorblade model where they sink billions into R&D and sell the console at slightly below or at break even prices, recouping their cost via game sales.
Hopefully Sony will survive this gen to make the PS4, else enjoy your new Microsoft monopoly where they control gaming in the PC and on consoles.
How quick people forget the sins of that MS. I suppose this short memory is why politicians can manipulate people with such ease. I feel like the donkey in Animal Farm.
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)
Then they rather you not buy one. Their PS3 works via the razorblade model where they sink billions into R&D and sell the console at slightly below or at break even prices, recouping their cost via game sales.
Then we should all send $20 to GeoHot AND buy a PS3 and hack it, so Sony will loose money.
It's not our problem if Sony's business plan is broken
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
See, here, you root for Sony. In Soviet Union, Sony root you!
It's what the rules are which are in dispute. Sony's rules are "we made the device, we control it forever, even after we sell it to you". However, this is a violation of the whole concept of ownership and sale, the rules of which are "once a piece of property is sold, the new owner gets to control it and the former owner relinquishes the right to control it".
The model at it's essence is Sony sells the console cheap to you, you buy games where they take a cut so they can recover their expenses.
They enforce the model by copyright protection, and mind you Sony isn't the only one demanding copy protection, publishers want it very much as well.
If you don't like their enforcement, you are free to not buy the product. There are "free" alternatives like PC that come unemcumbled.
Yes, it does not gel with your specific concept of ownership, but it's a decent enough trade model.
Sony provides a service/product under certain conditions, you pay them.
Goods and services gets produced, producers get paid.
Hate sony or not, making this a free speech issue is just ignorant.
Who gives a shit about MW2 when compared with the freedom to do what I want with my property and share what I've learned with others?
Are you really more concerned with a game than your freedom?
ps - George, I was going to buy killzone 3 in the next couple weeks. You can have the $$ instead and any money from any other games I would be buying until the sony bullshit stops.
You're some retard stoner who pretends to make money selling LEDs. And who thinks that foxes and dogs are in the same genus.
With love from /furi/, Dahan
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
Sony does not lose money on hardware -- Microsoft does that, but Microsoft is nowhere close to Sony scale when hardware production is concerned.
Sony is just incredibly greedy, and wants to encourage poor game programming to support their insistence on including DRM everywhere.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
WTF are you talking about?
Trade secrets are only trade secrets when they are under control of the owner and passed to employees, contractors, etc. This is accomplished through (and only through) NDAs. Without NDA, there wouldn't even be a way to know if something is a secret. Once an information someone believes to be a secret is passed somewhere without an NDA, it is not a secret anymore -- though the person who disclosed it and was under NDA, can be prosecuted, unless, of course, it is the original owner itself. If it is discovered independently, there is not even an act of disclosure where a "secret" applies.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Citation please.
As for Coca Cola, it is known already. There is nothing special there, just no one would bother to create a giant company to compete at their/Pepsi scale. For fuck sake, they sell juice as well -- juice "recipe" is universally known, and it does not cause them any problems.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Citation needed.
Components for the PS3 and 360 are about in the same league, the differences in cost can't be much, an efficient process can only save you so much.
Throughout the PS3 life span Sony has been desperatly trying to get the price down. They would sell it cheaper, and increase their install base, if they could.
And also note, it's not just manufacturing and component cost they have to recoup, there is setup and R&D cost running into the billions as well.
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.
Nobody gives a shit about your stupid games.
"booo hooo, somebody cheated on my stupid little game"
Shut up, grow up, and get a life. Fucking moron.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Sony has its own hardware production, Microsoft outsources everything.
Sony did R&D on consumer electronics since it was founded, Microsoft has a bunch of recent graduates with "cool ideas" (such as Kinect) and megalomania.
Sony competed with Nintendo and Sega for the whole lifetime of Playstation line, Microsoft dumps billions on random R&D without any hope to recoup anything in half a century, just because it has money flowing from Windows and Office.
Sony may be evil, but they are not dumping hardware onto the market to support games sales.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
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...
And it frankly wouldn't surprise me if this is EXACTLY what happens! All it'll take is a nice phone call from Sony or one of their affiliates and PayPal will just lock the money up until the trial is over or he wastes an amount equal to the funds fighting them.
Why anyone would use a company with a history of royally fucking over their customers on any whim for an actual defense fund is beyond me, but I won't touch PayPal with a 50 foot pole. There have just been too many burned for me to allow anything of mine to touch that mess.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
With these donations coming in, it might as well be called "Everyone v. Sony"
Sony outsources too, it's all made in China.
Their CPUs are made by Toshiba, they don't have any fabs now.
It's not dumping, they sell it at break even or a little below break even, MS does the same thing.
Both got billions of dollars in R&D to recoup, except one is filthy rich from 2 monopolies, the other has been struggling for the past decade or so and had to get a bailout from the Japanese government recently.
Irrelevant, he allowed you to have your console back to how it was pre-other os removal.
The only people who allowed the lobby hack were the inane developers who blindly trusted an untested security system
the question i would ask, what consitutes a trade secret in a commercial electronic device using mathematic algorithms to protect content?
Any secret information that lends a company a competitive advantage seems to be covered. So if it is the same style of algorithm as everyone else is using, it is not covered. I was mostly just commenting to correct the misinformation about trade secrets in general, not this specific case.
is it patented?
Patents are public documentation of a process and would preclude a trade secret.
Yep. That's something I agree with. Your DRM is only as good as the work you put into it, and should be replaceable once your encryption key is discovered and/or leaked out. They shouldn't get protection by law, they should back it up with their own money.
But I only have a MasterCard and a Visa, will the payment go through?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
And the incidence of cheating is far lower.
IS it 0? No? But is it acceptably low? YES
WTF are you talking about?
Trade secrets, as opposed to NDAs. You and many others don't seem to understand the difference.
Trade secrets are only trade secrets when they are under control of the owner and passed to employees, contractors, etc. This is accomplished through (and only through) NDAs.
Take a look at both the UTSA and California's Civil Code sections 3426.1-3426.11. If you knowingly receive trade secrets from a trusted party and use them to profit, even if you've never signed an NDA in your life, you are still guilty of a crime. So I'll say it to you as well, please stop misinforming people and do your research before handing out amateur legal advice.
PS3 - not true since the fat PS3
And, frankly - irrelevant. Sony took a gamble that you will buy X games / contrllers / etc in order to offset this initial subsidy.
You are, however, under NO COMPUNCTION to do so. Unlike a contract for an iPhone.
If you cat see the difference between a contract agreement for minium term service in exchange for a reduced rate and a simple retail transaction, I pity you.
The crypto key is not a trade secret. It was also legally obtained even if it were a trade secret.
Nope. If you have legally reverse engineered / independently discovered their "secret", then tough for them
Of course I'm not smart enough to comprehend how can processing and delivering mail cost more than changing a couple of number in a computer, but that's probably just me.
They charge for the same reason movie theaters charge a "convenience" fee when ordering your tickets online instead of going up to the cashier.
The model at it's essence is Sony sells the console cheap to you, you buy games where they take a cut so they can recover their expenses.
They enforce the model by copyright protection, and mind you Sony isn't the only one demanding copy protection, publishers want it very much as well.
If you don't like their enforcement, you are free to not buy the product. There are "free" alternatives like PC that come unemcumbled.
Where the hell are does rule written ?
Where I live, the rules are : once you buy a product, you are the owner and you can do whatever you like with it.
I can go buy a PS3 just to see what color the flames are when it burns. It's my damn money, I do whatever I want with it.
What about people who buy the console, but never buy any game, they just rent it ?
What if I buy the console and only ONE game, because that's the only game I wanna play ?
Yes, it does not gel with your specific concept of ownership, but it's a decent enough trade model. Sony provides a service/product under certain conditions, you pay them. Goods and services gets produced, producers get paid.
Hey, I have a car to sell you, it's cheaper than any other car on the market. BUT... you can only use my gas, which is two times the price of the market. And you can only use parts you buy from me, again at double the price of others. And if you don't follow those rules, I'll come to your house and seize it, and all your tools because you used them to break MY rules.
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
So your idea is to mail cash? Perhaps you should flee this site before you're crucified for being stupid. . .
Dude, STFU. Yes, perhaps those people are assholes, but nobody deserves to die.
I take exception with this statement. I think a more accurate statement is that none of us on earth is qualified to decide who does. I think it's pretty clear that some people, who do more harm than good, "deserve" to die &mdash but I believe it to be equally clear that only someone who can see all outcomes can make such a decision. Until Jesus comes back or Paul Muad'dib is born, killing people when there is an alternative is arrogant at best.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
When you buy the PS3, you're not just buying hardware, you're buying a hardware+software combination. You may own the physical hardware but you don't own the software.
While the actual manufacture of PS3's is in China, the R&D on the thing was done almost entirely in the US by Sony and IBM. Last I heard, Cell CPU's for the PS3's were manufactured by IBM at their East Fishkill NY facility.
So ? What is your point exactly
Most electronic these days have some software embedded in it.
So you mean, I don't own my microwave ? or my DVD player ? My alarm clock ?
What about my HD TV ? Can Sharp dictate what I can watch on it, or prevent me from plugging my Atari 2600 on it ?
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
Meaning, You don't have a license to modify/disassemble and/or publish the details of the software in the consumer electronic device.
In other words, you can watch/use your HDTV, but you don't have the right to take the software that's on it and redistribute it, or modify it so you get free Netflix or something similar.
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
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.
Certainly I own the copy of the software that's contained in the device.
Nor do I need any such license, any more than I need a license to disassemble the console hardware.
Redistributing it is covered by 17 USC 506. Modifying it _to get free Netflix_ is covered by 17 USC 1201(a). But modifying it in general does not fall within the scope of copyright law.
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?
Closed hardware is the only approach with a history of success.
Security through obscurity is not security, for the same reason that we have locks on our doors rather than a "secret door-opening lever": once some one knows the secret, you have no security.
The "rules" of the game is pretty much common sense, it's defined as "rules" which must be followed if the model is to sustain itself.
While Sony can't put a gun to your head to make you follow the rules - separate issue from Geohot's hacking, which is a case of DMCA violation.
They are betting on enough people doing so to make it profitable.
It's a risky model, but it has worked well enough.
Most people don't have a problem with it, it's appreciated that the few of you that do have an issue with it just avoid the product, instead of gumming up the works for the rest of us.
Hey, I have a car to sell you, it's cheaper than any other car on the market. BUT... you can only use my gas, which is two times the price of the market. And you can only use parts you buy from me, again at double the price of others. And if you don't follow those rules, I'll come to your house and seize it, and all your tools because you used them to break MY rules.
Nothing wrong with that, if those conditions have been stated at the start, and if you have the choice to not buy that car.
IBM or Toshiba for Cell me think.
That said, MS's 360 CPU is also from IBM, their GPU from ATi, while Sony's GPU is from nVidia.
Everyone outsources - from their company that is.
http://tinypic.com/r/2r5gleg/7
Welcome to my research facility.
What were you saying?
BTW They changed taxonomical classification AGAIN - have you paid attention to the scientific world or do you continue to rely upon Wikipedia for your outdated and sorely incorrect information?
We just added 'Tribe' to the scientific taxonomical classification. That change once again drops the Fox firmly into the mix with other canines until we re-sort the rest of the more specific rungs below 'Tribe.'
So sad you don't bother to actually read up on this.
Maybe I should roll back to /furi/ to mock all you ignorant fools again, like I trolled Billy Rex with such an easy /g/tard argument (SOI vs stressed silicon) in the tinychat that night before I flew out to the UK.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
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.
What if I want to donate more than I feel comfortable sending through PayPal? ... gmail
I'm excited! Email me, we'll figure it out.
geohot
http://geohot.com/
(Tried to post anon, but it's only been 56 minutes since I last posted a comment...)
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
CPU production is only a small part of the whole device. Sony has higher volume for all components that are re-used through their all products, so it's cheaper for them. There is also a matter of reusing R&D across generations of PS and across product lines -- Microsoft has none of that, and likely had to outsource all of its hardware R&D except some pieces.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Trade secrets, as opposed to NDAs. You and many others don't seem to understand the difference.
There are no "objective" secrets -- secrets are applicable only to organizations and groups of people who agree on something being their secret. This is what is covered by NDA. Without NDA there are no trade secrets. Without trade secrets there would be no purpose for NDA.
You can't declare anything a trade secret if there never was NDA for it, and you can't apply it to anyone not under NDA -- if they know it, it's not a secret anymore.
Take a look at both the UTSA and California's Civil Code sections 3426.1-3426.11. If you knowingly receive trade secrets from a trusted party and use them to profit, even if you've never signed an NDA in your life, you are still guilty of a crime. So I'll say it to you as well, please stop misinforming people and do your research before handing out amateur legal advice.
That only makes sense because a person would be actively assisting someone in performing a criminal action, thus being a participant in it. It is also useless in any imaginable scenario short of blatant corporate espionage because it requires that outside party knows about NDA before receiving information. On top of everything, even if someone is punished for such disclosure, if it was a public disclosure, the secret is gone nevertheless.
Neither of this is in any way applicable to anything with PS3 and iPhone "secrets" because there was no disclosure by anyone under NDA in the first place.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
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.
The ostriches on this site love the sand too much to notice that.
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
In order to get much value out of a PS3, you must have at least one game/movie disc... your PS3 becomes more valuable to you if you have more discs.