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Judge Lets Sony Access GeoHot's PayPal Account
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from TechDirt that says "Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero has awarded Sony a subpoena that grants the company access to the PayPal account of PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as GeoHot, for the last two years. Emil: Spero ruled that the Japanese console maker may acquire 'documents sufficient to identify the source of funds in California that went into any PayPal account associated with geohot@gmail.com for the period of January 1, 2009, to February 1, 2011.'"
I donated $50.
What fucking right do Sony have to pore through his finances? Surely that's a matter for law enforcement and the courts (I know, naive, right?).
Oh hell no, they're going to arrange to not only him but anyone he sold to? This man did nothing illegal, and they're going to go after the funds he has made from his work. Sony, rot in hell. I will never buy from you again.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
The courts are really letting Sony utterly rape everything about GeoHot aren't they? Not commenting on whether or not he deserves it.
If it rhymes it must be true.
I wish there was a -1 Insightless moderation.
If our legal system has allowed Sony to act as they have up until this point, why are we surprised that it would let them go further? (That said, nothing could be better than this case going all the way and ending up in a ruling that is not against GeoHot.)
Because Sony "donated" to the judges bank account, right?
I am tired of Sony getting their way with pure bribery.
It is expected with American conglomerates, but Sony is Japanese!
Slashdot would be a more fun place if you could name your own moderation tag.
What are Sony trying to find out? Surely the legal question is whether or not Geohot had the right to hack a PS3. This can be established without determining who has seen the video, donated money.
Seems bizarre, and also weird that the judge is letting Sony get away with this. I can only presume that Geohot's lawyers aren't bothering to put up a serious defence because it makes so little difference.
I will never buy anything from them again, and I will do my best to persuade others from doing so.
I donated to this guy to help support his legal fund.
What the FUCK is the judge doing on this case? Seriously, this is becoming a complete and utter clusterfuck.
I am a cynical fuck and I'm still surprised, this is just utterly incredible. Geohot has no fucking chance in this, with the way this is being handled.
Utterly ridiculous, his privacy is just being completely ignored.
Sony is not a neutral party to this case. As they are not cops. They have direct involvement into this case. With this a due process is being bypassed and that is illegal in the U.S court system.
This decision by the judge should be sued or somehow protested by GeoHots lawyers.
Congratulations Sony. Massive Microsoft win.
we now know what kind of fool you are, paypal is not a bank
Except the fact that it got even worse, nothing new here.
HD-DVD anyone?
I really wanted Bluray to win because HD-DVD was from the Microsoft camp. Not that I'm anti-M$, (I'm closer to being Pro-M$ - esp. since I started developing in Netbeans - ew) I just didn't want them to win (for a change). But I've got to say this whole episode makes me think that now I wish it had gone the other way. Someone does something that DOESNT allow piracy, that allows people to have a better chance of using THEIR hardware the way they choose to, and Sony bend him over backwards and rapes him. Sony just doesn't realise that the whole "Warranty is void if jail broken" is incentive enough for most people to not tinker with such things. And for the die hard tinkerers that want to play with this stuff it's a case of a few more people using Sony's product in ways they haven't before. Big deal. But this crap is just making even the staunch Sony fans rethink their allegance...
Wake up Sony...
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
paypal is not a bank
They certainly try to act like one when it suits them!
I think "-10 Blatant Moron" would be quite popular.
it's time for an encrypted flying-dutchman currency exchange.
Soon public opinion of programmers and engineers will be portrayed as suspicious. I would not be surprised that in a few years in the US or in the UK that opening hardware up is grounds for terrorism investigations.
I look forward to our new government/corporately owned network infrastructure. We'll be the last remnants of the free society who refuse to be dominated by abuses of technology...
If you're a computer geek and you write abuseive software for/on behalf of companies like Sony, you should be so ashamed. Intellectual dishonesty to the extremes.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
...for me to actively wish bodily harm upon someone. That magistrate is on thin ice.
The most popular is the -1 Checked the Anonymous Coward Box As If Anyone Gave A Shit About Their Cleartext Handle one.
It is in Luxembourg.
Regardless, financial records is financial records. If the court says Sony can look as part of discovery, then that's what they can do.
Last time I looked, you *buy* equipment, not rent it. It's like a car company telling you you can't put the latest glass pack exhaust system on your car, those shinny spinning rims, or ground effects because it isn't in the EUDA (End-User Driving Agreement). Or worse yet, what about making improvements to your house, oops, I mean the bank's house. Where does this stop? If you buy it you buy it unless they specifically want to come out and say what they appear to really mean, you don't own anything. One sure way to crater the economy further is to take away peoples rights to personal property. All in the name of "unrealized" or unearned profits. I wish I could do that :S...
everybody can touch this !
How long do you think it will take before someone like 4chan goes after SONY and slams every one of their products, stores and services with negative ratings across the Amazon, Yelp, Google Products, etc landscape?
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Knowing /. coders you'd cause a buffer overflow and crash the server for days.
It's possible that the judge wants sony to find a good, solid reason to keep it in CA, so that he can rule against them later on. If he shines it on to NJ, he loses control of the case.
Hamm would probably be a bank in Luxembourg..
which is totally what she said
If that cash went through a real bank, would the outcome be the same?
PayPal's weird semi-bank-state allows for legal action I never heard of otherwise.
Oh hell no, they're going to arrange to not only him but anyone he sold to? This man did nothing illegal, and they're going to go after the funds he has made from his work. Sony, rot in hell. I will never buy from you again.
Your sentiments are appropriate; I've also been involved in negative word-of-mouth advertising for Sony. Pass the word.
However, this is Sony's effort to prove GeoHot did business in California, where Sony wants the case held. Fishing? Perhaps a bit of that too, I wouldn't put it past them.
The real story, however, is the class action suit (CAS) against Sony for their removal of the OtherOS functionality in update 3.2.1. This is the update that GeoHot's mod reversed.
It's clear to me that Sony wants to muddy the waters as much as possible. The lawsuit is an absolute monster, I wouldn't be surprised if they had to re-brand afterwards. Look to Groklaw.net for clarity, there's a huge amount of detail there.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Try that again, only this time without equating the deaths of thousands of Sony employees with the inability of some pimply suburban kid to surf for pr0n and warez on his game console...
I want to send some more money to him but to the account they are trying to get records for. Maybe if we get 1000's of people donating a few cents it'll make it a pain in the ass for Sony.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Its funny to me waching everyone here give their armchair legal advice as if they were a member of the supreme court and spent their lives studying america law. All you guys saying this and saying like your actual lawyers or judges is damned hillarious. Fact of the matter is 90% of you dont even have a clue what your saying, it just sounds plauseable and reasonable in your head so your passing it off as actual legal banter that is fact.
The rest of you are just jumping on the bandwagon mentality that sony is the big bad evil corporation suing someone for nothing, they are bending the law and basically hitler incarnate in lawyer form. You guys are worse just because your on the bandwagon for hating sony since its the cool thing to do now. Everytime someone is big and lots of people love them its only a matter of time before those people turn on what they once loved and look for any petty excuse to come up with any desperate reason to out them. Its also fashionable to hate the big corporation for no other reason than being a big corporation.
The box says "Do not insert into ear canal". Should everybody who uses one to remove earwax have legal action taken against them?
we now know what kind of fool you are, paypal is not a bank
Yeah, the kind of fool who doesn't waste time quibbling over pedantry?
If you insist on a change to "financial records" then ok, go for it. Consider it edited.
Oh wait, that's not foolish at all.
You're the fool trying to make a big deal out of nothing.
Sony only has rights to look up until February 1st 2011. Adding 1000's of ppl donating pennies wouldn't accomplish shit to cause a PITA for them.
Read before you write.
...continue to recommend to my clients to never buy it.
Lol sony... you're missing out. Nerds are trusted by many for technical advice. Piss off enough nerds, and they stop recommending your product. Some to very large customers.
Now that we have placed the email address geohot@gmail.com on the front page of slashdot, all 12 people who still read this site - and many, many, many, more bots that automatically scan it - have seen it. That poor email address is about to be so inundated with spam that its rightful owner will never be able to read anything on it again.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It's so much more fun thinking the mass deaths by natural disasters of Sony assholes.
Fuck the humanitarian/Christian "love everyone" bullshit. And fuck Sony, the company.
You missed the main reason that Sony wants the case tried in California. The Federal circuit in California is far more sympathetic to copyright claims than the one in New Jersey. If Sony can keep the case in California, they'll have a much better chance of prevailing.
But first, they have to decide if California is the right place to decide that. Unfortunately, it looks like Illston and Spero are in Sony's pocket on that one.
If only they'd left the closing date open - we could all have donated $1, along with a lovely little message for Sony, to go into the court records :(
for Sony's encryption key?
I know when I send money, it's in the form of silver or gold measured in grains or ounces.
Paper currency is a warehouse receipt, while Paper money (not currency) is a tax deduction directed by a government.
Figure that one out, as I said it; do you want to hold un-redeemed currency pointing to property held in storage, do you want a tax deduction, or do you want a measure of property dispensed in your hand with no strings attached?
Gold and Silver are only a measure; you can use anything, but sending it through the mail is when it gets metered and journaled like it could be titled for use as currency to be regulated, so consider hand-shake transactions to 1-way drop-shipments.
Without the Federal Reserve, places like Wells Fargo and Bank Of America and PayPal can't survive: even the corporate banks proved they will violate Security Despot Boxes to help foreign agents of the IMF (IRS) to harvest Americans to support land-development investment of international bankers on 3rd-world countries.
They want all the "3. Documents reproducing all records of IP addresses that have accessed or downloaded files hosted using your service and associated with the www.geohot.com website, including but not limited to the "geohot.com/jailbreak.zip" file, from January 1, 2009 to the present,."
So Slashdot/LOIC the site like crazy and send a copy of each ip log entry, individually, to SCEA via email/twitter/facebook wallposts.
Help your country instead of suing people, seriously thousands/millions of dollars for grilling a geeky kid.
Mo Fos
Wait...I thought PayPal *wasn't* a bank unless you were in the EU, which was what let them get away with some of the shit they pull?
At this time, Sony only has rights to look up until February 1st 2011.
FTFY
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Perhaps Sony knows there are more iPhones per capita in CA than any other state and could be using the confusion to sway the court.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Who here is "against Sony's actions" while at the same time own any Sony equipment... especially a PS3?
I gotta tell you, I started hating Sony long ago and it played a role in my decision not to own anything Sony. And as the years went by, my feelings about Sony were only reinforced.
But I wonder about you people out there hating Sony too, but at the same time buying their stuff.
A penny every hour? No skin off my nose, and if millions of people do it, F*CK SONY, but there is that whole problem with the subpoenaed date range.
I wouldn't be surprised if they really find something. Sony competitors where very interested in what he did and I really doubt they didn't have money in it. Even if I would liked him to have my Other OS back, I don't think this story is about it anymore.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
TITLE 15 > CHAPTER 1 > Â 1
 1. Trusts, etc., in restraint of trade illegal; penalty
Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
 2. Monopolizing trade a felony; penalty
Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
 14. Sale, etc., on agreement not to use goods of competitor
It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, to lease or make a sale or contract for sale of goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities, whether patented or unpatented, for use, consumption, or resale within the United States or any Territory thereof or the District of Columbia or any insular possession or other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, or fix a price charged therefor, or discount from, or rebate upon, such price, on the condition, agreement, or understanding that the lessee or purchaser thereof shall not use or deal in the goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities of a competitor or competitors of the lessor or seller, where the effect of such lease, sale, or contract for sale or such condition, agreement, or understanding may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce.
"Hamm is a quarter in eastern Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg. It is the home of the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, the final resting place of 5,076 American servicemen, including General Patton."
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hamm,_Luxembourg
So you're saying you think that no American can transfer funds to and from any of the other 194 countries because they are foreign?
They are a bank here in Luxembourg and do business on the whole planet, just like any other bank.
Also Luxembourg still has bank secrecy and I doubt that they will give details to a foreign state (the US) in a civil case.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bank_secrecy
I disagree AC is not a fool. Hes a complete idiot.
The first step to wisdom is calling a thing by its correct name.
And yes it is important. If paypal is not a bank, then its not a damn bank. PERIOD.
Paypal can get away with a lot more than a bank can.
How many times have you heard of Paypal freezing someones account *and all of the $$$ in it?
How many times have you ever heard of a bank doing that? With out a court order??
Just because you don't think the facts matter don't try to put down the rest of us who do.
If you can't see the problem with this AC you are a major dumbass. The Paypal account was being used to help his defense and now those people can be harassed by Sony. Imagine if those that donated to Manning's defense get put on a terror watchlist? After all Manning "aided terrorists" and Wikileaks is a "terrorist organization" according to some of our more clueless congressmen, so if judges are allowed to hand out lists of who has donated to a defense to the other side you have just killed ANY chance of a non rich person getting a fair trial.
The whole damned point of setting up these Paypal accounts is to give those who cannot afford a defense a chance to fight back against the rich and powerful. if you start handing out lists of everyone that donated you have created a chilling effect that will ensure others in the future won't get enough donations to buy a stick of gum.Sadly in the USA no money means no defense, as I wouldn't let a public pretender defend my dog, and in civil cases you don't even get that. So handing out donation lists is a BAD IDEA and shouldn't be allowed, okay AC?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I want to donate; if only to have my name on the list. Let Sony know that I support GeoHot.
OK, it looks like he's using JPay (which I just learned about 5min ago): "Americaâ(TM)s Trusted Inmate Money Transfer Service"
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
The people aren't really required to document a transfer or reception, because that would indoctrinate them into the titular Torens system where requires Articles of Association to liquidate their assets as debt securities in a secondary mode of conduct just to build evidence of their having a Secured Party Creditor standing to all suits.
That's the difference between a Republic and a Demockery, where the Bearer instruments have no indorsement other than self-evidence of a holder in due course like how whomever is riding a bicycle is the holder in due course of that property; the limit to when someone indoctrinates into a Torrens system of legal jurisdprudence is established at $20 for all suits in common law but I can't remember what exact Amendment that was enumerated by the Bill of Rights from Thomas Jefferson. Anyone? Furthermore, that Torrens system was began at the value of all disputes when $20 was Gold or Silver, so that means by US "dollars" to be what might be more like between $5000 to $50k depending on the ratio of US dollars from the Federal Reserve System in relation to the market value of Gold or Silver at the time the dispute occurred.
Wonderful...
Sony's stuff has been actively hacked by a couple of people. The legal team of Sony gets the order to stop this so they do their job and Sony, if you like it or not, tries to protect what they think is theirs.
The hackers knew this could happen, and they thought it would blow over. Well, they made a miscalculation. Boohoo.
And please. all the whining about 'oh this is so bad!', no it isn't. It has nothing to do with you nor any other consumer who buys the product for what's it suppose to do, nor will this lawsuit affect your life in any way.
That you now will never purchase a sony product again... where have we heard that before? Oh that's right. The CoD boycott. Yeah that worked out fine, didn't it?
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Really... how many of those angry people in the CAS did install Yellow Dog Linux and actively used it on a regular basis? With satisfaction?
I bet none. Due to the memory restrictions it was dog slow, also because the SPU's weren't utilized by many applications, making it a pretty slow performer. And that's what OtherOS gave you, a very restricted space in which you could install linux but it didn't gave you a great, powerful machine with Linux to use as a desktop machine.
that's the sillyness of this. Some people cry like a little baby that their life has no meaning anymore because, oh the horror, OtherOS has been removed from the _play_station!.... A group which is really stupid among those crybabies joined forces with a group of shark lawyers to sue sony to get some money. For what? all the damage that was inflicted upon them by the removal of this marvelous option called 'OtherOS'? Gimme a break.
If you want to run linux so badly, buy an ASRock with a BR drive, install linux and be happy. Oh, of course, everyone in that CAS was part of a supercomputer project, right? ...
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Ah, but that's where you're wrong: If I buy something with some capibility - even if I never /use/ that capibility - and it gets removed, I have every right to complain.
Using a car analogy, lets say I buy a 4wd truck that's computer controlled, Now, lets say I take it into the shop, and they apply a firmware update that disables the 4wd feature. Do I have a right to complain about it? Heck yes! Even if I /never used it/.
You seem to think that Sony needs permission to harass people. That is hilarious, especially because at this rate they will sue for the identity of every person who has ever read an article critical of them so that they, too, may be harassed.
Protip: if Sony sues everyone even vaguely involved with a certain act, giving them a new list of people will result in more people being sued.
Congratulations to everyone who bought a PS3. You have funded terrorism. Sony will now use this money to scare the piss out of you. Will you give them more?
If you give Sony money, you are the enemy of gaming and freedom, and you are an enemy of mine. I only wish Slashdot permitted a longer foes list.
It is long past the time when we can pretend that where we spend our money does not shape our environment. It's called Capitalism, people.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Is it really about his defense? TFA says Sony needs his Paypal info the determine whether they can sue him in California, rather than in New Jersey. His alleged crime is not defending himself, it's cracking the PS3 security. As I understand it, Sony wants to prove that he did it for money and was funded by people in California, so they can sue him there, which is apparently better for Sony than suing him in New Jersey.
I donated $10 to his defense fund via Paypal.... not because I have used any of his code but because I have a PS3 FAT and I (until the stole functionality) used Linux on it right up until the moment Sony decided they didn't evil linux on any devices talking to PSN......
As much as I like Sony's gaming system and despise the XBox franchise, if I were asked today I would tell people not to buy Sony.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
I can hack my localhost , local software, post a video on youtube, as long as i dont reduce binary or any PoC. But today i know in the EULA it says you cant even tamper with what you paid for. sony can only learn from this experience dont go after this guy. Microsoft invited me to the campus for my input when i created a 0day. There is Pwnto0wn etc. This is all he is doing if im not incorrect. If he distributed or gave out code, then i would say hes a bad man.
I will not disclose a 0 day again I will not disclose a 0 day again I will not disclose a 0 day again I will not disc
What happened here? First they hand over consoles and computers to Sony and now they hand over financial information. WHAT IS GOING ON?! This is wrong on so many levels.
Please note that I do not talk about GeoHot, Sony or any other specific case, company or person. I talk about the matter of principle: (independent) authority is the one who should do investigations, not the plaintiff. Plaintiff can provide information from their (proven) sources. Once they get involved with defendant's property or information there is no more an independent source of information. Who is there to control that plaintiff does not change, add, withdraw or delete any relevant information?
USA, ever heard about a nice little thing called democracy? What we see here is mega corporations ruling, not democratic ruling. NOT LIKE THIS.
Judges like these think they are doing society a favor by ruling in the favor of the big company providing us with enjoyment and play fro a console that they control. He sucks because he is incapable of seeing past his last payoff. If he rules this way, the company gains too much control, and now a list of people that have chipped or modded ps3s fall into the hands of sony who will no doubt use it to cancel any ongoing subscriptions they might have and force them to get new accounts.
Further more, if this is the case, what is to stop any car dealer from saying no on is allowed to fix these cars except us, they r belong to us, so no you have to come to the dealership to get your oil changed else we can sue you. I can't see the point of getting access to his paypal account to see WHO sent him money unless they tend to pursue those people too.....indirectly by cutting off their accounts.
Great day for business, sad day for freedom.
we now know what kind of fool you are, paypal is not a bank
A petty cash book or credit card statement isn't a bank either, but I'm sure they'd like to see them if they had significant amounts of money going in and out.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It's the same thing that happened on the "OMG you can libel someone on Twitter" story a couple of days ago. No shit, breaking the law via the internet doesn't mean you're not breaking the law. If the guy had stored his bank details in "the cloud" somewhere he'd be just as liable to reveal them as if he wrote them down on the back of a cornflakes box..
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Umm, no. DeCSS allowed you to decrypt DVDs.
Jailbreaking the PS3 allows you to sign your own programs so that you can run them on your own PS3 computer.
Not so long ago I read that a judge granted Sony the right to look into server logs to see who accessed GeoHot's Twitter and Youtube accounts (Gmail, Facebook?). At that point, we were told that the IP addresses were needed to help decide where the lawsuit would happen. Is the Paypal thing a way to tell us that Sony found nothing useful from the previous invasions of privacy? I was gonna buy a new laptop and a DSLR, well Sony you ain't getting my business any time soon.