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Geohot Battles Back Against Sony
csaw.csaw writes "According to Ars Technica, 'Hotz is slamming Sony's arguments at every turn. Sony claims there is a PSN account that Hotz created? Well, the serial number is wrong and anyone could have made that account. The manuals contained information on how SCEA is located in California? The manuals were never opened.' Groklaw posted the latest court filing (PDF) as well as their own analysis, saying, 'All the over-the-top allegations, in short, that some journalists published last week after reading SCEA's filing are now answered ably, about blickmaniac, the Playstation Network, the California downloads, the serial number, SCEA's jurisdictional arguments, everything. I confess, this is getting exciting.'"
I dont know why people support Sony. Countless of times they're showed their true colors. The stuff they do to paying customers is absolutely stunning. Both Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360 do have DRM, but they don't do shit like this. Microsoft only bans the modded user from multiplayer, and rightfully so because he could cheat against other players. Sony is going way over the line.
. If you want to play the same games, just get a XBOX 360 and drop PS3. They have the same games anyway, and 360 is a better console, especially with Kinect.
skip ars technica and go straight to groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/
Sony is rich and powerful, and has the best lawyers at their disposal. They can even call on Congress and the President to help them out, and rewrite the laws if they have to.
He's just a little guy. At most he might have the backing of the EFF and some donations.
I hate to be so cynical, but so far Sony has won every round in this case. The courts are falling all over themselves giving Sony whatever they've asked for, no matter how outrageous. I'd like to think the little guy can win, but really, how often does that actually happen anymore?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Now, after Mr. Hotz's computer hard drives, and a graphing calculator have been impounded
Surely that was inadequate---what if he counted on his fingers?
There's no way to know without opening the manually that SCEA even exists. He bought a product manufactured by SCEI, not SCEA. SCEI is based in Japan.
I not clear on how not knowing where a company is headquartered helps GeoHotz's case.
It matters for arguing that California is an inappropriate venue. The case being in California could be disastrous, as it would be expensive for geohot to appear in court for his defense.
Also, I believe California has some whacky trade secret laws Sony could utilize.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Sony filed their case in California. They want the case tried in California for lots of reasons, probably including that it is close and convenient. Or maybe they know the state's laws better? Or maybe they think that what he did is illegal in California but not elsewhere?
Sony is trying to demonstrate that they had a working relationship with GeoHotz in California, then time went by, then he wronged them, so the case should be tried in California.
GeoHotz wants the case tried in his home state (New Jersey). He probably wants this for lots of reasons, including that it is close and convenient. Or maybe his lawyer knows the state's laws better? Or maybe what he did is illegal in California but not in New Jersey? So he is trying to demonstrate that everything that matters in the case happened in his home state, so it should be tried there. This apparently involves demonstrating that he never had a working relationship with Sony in California.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
I still feel like "The manuals contained information on how SCEA is located in California? The manuals were never opened." isn't that different from shouting "NANANANANANANANACANTHEARYOUNANANANANANA" while you have your fingers in your ears, as far as a defense goes...
Don't get me wrong, I hope he wins this. I just don't know that it's quite the "slam" the submitter thinks it is...
Sony claims he would have known where SCEA is located and that he is dealing with SCEA. But that is ONLY mentioned in the manual, nowhere else: not on the PS3 itself, not on the box, not in firmware.. And if he never read the manual there simply is no reason to expect him to have known about SCEA in the first place. Hell, I too own a PS3 and I had never even heard of SCEA before this whole thing started.
That's the whole point: no one can prove in any way or form that he should logically have known of the existence of SCEA, let alone where it is located, and that's why it is such a slam-dunk for defence.
Devil's advocate stand here:
This isn't a fight that Apple lost; this is a fight Apple has not decided to push. If Apple really wanted to fight this, they could:
1: Reword all cellular carrier agreements where they will drop service and blacklist any devices suspected of being jailbroken (downloading stuff from Cydia repos for example.)
2: Encrypt bootloaders, and have the baseband hand the keys to the OS. This is how Motorola does it, and so far, the trouble of cracking Moto's encrypted bootloaders have gotten modders to move elsewhere.
3: Push software down to the iPhones periodically to search for jailbreaks. If devices are JB-ed, all Apple IDs connected with them would be banned. MS does with the XBoxes, Valve does this with VAC, etc.
4: Have the baseband software and processor (IIRC, the radio uses a separate processor than the main OS), act as a TPM. If the running OS isn't signed, put the device in DFU mode until a valid copy of the IPSW is put on.
5: Ask cellular carriers to cough up IP records of anyone who bought programs through Cydia, cross reference the IMEIs, and when it comes for an iOS update, blacklist all IMEIs gathered which are suspected during the SHSH negotation process.
6: Have a firmware eFuse counter that only allows for flashing higher versions (assuming they are not betas).
7: Separate the iPhones into different models, each having different hardware protection, and when rev B is put out, anyone caught using rev A exploits is banned from cellular networked via IMEI, and their Apple IDs are banned.
8: Get with cellular carriers and lease iPhones the way Ma Bell used to lease telephones. This + a EULA would mean that jailbreaking would be against the law because it wouldn't be the owner's device.
Why does charging money for something make a company "evil"?
Evil is when they sue you, install viruses on your PC without asking, make CDs that won't play on PCs, try to lock you in to their products at every turn (eg. memory sticks), use proprietary connectors everywhere, overcharge for replacement batteries, etc. It's all in a days work at SONY.
No sig today...
Because the TI-84 Plus graphing calculator had a USB port, and is user-programmable, people used it to do the USB-based original jailbreak.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
While I don't care about modding systems for the purpose of playing pirated games (I own a PS3 and Wii and am fine with buying games), I think this is an important case for hobbyists/hackers and anyone who thinks they should have the right to hack on their own hardware - which as far as I'm aware is what Sony is trying to set a precedent against.
I want to be able to mod my PS3 or anything else I own for whatever reason I want - whether that's to put Linux on it or do something more unique with it as part of a research project or just for fun. The fact that this can be used for copyright infringement/piracy is secondary. It is the act of pirating the material that should be illegal and enforced, not any of the technological means that allow it to happen. (similar examples: outlawing VCRs instead of the sale/exchange of copyrighted material, outlawing torrent programs instead of the action of sharing copyrighted material, outlawing guns instead of crimes committed with guns, outlawing cars instead of hitting people with cars, etc etc.)
As such, I donated a nontrivial amount to Geohot's "give me donations to help my legal defense" plea a month or two ago. I want the ability to do whatever I damn well please with the hardware that I've purchased.
Aside: I think it's amusing that Sony requested Geohot's paypal transaction records to try and help prove parts of their case. I wonder if they'll be discriminating between "people who paid Geohot for modding-related things" and "people who donated for his defense." Clearly this should be easy based on the amounts there, but I almost wish I knew how much he was accepting for modding jobs before I donated, so that I could have donated that amount N times to approximate the amount I ended up donating, just with the hope that Sony would confuse defense donations for payment for modding jobs/chips/whatever and cock up their case against him even more.