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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.'"

13 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Boycott Sony! by mikaelg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Boycott Sony! by Locke2005 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sad but true, I've concluded Microsoft is less evil then Sony. In fact, I'm tempted to by an Xbox with included Kinect now that they are $380 at Costco. Nintendo is much less evil than either Sony or Microsoft, but my Wii is looking a little long in the tooth now.

      I decided to boycott Sony a few years back with my Sony "Dream Machine" home theater system turned out to be a nightmare -- Sony managed to put out some of the worst quality DVD players at the highest prices.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:Boycott Sony! by Belial6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is a sad myth that has seriously hurt PC gaming. If you are hooking up to a TV you are maxing out at 1920x1080. So, any comparison of screen resolutions above that are only gravy for the PC. It doesn't take that powerful of a video card to do 1920 by 1080. You can practically do it on an integrated graphics chip. So, you don't have to upgrade the PC ever. You can keep what you have and just buy a whole new one, just like with a console. The fact that you CAN upgrade is a benifit, not a drawback. Besides, The consoles are moving into the upgrade direction anyway. After all, MS isn't just shipping the Kinect to every 360 owner for free. It is an upgrade to the system. The PS3 and Wii have also had their own upgrades.

  2. skip ars technica by SpiralSpirit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    skip ars technica and go straight to groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/

    1. Re:skip ars technica by SomePgmr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In defence of Ars, they almost always add quite a lot to the conversation in the way of context and intelligent explanation. It's not like a PC World write-up just ripping off the source.

  3. Re:Won't matter by jd · · Score: 4, Funny

    Depends on how many ninjas the EFF can call on. A few magic mushrooms in Sony's lawyers' coffee and even the courts would have a hard time being sympathetic.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  4. graphing calculator? by fish+waffle · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?

  5. Re:Yeah,. right by One+Louder · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:Won't matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... from the wikipedia page:

    "successfully represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family in a lawsuit over the CBS network's unauthorized use of the famous "I Have a Dream" speech"

    WTF? Isn't that *exactly* what should be public domain?

  7. Re:Yeah,. right by compro01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  8. Re:Hey Sony! Pack up your bags and leave by mlts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  9. Charging money isn't evil... by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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...
  10. TI-84 Plus could be used to jailbreak by Myria · · Score: 4, Informative

    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