Fellow Hackers Blast Geohot For Sony Settlement

RedEaredSlider writes "The hacker who settled with Sony after the company sued him for modifying his PlayStation 3 console is getting a lot of flak for not taking the fight further. 'Night Breed' [wrote], 'So basically you settled for a job and took people's money, giving them a false hope of settling for their rights? What do you plan to do with the money that was donated to you to provide a cushion for the legal battle? I hope you will be paying all those people back since you obviously didn't live up to your word.'"

Comments

this is a

[Bozzio]

DramaFest.

Re:this is a

[clang_jangle]

Idealistic people tend to spend a lot of time being confused about how to deal with reality, which is not the slightest bit idealistic. When it's someone else's painful consequences, ideals rule. When it's your own, well, different story. Lots of people will jump in with accusations of "selling out", "siding with the man", etc. That's all pretty much delusional though.

Re:this is a

[hedwards]

I disagree, Geohot is a complete dumb ass if he didn't see the lawsuit coming. If you're going to kick the hornet's nest you're going to get stung, and caving in on something like this is stupid. Geohot made himself a pinata and apparently hasn't the integrity to stand up.

Remember Sony took away the otheros feature in response to that initial crack that he refused to release after posting about it online.

Nobody forced him to do that, he voluntarily made himself a target in all this.

Re:this is a

[DurendalMac]

It's a bunch of whining from a bunch of neckbeards who are crying that someone else didn't spend godawful amounts of time and money in court. They'd be singing a different tune if they were the one on the other end of Sony's lawyers.

Re:this is a

[poetmatt]

Actually it's pretty freakin accurate. He gave up to just get the lawsuit over, and took substantial hits to his own freedoms.

Geohot essentially "won", but the settlement was a joke, especially considering it roughly translates to him accepting an unrealistic permanent injunction. Really, not supporting "PS3 infringing activities" that aren't specified? Say it ain't so!

1. Engaging in any unauthorized access to any SONY PRODUCT under the law
      2. Engaging in any unauthorized access to any SONY PRODUCT under the terms of any SCEA or SCEA AFFILIATES' license agreement or terms of use applicable to that SONY PRODUCT, whether or not Hotz has accepted such agreement or terms of use, including without limitation:
                  1. reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling any portion of the Sony Product
                  2. using any tools to bypass, disable, or circumvent any encryption, security, or authentication mechanism in the Sony Product;
                  3. using any hardware or softare to cause the Sony Product to accept or use unauthorized, illegal or pirated softare or hardware; and
                  4. exploiting any Sony Product to design, develop, update or distribute unauthorized softare or hardware for use with the Sony Product.
                    * If any term of such SCEA or SCEA Affilates' license agreement or terms of use applicable to that Sony Product shall be determined by Congress or by a court of law in a final non-appealable decision in an action to which SCEA or an SCEA Affiliate is a party to be illegal and unenforceable, then such term shall not be binding on Hotz.
      3. CIRCUMVENTING any of the TPMs or security in any SONY PRODUCT;
      4. TRAFFICKING in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that, at the time of Hotz's trafficking, circumvents any of the TPMs or security in any SONY PRODUCT, including but not limited to the Ellptical Curve Signature Algorithm ("ECDSA") Keys, encryption and/or decryption keys, dePKG firmware decrypter program, Signing Tools, 3.55 Firmware Jailbreak, and/or any other technologies that enable unauthorized access to and/or copying of the PS3 System and/or enable compatibility of unauthorized copies of other copyrighted works with the PS3 System.
      5. Distributing or posting any SCEA or SCEA Affiliates' confidential or proprietary information relating to any SONY PRODUCT;
      6. Knowingly assisting or inducing others to engage in any of the conduct set forth in A-E above solely directed at any SONY PRODUCT or that otherwise constitutes contributory liabilty under the law.

He had this case in the bag from the issues at hand, and instead settled giving Sony a major advantage. The facts were on his side bigtime unless there is something we don't know about.

Re:this is a

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The main complaint is that he was asking for donations to fight this, and then more or less bailed on the fight. That's the only valid complaint in my opinion, then again, we don't know if and how much money was raised. It pays to be wary of donating to a legal defense fund, you can't be certain it will be spent the way you want it to be spent.

Re:this is a

[poetmatt]

Please, you do realize they settled before resolving the jurisdiction issue right? And that the facts show that the Sony which sued in California very likely has no standing (hasn't been ruled yet - per the class action's statements as well).

The case never moved forward into discovery, there was no actual proof of infringement or ANYTHING substantiated. Now he has a settlement saying "don't do it again".

#2 has never been proven in court as straight up illegal, although DMCA has no exceptions carved for it for now this would have been the case to challenge that.

Re:this is a

[xiao_haozi]

The main complaint is that he was asking for donations to fight this, and then more or less bailed on the fight. That's the only valid complaint in my opinion, then again, we don't know if and how much money was raised. It pays to be wary of donating to a legal defense fund, you can't be certain it will be spent the way you want it to be spent.

Agreed. Whether it was a good move on his part or not, it doesn't matter when it comes to the donations scenario. He implicitly collected donations to fight Sony, and then discontinued the fight. Would we do it too? Probably. But that is not the point. If I paid seeded X amount of money to you to sail across the world and then you stopped part way because the outcome looked bleak, I would all or some of my money back. Hopefully it does get passed on to the EFF.

Re:this is a

[_0xd0ad]

If you read the list you posted, those things are already illegal anyway

The whole point of the case was that he had done those things because he believed (and still believes) that they are not against the law.

Had he won, it would have set legal precedent that they are in fact not against the law. Had he lost, it would have set precedent that they are illegal, and since he was convinced that he was inevitably going to lose he chose to settle and avoid setting that precedent.

Re:this is a

[erroneus]

The result of Sony getting litigious as a result of Geohot's publications was entirely predictable. When he accepted donations for the purpose of "the fight against Sony" it was a breech of his moral obligation to see it through.

Both of these details were expected -- Sony's reaction and Geohot's fight. This has little to do with idealism except for the people who sought to support him.

I can't say if I would have done the same as Geohot or not -- the details of the settlement are secret as are the full details that led to the settlement. I can say that I don't think I would have published my identity in connection with anything that would draw the ire of a company like Sony. I would have done it all completely anonymously as both a gift to all and an attack on Sony. This is what I think Geohot should have done. Too bad there is a perceived value in "bragging rights" which prevents people from being smart about all of that.

Perhaps I have said it too often, but when people do things, I am constantly astounded how they fail to plan to get away with it. Disturbing a hornet's nest without a way to escape is just plain stupid doncha think?

Re:this is a

[MikeBabcock]

Donations for a legal fund should always be handled in trust by the legal team not the person seeking legal assistance, unless you just want to give away your money.

Just my opinion, IANAL.

Re:this is a

[shaunbr]

The facts may have been on his side, but there's one thing that Sony has that he doesn't -- an endless pool of money and lawyers to make his life hell. Sure, the community thinks they're doing a good job by sending him a buck here or there for his legal defense fund, but it costs more than a couch full of pocket change to pay for a reasonable defense. Unless you suggest that he take a serious (and likely) risk of committing himself to a lifetime of poverty due to a crushing multi-million dollar loss in court (which by that point I doubt anyone in the 'community' would actually stand by him anymore, lest of all give him money), taking the settlement was the smart thing to do. Relatively speaking, those restrictions aren't even that severe; had he let this go to court, he'd be lucky if he could afford a Sony product to hack ever again.

It's easy to play Internet Tough Guy when you're not staring down the barrel of a court summons - I guarantee that all of you would have 'caved' the same way. I know I would have.

Re:this is a

[MachDelta]

Wait wait wait wait wait.

Engaging... unauthorized access... SONY PRODUCT under the terms of any.... license agreement or terms of use.... whether or not Hotz has accepted such agreement or terms of use

Whaaaaaaaaat the holy fuck?

Isn't the whole point of a contractual agreement that both parties have to agree to it first? Hotz just gave Sony a rubber stamp with his signature on it! If he so much as looks at a Sony product sideways, they could pin his ass to the wall any time for any reason. That's insane! The whole thing could be simplified if it was just:

1. Mr. Hotz agrees to never purchase, use, or be affiliated with the use of any Sony product. Evar. Byebye!

Sheesh.

And secondly... how is this even legal? I didn't think it was possible to sign away your ability to sign a contract. /boggle

Re:this is a

[clang_jangle]

This has little to do with idealism except for the people who sought to support him.

Right, so IOW people were fooled by idealistic expectations.

Disturbing a hornet's nest without a way to escape is just plain stupid doncha think?

I don't know Geohot's mind, but my own mind tells me perhaps he did have a plan A and a plan B, and plan B is what ended up implemented.

Re:this is a

[Ihmhi]

Does Geohot have a family?

That can definitely affect your situation. If I were in his place (I'm single and childfree right now), I would have kept the fight going (especially since people have donated money to a legal defense fund in my name). I would have appealed left and right until all avenues were exhausted. I wouldn't have thrown up the white flag so easily.

Yes, I realize that I may be coming across as an idealist - that if I were in the same situation, I may have given up. But you know what? My life - and damn near every other single person's life - is mundane as hell. What do I risk losing? A couple years of my life in prison? All of my assets, possessions, and money? Then I'll get out of jail and crash on couches to rebuild my life. Some things are more important than possessions. I'll absolutely go to jail on principle.

Re:this is a

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes, he paid for and owns a machine which he has full rights to mulch up with a wood chipper. It is illegal for him to make it process certain electronic signals, for example to run Linux locally. One day your home PC will have a TPM, and it will be illegal for you to hack it to bypass the TPM and run your own custom OS, too.

Re:this is a

[_0xd0ad]

And secondly... how is this even legal? I didn't think it was possible to sign away your ability to sign a contract. /boggle

It's legal in precisely the same way that it's legal to take away felons' rights to vote and bear arms.

Re:this is a

[Rakarra]

The whole point of the case was that he had done those things because he believed (and still believes) that they are not against the law.

It sounds like he got some good legal advice after being hit by the lawsuit and not surprisingly, very little of that before the lawsuit.

Re:this is a

[jmac_the_man]

George Hotz had just graduated high school when he did the iPhone hack in 2007. I remember him being hailed as famous and everything when he came to RIT. (I was news editor of the magazine there at this point; we were trying to get him to do an interview with us.)

Anyway, he was a freshman the year after I was, and I'm 23. He's no more than 21/22. It's theoretically possible he has a family, but given his age and the fact that he's the subject of a Slashdot story, I doubt it.

Re:this is a

[StikyPad]

I suspect that he didn't prepare for this eventuality as well as, say, Compaq did when reverse engineering the IBM BIOS, and that there was damning evidence out there or on his own hard drives. Maybe he has or had a PSN account, or maybe he did in fact profit from this hacking somehow. Just because he swore to the contrary in his affidavit(s) doesn't make it so, and we have no more reason to believe him than to believe any random person off the street.

What we really need is a corporation, formed by interested parties, with the sole raison d'etre of undertaking the next generation of hacks on our behalf. It can be a thorn in the side of onerous, overbearing multinational corporations, and if it's sued out of existence it won't matter one bit; just turn around and form a new one. It's time to fight fire with fire.

Re:this is a

[petermgreen]

As I see it both sides had a lot more to lose in this case than they had to gain.

If sony won the lawsuit then they would just drive the next guy further underground yeah that is a victory for them but most people with a sense of self preservation undertaking such activities are likely to be somewhat underground about it anyway. If they lose then the case would essentially legitmise such hacking attempts.

If geohot lost the lawsuit then he would likely be bankrupted, lose most of his possesions and have financial problems for however long it takes a bankrupcy to come off your record. If he won then he would be winning a huge victory for the hacking community but it wouldn't personally gain him much. There are plenty of other products to hack on that don't have such litigous companies behind them.

Re:this is a

[cheekyjohnson]

When it's your own, well, different story.

It depends on the person.

Lots of people will jump in with accusations of "selling out", "siding with the man", etc. That's all pretty much delusional though.

Yet, even so, the fact that they might crumble if they themselves were in such a situation does not make them incorrect.

Re:this is a

[Hatta]

The facts were on his side bigtime unless there is something we don't know about.

The biggest fact not on his side is that Sony is a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate, and he's just a guy.

Re:this is a

[poetmatt]

At least to some degree, I assume that disparity went away when he started getting legal funding and an actual lawyer? Donations? Etc?

Re:this is a

[DrJimbo]

People donated to geohot's defense to get him the legal advice needed to fight Sony. Obviously, his legal advisors told him accept this settlement. It would have been a far greater waste of the donations if geohot had failed to follow the legal advice the donations paid for.

Re:this is a

[s73v3r]

PirateCorp?

Re:this is a

[s73v3r]

If he did have it in the bag, he probably wouldn't have settled. You have to remember, Sony has armies upon armies of highly trained and highly skilled lawyers on their side. Geohot does not. Even if he was completely in the right, Sony can drag things out over and over until he loses the will or the financial capability to fight.

Re:this is a

[s73v3r]

Do you really think a jurisdiction issue would stop them? Suppose its found out that California doesn't have jurisdiction. What's stopping Sony from then filing the same suit in whatever Geohot's home jurisdiction is? It may be more convenient and cheaper for Sony to do it in California, but they could easily go over to RIT if they had to.

Re:this is a

[s73v3r]

Your tinfoil hat is loose. You might want to fix that.

Re:this is a

[s73v3r]

No. The financial disparity was still there, even when you take into account donations, because those donations likely would not have been enough to cover his legal fees and a potential judgement against him. And odds are the legal talent available to Sony is orders of magnitude higher than the talent available to Geohot.

Re:this is a

[poetmatt]

The guy didn't seem to do perfectly, but to act like he's getting curbstomped by sony seems to be a bit of an overstatement for this early in the process. It's not like the mess of what happened with Tenenbaum v RIAA.

Re:this is a

[clang_jangle]

Yet, even so, the fact that they might crumble if they themselves were in such a situation does not make them incorrect.

Really there is no "correct" or "incorrect". Most of the time all we have is our own interpretation of reality, and all we can do is what must be done. It's always easy to tell others what they "should do". It's easy because they're the ones dealing with the consequences, many of which we probably don't know much less understand.

Re:this is a

[postbigbang]

There wasn't much to do. IBM published the BIOS for the XT.

Guy reading BIOS code: ok, now it uses Int13 for disk calls, moving these register values.

Guy coding a new bios: Kewl. Got it.

This was before the DCMA. 'Twas legal to reverse engineer things, as IBM's patents were easy to sidestep. However, using corporate shields to serially reverse engineer products might be punishable in any number of costly ways, including criminal prosecution under RICO. It's not nice to be a pirate. It's better to boycott Sony, and let the market dictate Sony's future policy stance. I love to hack things. Corporations, overbearing or not, have assets to protect. Blaming them for protecting their assets is a bit silly, as you'd do the same thing, too, as a human.

Re:this is a

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I'll absolutely go to jail on principle.

Easy to say. A lot harder to do. I think in his place I would cave too.

Re:this is a

[cheekyjohnson]

Really there is no "correct" or "incorrect".

I didn't say that there was. I merely said that the fact that they would break down under the same situation that they criticize others for breaking down in does not in itself mean that they are incorrect.

what must be done.

What must be done?

It's always easy to tell others what they "should do".

What you think they should do. It seems to me that someone would wish to fight unjust laws because it would benefit society. Probably.

It's easy because they're the ones dealing with the consequences

And this guy asked for donations so he could fight them, and then stopped fighting them, never actually using the money for its intended purpose (it is unsure what he will do with it now). If that didn't happen, people probably wouldn't be so critical of him.

Re:this is a

[St.Creed]

Personally, I'd go for SPECTRE. That name alone would tell the corps not to mess with this one :)

Re:this is a

[Hatta]

Judges don't care about donations. By being a big corporation, Sony is presumptively in the right. By being an individual, Hotz is presumptively in the wrong. It's not about money, it's about social status.

Re:this is a

[cheekyjohnson]

Considering that many people appear to have similar beliefs when it comes to morals/ethics and what would/wouldn't benefit society, I don't see why. Yes, there is no "correct" or "incorrect" in many circumstances, but there is still likely/unlikely and evidence can still be used.

Re:this is a

[StikyPad]

I wasn't suggesting that the goal should be piracy -- that would be foolish and plainly illegal -- but rather giving people the freedom to use their hardware to its full potential. Establishing legitimate and (otherwise) lawful uses for the technology is the best and most efficient chance I can see of defeating the effects of the DMCA.

Re:this is a

[postbigbang]

Reverse engineering is fun; Sony didn't do much to appeal to those that had bought various versions of the PS/3 to run different *stuff* on it. However, exploits that allow piracy specifically aren't legit. Boot Linux? Fine. Swipe games to use for free when they're licensed? Not good.

Sony's behavior was ugly. Vote with your money.

Re:this is a

[Macthorpe]

The platform is called Palladium

and Microsoft dumped it 7 years ago.

Re:this is a

[Lanczos]

I think the facts weren't on his side. There's little doubt that he violated the anti-circumvision provision of the DMCA. As much as we hate the DMCA it is law and he seemed pretty clearly on the wrong side of it.

Re:this is a

[shutdown -p now]

When the guy asked for money, he specifically said that he's going to fight it, and that he would only accept a settlement that would unblock homebrew one way or another (i.e. either he'd be allowed to hack, or else Sony would give a legitimate backdoor for homebrewers), and that any other kind of settlement would not be accepted.

Re:this is a

[DrJimbo]

Yes. I know he said that which is why I'd be very happy if my donation to his defense fund garnered him the advice that led to this settlement.

He is not allowed to discuss the terms of the settlement (and those terms have not been made public) but he has said:

I will address the donations in a forthcoming post, and I think people will be happy.

... I am fighting your fight, in the best way I know how. You'll just have to trust me.

I suggest we cut him some slack and find out what is going to happen with the donations before we crucify him.

Re:this is a

[Purity Of Essence]

Sony's behavior was ugly. Vote with your money.

Exactly! I've never bought a PS3 and I'm certainly not going to buy another. I might not even buy three, I'm so mad!

Re:this is a

[shutdown -p now]

He is not allowed to discuss the terms of the settlement (and those terms have not been made public)

They were, just not officially.

It's actually a surprisingly good deal as far as settlements go, since they basically only required him to stop doing what they didn't want him to do. He doesn't pay any damages. If I were in his place, I'd certainly take it when it was offered.

However, it's pretty much the exact opposite of what he claimed he was going to stand for when he took the donation money. Where it goes now is not particularly relevant (and I doubt he'll renege on his promise with that regard, at least... it would be too much of a reputation hit, even on top of what he already has).

Re:this is a

[DrJimbo]

Yes. This is a common mistake. Those public documents are not the terms of the settlement that geohot is not allowed to discuss. Those documents are part of the public record. It would be ridiculous for Sony to prohibit geohot from divulging terms that are part of the public record.

Settlements have two parts: the public part (that in this case has been splashed all over the web) and the private part. It is the private part that geohot cannot discuss. Often when a corporation pays money to settle a case, one of the terms of the settlement is that the person getting the money can't divulge the amount. I'm not saying this therefore means that Sony paid geohot, but ISTM that if the terms all favored Sony then they wouldn't demand that geohot be silent about them.

We don't know what the deal was. We don't know what's going to happen to the leftover donation money. But we do know that you can still buy a t-shirt sporting Sony's private key. ISTM this is a major victory. Doesn't this enable other people to continue hacking on the PS3? I'm going to wait and see what is going to happen to the donations before I condemn geohot.

When you get older (I'm referring to geohot, not the Slashdotter who buys civilization with taxes) you learn to choose your battles. I'd much prefer that the question of whether the DMCA covers jailbreaking be decided in a court that was not quite so bend-over-and-pick-up-the-soap friendly to corporate interests.

Re:this is a

[poetmatt]

This was the fight of the entire case, sony has no jurisdiction outside of japan from the evidence. Also there's a huge burden to make a person go far outside their home. Sony was fighting to keep it in Cali.

Re:this is a

[bluefoxlucid]

Plasma displays were dumped in the 70s too. As was OLED recently dumped by everyone (until they make their margin on the other incremental technologies anyway).

Re:this is a

[AmiMoJo]

That is why we need an organisation with deepish pockets to step in. Someone like the EFF maybe. They would publish the keys and method of obtaining them, wait for Sony to sue them and run with it. They could even pre-emptively sue Sony to confirm their right to publish the details, or just sue them for starting a lawsuit over something which is legal in the hopes of stifling further legal jailbreaking.

Re:this is a

[Ihmhi]

Easy to say. A lot harder to do. I think in his place I would cave too.

This is in no way meant an attack on your position, but that generally goes with any "moral high ground" position, doesn't it? I don't mean to wholly equate the importance of this with other civil rights situations, but I'm sure it must have been easier for Rosa Parks to give up her seat or Martin Luther King to put his head down and accept things the way they are. It's all a matter of willpower and the ability to sacrifice.

I'm sure part of my position has to do with the fact that I own very little. I don't own a home. I don't own a car. Technically I don't even own my cell phone. They could take, at most, my computer and the clothes off of my back. So I suppose that much like other people who are in a similar situation of standing up for something, I don't have very much in the way of material things to lose.

Re:this is a

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

You seem to forget that they can take a lot more than your computer and the clothes off your back. How do you think you would like to be writing a cheque to Sony every month fro the rest of your life? You would never be able to own a house, or a car.

Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[Anrego]

Much as I think this battle needs to be fought geohot is an attention seeking ass, and it’s a shame he was the one who was slated fight it.

I think it’s actually a blessing in disguise that he decided to save his own skin. Not saying I wouldn’t do the same, I’ll admit it, when it comes to me or the greater good I’ll go with me and screw everyone else. However there are lots of noble idealists types who would fight themselves in prison and then keep at it and that’s who needs to be fighting this thing, not some annoying jackass.

As for donations wasn’t the plan for unused (so in this case, most of it) money to go to the EFF.

And just cause I’m already pseudo flamewar-ing, we really don’t need another Kevin Mitnick in the world.

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[Higaran]

I agree, in theory I'd love to take on sony with this kind of thing. But when the shit hits the fan and you have a lawyer telling you that you could lose your house and everything you've worked your whole life for then your I'd probably save my own skin too. Anyone that says the guy didn't do enough is an idiot, and they can only say that because they've never been anywhere near that kind of a situation. Companies like $ony have armies of laywers and will look for loopholes that would probably include lawsuits for anyone you've ever met your entire life, no one need that kind of hassle in thier lives. So I think everyone should just let the guy be, he's been trough enough already, and what he did do is alot more than most people.

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[NoAkai]

Maybe I'm stupid for taking the bait, but what's wrong with Mitnick all of a sudden?

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[cpscotti]

And just cause I’m already pseudo flamewar-ing, we really don’t need another Adrian Lamo in the world.

That's the real jackass!
That's the one screwing everyone else!

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[MoonBuggy]

All of what you say is entirely reasonable (with the possible exception of $ony), but it discounts the context; Hotz said, when taking donations: "...this case isn't about me. Clearly I am not being sued because of something I have that Sony wants, I am being sued in order to send a message that Sony is not to be messed with. But if I(and all codefendants likewise) actually win this, we have the power to send a much stronger message back. That consumers have rights, and we aren't afraid to stand up for them." and "My attempts at humor aside, I do take this whole matter very seriously. Again, it's not about me, I was on the verge of quitting this stuff last June, and I would hate to be the one who sets a reputation for hackers that all a company has to do is sue us and we back down. In fact, I want the opposite reputation set, that the more a company tries to abuse the legal system, the harder we rally back.".

He talked big, he took money, and then he shied away when he realised that Sony could quite possibly crush him. I think it's disgusting that they can do so, and I think it's quite understandable that he didn't want to take the risk, but the fact remains that he was fairly misleading in what he said. It wasn't "please help me survive until I can make Sony leave me alone" it was "fuck them, I'm fighting back, I'll make them pay, and I want you to help". I don't really blame him for backing down, but I do think those who donated have a reasonable right to feel aggrieved, and some level of apology and explanation from Hotz would probably be appropriate.

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[rockman_x_2002]

I didn't send any money to the cause and have remained neutral, although I have certainly voiced my opinion concerning the fair use of products purchased and owned by end-users for the purpose the end-user wants to use it for. Though I did not provide funds to this cause, I do have opinions on the money that has been donated, and what my wishes would be had I sent him money.

First of all, I do NOT think Hotz has a right to keep the money for himself. That would be quite dishonest and untrustworthy. Instead, I would rather see the extra money donated to the EFF with the earmark that it be used to fund the defense of similar cases like Sony vs. Hotz. I think that would be a satisfactory action as it would allow the donation money to still be used for what it was intended for by someone that should find need for it, even if it isn't used by the original defendant who requested the funds for his legal expenses (in this case, Hotz).

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[elrous0]

People will always suspect that he pocketed some or all of the money. That will cast a cloud on donating to similar cases in the future. There is no silver lining here. GeoHot has made it a lot harder for people in the future to defend themselves against Sony and other thugs on hacking hardware.

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[Anrego]

I just don't like the guy! I think he's an attention seeking egomaniac who brought most of his misfortune on himself and has milked the fame of his case for every damn penny (ok, I don't blame him for that at all..) to the point where it _almost_ seems planned.

Ok, probably not fair, but from my view it parallels the whole "guy I don't like fighting a cause I believe in" type situation that geohot would have been in. At least Kevin Mitnick really did suffer in prison for a while.

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[BitZtream]

He didn't do anything original, everything he did was someone elses work

He got caught for trivial reasons that anyone with half a clue would have avoided.

He tried to throw it in the face of those he was abusing that he was doing it.

He cried like a little girl when the police interviewed him.

He's nothing more than attention whore who thinks the world should be handed to him because ... HE is Kevin Mitnick.

He's a nobody who got a bunch of publicity, thats it, nothing more.

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[mrchaotica]

Much as I think this battle needs to be fought geohot is an attention seeking ass, and itâ(TM)s a shame he was the one who was slated fight it.

That's the thing that bothers me most about this: it's blatantly obvious that geohot intended for Sony to come after him, by the fact that he released the work using his real name. If he didn't have any genuine intention of fighting, why couldn't he have had the decency to just be anonymous in the first place?

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[Anrego]

I suspect he did plan on fighting it to a certain extent, but then backed off when his lawyer told him Sony was figuratively (and perhaps literallly) going to remove his testicles and serve them to him for lunch. I mean, going against a company like Sony, you'd have to expect it... but when it's actually happening the reality of the situation might be a bit more than expected. As said in my original post, in the same situation I would totally sell out at the first chance... but I'd never get myself into this kind of situation either.

I still think they guy is an ass though! And maybe with this injunction we'll stop hearing about him every other week!

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[catmistake]

This early settlement should have been expected. Geohot, as brilliant as he is at reverse-engineering, never seems to finish anything. He lacks the discipline to follow through to the bitter end. But on the other hand, he is not beholden to anyone. Donations are in effect gifts, and gifts have no strings attached. Unless one is personally sued by a multi-million dollar corporation, I don't think they have a right to judge Geohot's actions. And contrary to the idea of this being a victory for Sony, settlements do not establish legal precedent. A trial is a prerequisite of legal precedent. No trial, no precedent. Sony is still right where they started.

Re:Inevitable but maybe a good thing

[NoAkai]

To be fair, he *does* run a whitehat company, which seems legitimate enough.

Armchair Hackers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to criticize GeoHot when you're not the one being sued by one of the largest corporations in the world. I feel bad for GeoHot, it seems like no matter what he does and how he tries to help -- and make no mistake, he has helped immensely on many projects -- he keeps getting blasted by haters.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[halivar]

The best part is how the haters aren't the ones who were being sued. They have no vested interest, and nothing to lose. Screw them.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[cptdondo]

+1

Next time you're looking down the barrel of a gun, or at a multi-billion dollar company out to crush you, tell me how brave you're going to be.

It's easy to watch an action flick and say "I can do that" and another thing not to shit yourself when you hear the bullet whiz by before you hear the crack of the rifle.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[The Grim Reefer2]

The best part is how the haters aren't the ones who were being sued. They have no vested interest, and nothing to lose.

Isn't that usually the case?

Re:Armchair Hackers

[Surt]

If you watch an action flick and think, I can do that, I have news for you, you're wrong. At least for every single action flick I've seen, there is a significant percentage of physical impossibilities.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[cptdondo]

If you watch an action flick and think, I can do that, I have news for you, you're wrong..

Ever read the darwin awards?

Re:Armchair Hackers

[bberens]

Depends on whether it was civil or criminal. If it's criminal I'd sell out. If it's civil once you declare bankruptcy then it should be all over. You usually get to keep your house and cars in bankruptcy.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[cptdondo]

Depends on the state. In SC you get to keep a mattress. Seriously. Still, a bankrupcy will fuck up your life for at least 7 years. No decent job, no college, no rentals, no credit cards, no checking account. You wanna live like that?

Re:Armchair Hackers

[bberens]

Something tells me that the guy who made international news by cracking the [insert well known product] isn't going to have that hard of a time finding a decent consulting job.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[TheGratefulNet]

no checking account? I think you went a bit far, there. CREDIT, yes. checking, no, that's not based on credit. you deposit funds in a checking account. if you have funds, any bank will take you as a customer.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to criticize GeoHot when you're not the one being sued by one of the largest corporations in the world. I feel bad for GeoHot, it seems like no matter what he does and how he tries to help -- and make no mistake, he has helped immensely on many projects -- he keeps getting blasted by haters.

Perhaps geohot keeps getting blasted by haters because he makes himself so easy to hate, as he is, in fact, a douchebag.

The legal documents pertaining to his case read like some sort of self-aggrandizing group wank, referring to himself as a "prodigy" of some sort. Sorry, but George is a prodigy in no field other than taking the LEGO Bricks that other hackers have so kindly molded for him, then popping them together and subsequently claiming that not only did he build the entire model from scratch, he painstakingly molded the plastic using rainbows and sunshine, and wrote the manual using calligraphy on papyrus.

Need I point out that it wasn't until Team Twiizers complained - and rightly so - that geohot was taking 100% of the credit for the Jailbreak exploit that he finally acknowledged on his site that maybe he didn't do it single-handedly? Then, after beating his chest to every media outlet that would listen about how HE was the one who completely blew open the PS3, he got sued by Sony - I call it karmic justice, if not legal or moral - and suddenly he's every hacker's favorite martyr, with everyone happily glossing over the fact that it was Team Twiizers that figured out the key exploit in the first place.

The simple fact of the matter is that geohot is nothing more than an attention-seeking douchebag who, when required to face consequences for his actions - something apparently foreign to people under the age of 25 nowadays - ran *screaming* to a lawyer with his Backpedal-O-Meter burying the needle at the far end of the scale.

He is scum, plain and simple, and I would have not lost a blink of sleep if he found himself rotting in the modern equivalent of debtor's prison until the heat death of the universe. He blatantly rips off other peoples' research without giving credit, he tries to portray himself as some utterly transparent martyr, and when it comes to put-up-or-shut-up, he doesn't even have the stones to try to defend his sand castle against the incoming tide.

At the end of it all, though, I suppose I got what *I* want out of the entire thing - he gets to shut the hell up about this whole PS3 debacle and Team Twiizers is unaffected by Sony's suit, so the real hackers behind it all can continue doing what they've been doing, and the loud-mouthed con artist gets gagged.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[Midnight Thunder]

If you watch an action flick and think, I can do that, I have news for you, you're wrong..

Ever read the darwin awards?

Wouldn't that simple confirmation that even if try something crazy you are necessarily going to make it alive?

Re:Armchair Hackers

[BitZtream]

Depends on whether it was civil or criminal. If it's criminal I'd sell out. If it's civil once you declare bankruptcy then it should be all over. You usually get to keep your house and cars in bankruptcy.

You clearly have no idea what happens in bankruptcy.

You might get to keep your house, depends on what state its in and how much its worth. You most certainly may be forced to sell it and move to something more modest. Same goes for the car and pretty much every other posession you own.

Bankruptcy is NOT a get of jail free card, and its been made worse recently to cut down on the number of idiots like yourself who try to use it as such. Its doubtful he would even qualify for it.

Then ... to top it off ... the court can simply say 'you don't get out of this by filing bankruptcy' and he's done. Depending on the laws where the trial was taking case, it may already legally be that way by state law.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[jonamous]

That's not entirely true. Quite a few banks out there subscribe to services that act as bank-account specific "credit reports". If you owe a bank money (overdrawn accounts, fees, bounced checked, etc), they can report you to these types of services and other banks may not be willing to open an account for you. Granted, some bank out there WILL give you an account but some will not.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[BitZtream]

no checking account? I think you went a bit far, there. CREDIT, yes. checking, no, that's not based on credit

Really? Show me a bank that doesn't do a credit check before opening an account for the first time. Checks are treated as a form of credit since you can write them without the money actually BEING in the account. Checking accounts are most certainly dependent on your credit history.

I walked into multiple banks with a $9500 cashier check and was denied due to my horrible credit. I was told flat out they would be happy to deal with me if I can back with proof that I had paid the debts I owed but they couldn't do business before that was done even though the amount of outstanding debt was 1/4 that.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[fast turtle]

Wrong. If you have bad Credit, no bank wants you as a customer becuase of the potential for writing bad checks and yes I know what I'm talking about as it happened to my brother. He couldn't even get a savings account because of his bad credit. The banks simply didn't want him as a customer because he cost too much to have.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[mrclisdue]

Whilst I doubt that this post will get modded UP, since there is the scent of hate (normal knee-jerk reaction to ac will be modded troll, or flamebait), I find this post both interesting and informative, and fairly-well written.

So, thanks ac, for your thoughts.

cheers,

Re:Armchair Hackers

[bberens]

Actually bankruptcy IS a get out of jail free card. That's the whole point of its existence. It sucks and it's not a *fun* process to go through, but the whole point is to let people "start over." The bankruptcy court may not toss out all of your debts, but surely the $50 Million a company like Sony racked up on you will get wiped out to next to nothing. In many states you get to keep your house and cars. In every state they can't go after your retirement or college savings accounts.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[Xest]

"Next time you're looking down the barrel of a gun, or at a multi-billion dollar company out to crush you, tell me how brave you're going to be."

I wouldn't, the difference is I wouldn't say I'll put my arse on the line and take other people's money under that false premise either.

In fact, I'll be even more honest, if I was going to do something like this in the first place I'd not even be big headed enough to try and plaster my name all over it and would release it anonymously or under a pseudonym that I had taken care to protect.

I don't think anyone's faulting him for not standing up to a big company, I think people are faulting him for saying he would and taking their money under that premise. This is why love or hate The Pirate Bay guys, at least they put their arses on the line through it all- they deserve far more respect than this kid. The same goes for Assange, love or hate him, at least he had the balls to put his life on the line for what he believed.

All this said I wouldn't say I didn't see this coming- GeoHot did what he did by building on other's work and he wasn't particularly forthcoming in admitting that, it was all me me me and frankly he showed a high level of immaturity in general. I would never expect a kid like that to stand up to his ideals, whatever was on the line. The guy was just never mature enough in the first place to really be taken seriously as a defender of consumer rights, he's no doubt smart technically, but seemed utterly inept when it came to acting with some degree of maturity.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[Rakarra]

The best part is how the haters aren't the ones who were being sued. They have no vested interest, and nothing to lose. Screw them.

Except, of course, for the money they gave when he asked for donations to fight Sony, which he's not giving back.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[cheekyjohnson]

something apparently foreign to people under the age of 25 nowadays

It seems to be foreign to plenty of people, regardless of age. When they think they've done nothing wrong, they will fight back.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[Rakarra]

Need I point out that it wasn't until Team Twiizers complained - and rightly so - that geohot was taking 100% of the credit for the Jailbreak exploit that he finally acknowledged on his site that maybe he didn't do it single-handedly? Then, after beating his chest to every media outlet that would listen about how HE was the one who completely blew open the PS3, he got sued by Sony - I call it karmic justice, if not legal or moral - and suddenly he's every hacker's favorite martyr, with everyone happily glossing over the fact that it was Team Twiizers that figured out the key exploit in the first place.

Sounds like this works out for everybody (except Geohot). Team Twiizers isn't in the cross-hairs, Sony gets a target to sue.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[Dan541]

You also get to keep the contents of a swiss bank account.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[Khyber]

"Show me a bank that doesn't do a credit check before opening an account for the first time."

BBVA Compass, for one. Walked right in with two grand cash and opened up an account, no check nada.

Re:Armchair Hackers

[bhtooefr]

Or, the other thing is, he could pay the judgement as quickly as he could, while maxing out credit cards left and right to pay for normal expenses, and then wipe THAT out every 7 years, to live, even if a massive judgement didn't get wiped out.

Of course, if things got to that point, most people in such a situation would start exercising their second amendment rights, I suspect.

To the EFF

[KingAlanI]

Wasn't it pointed out in the last GeoHot story several times that unused donations would be sent on over to the EFF?

Re:To the EFF

[Surt]

Mod parent up, and for god's sake add that to the story headline.

Re:To the EFF

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that people didnt donate to him so that he could settle with sony. people donated because it was a fight to set a precident and they were lead to believe by Geohot that he was going to fight $ony until the end. now people have less $$ in their accounts and nothing to show for it.

Re:To the EFF

[The Grim Reefer2]

I have no clue how much money was donated to date. But with the deep pockets Sony has to pay lawyers, I can image going up against them could burn through a hell of a lot of cash in short order. If he had to go through 10's of thousands of dollars just to settle this, he may have come to the conclusion that it was not financially possible to win.

Re:To the EFF

[Anonymous Coward]

now people have less $$ in their accounts and nothing to show for it.

A fool and his money are quickly parted.

If you donate $5 to help with legal fees, cry me a river when the guy decides "screw this I'm settling". He fought it for a while, then came to the conclusion it's not worth 10 years of his life fighting tooth and nail against Das Sony and its regiment of goosestepping lawyers. If he's been upfront that the rest of the funds would go to the EFF and he follows through, you have no right to complain. You donated money for a cause, you didn't buy anything.

Re:To the EFF

[tophermeyer]

Seriously.

People are surprised to hear that a guy who was relying on donations to pay his legal fees took the opportunity to settle before going to trial. Film at 11.

Re:To the EFF

[elrous0]

donations would be sent on over to the EFF

So he claims. But how will we ever know if some of it didn't end up in his pocket? I won't be donating to any of these cases in the future, not after this. I don't want to ass-clown to fold without even a fight, pocketing some or all of the money I gave him to defend himself.

Re:To the EFF

[gad_zuki!]

Right, his lawyer told him to settle. That's the wisest move. The law isn't like it is in the movies where the young guy challenges the status quo and wins. In real life, the status quo sues you to oblivion and 80% of your check is garnished for the rest of your days.

Corporations have too much power. Fighting them in court doesn't work as they more or less write the laws they're attacking you with. Change the laws. Regulate corporations tighter.

Re:To the EFF

[Duradin]

Would be != have been.

Re:To the EFF

[mrchaotica]

Right, his lawyer told him to settle.

What needed to happen would have been the EFF defending him itself.

Re:To the EFF

[Anonymous Coward]

I donated to him so he wouldn't get crushed by Sony. I got what I wanted. I wasn't expecting some fairy tale ending where OtherOS is restored, the Sony Executives are all vanquished, and hacking your own hardware is recognized by the Supreme Court as a protected activity.

You expected too much.

Re:To the EFF

[slinches]

I wasn't expecting some fairy tale ending where OtherOS is restored, the Sony Executives are all vanquished, and hacking your own hardware is recognized by the Supreme Court as a protected activity.

I wasn't expecting it either, but the hope was some of that might happen if I donated and it would be guaranteed that it none of it would if he didn't receive any donations. As long as he keeps his promise to donate the remaining funds to the EFF, I have no problem with the outcome. I think George Hotz and his legal team did whatever they could without causing undue risk to him personally. He and his lawyers aren't dumb. He settled because he found the offer to be better than the available alternatives. With the documents that are currently public, it seems like he got nothing out of the deal at all, but he also seemed to be in a good position legally. I think Sony must have given up something for him to agree to a settlement. I have no idea what that is, but my hope is that it's something along the lines of what he said he'd want in a settlement a while back.

Re:To the EFF

[Schadrach]

He didn't "fight it for a while" though -- he settled before it had even been officially decided where they were going to fight it out *at*.

Re:To the EFF

[cheekyjohnson]

Change the laws. Regulate corporations tighter.

That's possible, but it would be difficult simply because of said corporations and their seemingly endless supplies of money.

Re:To the EFF

[Stan92057]

lol maybe the ran out of donated money before the "Big Fight" really started

Re:To the EFF

[PhilHibbs]

Do you have any evidence of wrongdoing? How do I know you didn't mug an old lady to pay for your internet connection that allowed you to post that, you granny-bashing scumbag?

Half and half

[YodasEvilTwin]

Keeping the money would be a dick move, he should return it. But anyone who says they'd take Sony on one-on-one and end up with insane legal fees is either a liar or an idiot.

Re:Half and half

[Drakkenmensch]

There's people like that everywhere. Idiots who tell you that you should go scream at your boss and demand more money and a promotion. They'll be nowhere near you to help and will deny giving you the idea when asked, of course. The smart thing to do is to pick your fights carefully, and GeoHotz is that smart, clearly.

Re:Half and half

[Surt]

He should do exactly what he said he'd do with any money not used in his legal defense. If you didn't know what that was before you donated, you really should have read the donation web page.

Re:Half and half

[countertrolling]

Let's just say that I am less likely to give any money away if I can't reasonably expect the desired result. In this case, a resolution, either way. This is a little like the present political scene in DC right now with all the appeasement.

I think something was found in discovery that he wants to keep off the record. Or Sony offered a very good deal to keep something they want kept off the record, in which case I would very quick to condemn the settlement.

Re:Half and half

[Lumpy]

So he does something, get's sued and ends up not paying a dime out of his own pocket.

It's scumbaggy because nobody would have donated a dime if he said "I'm hoping for a settlement". It's his own fault for stroking his own ego and making sure he could be identified. He knew that Sony would be on him like bees. A smart move would be to release this crap anonymously or under a unconnected pseudonym that took care to not leave footprints to follow. So total out of pocket costs to him is ZERO plus a nice tax deduction for a donation to the EFF.

That is where the scumbaggyness comes in.

P.S. all you idiots that think your friends "got your back", they don't. they will throw you under the bus fast to save their own hide. This whole situation is a perfect example of this.

Re:Half and half

[_0xd0ad]

So total out of pocket costs to him is ZERO plus a nice tax deduction for a donation to the EFF.

Wouldn't he have to pay taxes on all of the money that was donated anyway? Writing off the tax deduction for the portion that he donated to the EFF would only partially offset that, as he'd only have to pay taxes on the money he didn't donate.

Re:Half and half

[bluefoxlucid]

Actually, he picked his fights wrongly; got bashed in the head, dragged to a barn, and shown a huge horse cock. "Now see this poor boy hasn't even seen himself a mare in months... now why don't we discuss what we gonna do bout that you and me hmm?" Suddenly this didn't seem like a good idea anymore.

Re:Who Cares What Night Breed Says?

[GodricL]

This just in from a true Hacker, Captain Midnight "$12.95/month? No Way!"

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[cybersquid]

Oh, like maybe OtherOS will return? I would like that.
So would Sony. I used to buy DLC & rent video via PSN.
That was before their feature-stealing "upgrade" was required to let me log in.
Of course, so far Sony has been too stupid to know whats actually in their own best interests.

If they want a fight...

[mseeger]

If they want a fight, they are invited to post the secret key on their own web site (including a manual how to use it), add their contact details and wait for Sony (or their lawyers) to come for them. Then they can show how brave they are...

CU, Martin

Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Hotz didn't "settle for a job" and it's assumed that he is going to donate remaining legal funds to the EFF. What some misinformed blog commenter says is irrelevant.

Re:Misleading

[Linsaran]

Warning Goatse Link, I'd mod down if I had mod points

Re:Misleading

[smelch]

You seriously clicked on the link pointing to the nig.gr domain?

Re:Misleading

[cobrausn]

I'm more surprised that he clicked on any link in the comments, especially a shortened URL.

Re:Misleading

[elrous0]

it's assumed that he is going to donate remaining legal funds to the EFF

Assumptions are always dangerous, especially when a lot of money is involved. Will he donate all of it, some of it, of none of it? We'll likely never have anything better than his word on what he did with the money. And that has an even more damning effect on these sorts of cases in the future, since people will be much more reluctant to donate to someone else's case after this guy sold out and took the money (even if it's just some of the money, even if it's just *allegations* that he pocketed some of the money).

Re:Misleading

[xiao_haozi]

it's assumed that he is going to donate remaining legal funds to the EFF

Assumptions are always dangerous, especially when a lot of money is involved. Will he donate all of it, some of it, of none of it? We'll likely never have anything better than his word on what he did with the money. And that has an even more damning effect on these sorts of cases in the future, since people will be much more reluctant to donate to someone else's case after this guy sold out and took the money (even if it's just some of the money, even if it's just *allegations* that he pocketed some of the money).

Well we can always hope that the EFF would share information as to whether these donation claims are factual or not down the road.

Re:Misleading

[piripiri]

From AC.

Re:Misleading

[elrous0]

It still wouldn't matter, as he's never said how much he received in the first place. People will always suspect that he pocketed some of the money.

If GH's work and code is in the wild...

[gatkinso]

...then the whole settlement is moot.

Re:If GH's work and code is in the wild...

[matt_gaia]

That would be all well and good, had FW 3.60 not closed (well, more like side-stepped) the issue of the key released by GH. Anyone staying on a CFW based on 3.56 and below will be fine, for now, until the newer games start requiring 3.6, including it's authentication methods.

Re:If GH's work and code is in the wild...

[cheekyjohnson]

Except that it usually doesn't scare anyone off, as far as I've seen. They might be more cautious about revealing their identity, though.

That's really stupid.

[thisisauniqueid]

That's really stupid. It's his life. He now has the legal system off his back as opposed to landing in prison for what should never have classified as a crime under any legal system.

Re:That's really stupid.

[Lumpy]

WE dont have debtors prison, what backward country do you live in?

Re:That's really stupid.

[blueg3]

It's not a crime, it's a civil offense. He wouldn't be imprisoned.

Re:That's really stupid.

[spire3661]

Actually we do. Get behind in child support payments and see what happens.

Re:That's really stupid.

[gmhowell]

Actually we do. Get behind in child support payments and see what happens.

/signed

Re:That's really stupid.

[Lumpy]

MY ex wife is $29,000+ behind in child support... she get's a stern talking to by the friend of the court.

Re:That's really stupid.

[gmhowell]

I've seen men go to jail for less than half that.

A possibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Geohot can't talk much about why he settled, but his replies on his blog suggests a plausible reason: he realized he was unlikely to win the case (suggesting that the judge was biased) and chose to settle to avoid setting a legal precedent.

Re:A possibility

[turtledawn]

+1 informative

Re:A possibility

[gnasher719]

Geohot can't talk much about why he settled, but his replies on his blog [blogspot.com] suggests a plausible reason: he realized he was unlikely to win the case (suggesting that the judge was biased) and chose to settle to avoid setting a legal precedent.

Can we replace "unlikely to win the case" to "unlikely to leave the court room without being at least bankrupt, if not worse"? As an individual, it's no good if you "win" a case if it costs you money that you cannot afford to spend. And I don't think that he got donations that are enough to pay the cost of a good lawyer. Plus the risk of losing the case, which might have happened whether he was guilty or not.

Re:A possibility

[_0xd0ad]

I actually have trouble understanding why hackers just completely lose their shit when the law is involved. It's an interesting and complex system that any real hacker should relish understanding and, well, hacking.

Wrong because of what you said shortly thereafter:

I actually argued with a linux kernel dev who refused to accept the verdict even after Reiser led the police to the body, because he couldn't understand how a guilty verdict was reached in the trial. He actually said "the investigation was flawed, and couldn't logically produce Reiser as a suspect, therefore the trial was flawed and the guilty verdict wrong."

"Hacking" the legal system doesn't work if the judge doesn't care. Yes, maybe the judge should release you on a technicality that you cleverly discovered, but if he/she doesn't, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

"Hacking" a system is only possible when it always follows its own rules. Judges are allowed to make up the interpretations of rules as they go. It's called setting precedent.

Re:A possibility

[jjohnson]

Judges are allowed to make up the interpretations of rules as they go. It's called setting precedent.

Setting precedent only happens when the judge is ruling on something not covered either by existing law or prior precedent. They don't get to just make shit up. And if they do, there's several layers of appeals courts that routinely revisit and overturn the rulings of judges.

"Hacking" a system is only possible when it always follows its own rules.

The legal system does follow its own rules, which allow for a degree of discretion among all participants to judge and act for themselves because it fundamentally recognizes that human affairs can't be reduced to something as a logical as a processor design.

So I guess that's it. Hackers have trouble dealing with the legal system because they can't handle the apparent ambiguity of the process and the results.

Re:A possibility

[DerekLyons]

suggesting that the judge was biased

Or that the legal realities don't match up so well to the fevered dreams of hackers everywhere.

Precisely this - I wish I had mod points today because you hit so many points squarely on the head.
 

I actually have trouble understanding why hackers just completely lose their shit when the law is involved.

I don't. Many hackers and /.ers (the sets are in overlap, not congruent) are a) zealots and thus shut out any evidence that disagrees with their fore-ordained conclusions, b) mentally young adolescents who are unable to discern the difference between how they see the world and how the world works (and are seemingly unaware that the dichotomy even exists), or c) both of the above. They don't know the facts, and they don't need to know the facts - their worldview is a priori the correct one, and reality is at fault for failing to live up to it.

Re:A possibility

[_0xd0ad]

Setting precedent only happens when the judge is ruling on something not covered either by existing law or prior precedent. They don't get to just make shit up. And if they do, there's several layers of appeals courts that routinely revisit and overturn the rulings of judges.

Court cases cost money. Lots of money. Appeals cost even more money. Unless you can find someone with extremely deep pockets to back you, you just lose and pay whatever penalty gets dished out. And judges aren't accountable to anyone if their decision does get overturned higher up.

Hackers have trouble dealing with the legal system because they can't handle the apparent ambiguity of the process and the results.

No shit, Sherlock. Not even all of the justices of the Supreme Court can typically agree on the legal issues with which they're faced. When the highest court in the land is divided in their opinions on really important cases, what hope do you have of getting the desired outcome in your petty little case?

Re:A possibility

[jjohnson]

what hope do you have of getting the desired outcome in your petty little case?

The legal system does not exist to provide you with your desired outcome. It's not a computer where the right inputs get the right outputs. It exists to resolve disputes according to the law as written and the body of previous judgements that are applicable. And, pretty much by definition, where a trial proceeds through appeals, it's because the existing body of law and precedent do not provide a clear rule on who's right and who's wrong, and so the process works to generate a final ruling.

Unless you can find someone with extremely deep pockets to back you, you just lose and pay whatever penalty gets dished out.

The legal system is not a market where money purchases you the desired outcome. SCO is proof enough of that.

I'm not claiming the legal system is perfect, or invulnerable to bias or the effect of money on cases. But this idea you seem to have that the legal system is simply corrupt is just... tremendously illustrative, perhaps, about how the hacker mindset deals badly with non-deterministic systems.

I've been through legal issues that took years and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I've read up on cases where I heard the verdict and thought "WTF?" In both cases, when I got down to the details, I could understand how the result was achieved. I didn't necessarily agree with it, but I could understand how the legal issues were resolved by people participating in the process and making decisions along the way that were generally comprehensible at the moment.

Re:A possibility

[MozeeToby]

If the legal system were a piece of software, every hacker in the world would cringe in fear and disgust and insist on a rewrite. The crackers would have a field finding and exploiting every vulnerability under the sun to their own ends. And the original writers of the code would be well aware that the code was too convoluted and complex to be efficiently maintained, but they'd gladly take your money and resources in exchange for token efforts at improving it.

Re:A possibility

[_0xd0ad]

pretty much by definition, where a trial proceeds through appeals, it's because the existing body of law and precedent do not provide a clear rule on who's right and who's wrong, and so the process works to generate a final ruling ... But this idea you seem to have that the legal system is simply corrupt is just... tremendously illustrative, perhaps, about how the hacker mindset deals badly with non-deterministic systems.

You appear to think that the legal system behaves non-deterministically only when the law and precedent is ambiguous.

Well, you've obviously never been ticketed for an offense you didn't commit or had police violate your rights.

Re:A possibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Jjohnson, the scariest part is you probably actually believe what you said...

Judicial process allows for discretion, but there is neither motivation nor punishment to not abuse discretion. Getting overturned carries no penalties. You could claim that's part of the nature of a democratic republic... but even a republic is supposed to follow a rule of law beyond just electoral process.

An example I often use--there is a local county courtroom in the county house where a judge has ruled "In my courtroom a butterfly knife is a switchblade"--and people have been convicted in that courtroom (and no other in the city) of all the related charges. Nevermind it's a point of fact that it isn't. Nevermind anyone I've ever spoken with agrees this would be overturned on appeal (very likely immediately). The point is the people that get to trial on that charge in that courtroom can't afford to appeal. It's standing law with a 1 in 5 chance depending on the judge that draws your case in this city that if you get arrested with a butterfly knife, and the DA is feeling mean enough to try for switchblade charges--it will stick. Over ten years and nobody's appealed it.

There's countless other cases of routine constitutional abuse where the law will be overturned on appeal, but enforced until decided upon.

Just because a system is internally consistent and follows its own rules doesn't mean you can 'hack' it or 'can't hack' because it follows some sort of abstract process. Every step of the way can be ignored by anyone for any reason or have discretion applied for any reason. That isn't "ambiguity"--that's the product of correlated variables that are sufficiently independent that they can be modeled as a non-uniform probabilistic distribution... aka... random.

Judges can and do get to "make shit up". Yes, it might get appealed--but that may as well be a coin toss until it goes any higher. It isn't just apparent ambiguity of the process or people--you can read any number of supreme court rulings and watch them pull out volume after volume of research text where they redefine common english into Terms of the Art that may have an opposite meaning.

You may call this ambiguity of process and results. I call it fitting sample data to the model. And just like that's fraud in research...it's also fraud in courts.

And that's why hackers don't like the system. Real Hackers live in a meritocracy. Courthouses are anything but.

TLDR: Pursuit of justice is a lie.

Re:A possibility

[StikyPad]

[The law is] an interesting and complex system that any real hacker should relish understanding and, well, hacking.

The problem with the law is that it's written in an ambiguous language and applied inconsistently from one case to the next. It is essentially a chaotic and unpredictable system which, frankly, is not worth the expense in time and money for most people to bother with unless they absolutely have to. Trying to win a court case is like trying to make it rain in New York by spraying some water in the air in California. Will it work? Maybe, maybe not -- there are so many variables that it's impossible to know for sure.

The more variables you can control, the better your odds become, but it costs a lot of money to position your variables as the dominant forces (researching various issues, introducing them as evidence, arguing for their significance) while at the same time preventing your opponent from doing the same. And in the end this whole complex structure you've created, your case, can be undone by a little unexpected piece of evidence or even a turn of phrase, like a tiny breeze that sends a future hurricane toward Galveston instead of Miami.

The only value provided by law is the false comfort it gives us in justice and fairness -- it says it's fair, and we believe -- and the true knowledge that there's a giant out there we should all fear, because when it sets its sights on us, anything can happen.

Re:A possibility

[jjohnson]

No, I think the law is non-deterministic in general. It always involves people at every stage making decisions and judgements, because you can't reduce human affairs to a set of rules. Sometimes that means the policeman violates your rights; sometimes it means you thinking the policeman violated your rights because you don't understand what your rights are in practical terms. Like I said, I've been through the process. I've seen how messy it seems.

What I reject is your suggestion that it's little more than money and bias that decides things. In every case I've looked at, it's not been hard to trace the logic of the sequence and understand what was happening at each point where human action met legal rule met procedural constraint. There are notable examples of people gaming the system and acting in ways that are crude and venal and self-interested, but those examples seem omnipresent only because we don't tend to hear about the mass of legal actions where the process grinds out its eventual conclusion for good or bad, and rarely to everyone's agreement that the outcome was just.

If you have a better suggestion for how to do it, I'm all ears.

Re:A possibility

[_0xd0ad]

What I reject is your suggestion that it's little more than money and bias that decides things.

Oh, I didn't say that. What I said was, sometimes it is biased, and when it is, there's little you can do about it unless you have money.

Re:A possibility

[Myopic]

the investigation was flawed, and couldn't logically produce Reiser as a suspect

That's especially dumb claim because the victim's partner is always a suspect. The fact that his wife died means he is a suspect, in the common definition of the word, and certainly a person of interest in the criminology definition of the word.

Re:A possibility

[_0xd0ad]

You're sort of missing a key point - until they had the body, they had no conclusive proof that she was dead. But your overall point is correct; even if she was only considered missing he would still be a suspect, so it's a moot point really.

Re:A possibility

[jjohnson]

You're right, I do believe what I said.

Judicial process allows for discretion, but there is neither motivation nor punishment to not abuse discretion.

Because by definition, exercising discretion is not something punishable. If it was, it wouldn't be discretion. If I say "you can choose A, B, or C", and then when you choose B I say "wrong", then you weren't able to choose B, were you? You were only able to choose A or C.

It's a predictable response to some decision by a judge that upsets people to remove the judge's discretion to decide something, but that has its own problems, the most obvious example of which is mandatory sentences. I recall a case in Florida in the 90s where a mildly retarded teenager killed his little sister while showing her WWF wrestling moves. Plainly it wasn't murder or even manslaughter--the teen had no idea he was doing anything dangerous. The judge cried as he read out the sentence he had to apply thanks to mandatory sentencing guidelines: life in a maximum security prison.

TLDR: Pursuit of justice is a lie.

Your cynicism is far scarier than my belief that the legal system isn't 100% broken, and a far worse guide. As I told another poster above, I've been through this process, and found it comprehensible the entire time. Results were generally predictable and informed our strategy. We neither won nor lost. Expert guidance from our lawyers was always useful, and at the end, we didn't feel like the legal system had failed us.

Re:A possibility

[jjohnson]

If I was on the jury, I'd have no problem believing beyond a reasonable doubt that she was dead and Hans murdered her. Police found her vehicle, her cell phone, her wallet, and her passport. Either she fled her life with literally nothing (her bank account showed normal activity until her disappearance, and then nothing), abandoning the children that everyone said she was devoted to, or she was kidnapped or murdered. Coupled with Reiser doing an excellent job looking like a murderer, including testifying on his own behalf to offer absurd explanations for incriminating evidence, it seems like a no brainer to me.

Re:A possibility

[jjohnson]

Yes, it was my job. It was a civil dispute between my employer and a company that had previously had a deal to manufacture our products in another country. The deal broke down over money, and we spent several years suing each other to recover losses. At the end of the day, we both agreed to walk away because our lawyers were telling us that the legal aspects had been fully explored, and shoddy bookkeeping on both sides made a judgement in our favour unlikely.

Re:A possibility

[bluefoxlucid]

THAT'S ACTUALLY WHAT HAPPENS!

Re:A possibility

[bws111]

Well you just illustrated his point perfectly, didn't you? First, they are not 'promoted' to judge, they are either elected or appointed. Secondly, the reason they get elected or appointed is the very same reason the RIAA hired them - they are extremely good at the law. A lawyer's job (in fact , his legal duty) is to provide the best representation and case that he can for his client, regardless of his personal feelings for the client or the client's case. The very best lawyers could probably argue either side of a case with equal passion. That ability makes them good candidates for being judges.

Re:A possibility

[GuldKalle]

But why would Sony want to settle the case?

Re:A possibility

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I actually have trouble understanding why hackers just completely lose their shit when the law is involved. It's an interesting and complex system that any real hacker should relish understanding and, well, hacking. Instead we get trite bullshit like "the judge was biased".

The law has built in fuzzy logic (was what you did a "reasonable" measure?). The law also has many, sometimes contradictory, built in rules. Therefore, while plenty of dull, unambiguous law is a lot like code, a good deal of the rest of the practice of law is getting people to agree to your ambiguous interpretation. Code doesn't work like that. That ambiguity scares a lot of hackers.

IANAL, but I do enjoy reading the law.

Re:A possibility

[Em Adespoton]

Also, his lawyer probably also explained to him that even if he did win, Sony would just turn around and appeal the verdict... and keep doing so for as long as needed. Sony could have kept the issue in the courts until Hotz died of old age, or until he decided to give up the fight and rejoin humanity.

Re:Gimme a break...

[epdp14]

An indignant hacker? What's next? Shoplifters of the world uniting?

You sir have no idea what hacking is. Hacking is not stealing, hacking is exploring and creating new uses for devices and software. Pirating is what you are referring to. The "hackers" that are following an internet HOWTO that walks them through downloading ripped PS3 games are nothing more than cheapskates costing the rest of us useful tools like OtherOS.

Re:Drama aside,

[Surt]

There are no legitimate concerns about what will be done with excess donations to his legal fund since he made that clear from the beginning.

Who wants to stick to their guns..

[andycal]

and demand that the all the facts be put on the table and have a court decide, where there is no reason to expect that a court would actually side with the facts? He was right to settle. As much as I wish Sony could be forced to publicly admit they were wrong, Geohot was right to settle. The fact that Sony offered such a weak settlement, exposes either how weak the case really was..... or how much they figured it would cost them to buy the verdict they wanted.

Re:Who wants to stick to their guns..

[Gravatron]

I'm having a hard time understanding out why he was in the right. Did he not release encryption keys, thus opening the entire platform and network to piracy?

Re:Who wants to stick to their guns..

[bluefoxlucid]

It's a computer, it's a piece of hardware, it's a tool you own, and you can do what you want with it.

Re:Who wants to stick to their guns..

[darkshadow88]

No. The platform was already vulnerable to piracy (though it required a jailbreak USB stick). The release of the keys simply allowed anyone to sign any code (including their own) to run on the PS3, without any additional hardware.

Get off your high horses

[timholman]

What, so people are disappointed that Geohot didn't wreck his life to fulfill their armchair fantasies? "I gave you $20, and you won't ruin your life to make me happy? You SUCK, Geohot!"

Get real. I've had some dealings in civil cases, and let me say that there are few things in this world as life-destroying and gut-wrenching as being a defendant in a civil case against a plaintiff with lots of money and a willingness to do whatever it takes to crush you.

It is very easy for people with l33t nicknames to criticize Geohot behind the safety of an anonymous computer account. It is another to sit in a room with a group of highly paid lawyers who explain to you in excruciating detail how your life will be made a living hell if you don't cooperate.

Geohot got in over his head, and wisely decided to settle and get on with his life. If Geohot's critics want to fight the good fight instead, all they have to do is repost his techniques on a web page of their own, and wait for Sony to come calling. Somehow I don't think that's gonna happen.

Re:Get off your high horses

[cjav]

I see your point, but wasn't Geohot himself who asked for the my $10 cause he would fight? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for him to get out of the living hell he was getting into, in my case I just want Geohot to give the unused money to the EFF as others pointed out and we can call it a day.

Re:Get off your high horses

[billcopc]

Exactly what kind of living hell are we talking about ? This is the part I don't understand... it's a civil suit, so all they can do is win a judgment worth $X, which he likely does not have, so he would go bankrupt. End of story. The injunction still applies either way, so nothing is really lost except a few trivial belongings. He's barely out of diapers for fuck's sake, not like he's losing a house and child support...

If he had taken the chance to fight, and lost everything, I certainly would not mind helping him get back on his feet. I can't speak for the other donators, but one would hope that if he had stuck his neck out for us, we'd return the favour.

In any case, the point is moot. He got cold feet, took their deal and called it quits. The bright side is his ego disorder might get knocked down a few notches, which can only do him good in the long term.

Re:Get off your high horses

[FlashBIOS]

Geohot seems to think the things he would lose in a civil suit has value. You seem to think the things Geohot would lose in a civil suit do not. Regardless of your opinions, and mine, armchair quarterbacks like us don't have to live with the consequences.

Re:Get off your high horses

[BitZtream]

He MIGHT be able to file for bankruptcy.

The court can also stipulate that the judgement can't be avoided by bankruptcy. And he simply may not qualify for bankruptcy even if they didn't.

Its not a get out of jail free card, some states have laws on the books that specifically state that court judgements are not part of bankruptcy hearings.

Its not a get out of jail free card. You don't get to simply give up and say you win I'm starting over and get out of your punishment. Bankruptcy isn't a given, a court has to grant you the option to do so, if you meet the requirements set forth by the law.

Re:Get off your high horses

[timholman]

Exactly what kind of living hell are we talking about ? This is the part I don't understand... it's a civil suit, so all they can do is win a judgment worth $X, which he likely does not have, so he would go bankrupt. End of story.

If bankruptcy could shield you from civil judgments, every loser in a civil case would immediately go bankrupt and walk away, thumbing his nose at the plaintiff. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Only certain classes of debts and obligations are discharged by bankruptcy. In general, civil penalties due to negligence or malicious intent on your part are not, although certain types of assets (e.g. your home) may be exempt from being attached as payment.

Geohot could very well have faced a multi-million dollar penalty, with a large chunk of every paycheck attached for the rest of his life.

Re:Get off your high horses

[DCFusor]

+5. Been there myself, and what Geo did was quite reasonable. It really was, in a sense, a win, since it was Sony who decided to offer settlement, and avoid setting a legal precedent that would be bad for US. I'd bet the limitations on him all involve only Sony, and the less anyone has to do with those jerks, the better.

The settlement did help Sony, as the line they were pushing int he GeoHot case to get the judge and jurisdiction they wanted, along with so much discovery they know more about you -- not just GeoHot, look at the other stuff they got, than the CIA knows about a "person of interest" -- that line was going to make them lose the class action suit for removing other OS, which was going to be a rather large monetary loss and precedent for them.

You can't get away with telling one court one thing, and another one a different thing, in these days of the internet (and Groklaw, sadly, going away-- hope something else springs up there as it's needed). That was the spot Sony found themselves in, and their corporate shell game wasn't good enough to pull it off. So, we should be looking at and supporting the class action suit so they lose both times, frankly.

In other words, move on -- there are more battles to fight, and this one wasn't really a loss at all, Sony might have learned a little something here, finally.

Re:Get off your high horses

[N1AK]

What, so people are disappointed that Geohot didn't wreck his life to fulfill their armchair fantasies?

They are angry that someone talked about how they were going to fight Sony over this, asked them for money and then settled. People didn't offer him money if he agreed to do something stupid, he said he was going to do something 'brave' and people gave him money to support him in that action.

Re:Get off your high horses

[spire3661]

All that is great unless you consider statements from the Geo himself.

"They picked the wrong guy to sue"

"Out of business is jail for me and you're suing me civilly"

"I want the settlement papers to contain the words OtherOS and an apology from Sony"

Now can you see why people are disappointed? He talked ALOT of smack and then backed out. I think he is due some deserved criticism. What concerns me most is that the MAJORITY of this discussion is about the donation money and not about the true issues of the matter.

Re:Get off your high horses

[Mad Leper]

He also stated that he would continue to fight the legal battle until Sony issued an apology and returned the OtherOS funtionality back to the PS3. People donated money to his cause only to see him turn tail and run.

Hmm, advertised a feature, took money from customers, failed to deliver on said promise, where have I heard that before???

Re:Get off your high horses

[billcopc]

Ahh see this is the difference. In Canada, bankruptcy will get you out of that hell. At least some people still believe corporations should not be allowed to ruin people's lives for the almighty dollar... though that is becoming less and less so thanks to the Harper crew.

Re: we really don’t need another Kevin Mitni

[e-berlin.org]

Thousands of Mitnicks is exactly what we need.

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[NewWorldDan]

More likely George won the right to not be bankrupt and spend the next 6 years dealing with ongoing litigation. Anyone who faults him for cutting his losses is an asshole.

Re:Gimme a break...

[hduff]

An indignant hacker? What's next? Shoplifters of the world uniting?

You sir have no idea what hacking is. Hacking is not stealing, hacking is exploring and creating new uses for devices and software. Pirating is what you are referring to. The "hackers" that are following an internet HOWTO that walks them through downloading ripped PS3 games are nothing more than cheapskates costing the rest of us useful tools like OtherOS.

Sandra Bullock is a hacker, right? Hackers are so cool. And l88t.

The learning moment from this whole episode is...

[Yaa 101]

That in the future these kinds of security breaches will be placed anonymous on all downloading platforms if Sony is lucky, otherwise they end up on botnet auction sites and in that case Sony is really fucked up.

But then, most management is rather right than smart. (big egos et al.)

Title is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Title should be: "Script Kiddies Blast Actual Hacker Geohot For Sony Settlement".

Re:David V Goliath

[hedwards]

You don't think that perhaps he should have considered that before he claimed credit for that initial exploit? I can understand getting scared, but what sort of dumb ass posts the encryption key under his own name and then goes on various shows talking about it?

He more or less sank his own case, but at the same point, what sort of an idiot thinks that they can get away with that sort of crap when you're up against a corporation that thinks rootkitting a few million people is a reasoned response to piracy?

Here's your big chance Slashdotters!

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep seeing all of these heavy handed posts about doing the right thing, the MAFIAA and Imaginary Property... now's the time to man up and show us how you're going to go in front of a judge and tell them that you think these kinds of things are stifling innovation and that alone makes it right and lawful. I just dare one of you to try to pull one of the crazy antics you keep talking about here. I want to see you beat your chest and roar at the corporate world in a forum befitting your boasts. Just once, please, just once.
 
Oh, that's right, you guys have no intentions on ever doing this but rather standing behind the ranks and moaning on about how unfair it is that you still have to pay for Dark Side Of The Moon and (by gosh sake!) that is destroying our society... .yeah yeah yeah.

(And yes, I know this situation has nothing to do with Dark Side Of The Moon but it's still the same talking heads who drone on about the same crap. It has gotten old and none of those who claim that they'd love to have their day in court to bring the whole system down have the sack to do more than hope they don't get a C&D from Comcast or their mommies and daddies will shut off their internets.)

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[hedwards]

The settlement isn't that confidential. Geohot Sony settlement details leak

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[TheGratefulNet]

he BEGGED for donations with the express understanding it was a 'fight the good fight' battle.

he exited far too soon for many of us (yes, I did donate and I have never even SEEN the gaming system he hacks about; I don't game and have no interest in it at all). I did support the freedom aspects of his fight and he basically gave up instantly and without any real fight.

if he had not involved the community, that would have been one thing; but he stood up and said 'I will fight this!'.

and yet, he didn't.

so, he's no hero, he's just a regular schlub like you and I. nothing *wrong* with that, but he's lost his hero status, fwiw.

Re:David V Goliath

[Lumpy]

You cant go to jail from being sued. he did not break any laws, this is a lawsuit not a criminal case.

Re:Get Hotz off his high horse first.

[timholman]

No offense - but wasn't it Hotz himself that went into this with a battle cry and asked for donations for his defense and so forth and so on?
If he hadn't done that - if he had "wisely decided" to immediately go for a settlement, people might have still called him a pussy (as that's what some people do) - but at least they wouldn't have much reason for calling him out on his behavior.

Sure, when Mr. Hotz got that first cease-and-desist letter, I'm sure he thought: "I gonna beat these assholes! My fellow hackers will rally to help me!" Maybe he reads Slashdot - no doubt he could have picked up lots of bogus bravado from this crowd.

And then he had one of those "growing up" epiphanies that most 20- and 21-year-olds go through, where you realize that empty words of support mean nothing, and that while many will cheer you on as you march into the lion's den, damn few will stand by you against the lions.

As for the donations, I doubt that Geohot collected enough money to pay for a week of a good lawyer's time, much less enough to fight a real court battle. If his attorney worked pro bono, maybe he'll have something left to give to the EFF - but frankly, I wouldn't count on it.

Geohot learned a hard lesson about the real world, and wisely opted not to ruin his own life just to make a lot of strangers happy. I don't fault him one bit.

He who fights and runs away.

[MarkvW]

Nothing was settled here. There is no precedent.

For the content companies, this is a battle to retain control over the things they sell. For the hackers, it is a battle to be able to freely use the things they have purchased. Tension is inevitable. There will be other battles, on other days.

But *some* of them DO have a stake in this!

[King_TJ]

If you're a "hater" who donated to his cause, then you have every reason to complain! He spent YOUR money and didn't do what he promised with it!

In the case of everyone else, no ... like everyone else outside the immediate court battle, they're not being sued over it. But we ALL have a vested interest, in the sense that companies like Sony are apparently still able to sell you a product that lists a certain feature-set, remove part of that feature-set in a software update, and twist your arm to either take said update, or lose other critical features (network play capabilities). On top of that? It's apparently still ok for them to lock down the entire platform so the end-user isn't able to bypass or undo any of this, to get back the functionality they received when they bought the device.

Re: we really don’t need another Kevin Mitni

[BitZtream]

So I'm guessing you know nothing about Mitnick?

He was a complete and total douche who got what he deserved. He wasn't clever, he didn't even do anything original, he just sucked enough to get caught. You need to learn a fair amount about his history if you think he's someone to be idolized. Get the real history about what happened and what a pussy he is and you'll be far better off picking someone else with skills to be impressed by.

Let me give you a hint, the leet hackers you want to be impressed by, aren't in the fucking news because they are good enough and smart enough not to get caught or draw attention to themselves. It takes years of being part of the scene to get to know the real artists and geniuses in this arena. Mitnick is a joke on a good day.

Next time....

[GunSheep]

I keep seeing that Sony did this to 'send a message' to the hacking community. I'm betting that message will end up being 'post the hack/private key' as anonymously as possible the next time. Once it's out they won't be able to stop it and they won't have a target to go after.

Frankly, I'm surprised the guy that posted the Airplay key didn't go this route. He is just setting himself up for an Apple lawsuit which I'm sure is already on the way.

I realize that there is a certain amount of pride from doing this....but that has gotten rather expensive.

Skilled professional? In what area?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Sony will be disappointed to hear that a 15 year old who can't spell, punctuate correctly or string a coherent sentence together doesn't want to work for them.

Re:Skilled professional? In what area?!?

[matt_gaia]

I'm sure Sony will be disappointed to hear that a 15 year old who can't spell, punctuate correctly or string a coherent sentence together doesn't want to work for them.

15? My 6-y/o can probably make a more coherent sentence than that drivel (and spell it better, as well). I don't think the GP would be able to make it through the initial screening at any decent tech company.

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[BitZtream]

You also didn't see the fight he was facing.

Fighting the good fight is only logical if you have a chance of winning.

Suicide is ALWAYS stupid, regardless of why you donated money to him.

Re:The view from a high horse

[timholman]

You can't argue these points, because the facts are immutable. Geohot could have continued to write software for his own PS3, never told a soul nor released exploits, and been happy as a clam forever. Ego motivated him to crow, fear motivated him to limit how much. Not fear that what he was doing was intrinsically wrong or unethical, but fear that he would be punished for reasons nobody fully understands. This has now happened, and the status quo is unchanged. People donating to hopefully to have somebody else fight for them really should have picked a better champion.

Oh, I'm not arguing your points. Geohot made a mistake that many people his age make, i.e. "don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash".

Ego, immaturity, and false bravado got him into this mess. A hard dose of reality showed him the way out, and he wisely took it.

Re:I couldn't wait...

[cavreader]

Or maybe you can go to the Treasury Bonds and Securities for Dummies class instead of spreading bullshit theories on how China owns the US. At last tally China only accounts for approx 6% of the total outstanding treasury bonds and certificates. And the main reason they buy them in the first place is they consider it a good investment.

Re:geohot vs. EFF

[andydread]

Maybe you can send a donation to the EFF and ask then to do such while you are at it.

I donated money, and I don't blame GeoHot one bit.

[incubuz1980]

I can't say that I would have done anything differently. If he donates the money to EFF great, if not it is his decision, and I am OK with that.

If you didn't donate any money, you don't get to say what is right or wrong.

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[mrchaotica]

Anyone who faults him for cutting his losses is an asshole.

Are you kidding? By releasing the work using his real name, he effectively begged Sony to sue him. He could have easily been anonymous! But he chose not to be, so he should have been prepared to deal with the consequences of that decision. He obviously wasn't, and that's what makes him the asshole!

Thanks for the laugh

[name_already_taken]

... when the Chinese president call the White House and say: "Tell Sony to drop this BS, or we will call back ALL Treasury bonds". When that day comes, DMCA will be repealed quickly, and a new patent/copyright reform will come.

Sony is a Japanese company, not American. Of all of Sony's business units, Sony Computer Entertainment America would be an unlikely choice to go after someone in China. It's entirely possible that Sony has a division located somewhere in Asia - that division might try to get the Japanese and Chinese governments involved, but it's not clear why you'd think America would be involved. Maybe you got your wires crossed a little.

Or, the USA can always print $1 trillion and pay back the Chinese. Then we will have inflation -> Civil War -> Constitution suspended -> No DMCA.

Yeah, right. I think you may be in a strange mental state where you're dreaming, but you're still able to interact with the real world. Try pinching yourself to see if you wake up.

Re:Thanks for the laugh

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

The OP probably implies that, if a Chinese citizen living in the USA (i.e. International students) get hit with lawsuit like this, he/she will go to the Chinese embassy for help, which have responsibility for the safety and ensure fair treatment of its citizens living in a foreign country. "Fair treatment" usually includes providing legal assistance. If a U.S. citizen living in China that gets into same kind of trouble, the U.S. embassy will (usually) also provide the same type of help.

IANAL, but as for the constitutional argument, if in any case the constitution is suspended due to civil unrest, martial law or anarchy, then chances are any law that depends on it will usually become invalid.

seriously?

[laxguy]

If you donated money and believed that he would see this fight to the end, then you are stupid. How can you expect an average citizen to stand up and fight Sony in court, even with donated funds, he has no where near the resources necessary to win that court battle. Sony would have simply lawyered him to death until he was in debt and ready to end his life. Stop complaining and slap yourself in the dick if you donated money to him.

Make love, not war

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

... oh wait.... this is /.

Lawsuits are not fun

[DrStrange66]

Even if you are in the right lawsuits are very stressful situations. I recently battled my HOA for nearly 2 years. I won but at a cost. The lawsuit was all I could think about. My work suffered, my family suffered, my mental stability suffered, etc. I can fully understand why people choose to settle. To those people that are hating on Geohot... why don't they sue Sony for whatever it is they believe in?

It is telling

[ThatsNotPudding]

that the EFF hasn't posted the code on their site and begun publicly starting up where Geohot left off. If they want this issue settled once and for all, they clearly don't need Geohot; just his work. Sony is clearly in the wrong, but perhaps even the EFF gets a little weak in the knees in the face of nearly limitless lawyering-up.

Re:They gave him money

[guybrush3pwood]

If he was even considering settling, he shouldn't have accepted donations for legal expenses.

People gave donations so that he could fight. He took the donations, then didn't fight. That is not cool.

Why not? Wouldn't he need counseling to even settle? Would you sign a settlement without a lawyer reading it first? Why do you demand of this schmuck something you wouldn't do yourself?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

US courts have consistently sided with big corps

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Does no one here remeber the 321 Studios case? Honestly, I can't think of a single case, not one, where someone modded a big corporation's "intellectual property" and won. A couple of big DVD decryption projects were stopped dead in their tracks by similar "Here's an offer you can't refuse" tactics a few years ago. Now all the up to date DVD encryption programs are run from countries that don't respect US "intellectual property" laws. It does seem that the people crazy enough to "fight the powers" are never the ones smart enough to attract the attention of those powers to begin with. And maybe it would just end up like that crazy bitch who kept fighting the RIAA and losing because she failed to understand that simply saying "I didn't do it" when the evidence suggests you did, in fact, do it is not a very good legal strategy.

No one is asking, why did Sony settle?

[MrL0G1C]

Perhaps due to negative publicity, or perhaps they thought they could lose, I wonder which.

Or Just Donate to the EFF

[ParetoJ]

Or just donate to the EFF in the first place

Re:Or Just Donate to the EFF

[MikeBabcock]

Indeed. I never donate to individual causes when I know a group exists that would handle their issue, and refer them to the group instead.

If you believe in the EFF's cause, support them, and refer people needing them to that organization.

Its also much more cost effective.

Re:Fuck the good fight

[bluefoxlucid]

What the hell gives these "hackers" the right to run Linux on THEIR property?

That is the question.

Oh well..

[SuperTechnoNerd]

Sony won. Freedom lost.
Period.
Do you actually think anything different would happen?
We gotta start to learn to do exactly what any large corp. tells us to do, and stop messing with their property that you paid for.

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[j_rhoden]

Of course, so far Sony has been too stupid to know whats actually in their own best interests.

People keep saying this, and I find it hard to believe. Sony know's exactly what is in their best interests. They've done a cost / benefit analysis I'm sure, and decided pissing off some people (like us on /.) is worth it in the long run.

Well that just sucks.

[Minwee]

With all the money I sent to GeoHot, I could have bought myself Killzone 3.

Re:Well that just sucks.

[luther349]

killzone 3 lol.

Re:Fuck the good fight

[Travelsonic]

No wonder you remained an Anon-Coward, your post is idiotiuc and wrong to boot.
First, you don't click "accept" or sign anything just to use the console - to use PSN maybe, but the two are not mutually inclusive. Second. "What the hell gives these "hackers" the right to ruin MY gaming experience? " Those people are not necessarily - wait, let me revise that - THE PEOPLE WHO HOMEBREW AND WANT TO RUN LINUX DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT RUINING YOUR GAME. The people who see that tool as an avenue to fuck around do. The people who want to run Linux on their PS3, GeoHot, should not catch shit for what others are doing just because you';re too retarded to differentiate between the two parties.

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[cheekyjohnson]

Then he shouldn't have pretended like he was going to fight them in the first place.

we all talk big

[luther349]

we all talk big in such cases but when we come under fire the story changes. i did beleve he had a strong case being in past modding lawsuits all companys have lost sony microsoft nintendo apple. but i guess it will have to be another time to bring sony back to real world. the settlemet didnt do anything to hurt or help so its no big deal. just mean the eff got a nice donation.

Easy solution

[fmachado]

We need a volunteer from those shouting out loud "chicken" for an easy solution: do something to attract the wrath of Sony, publish it and wait for Sony to sue. Than ask Hotz to send whatever was left of the defense fund to this volunteer and get the train rolling again. You can even ask for more defense fund, noone will refrain to help you.

This volunteer can then sacrifice himself for the cause. Reward for that will be constant travelling to California, endless depositions, subpoenas, investigations, motions, being named as a criminal on the entire press, losing all your money, including your house, car, computers, videogames, all that to face a judge that already judged for an enterprise in a similar case, in a state that has one of the most unbalanced laws (favoring enterprises, of course) to criminalize hacking (the good word). WOW!! What a vision of the new life!

We promise to pray for you when Big Third Leg Joe calls you in his jail cell for a more intimate talk late of the night. You'll be a hero for the next 2 months after conviction, after then all attention shifts to the next freaking cool videogame or new line of processors or even some crazy youtube video of the day (you can't expect us to remember you forever).

Volunteers? No? Anyone ...

If you desire, use SARCASM tag as you wish.

Flavio

Re:Settlement terms confidential

[shutdown -p now]

His rhetoric when he was soliciting donations was all gung ho, "death or glory" kind of thing. Heck, he even said that he's fighting the fight "not for himself, but for everyone's freedom"! And he specifically wrote that he won't settle unless the terms of the settlement would permit homebrew on PS3. That's likely why he got so many donations in the first place.

All people who donated are certainly in their right to bash the guy. He shouldn't have talked the way he did before he ran.

Re:You are the one that is dreaming

[cavreader]

I am immediately against anyone who refers to the US as "Amerika". GO back to sleep and have another fantasy.

Re:how the times have changed

[DrJimbo]

Ah yes. The goode olde days back before corporate America had completed their vise-like gripe on all four branches of government.

Re:how the times have changed

[mseeger]

My message was not "Do this" but "Don't expect others to do the messy work for you if you are not prepared to do it yourself".

Re:how the times have changed

[sznupi]

Ah yes. The mythical times when rulers were noble, costs of life reasonable and children respected their elders. Always in the youth of the storyteller, since the dawn of recorded history.