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First PS3 Jailbreaker Arrested In South Africa
GusGous writes "South African newspaper Beeld reports that the first person known to be arrested for jailbreaking the Playstation 3 was arrested in Parktown, Johannesburg today. This raid was conducted by the South African Police Service's Commercial Crime Unit, after receiving criminal complaints from the South African Federation Against Copyright Theft (SAFACT). Members of the police were assisted by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) Computer Forensics Lab. The police confiscated goods of around R100 000 (14000 USD)." See also this story in Afrikaans; Google translation.
Various state of the art computers, circumvention software packages, jailbreak USB devices, PS3 consoles as well as hard-drives were seized during the raid. In addition documentation, fake PS2 games and original PS3 games, believed to be employed as master copies, were also seized.
Information is received about a man who in Parktown Jailbreak software loaded on consoles and games sold stolen.
Slashdot at its best.
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I hope it will not take 26 years for him to be elected President.
Sounds like South Africa's crime problem is good and cleared up. Maybe if they can arrest someone from 4chan the place will finally be safer than the more tepid warzones of the world...
That's SAFACT, Jack!
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
With any luck, we might look back in 50 years and laugh (or rage) at the idea that corporations thought that information could be controlled and owned, that we threw some of our brightest people in prison to rot for spreading that information, regardless of whether or not the spreading was for profit.
If people can make money off their ideas, then more power to 'em. But the monopolization of thought is going to cost humanity big time in the long term.
Slashdot at its best.
You shrug this off, yet what we see here is a case where a country's police are corrupt enough to completely turn a blind eye to infringement of traffic laws, are incapable of controlling basic criminal actions (South Africa has the second highest murder rate per capita, and first highest rape rate), and let things get to the extent that car jacking is so common place that insurance of cars is very expensive.
Yet they bust a guy for copyright infringement.
The reality is he just paid them less than the record industry. Maybe that puts his crime into perspective for you. Had this happened in any country I'd be right by your side accusing Slashdot of its usual bias, but really the South African Police should have lots of things far higher on their priority list.
turn a blind eye to infringement of traffic laws
For some reason (or maybe because I've lived in Asia, where traffic is chaotic but everyone seems to get by), I think that a guy making huge profit by selling pirated software is a little bit higher on the list than cops spending their time sitting on road.
And even if you don't, these are different police organizations. Every time when someone pirating something gets arrested there's always someone saying that police should have priorities and should spend time on something else. These are not the same policemen. If they work on other crimes it's not off from from your casual everyday street police.
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Diplomatic Immunity...
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...that the South African police are arresting real criminals instead of the murderers and rapists that are normally oppressed by law-enforcement over there.
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Luckily I am on MFW 3.55, which isn't jailbroken, just slightly opened up. (Or so at least they tell me on IRC.) That means I am safe, right?
Warlords and murderers and slave laborers roam free.
Good to know they have their priorities straight. The peasents are safe!
Why didn't sony just have him killed?
It is south africa after all. These things happen.
Killing a little too scummy for sony? I find that hard to believe really.
Someone stole their copyright?
~ChibiSkuld~
So by this argument, the SAPS should not work on any crime other than murder. Once that is under control perhaps they will be allowed to look at rape. Eventually after a few years perhaps they will have worked their way down the priority list to theft ?
I use "Police" in the general case. The overall policing of the country should have different priorities. I use it in the same context as the USA should provide less funding to DHS and more funding to local PDs.
Also I'm not sure which Asian country you're referring to but there's different levels of traffic infringement. There's your speeders, and then there's your people who show a complete disregard for what a red light means or which side of the road you should be driving on.
South Africa had double the road fatalities per capita per year than China which itself is already 1.5 times the number of the USA. Sure there are standout countries, but if you look by region you're far more likely to die in a road accident in Africa than in Asia.
Making profit jailbreaking other people's PS3 is not illegal at all, unless Sony has managed to corrupt laws so much that you're not allowed to modify hardware that you own.
It is indeed very profitable, you just have to find how to do it on the web.
What has theoretical freedom of ideas have to do with a full-scale commercial piracy operation?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
For some reason (or maybe because I've lived in Asia, where traffic is chaotic but everyone seems to get by),
Where "get by" meaning "get killed". Death rates from road accidents are much, much higher in Asia than Europe or US..
What the person was doing was illegal and deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law, as they were profiting off other people's work by copying it and then selling it.
However, pirated media *thrives* in a place like South African because luxury goods like imported media is over priced for that economy.
Although certain aspects of South Africa are 3rd world, all the major cities are pretty much first world, as someone presently living in Ireland, and having lived in France, I can tell you that for the middle class South African, their life style isn't radically different, but any luxury item is significantly more expensive relatively speaking.
Salaries are based on the price of living, and in South Africa the price of living is considerably less than places like the the US or UK. To put it in perspective, as per 12 months ago (http://www.oanda.com/currency/big-mac-index), the price of a big mac in USD was $2.70 compared to it costing $3.73 is the US. The cost of living is very much like this, most day to day things cost less, consequently, salaries work the same way, you get paid a bit less in terms of USD, because your money goes further, however, anything luxury, is prices in USD and then converted into the local currency.
So, relatively speaking, for our salaries, we pay a lot more for things like software, music CDs and movies. It's also not just luxury goods, business is also expensive, imagine your copy of Microsoft or Adobe software package always costing ~30% more? Thus it's hardly surprising to see so many people turn to cheaper, but illegal avenues.
Copyright holders annoy me greatly because even though we have this global distribution medium called the internet which should really make borders disappear to all intents and purposes, you still get youtube blocking videos because "this content is not available in your region due to copyright issues" and Netflix can't be used outside the US, however, despite them locking down copyrighted work to regions, they still keep the price of the these works the same in all countries, regardless of economic differences. They then get surprised at the lack of loyalty from their "customers", however, in South African, they're more like "suckers".
You shrug this off, yet what we see here is a case where a country's police are corrupt enough to completely turn a blind eye to infringement of traffic laws, are incapable of controlling basic criminal actions (South Africa has the second highest murder rate per capita, and first highest rape rate), and let things get to the extent that car jacking is so common place that insurance of cars is very expensive.
Actually, insuring cars here is mostly expensive because 3rd party insurance is not mandatory here, so if you're involved in an accident that is not your fault, your insurance company probably won't get its money back... And the hijacking, but that has a much smaller effect than you'd think.
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"South African Police Service's Commercial Crime Unit"
You just wait, this special task force will EXIST in the USA soon. Right now they are using the Immigrations and Customs department to do this, but they will soon fund a Commercials Crimes Special Task force to enforce and arrest people that violate the rights of the precious corporations...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
(And additionally, if the police are ignoring traffic infringements, I have yet to see it. The fines can be quite hefty.)
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And this is what you get for buying a Sony product or service. They sue their own customers.
This is where you see Sony is paying off for information and for police help in this matter.
A police raid of this nature, followed with all the wire taps necessary to get a warrant to bust in, costs way more then just 14,000$, unless there is major copyright issues or murder, there will be no raids of this size on low end criminals....these are reserved for much bigger fish financially speaking.
The fact that they went after such a small potato means Sony was probably footing the bill to get this guy arrested. Sony sucks the big one.....sorry.
I wont be rushing to buy any sony products now for sure...
That's SAFACT Jack.
Unfortunately, the information that information was previously NOT controlled is controlled.
You can't be mad about what you lost if you don't know you ever had it.
Thank goodness our comrades in the Soviet South African Republic are protecting us from the terrorists! Hacking the PS3 threatened to cause global economic collapse; and posed a direct, physical danger the the health of all citizens in the republic. I know I, for one, will sleep better tonight.