Sony says PS 3 hacker Geohot has fled to South America | Hacker News Reader

Sony says PS 3 hacker Geohot has fled to South America

venturebeat.com

16 pointsSriniK19 comments

His attorney says:

Hotz's attorney, Stewart Kellar, told Threat Level and IGN that Hotz has not fled to South America and that the missing components have been provided to Sony.

Its just Sony trying to declare him guilty in public.

He's on vacation: http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/03/fearmongering.html

Ugh. Fuck Sony - I'm used to anti-hacker attitudes from companies but this takes it to a new level. Not only have they decided to sue someone for doing something entirely reasonable to his own hardware (this after Sony retroactively removed advertised features), they are running a dirty campaign of defamation and mud-slinging.

I'm selling my PS3, or at the very least throwing it in the back corner of my closet. Sadly, this isn't as selfless of a move as it ought to be - the PS3 is already a console that the industry whizzed right on by and is literally collecting dust in my living room. Good riddance.

I stopped buying overpriced Sony tech sometime ago, about 10 years ago. After I bought a Vaio from them and they couldn't even provide proper drivers for it on their website. How difficult is it for a company to provide some drivers on their own website? When it came to deciding between a PS3 or XBox, we bought a Xbox.

My Sony purchases since then have been some CDRs (on sale) and an auto time setting alarm clock (couldn't find any other, and I need one that day).

These driver problems on laptops aren't uncommon, specially regarding graphics card drivers.

Never had any problems with Toshiba laptops.

> Ugh. Fuck Sony - I'm used to anti-hacker attitudes from companies but this takes it to a new level. Not only have they decided to sue someone for doing something entirely reasonable to his own hardware (this after Sony retroactively removed advertised features), they are running a dirty campaign of defamation and mud-slinging.

Which is surprising... how? Sony has been a pretty crummy company for at least 15 years, and actively anti-people for a decade if not more. This is just the latest episode, but I'm interested in why you were still supporting them before this.

Being anti-hacker is pretty standard for just about any technology company these days - Motorola and HTC lock down their Android phones and prevent you from installing custom ROMs. Apple is an obvious culprit. It is in fact downright rare for a company to make their products hacker-friendly.

So being hacker-hostile has been a default state for a good long while, and the truly open alternatives are few and far between (OpenMoko? What a joke), and TBH there's a certain amount of closedness I can live with.

There's a difference between that and suing the hackers though. There's even a difference between that and defaming them and draggin them through the mud. This is new.

Isn't it fantastic how a company can sue someone for using something that he bought in a way that was not intended by the company? This make 'ownership' kind of a funny thing since Sony still has rights on a product even if it does not own it any more (you bought it!).

I know that some other countries (e.g. Germany) allow anyone to do whatever he likes with something he bought as long as he does not re-sell it. But if he bought it, it belongs to him, and he is free to do with it whatever he wants--be that using it as intended, destroying it, or hacking it.

What if Sony would declare it illegal to destroy your Play Station? Would they be able to sue you for throwing it out a window? Would they be able to sue you for indadvertedly breaking it during a power surge?

Seriously, this is very close to what is happening to Hotz right now. US law is fucked up!

Didn't he distribute his tools to others though, and isn't that what they are going after him for? If he said he hacked his PS3 but didn't tell anyone.. I don't think they would have a case.

But that is the point: He told others, but he did only do it to his own stuff and he did not sell or otherwise distribute hacked PS3s. Also, he only told them how to run Linux, not how to play pirated games.

How is anyone supposed to do security research if one is not allowed to hack stuff?

I find it interesting that they need his hard drive or any equipment as proof that he did something illegal. At this point is it just Sony making stuff up about what he did before they have all the facts?

Protip: If your equipment is at risk being seized by the cops, feed it to tumblbeasts for proper disposal.

best to ignore that protip or face horrible consequences.

anyway, my understanding is that the lawsuit is still stuck at jurisdictional discovery, not full-on, let's find out if you did something naughty discovery. Which means they're looking for evidence of links to California (such as having a PSN account, which is a contract that, I think, claims Cali as jurisdiction) so they can sue him there, not in new jersey.

>best to ignore that protip or face horrible consequences.

I suppose it would depend on what was on it.

Yeah I would ignore that protip, instead of taking you to jail they would take you to the Mental Hospital for trying to feed something imaginary. If indeed Tumbleasts are imaginary. I still might not be convinced they are NOT real.

Should there be a standard that outlines using italics with asterisks to let the reader know that part of the comment was sarcastic. Well now that I think about it maybe Tumblbeasts could switch on Murder Mode if you feed them such things.

I though I was referring to made up comic, now I'm not so sure anymore. Oh god!, I hope they can't fit through RJ45's

I find it understand how a company that released some of the most creative advertising of the past decade (Sony Bravia adverts) could simultaneously be so PR-self-destructive.

Is the leadership of top companies really so blissfully unaware of the impact of social news?

We had that "news" several times already (i.e. it's a dupe of a dupe by now) and - as commented here again, it seems to be blatantly wrong/false.

The linked article differs with every submission, but always repeats the "that guys seems to have fled" thing.

Sony has every right to terminate the guy's PSN account if he turns out to have violated the user agreement.

I think it's gotten to the point that it's about a little more than Sony just disabling his PSN account.

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