Sony v. Hotz Ends with a Whimper, I Mean a Gag Order | Hacker News Reader

Sony v. Hotz Ends with a Whimper, I Mean a Gag Order

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82 pointsgrellas22 comments

Hotz got SLAPP'd [0].

He's currently getting heat for his request for legal fee donations that was sent due to his defence against Sony [1][2]. It seemed like he received thousands [3].

You can read the court documents: http://ia700401.us.archive.org/35/items/gov.uscourts.cand.23...

[0] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/SLAPP

[1] http://geohot.com/

[2] http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/04/joining-sony-boyco...

[3] http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109193-Geohot-Hint...

Just found this article of Sony having the records of those that donated to PayPal: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/sony-wins-access-to-george-hotz...

Edit: The settlement that GeoHot can't discuss: http://psx-scene.com/forums/attachments/f6/26802-settlement-...

This is truly disappointing. It's unfortunate when a large company can exercise such tight control over information about their products. As far as I know, Hotz never violated Sony's copyright. He just pointed out a flaw in their system that could be used, down the line, to violate copyrights.

Easy to call out and mock Hotz sitting in chair behind the computer but the majority would be singing a different tune if they were in his place.

In no way should he blamed for refusing to sacrifice himself. If the PS3 hacker community can't live without Hotz, the war is already lost.

But Hotz is one head of the Hydra, as Sony will find out soon enough. Besides, it's a bad idea to have a movement depend on just one man (see Wikileaks for comparison).

If you ran a small service website and some person randomly sued you, it would be enough of a hassle and expense to respond to that through the legal system, as it is. Doing so as an individual with the full force and might of one of the largest multinational corporations on the planet which itself has the support (against intellectual property concerns, etc) of the entire government, including the president and vice president who have made ignorant and vigorous statements against what they perceive you to be doing is an entirely different situation. It is a situation that you almost surely can't win and can't afford to fight and most certainly can't afford to lose.

The problem here is that you also shouldn't go around making rap videos of yourself talking about how you're going to completely fuck Sony up and challenging them to "bring it on" while collecting contributions to your legal defense fund, when you know full well that you're going to roll over when the time comes, because you simply have no rational choice.

"Here's hoping future security researchers will refuse to be intimidated"

Is this a dig at Hotz for not fighting a legal battle?

I hope it is and he deserves those digs. If I was in his situation I would have done exactly the same, I would settle and run home crying to avoid being financially destroyed forever, but for him to solicit donations under the guise of doing good... and then do the opposite, it's ridiculous. He should be ashamed and he deserves any negativity he takes for this.

Hotz has said all along that any leftover donations would go to the EFF. If he used part of those funds to get good lawyers, and those lawyers told him that his case couldn't be won in a way that would strengthen the right to jailbreaking, the the right thing for Hotz to do was settle ASAP and pass along the leftovers to the EFF.

How would the typical Hotz donor feel if he fought the case all the way, only to win on a technicality that didn't establish any meaningful precedent that could protect future hackers?

EDIT: Hotz also took donations for a duration of two days before he stopped, deciding that he had enough to cover short-term legal expenses, and he didn't want to have too much money lying around in case Sony won.

Hotz claimed he would not settle (unless very specific things were done, which haven't been), he took donations when this was the understanding. I have seen multiple people complaining that they donated because he wasn't going to settle, they wanted to support his fight for "justice".

He settled.

Whether or not the money goes to the EFF is irrelevant.

"What if SCEA tries to settle? Lets just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it. It'd be good PR for Sony too, lord knows they could use it. I'm also willing to accept a trade, a legit path to homebrew for knowledge of how to stop new firmwares from being decrypted."

Sony would never have agreed to those terms. Period. That is not how they conduct their business or PR.

That was kind of the point. He wasn't supposed to settle unless they did something they obviously never would. AKA never settle

What battle? The war was lost the moment DMCA became the law of the land.

I understood the phrase to mean that Sony hopes that this action will intimidate researchers out of investigating Sony's products in the future. And therefore, the author hopes that researchers go ahead and do it any ways.

If they get slapped with onerous litigation, settling is a minor setback for the researcher compared to the Sony's major loss in having an exploit released into the wild.

So, JM2C, but I don't see it as a dig, but rather a call to arms, asking the community to pick up the weapons of the fallen.

Slightly off-topic: These "gag orders" never cease to amaze me. My (very limited) understanding is that the US is _the_ country fighting for free speech. It's valued higher than most other things (i.e. over here, in Germany, it's restricted: You seem to be far more limited in what you can say without legal consequences).

Yet, I regularly stumble upon rulings like these. Am I missing something? Isn't that exactly the opposite of free speech, with a court nodding gravely and supporting the outcome/helping to enforce this?

It's not really a 'gag order', as much as he's signed an agreement with Sony which contains 'confidentiality clauses'.

The court didn't mandate this agreement - he decided that it would be better for him to settle than to face court, and part of settling included the 'gagging'.

AFAIK, the EFF didn't support Hotz by e.g. "loaning" a lawyer or two. Does anyone know why? I can imagine that they have other priorities, but Hotz might not have settled if he'd had some serious backing. ("Thousands" in donations just means that he'd bankrupt himself a few days later.)

What's the penalty for violating a gag order like the one from this settlement?

It's laid out in the settlement -- $10k per violation, plus $25k per violation for actual hacking events.

I guess the next company he investigates knows what to do now.

This goes both ways. The wisest action for the next guy who digs up an exploit is to release it anonymously.

So what's the end result of this? Someone named "Heogotz" will now be documenting his PS3 hacking from a VPN service in Europe?

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