PS3 hacker defends console jailbreak
George 'Geohot' Hotz has defended his actions in the face of a lawsuit from Sony.
'This case is about a lot more than what I did and me,' Hotz told G4TV's Attack of the Show. 'It's about whether you really own that device that you purchased.'
Sony is suing Hotz over allegations that his security hack, which allows PS3 users to install and run homebrew application, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and enables piracy on the closed platform - for which Hotz is being held responsible.
Hotz, however, has defended himself by claiming that his hack was primarily designed to restore the OtherOS feature to PlayStation 3s, which let users install Linux operating systems on their consoles. Sony removed the option to install other operating systems in March last year, citing 'security concerns'.
'The way piracy was previously done doesn't work in my Jailbreak,' says Hotz, however. 'I made a specific effort while I was working on this to try to enable homebrew without enabling things I do not support, like piracy.'
Hotz has also developed jailbreaks for the iPhone, which a court upheld at not violating the DMCA - something Hotz believes sets a legal precedent that will protect him from Sony's lawsuit.
Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyIf you buy hardware, you should be able to do with it whatever you want, atleast you should be able to run *nux on anything that is basically a computer.
I realise that there is unswayable bandwagon of geeks who think every piece of hardware should have no conditions attached to its use and anything said to the contrary is akin to blasphemy. So whatever I say is falling on deaf ears but I think this guy should lose on principle, and also for his greed and stupidity.
I often make my own bread, but 15 minutes from me is a bread shop thats better at making bread - am i stupid?
"I think this guy should lose on principle, and also for his greed and stupidity"
where's the greed? i dont see where he gets any $$$. it's another accomplishment to his portfolio
your argument is like saying inkjet printers sell for less than cost so you have no right to modify the printer (i know you dont have to) to accept your own ink. Even if you legitimately pay for your ink and dont steal it.
Also informing of other ways to use the hardware that you bought should in no way open the informer up for legal attacks.
But that's just like, my opinion... man.
If I were a Sony licensee I would be very angry at Sony.
It doesn't. That's the point.
There's no rules saying you cant use a PS3 as a pair of pants if you want, so there shouldn't be rules to stop you from using YOUR hardware in other non standard ways if you want.
Its not his fault that Sony's business model requires end users to purchase X amount of software to recoup the losses made when selling the console. But i do appreciate your point with the millions of dollars of R&D that go into the making of electronic items.
If someone leaves their house unlocked and someone walks in it's trespass which is illegal. Just because something isn't secured doesn't mean that it's not illegal.
The DMCA in america makes it illegal to circumvent encryption regardless of how badly encrypted stuff is, as an example.
I don't see any harm as long as he doesn't publish his method. I agree with the point that sony didn't have to sell the ps3 at a loss and perhaps in the future they won't as an insurance policy against piracy.
The trespasser doesn't own the house so they don't have the right to walk in, the person who bought the PS3 owns the PS3 so they can do what they want with it. If Sony still own the PS3 once you've bought it then you're not really buying it, you're just paying for a permanent loan...
I'm pretty sure they can argue the encryption on it is their interlectual property. Therefore they own it
You own the rights to use it within the EULA.
Surely pointing out that their door is unlocked isn't illegal??
Anyway, all he's done is publicly point out a security flaw. People do this on a regular basis, so I think Sony haven't got much hope of succeeding here.
It's not Hotz's fault that Sony operates on a broken business model. If you want to hand over your consumer rights just because you think it's a fantastic product then that's your own business, but don't expect this unswayable bandwagon of geeks to think you're anything but naïve.
If the technology we buy was clearly sold as a lease or service then Sony's approach would be more acceptable, but as it is they're just being pricks about EULA fine print because they made some idiotic business decisions and even more idiotic development decisions and those mistakes are coming back to bite them hard.
A bit off topic, but how is it broken when it has proven to work for over a decade? The Business model works. Also, Ps3 has been making a profit on each model sold for awhile now.
I can't believe, that there's people in here who defend Sony or any other company in this case.
Hotz was sued by Apple for exactly the same thing and the court ruled, that it was perfectly legal to jailbreak the iPhone. Same should be said for any other hardware you buy. It's up to you, how you use it, and if this requires you to modify the hardware, then there shouldn't be any law preventing you from doing so.
Loosing warranty, getting locked out from PSN (or whatever service there may be for other devices) is totally acceptable, but what we see here is totally unaceptable.
If Sony wins this case, then what's next? The car-manufacturers suing you for chip-tuning their cars? Laughable I say, just laughable.
And on another note. Such a trial is only possible in the USA, the home of the "un"free. This case would've been dismissed in Europe by most of the countries in the first place.
End of the day you've agreed to use the software in a particullar way. If you don't use it as you agreed to then you can be sued. Simple.
Yes, but he is not doing anything to their online software. If he somehow connected it to PSN and it gave him an unfair advantage, yes by all means screw him over.
It's like taking a toaster and being a total rebel by toasting a bun instead of normal toast-bread. The toaster company is not gonna sue you for that. But Sony is suing him for using a "bun" on his PS3 instead of "toast-bread".
(Can anyone spot the obvious reference that I am hungry as hell?)
sonys case has more grounds for piracy and may win because of that and as for trial location this would be held in whatever country he happens to be a resident off. Unless its japan were they would lock him up and throw away the key lol.
as for whatever sony makes in game sales, im certain the amount of people who pirate ps3 games is tiny compared to sales very few people will install this crack as sony patches online straight away its not like xbox were you can still login, Its a closed and locked system that spams you must have such and such firmware to enter please update unless this crack/hack allows you to use up to date firmware which i dout as sony patch the files as soon as it was mensioned.
sonys business model maybe crazy but they are one of the few companies who are still producing a games console. Think it through no playstation and there would be no xbox. We would all be still playing our segas and nintendos, One company went broke basically and went back to games only. Nintendo = casual game play.
and hotz crack isnt a bypass for linux its a bypass for cd keys and game
not to mension the unlucky foke on 2mb max adsl enjoy the 20-30gb downloads ( gt 5 is 45 gb for reference ) thats what 2-3 weeks lol.
as last i checked games must be installed onto the hard disk for the bypass to work.
If that was the case then jailbreaking an iphone would be illegal.
I rarely make my own bread (but damn, it's good when I do as it smells delicious and warm crusty bread is up there with bacon imo) but there's a supermarket at the end of my road which sells bread that's quite nice but not as nice as my own. I say my own, all it is, is a packet mix that you add water to in a breadmaker, leave it for a few hours and when it's dinged it's done. I hope in some strange way this is relevant.
I'm not so worked up about the PS3 as I can do everything I need on my PC, although for those that wanna run Linux again I can see the appeal (also, does this mean Linux can now use the GPU as well?)
The way I see it, is that if a company release a machine that I'm later able to hack open, I'm probably gonna do it. But if they keep their security tight enough to prevent me ever doing so, then good on them. But they lost much of my sympathy when they removed a feature they promoted on launch, and for that reason I wish Hotz the best of luck.
End of the day he didn't do anything to the software, but only the hardware.
Sony would allow for Linux during a long time and then killed this option. That's the reason, why they tried to get it running again, and the result was a full hack of the system, which wasn't the goal to begin with tho.
-- rep to all defending Sony in this case.
@ max speed and 24/7.... about 2 days i think.
You can't sign into XBL and play online on the Xbox either without accepting system/game updates and then applying them. Playstation 3 doesn't force you to update either.
You can say that about pretty much any company, at least sony's products are very sound (Cough RROD cough). Ironic enough, the Ps3 is perhaps the least proprietary console, bluetooth device support, universal Hard Drives work well, external hard drive support. unlike Ms and their 150 proprietary hard drives.
The DMCA has exceptions where the device security is against consumers interests, which is why phones are exempt.
He hasn't walked in, what he's done is point out the door is unlocked.
Commercial and academic organisations do this sort of thing all the time, only recently papers have been published highlighting issues in chip & pin technology that secures bank cards. I don't see banks rushing to sue these academic or accusing them of be fraudsters.
My fundamental problem here with Sony is that they are trying to shoot the messenger.
#2. The PS3 is a closed system, GEO-NOT made code available (Licensed Code) that would allow users to create apps or whatever for free, meanwhile Naughty Dogg, Santa Monica, Guerrilla Games etc have to pay Sony a licensing fee to make games or apps on the PS3. In this case Sony is right cause it's not fair that all licensed users paid a fee and this hack makes a something that belongs to Sony out in the public for free. He is not just "pointing out a flaw or using a program to circumvent a weakness" he used a licensed code (that belongs to Sony) to create his Jailbreak.
When he jailbroke the iPhone I think he just used work arounds to manipulate flaws in the system. in this case he used an actual Sony license to create this jailbreak. This is just like using a manufactures license to activate Windows 7 when your not the manufacturer or bought a product from said manufacturer. GEO-HOt is wrong.
If you would've read up on what they did, then you wouldn't talk all that nonsense tbh.
What they did is nothing else then jailbreak on the iPhone and jailbreak was also released to the public and deemed OK by the court.
Considering that Hotz himself even said that his hack would lead to piracy (but that he wanted nothing to do with piracy) it's pretty evident now that it's already the case well before OtherOS was removed. And the reintroduction of OtherOS faciliates more piracy than anything legitimate.
A simple search for PS3 hacks turns up this particular site:
http://www.ps3-hacks.com/category/top10
Of their Top 10 PS3 downloads to run under the "OtherOS" option, we have 4 backup managers to pull BDVD data (obviously targeted at the games) to the HDD, or even the USB Stick. And a proxy that allows the installation of PSN/PS3 Games/Demos through your PC onto the PS3. That's not counting the dozens of NES, SNES, Genesis, GBA (the usual stuff when it comes to "homebrew") emulators available.
Sony is simply protecting their content, and by extension probably trying to protect themselves as all it would take is one customer bricking their system trying to hack their PS3 and expecting Sony to do something about it.
You know that all of this was around before this recently announced hack, right?
It is possible for atleast a year to play copied games on the PS3 with a USB-dongle.
Nevertheless, it's still our own decision, what we do with our legally bought hardware. Hotz didn't copy, used, sold or bought any pirated software, but only tweaked his hardware to run Linux on it in the first place.
If Sony want to protect their software, then they should do it by copy-protection-stuff like DRM or online-activation etc.
I understand that we all purchased this hardware thus it is ours to do with as we please. However that doesn't mean that just because I purchased my Ipod, I am within my legal right to circumvent the DRM and iTunes by way of illegally torrented CDs downloaded and synced to my Ipod. Just because I OWN my Ipod, does not make it legal for me to side load games downloaded from the thousands of websites that offer paid app store games/apps for free after I jailbrake it (and lets be honest. Jailbraking is mainly for accessing App Stores other than Apple's).
I fully support Hotz desire to hack the PS3 for his own curiosity and hobby, however, releasing the encryption keys and thus fostering the community of so called "Homebrew" it is once again allowing the circumvention of Sony's already in place DRM setup to prevent piracy. I'm not saying that the homebrew community is nothing but piracy, but piracy (as I have seen) tends to hide behind the legitimate homebrew community. Doom for PSP/PS3/IPhone is not Homebrew just because you throw the word Homebrew infront of it after you port it (And yes Doom was ported to the PS3 to be run as homebrew under the OtherOS function). Piracy is still piracy, and Sony would rather close the door to legit homebrew than allow further piracy by the community claiming to be homebrew. I see nothing wrong with it as I can't imagine that you, or anyone else in this thread would like the idea of their game (if you were a developer) being backup to one person's PS3, copied to USB, uploaded to another PS3, and launched. All done within the OtherOS function.
Pirating software or media is bad, I agree with that, but if I'm not pirating anything by hacking my hardware, then why sholudn't I be allowed to do so?
As said many times allready, Hotz won his case against Apple on the topic of jailbreaking the iPhone, which is basically exactly the same.
You have to draw a hard line between hacking hardware to use it as you want and between pirating software/media.
They're not automatically tied together like you want to make everyone believe there, but they have to be investigated apart from each other.
You're not automatically driving too fast breaking the speedlimit, just because you chip-tuned your car either.
As for circumventing DRM on your iPod...
In most european countries (UK is not one of them surprisingly ^^) anyone is allowed to make a private copy of a copyrighted material for oneself, and the source copy does not even have to be legal. Making copies for other people, however, is forbidden if done for profit.
Since they AD all over the place that **** was secure.
This shouldn't be any different
And since this is such an excellent analogy, you should all bake me some nice doughy sourdough and send it to me
/offtopic rant
Lol do go there mate or we'll get gamer24/7 or what ever he called himself back
why did he do it?
for the chalange and bragging rights ofiously
besides there have alterations to the dcma so that backing up your own content isnt ilegal, this anoys sony and others but they cant do anything about it
Faster cars lead to overspeeding just aswell, so it's exactly the same analogy actually.
Only because it's possible to pirate software with this hack doesn't make Hotz a pirate automatically.
If we generally rule anyone verdict, just beacuse he has the possibilities to do illegal stuff like pirating software, then every PC-owner worldwide is automatically guilty for pirating software.
Doesn't matter if your car is modded or not. The ability to speed is there. Hence modding doesn't automatically mean you have a desire to illegally street race. Modding your Honda, doesn't somehow allow you the ability to aquire an NSX free of charge. His hack, while great for the homebrew community will be overshadowed by the overwhelming pirate community. And Sony has to protect it's revenue.
if you dont agree with the t&c of something don't buy it, or if you bought it already, return it.
Good luck to him, hopefully the judge will throw the case out.
The US courts have already thrown this argument out with phones. Let's also remember that Sony removed functionality from their product after you had purchased it, using their T&Cs for cover. I can't think of any other industry that tries to control what you do with a physical device once they've sold it to you.
But what if he used a hot crossed bun, a bun traditionally associated with toasting... what would sony do then lol?!?!
Actually, this sounds a lot like core unlocking. Workaround that gets you something that was never paid for. But oddly enough, some mobo makers actually advertise it as a feature.
And it's a bit odd for suing based on potential harm or crime. Based on that, the chip and pin guy should have been sued to kingdom come. But then again, they do have a law faculty that could drag things out till the cows come home and moo at someone.
Looks to me like it HAS been payed for ... then removed
I think sony doesn't have a leg to stand on, and is leaving behind quite a bad taste more and more often these days
I have to agree with Deadsea. You buy a tri core chip and unlock the quad core chip, whats fair about that you only paid for 3 cores but yet you hacked something to get the 4th core unlocked? Or how about the 5950 crack to make it a 5970( i think those are the model numbers). Someone hacked the BIOS and unlocked stuff you didn't pay for so does that give AMD/ATI the right to sue these people that hacked it? What about the people that published the articles on it? Should they be sued too?
I'm happy for Sony! Quite right. Sony is correct to do this in my opinion!
Ugh, I do hope you are joking.
And the first paragraph in that "news" article makes me want to go and throttle the editor.
I'm being serious. He broke the terms of use therefore is liable.
Yes, he broke the terms of service so he is liable to something. But what exactly? Removal from use of the PSN service? Yes, fair enough, that is a service Sony provides. But handing over his computers? That is just ridiculous. Next a company could seize your house because you lived there when you jailbroke some device of yours...
This is exactly the type of dangerous precedent a victory by Sony could form the basis for.
The really sickening thing is the corruption of the California municipality in which Sony is trying to try this case. In the TOS users must now agree to settling any and all "disputes" within San Mateo County, California - home of SCEA. The only upshot is that Sony's influence in that area - as a major employer and source of tax revenue - is probably very negligable, so that is surely the most objective and unbiased forum for any and all litigation involving SCEA.
For everyone who's argument is "its just piracy," or anything to that effect, you are wrong. GeoHot never pirated anything. If someone uses his exploit for piracy, this is still not his fault. Colt Firearms doesn't have to deal with legal fallout anytime someone uses one of their products in commission of a crime, and its ridiculous to even consider it. This would be like me using this exploit to pirate Uncharted 2 to my PS3 which I then use to assassinate the President, and GeoHot being brought up on capital murder charges as a result. Garbage.
Sony's case is bogus, but its scary as hell that litigation in a rotten venue and a pile of cash might very well legitimize this insanity.