8 ms·

Didn't he settle with Sony with the promise to never hack any other sony products in the future? (source wikipedia)

runnerup 4y ago
In my opinion, for someone his age that’s essentially a victory if it doesn’t involve any payments or criminal repercussions. In theory, marcan42 would have been subject to a very similar or same settlement but he went on to continue working on Sony stuff without repercussion: “In 2016, he ported Linux to the PlayStation 4 and demonstrated that at the 33rd Chaos Communication Congress by running Steam inside Linux.” Considering that Sony’s primary claims were: Violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 1201) Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(c)) Contributory copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 501) Violating California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (§ 502) I’d say that the outcome failed to reflect Sony’s perspective on the situation and much more closely aligns with “George Hotz faced nearly no actual consequences”.
- prvit 4y ago
  There was no chance he would’ve ended up with any of the things you mention.
  - slimsag 4y ago
    I don't know? Gary Bowser (canadian citizen) was deported to the US due to lawsuit and sentenced to 40 months in prison recently. "Conspiracy to Circumvent Technological Measures and to Traffic in Circumvention Devices", and "Trafficking in Circumvention Devices" were two charges
    - prvit 4y ago
      You could of course look at the facts of the case and understand why. He was, in fact, selling circumvention devices for the explicit purpose of enabling piracy.
      - slimsag 4y ago
        Hey, in general it's better to assume good faith. It's snide to just assume I haven't looked at the facts or attempted to understand anything. According to Ars Technica the DOJ indictment stated: * There was a screenshot of the SX OS menu with commercial games in it. * A public changelog for SX OS publicly trumpeted the feature of "launching your Retro Game ROMs for emulators directly from gDrive," * They were "attempt[ing] to cloak its illegal activity with a purported desire to support homebrew enthusiasts who wanted to design their own games." * the product description for the team's SX devices notes that you can "play all your favorite game backups straight off of the microSD card (or external USB storage!)" So, yeah, I agree they were selling circumvention devices with at least some level of piracy intent (and that was used to send him to prison after all.) But I think you can also agree the delta between what they were doing and what geohotz did with the PS3 is not very large.
        prvit 4y ago
        > But I think you can also agree the delta between what they were doing and what geohotz did with the PS3 is not very large. It was absolutely massive. geohots jailbreak did not enable piracy. It’s like the delta between selling kratom and heroin is not very large, both are drugs that will get you high.
jjoonathan 4y ago
Yeah, and not a week later anonymous hacker(s) took down the Play Station network for 23 days. Either he did it himself and got away with it, which is impressive, or he inspired someone else to do it and get away with it, which is also impressive.
- prvit 4y ago
  “anonymous hackers”? Publicly unidentified hackers you mean? That hack almost certainly had nothing to do with the jailbreaking scene. Sony pulled down their infrastructure to investigate an extensive compromise.

In my opinion, for someone his age that’s essentially a victory if it doesn’t involve any payments or criminal repercussions. In theory, marcan42 would have been subject to a very similar or same settlement but he went on to continue working on Sony stuff without repercussion: “In 2016, he ported Linux to the PlayStation 4 and demonstrated that at the 33rd Chaos Communication Congress by running Steam inside Linux.” Considering that Sony’s primary claims were: Violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 1201) Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(c)) Contributory copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 501) Violating California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (§ 502) I’d say that the outcome failed to reflect Sony’s perspective on the situation and much more closely aligns with “George Hotz faced nearly no actual consequences”.

prvit 4y ago
There was no chance he would’ve ended up with any of the things you mention.
- slimsag 4y ago
  I don't know? Gary Bowser (canadian citizen) was deported to the US due to lawsuit and sentenced to 40 months in prison recently. "Conspiracy to Circumvent Technological Measures and to Traffic in Circumvention Devices", and "Trafficking in Circumvention Devices" were two charges
  - prvit 4y ago
    You could of course look at the facts of the case and understand why. He was, in fact, selling circumvention devices for the explicit purpose of enabling piracy.
    - slimsag 4y ago
      Hey, in general it's better to assume good faith. It's snide to just assume I haven't looked at the facts or attempted to understand anything. According to Ars Technica the DOJ indictment stated: * There was a screenshot of the SX OS menu with commercial games in it. * A public changelog for SX OS publicly trumpeted the feature of "launching your Retro Game ROMs for emulators directly from gDrive," * They were "attempt[ing] to cloak its illegal activity with a purported desire to support homebrew enthusiasts who wanted to design their own games." * the product description for the team's SX devices notes that you can "play all your favorite game backups straight off of the microSD card (or external USB storage!)" So, yeah, I agree they were selling circumvention devices with at least some level of piracy intent (and that was used to send him to prison after all.) But I think you can also agree the delta between what they were doing and what geohotz did with the PS3 is not very large.
      - prvit 4y ago
        > But I think you can also agree the delta between what they were doing and what geohotz did with the PS3 is not very large. It was absolutely massive. geohots jailbreak did not enable piracy. It’s like the delta between selling kratom and heroin is not very large, both are drugs that will get you high.

jjoonathan 4y ago

Yeah, and not a week later anonymous hacker(s) took down the Play Station network for 23 days. Either he did it himself and got away with it, which is impressive, or he inspired someone else to do it and get away with it, which is also impressive.

prvit 4y ago
“anonymous hackers”? Publicly unidentified hackers you mean? That hack almost certainly had nothing to do with the jailbreaking scene. Sony pulled down their infrastructure to investigate an extensive compromise.