Sony suing fail0verflow & geohot over PS3 jailbreak [pdf]

http://geohot.com/Motion%20For%20TRO.pdf

by angusgr • 16 years ago

64 51 16 years ago

christoph• 16 years ago

I personally don't think this is a good move from Sony. Apple seem to have the right stance with their hardware being compromised - pretty much just ignore it.

Bringing a legal action like this just raises the public awareness to the hack (not good for Sony). It pisses more hackers off (not good for Sony) and it doesn't fix what seems to be an unfixable problem for Sony.

I'm sure the courts will be made aware that Sony removed a "key" feature/selling point of a console and left consumers with little choice about how to re-enable that feature.

Anyway, Geohot shouldn't have been such an egomaniac, the keys/tools could have been leaked online anonymously and he wouldn't be in legal trouble. Still, I can see an out of court settlement of some kind on the horizon...

bendauphinee• 16 years ago

While I agree that he is being somewhat of an egomaniac, it does give Sony a big target to shoot at, therefore allowing the court case that may set a good precedent.

Xuzz3• 16 years ago

(Honestly I don't see how geohot did anything, here, really: he used one exploit to apply the work of fail0verflow, who presented at CCC, to a new part of the PS3. All the important parts, like the private key calculation, were already presented before he posted anything.)

loire2803• 16 years ago

Apple makes their money from hardware -- software sales are just icing on the cake. Sony, however, has to take piracy threats (since even well-intentioned cracking will lead to piracy) very seriously because they make all of their money from software sales.

Sony's ineffectual attempts to lock down the PSP (starting with the last-minute homebrew policy reversal) probably contributed to the firmware hacking community's fervor. However, after the rampant piracy on the PSP platform, I think Sony is going to take any firmware hacks very seriously. Gamers have proven to be perfectly willing to pirate games if given the opportunity.

axod• 16 years ago

Sonys problem is that they make the most expensive games console hardware, but make a loss selling it.

If I were them I'd fix that first. And get rid of the ridiculous and outdated blu-ray crap. Spinny disc things? In this day and age?

sorghum• 16 years ago

I wouldn't say Apple ignores jailbreakers; while they haven't tried to sue anyone making the software (as far as I know), they did try to block the DMCA exemption for jailbreaking: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking...

bad_user• 16 years ago

Apple sues Wired over netbook hackintosh video: http://tinyurl.com/4d2f4rv

Apple sues clone maker Psystar: http://tinyurl.com/6r7jad

I.e. they are only quite as long as people keep buying their hardware, and got nothing to do with "pissing hackers off".

Xuzz3• 16 years ago

Incredibly relevant: Daeken's Hardware Hacker Manifesto: http://daeken.com/the-hardware-hacker-manifesto

Sony probably has the upper hand legally here. The DMCA seems to be pretty explicit about these kind of this, at least from my non-lawyerly reading of it. Even so, this is quite unprecedented. Apple and Nintendo have both had devices hacked, often by these same people (there's at least two iPhone Dev-Team members there, four members of Team Twiizers, and, of course, geohot), but they never took any kind of legal action.

(Somewhat unrelated, but funny: even Nintendo found out "bushing"'s real name and phone number. I wonder why Sony didn't go through that trouble and referred to him pseudonymously.)

daeken• 16 years ago

> Sony probably has the upper hand legally here. The DMCA seems to be pretty explicit about these kind of this, at least from my non-lawyerly reading of it.

IANAL, but there are a few things that Sony has going against them: 1) The DMCA interoperability exemptions may apply to this work, although obviously not the piracy side of things (although these guys have not produced anything that is for the sole purpose of copying content), and 2) They are conflating these attacks purely with piracy, which will make their case look far worse when a judge looks at it. Whether or not these things actually matter in the end is up in the air, but this is by no means a cut and dry case. I'm personally excited to see this come to pass, for the precedent this could set, and I hope for the best for bushing et al.

Edit: This is the type of tweet that can lose a case... "The FAIL0VERFLOW Defendants intentionally circumvented SCEA’s TPMs, accessed the PS3 System and trafficked in Circumvention Devices and SCEA’s proprietary information, with full knowledge that their unlawful conduct would irreparably harm SCEA. Indeed, five days prior to appearing at the Chaos Conference, Bushing echoed a fellow hacker’s comment anticipating this irreparable harm: “Last chance to sell any Sony stock you may have.”"

eli2• 16 years ago

Unprecedented?

In this case decided in 2005, Sony received over $6 million in a copyright infringement judgment against a small online retailer who violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201 et seq., by selling computer chips that allowed unauthorized copies of PlayStation games to be played on the PlayStation console.

http://www.patentarcade.com/2010/07/case-analysis-sony-v-fil...

angusgr• 16 years ago

There was never much of a PlayStation One homebrew or Linux scene though, was there? So it'd be hard to argue that the PS1 device had any useful purpose other than piracy.

Unlike with PS2&3, where for a while there Sony pretty much endorsed alternative uses of the console.

Xuzz3• 16 years ago

Unprecedented to sue those hacking a console with the sole intent of using it for Linux and homebrew, yes.

(Yes, suing over piracy is not new, and that's what Sony is doing here. But that doesn't change the fact that none of them support piracy.)

mycroftiv• 16 years ago

So, let's see if we can summarize the story in broad outline. Sony releases the PS3 with the included functionality of installing an alternate operating system. Users purchase PS3s with this ability. Sony changes its mind about the benefits of this feature and removes it via a software update. Users take steps to regain the full functionality of the devices they purchased. Sony sues the users for this action.

electromagnetic• 16 years ago

I'm waiting for the inevitable case of gun manufacturers suing their customers for firing their guns. I believe it's inevitable.

drivebyacct22• 16 years ago

That's not really a fair comparison, especially considering the level of discussion the DMCA goes into when covering what is considered fair use and what sorts of reverse engineering is prohibited. It'd be more like a gun manufacturer suing because someone turned their gun into an automatic rifle (jailbreak). And then spread instructions on how to do it (homebrew). And then a bunch of people held up grocery stores (piracy).

wh-uws• 16 years ago

A better comparison would be suing customers for modifying the guns. I remember I saw a documentary once where a company was sued because it sold (I believe) handguns that were easily modifiable to be fully automatic

wmf• 16 years ago

Perhaps the legal principle of "two wrongs don't make a right" applies here.

cmoylan2• 16 years ago

If you buy hardware, you should own that hardware and be able to do with it as you please.

mfukar2• 16 years ago

Replace 'hardware' with 'anything' and I'd probably still agree with you.

dekz• 16 years ago

"Whoa there buddy, you made your own gravy for that chicken? I don't think so, you have to buy our gravy for your delicious dinner."

drivebyacct22• 16 years ago

That's not true for lots of consumer products available for sale.

lnguyen• 16 years ago

Yes. But if you want to continue "support" or receive official updates then you're subject to the whims of the manufacturer/provider. And don't expect them to make it easy for you to do what you will.

zem• 16 years ago

i wonder if anyone has tried returning their ps3 for a full refund, claiming it stopped working

partypoopin• 16 years ago

Yes, people have and received partial refunding from Amazon *, and people have also tried suing Sony as well in Europe.

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/amazon-s-plays...

milkshakes• 16 years ago

Finally, SCEA will likely prevail on its claim under §1030(a)(7)(B), which prohibits “intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value” by threatening “to obtain information from a protected computer without authorization or in excess of authorization or to impair the confidentiality of information obtained from a protected computer without authorization or by exceeding authorized access.” Hotz violated this provision when, in the same post in which the published SCEA’s Keys, he attempted to obtain from SCEA “a thing of value” in the form of employment: “if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me.”

geohot offers to work for them and help them build something that's actually secure, they sue him for "extortion". beautiful.

Sephr• 16 years ago

How the heck is "if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me" extortion?

mquander5• 16 years ago

Seriously? We can argue the ethics all day, but from Sony's point of view, this series of events is isomorphic to an expert lockpicker breaking into their office building and then sending a letter saying "if you want your next building to be secure, get in touch with me."

anonymoushn2• 16 years ago

If the end user does not own the Playstation 3 (it seems to be owned by Sony, from Sony's point of view), I wonder what he paid $499 for.

kahirsch• 16 years ago

Which is also not extortion.

EliRivers2• 16 years ago

So there's someone who knows how the locks on your building can be picked, and then offers to tell you how to fix it so they can't? That doesn't sound like extortion. It sounds like someone being helpful.

In case you struggle to draw the analogy here, in this case we have Geohot, who knows a lot about how to do something Sony really want to do, offering to help them do it. That's not extortion.

If you call that extortion, then presumably when the fire department sends out leaflets on how to prevent fires, you call that extortion too.

jrockway2• 16 years ago

No, it's like someone buying a lock, picking it in the privacy of his own home, and calling the lock company saying, "hey, this lock is easy to pick, want me to show you how?"

This is called "customer involvement", not extortion.

elliottcarlson• 16 years ago

Various sources [1] are stating that the Sony PS3 TOS allows Sony to disable units remotely leaving them unusable for both online and offline use.

While I would be fine with being banned from their network, I believe the hardware should be mine to do with as I please - with the obvious exclusion of piracy. If I want to get Linux on there, then that should be my right as the owner of the hardware - same if I want to run custom firmware to allow me to do hobby development. Both their supposed right to unleash a ban wave, as well as their lawsuit against Geohot et al just doesn't make sense - why can a lawsuit like this even be allowed to happen? (This question is linked to the fact that Geohot purposely did not add peek/poke functionality on what he released to ensure that piracy would not be possible using his tools - even if others have since added that in)

[1] http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-in-theory-p...

Sony suing fail0verflow & geohot over PS3 jailbreak [pdf]

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