Carnegie Mellon CS Professor challenges Sony by mirroring Geohot's PS3 hacks

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/GeoHot/

by elliottcarlson • 16 years ago

620 81 16 years ago

cs.cmu.edu

Additionally, Team fail0verflow's github is also mirrored: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/GeoHot/mirror/ps3publictools.git/

tibbon2• 16 years ago

Did Github remove the code at the request of Sony? While I realize they don't want to get embroiled in a legal battle, I find it unfortunate as well.

ramidarigaz• 16 years ago

Looks like it's still there: https://github.com/geohot/ps3publictools

jdp23• 16 years ago

About a decade ago, David Touretsky (the professor behind this) hosted a "gallery" of versions for the DeCSS decryption software.

bravura• 16 years ago

Prof. Touretzky reminds Sony's lawyers of this, in the linked article:

"Note to Sony lawyers: no doubt you're eager to rack up another billable hour by sending legal threats to me and my university. Before you go down that unhappy road, check out what happened the last time a large corporation tried to stop the mirroring of technical information here: The Gallery of CSS Descramblers (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery). Have you learned anything in ten years?"

aothman• 16 years ago

Touretzky is also one of scientology's biggest online critics:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/

I believe CMU's lawyers are well-acquainted with responding to legal threats against him.

blantonl• 16 years ago

CMU's lawyers most certainly had to vet this before it went up publicly, so lets raise a toast to those attorneys, and most importantly Touretzky, for their efforts.

This was not a spur of the moment thing - these guys did their homework.

"Ding"

lotusleaf1987• 16 years ago

This professor is indescribably awesome.

ScotterC• 16 years ago

I know! Makes me really proud to have gone to school there and pissed that I wasn't in computer science and learning from that guy

whakojacko• 16 years ago

He was a guest lecturer for one of my classes a few years back and talked about all the stuff he went through to keep up the Scientology documents. Pretty ridiculous all in all-I must say I almost certainly wouldn't be willing to deal with all the bs he went through. Glad someone was willing though.

JonnieCache2• 16 years ago

Maybe he can team up with that professor from cambridge who wrote that letter to the banks and they can be an international crimefighting duo.

oozcitak• 16 years ago

The Cambridge professor was Ross Anderson. He replied to a letter from UK Cards Association requesting the university to take down a research paper by a PhD student. The issue was about the chip-and-pin no-pin vulnerability.

HN Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2039117

Take down request: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/20101221110342233.pdf (pdf)

Professor Anderson's reply: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/ukca.pdf (pdf)

digitailor• 16 years ago

More reasons he's awesome- he wrote a fantastic introductory book to Common Lisp in 1990 that holds up to this day. It's also considered a good general early CS text by many.

It is available for free download from his own directory at CMU: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/

RBerenguel• 16 years ago

Now I know why the name sounded familiar!

tpr1m• 16 years ago

Mirroring rocks! A point-and-click guarantee of defeating censorship.

michaelty• 16 years ago

The blink tag was a nice touch.

roadnottaken• 16 years ago

Hmm... no blinking in Chrome. I think I'm happy about that "feature"...

taylorbuley• 16 years ago

Personally I think a <marquee> would have also sufficed.

elliottcarlson3• 16 years ago

OT: My first website back in the mid-90's had both a <blink> and <marquee> tag in it... so so sad...

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

IE and Chrome don't support blink, only Firefox does. A legacy of the Netscape heritage I'd imagine, since blink is a Netscape proprietary HTML addition.

robin_reala• 16 years ago

Gecko also supports text-decoration:blink if you’re a fan of semantic markup and keeping presentation in the presentation layer.

Personally, I’m waiting for “Bug 173540 - make text-decoration:blink pulse instead of blink” to be fixed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=173540

LiveTheDream• 16 years ago

Fun trivia: the blink tag actually started as a joke[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_element

david2777• 16 years ago

Oddly enough on Geohot's site and the professor's mirror it states "do not mirror file, link to geohot.com".

int_main_void• 16 years ago

Well A) given the state of affairs I can't imagine that geohot minds the show of support.

B) I think it would be kind of hilarious of Geohot gave CMU a takedown notice for it, yeah it would be a dick move, but really hilarious.

staunch• 16 years ago

Geohot should send a cease and desist to Professor Touretzky

sever2• 16 years ago

This is awesome.

I remember DeCSS, my favorite was people getting tattoos of the source code.

JonnieCache2• 16 years ago

DeCSS is too big for your arm. You're thinking of RSA http://www.geekytattoos.com/illegal-tattoos-rsa-tattoos/

sever2• 16 years ago

ah, right

biggus_dictus• 16 years ago

I think this could fit: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/hannum-efdtt-source...

uxp2• 16 years ago

Or the AACS key, which is much more manageable as a permanent addition to one's body.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy

tattoo: http://www.thenewfreedom.net/wp/2007/05/02/takedown-this/

imkevingao3• 16 years ago

There's no point of dedicating resource on fighting freedom of speech. Sony just has to shift strategic position. I mean you don't see Microsoft and Apple whining about it. I know that Sony has dedicated A LOT of money on each individual PS3 console, but they knew this day would come. Instead of trying to sue and put restrictions on the first amendment, they should learn how to make money with a hacked system.

dangrossman4• 16 years ago

What does this have to do with the first amendment? The first amendment prohibits the US government from making certain laws. "Freedom of speech" is freedom from government restrictions on speech, not from any actions of private businesses or individuals.

erikpukinskis• 16 years ago

As soon as Sony files a lawsuit they bring the government (and therefore the first amendment) into the picture.

jbri2• 16 years ago

Private individuals and businesses cannot do anything to prevent free speech. At best, they can petition the government to do so on their behalf. Hence the first amendment issue.

leoc• 16 years ago

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46739943/Complaint The law in this case is the DMCA (though it seems that Sony are also trying on accusations under computer-crime laws and bunch of other things). Only the fifth of Sony's eight claims for relief seems to be based on the PS3's user agreement, while it seems the motion for a temporary restraining order is entirely based on the DMCA and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. I am not a lawyer.

imkevingao3• 16 years ago

okay let's link it bank. If you make a hack for PS3, fine. I doubt Sony would find out unless they have vans driving around the neighborhood like Google. But it's illegal if you start sharing it. Isn't this what Sony is trying to prevent? Having a free hacks released on the web, and therefore people can access it freely? I'm sure there are certain laws written within Congress, as many people below has stated that points specifically to sharing on the web. But in essence all of them were drafted and passed with the First amendment as the foundation

mlinsey2• 16 years ago

I'm surprised you need this spelled out for you, but the professor is unaffiliated with and has no contractual relationship with Sony. Since he's just mirroring someone else's code, he probably hasn't even agreed to a TOS.

Therefore any successful litigation against him would require reference to some law that makes it unlawful to disseminate the actual information. It's difficult to imagine how such a law would hold up to a rigorous first amendment challenge.

Your other posts make it clear that you believe this guy has breached some private contractual obligation to Sony, and I'm curious to know where you're getting that idea.

zoul• 16 years ago

I would dare to say that more money probably went into this issue so far than Sony will ever lose because of the hack?

aces• 16 years ago

This should be called "How to be a real man", by Professor Touretzky.

tibbon2• 16 years ago

I do wish there was someone with Sony's PoV here to try to explain to us their rationale and how they hope to actually win this battle overall- as they can't really imagine that they can make the information go away with lawsuits.

elliottcarlson3• 16 years ago

This just seems like another test of the anti-circumvention provision in the DCMA. Unlike the XBox modding trial that was dismissed [1], this case actually has nothing to do with piracy, as geohot made it a point not to add in piracy enabling features.

[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/crippen-dismissed/

mahmud• 16 years ago

CMU CS professors have a history of kicking ass. Robert Harper is another one who is a very vocal anti-DMCA campaigner, and hosts his own political radio show :-)

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/

cyrus_• 16 years ago

I don't believe his radio show is still on air, but yes.

ddkrone• 16 years ago

Yea!

Jayasimhan• 16 years ago

This is so F'ing awesome! I was feeling bad for the hackers. This news made my day.

riffraff• 16 years ago

time to get a PS3 master key t-shirt!

lhnz• 16 years ago

Anybody else find it really funny that a guy called 'touretzky' is threatening Sony. Just me? Oh.

Carnegie Mellon CS Professor challenges Sony by mirroring Geohot's PS3 hacks

Related Stories