Lawyer denies tampering in PS3 hacker case [Updated]
In court documents, Sony has accused PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz of tampering his impounded hard drives. The company is now pressing hard to begin the suit with California jurisdiction.
[Update 06:10 a.m. 3/24] IGN reports that Stewart Kellar, Hotz's attorney, says the missing parts have now been delivered. "The 'integral components' SCEA is talking about are stock controller cards, not the hard drives themselves," he said. "The neutral subsequently had to explain to SCEA the form and function of the hard drive controller cards. Those controller cards have since been provided to the neutral so the point is moot."
"You can never take a vacation from a lawsuit," he continued. "Mr. Hotz has had to make himself available 24/7 for this litigation, which has been quite demanding on him. You have to remember that Mr. Hotz didn't choose to fight this battle, but now that he has been sued, he has put his heart into fighting this case that has enormous implications for consumers world-wide."
Kellar went on to deny that donation money from fans has been used for a trip to South America, calling the notion "silly." He says all donation funds are being put toward his legal defense, and any remaining funds will be donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
[Original Story] As the latest bit of drama in the PlayStation 3 hacker suit saga, Sony has accused hacker George Hotz (aka "GeoHot") of tampering with the hard drives he was ordered to surrender, and may now be able to build a case for jurisdiction in California. Court documents (via VGHQ) show Sony accusing Hotz of "a campaign to thwart jurisdictional discovery at every turn."
Hotz had been ordered to turn over his hard drives and appear at a California deposition, but apparently removed "integral components" from the HDDs before going to South America. Sony calls his trip "an excuse for why he will not immediately provide the components" that were removed. Hotz's counsel was open about his trip to South America.
Now Sony is arguing that his tampering has stood in the way of the California jurisdictional discovery, which may help them establish the case to be tried in the state. In addition, but the company has used his PlayStation 3 serial number to track his PlayStation Network account name, after Hotz claimed he had none. Since he had to agree to the User Agreement for his PSN account, Sony argues it gives more than enough reason to try the case in California.
Confusion over jurisdiction has been a problem for Sony from the start, since a California judge was hesitant to hear the case in her state since Hotz is from New Jersey. If Sony can establish jurisdiction in California, it can move ahead with the suit and subpoena Hotz to come back from South America -- presumably, with missing components in hand.
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Comment on Sony accuses PS3 hacker of tampering, by Steve Watts.
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yes, but why does such a distinction exist between phones and gaming consoles? Yes jailbreaking a phone lets you use other carriers so it has a strong argument with fair use and whatnot, but jailbreaking a console also lets you do plenty of legal activities, especially legal activities which Sony initially claimed the console could do (Linux).
The argument for / against piracy in both cases is moot since it is possible for both.
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Sony's in a lose lose situation. If they had sat back it'd be almost like an official response to allow pirating of their software and network. Now they chose a lousy target and are losing face over it.
They should have just waited it out and aggressively attacked the ones abusing their network/pirating software, something they're going to have to do anyways.
There definatly wouldn't be the kind of support for the people blatantly pirating games and hacking PSN as there is for Hotz right now.-
They weren't in a lose lose situation at all, since sitting back and doing nothing doesn't have to be one of the options, they could have actively done what you describe in your second paragraph right from the beginning. It's what MS have been doing and it worked out well enough for them, they get the occasional bit of negative press about someone being banned for no reason (and it's usually discovered that they were actually being cheating douchebags anyway) but no serious blowback from the community.
Sony just went about this wrong right from the beginning :( -
Sony probably considers it cheaper to "make an example of some kid from New Jersey" than to get stuck trying to find and sue every hacker. They can say they'll ban every hacked box that tries to connect to PSN, but they probably want to take this chance to repair the brand damage of having a "hackable console" (even though it's been that way for years via hardware hacking, and months with no hardware hacking).
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I really don't think they are getting much bad press, especially to the average consumer who has no idea who Hotz even is. Plus there are a whole lot of people out there who quietly hope Sony keeps the PS3 secure.. you know.. the tens of thousands of people who work in the industry whose jobs depend on game sales.
But most people on anonymous message boards don't care about them.. until there's an article about laying off X number of employees at and they are outraged.
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If you don't read a little further to see he's taking a planned vacation, that he kept controller cards that he used to connect the hard disks with (because they're part of his computer) and didn't "tamper with evidence," and that the account that was created on the PS3 was created in another state from the one he lived in, then you're a dumb ass.
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You do realize this case is going awful for Sony right now: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110322114658410
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Absolutely. Sony is having a horrible time proving that Geo has anything to do with CA. In fact, some of their own evidence pointed out that it should be Sony-Japan going after the guy, since in their EULA the software is covered only by Sony-Japan.
This warranty does not apply to any system software that is pre-installed in the PS3™ hardware, or Is subsequently provided via update or upgrade releases. Such system software is licensed to you under the terms and conditions of a separate end user license agreement at http://www.scei.co.jp//ps3-eula and such software is provided pursuant to its own warranty.
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Yeh you're right only the developers hurt but they don't mean anything right? Example PSP, when you don't man up and stick up for you system that's what happens... GeoHotz way too much ego and less brains he probably thinks in his head he's some leader of some cult now. Sony has him now since he made an account with them, that's why he's in south america, my advice to him is to just stay there...
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Oh, c'mon. You're already shown throughout this thread you have no idea what you're talking about. The man wasn't distributing pirated software, and he's never taken a dime for his hacks. He has very little personal engagement with communities on the internet. The only one that's putting him on a pedestal is you and Sony.
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I still don't know who Justin Bieber is but the way everyone talks about him I'm glad I don't, anyway hotz is internet famous now so I guess if he wanted fame he kinda got it.
Is it wrong to modify something you own and share it with others? I don't think so but should you be prepared in case others miss use your work? Yes.
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