I have been following the court case for the last few months since my last post. What I have read leaves me very concerned and angry! Just today I read a post about the Hotz case on wired.com. "Magistrate Joseph Spero in San Francisco granted Sony the right to acquire the internet IP addresses of anybody who had visited Hotz’s website from January of 2009 onward" This means that Sony will know exactly who has visited Hotz's website and possibly who to sue for using the PS3 hack! "Sony has also won subpoenas for data from YouTube and Google, as well as Twitter account data linked to Hotz, who goes by the handle GeoHot." This also means all content about the hack will be conveniently erased from the aforementioned sites.
"Respected for his iPhone hacks and now the PlayStation 3 jailbreak, the 21-year-old New Jersey man is accused of breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other laws after his website published an encryption key and software tools that allow PlayStation 'owners' to gain 'complete control' of their consoles from the firmware on up. Hotz has complied with a court order and removed the hack." (emphasis added) This paragraph made me sick! Why can't a "owner" of a PS3 gain "complete control" of their consoles? If they own it, they should have the right to do with it as they wish. It seems as if Sony believes they retain all ownership rights to their devices even after it has been bought by the consumer.
"The DMCA prohibits the trafficking of so-called “circumvention devices” designed to crack copy-protection 'schemes'." Yes, it is a scheme all-right! An evil one at that. "The law, however, does not require Sony to prove that Hotz received payment for the hack, which was designed to allow PlayStation 3 owners the ability to run home-brewed software or alternative operating systems like Linux." If I had a PS3, I would want to install Linux on it! To completely remove the PS3 firmware and all PS3 software. But since this lawsuit has come up, I will not get a chance to tinker with my own property! No wait, it is Sony's property, my bad.:(
Please consider the following. Suppose you were (by accident of course) watching pornography, and all of a sudden a message popped up! "The manufacturer does not allow pornography to be processed with this graphics card!" You would be confused and irate at the arrogance of the manufacturer to impose it's will on you! You would say "I own this card, and I should have the right to view any content I want!" And for the most part you do, except for the little problem of "Digital Rights Management" I like to call it "Digital Restrictions Management". But this is a subject for another post.
The real problem is Sony is not alone! Many if not most electronics manufacturers have the same view! What would happen if someone created a hack that allowed the installation of homebrew software on the X-box? Would Microsoft stand up for the property rights of the people who bought the hacked X-box? I doubt it. To me, this court case will decide if the people who bought the PS3 are the owners or if Sony is! This is not a security issue, it is a property rights issue! Everyone should be concerned and watchful regarding this issue of electronic property rights! If the courts can take that away, then watch out!
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/playstation-hacker-paypal/
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