Despite being entrenched in full-on legal warfare, George "GeoHot" Hotz managed to find time to make an appearance on G4's Attack of the Show last night to discuss his history and, more importantly, his current suit with Sony. While Hotz himself doesn't support piracy, the code he and other prominent hacking outfit, fail0verflow, helped produce to allow the PS3 to run unsigned code can be used for such a thing ... but that's not why Sony is suing him. In his own words, he's being sued for "making Sony mad."
Hotz says that with his jailbreak tool, he made "a specific effort while working on this to try and enable homebrew without enabling things [...] like piracy." Of course, that doesn't console Sony at all -- people are doing things on the PS3 that Sony never meant for.
@Cavall He really doesn't. I think his facial expressions make him seem a little less charismatic, but just listen to what he's saying and he sounds like a perfectly nice guy.
@Cavall He's clearly a douche, Just the thumbnail image is all I have to see to tell that. If you wanna go further; If a person told me to stop hitting them in the arm and I kept doing it and that makes them mad, then that makes me a douche. This dude's a douche. Period.
@Cavall It's the typical internet response to call someone a "douche" or a "tool". How original!
Even if there was some guy out there that invented something to save your life, someone on the internet would still end up calling that guy a "douche" out of jealousy or spite.
@Arcaria Im a fan of the fact he states that sony started it, when clearly in the interview he STATES he had already cracked it, then released the info when sony took away the other OS BECAUSE guys like this hacked it.
Not exactly. I'm sure he owns his PS3. If he wants to gut it and make it into a grill, fine. Go for it. I doubt Sony will care. But he does not own the operating system, he licenses it. It is not his and he does not have the legal right to do whatever he pleases with it.
I'm just wondering how many people on this site comment "Oh, he is a douche, only loser pirate games." and then turn around to their PS3 and load up a pirated game.
@Cavall I think he looks like a kid who happens to have fun rooting around in computer security innards. God forbid he does what he's good at. It may suck that the PS3 is open to piracy, but Sony really brought this upon themselves by removing OtherOS (which is how this whole thing started, and was correctly predicted by tons of 'Stiquers at the time).
I do think it's a little ridiculous calling him a security expert, though.
Go watch any television series and stop at random times. Actors look like douchebags, weirdo's and physically disabled. And they are people who get paid to look good and likeable.
@PN04 Honest question. How does allowing people to use a system they bought in their own home the way they wish (within the bounds of the law) make one a douchebag? Not trying to create a straw man, but that seems like what you're saying.
The attitude espoused by a few that "people should only use the console to play games because it'll make Sony be worse to others" is not constructive, either. If you buy hardware, you should be able to use it how you wish. If Sony chooses to be horrible to its customers, blame Sony.
Also, the argument that "it makes it easier to play pirated games" doesn't hold any water, either; BitTorrent software makes it easier for me to pirate software but simply by having it installed, I'm not doing anything wrong.
As a few others have said, there's nothing inherently wrong with jailbreaking devices you've purchased. Piracy is a different story, but it's not the issue here (though Sony's trying to make it the issue).
I find all this hate pretty hilarious. The kid's a straight up genius - he outsmarted one of the greatest tech companies of all time (Apple) at the age of 17, so that the common man could benefit by being able to bypass all the iPhone's asinine restrictions. What were you guys doing at 17? Not much more than sitting in your rooms getting a wrist workout, I'd imagine. I can't help but detect some pretty obvious jealousy among all this vitriol. Cut the guy some slack, he's on our side.
@nesinvaders Actually, the courts don't agree with you. I don't know the legality of mod chips, but I would assume that because mod chips are modified hardware, they're possibly legal. When it comes to software, such as the PS3's operating system, that's all licensed. You probably don't own a single scrap of software under your roof; it's all licensed. And as a licensee, you're bound to the end user licensing agreement.
Now I'm not defending the situation, just merely pointing out the legal nature here. Altering software that you are licensed and not allowed to alter under that license is, well, illegal.The whole iPhone jailbreak is interesting, and a potential crack in that wall, but who knows where that will go? Till then, no, you're not quite correct, unfortunately.
@tvandlust No, it isn't illegal. You just broke a contract. If it was illegal, you would be a criminal. In this case it is a tort. Sure they can take legal action against you, but that doesn't make it... illegal. Otherwise, when people fail on their mortgages, it would be illegal for them to do so, and they would go to jail. Or when you missed your gas payment by 3 months, you would go to jail.
So enabling and supporting software piracy is someone to be considered on our side? Really? You may want to look into the effects that piracy have on the gaming industry before you repeat what you said. Or maybe you can clarify what you meant by "on our side"?
@Misanthropic Gamer On our side? yeah right... he's just some spoiled kid who wants to be famous and get a movie hollywood based on him in, that's it, that's why he's a douchebag, he doesn't care about gamers, everything it's just about showing what an intelligent ass he's and how he gets to be the centre of attention.
@kujospam2000 Fair enough. Wrong terminology. The point is, he was mistaken. It's not something you're supposed to be doing, and the law is not on your side.
One possible way to combat people resorting to custom firmware is to release new firmware updates with amazing new features that only the console maker can provide. Problem is, those seem to have stopped or slowed to a trickle on PS3. The last update was a security patch with no new features for the end user. Before that we got VUDU - something no one asked for and no one uses. How nice. So Sony is willing to update the firmware to bring in more revenue and stop piracy, but not to add new features that are of use to their loyal customers. Meaningful updates have stopped completely for the PSP, apparently nothing new until the PSP2.
Why can't I organize my huge list of PS3 demos and purchased downloadable games by letter? Right now, I think that PAIN is somewhere in the bottom fourth of the list - Insanity after four years of owning the system! How about bringing PS2 emulation back? Adding cross-game chat? Auto-syncing of trophies? Support for MKV files? Can we have more than 3 awful music visualizers?
Eric Lempel and his team (seriously, what are they doing these days?) don't think it's important. Apparently, it's the same way they feel about the top ideas on Playstation.Blog Share. Out of over 5000 entries, only 54 submitted ideas have ever been put into action since June 2007. The value and worth of those ideas implemented are of questionable quality. The most popular ones at the top of the list, the things that all PS3 users desire, have not even been acknowledged by Sony as ever coming.
When original features are removed or custom firmware does so much more than the official firmware, leaving users wanting features they have no other way to obtain, people will strike out on their own to add new features. I am a long-time Sony fan who bought a PSP and PS3 on day one, but I feel incredibly burned by the last few years of Sony removing features.
I actually long for the days of the leader that some called Krazy Ken. I have him to thank for my PS3 that plays up-converted PS2 games (with digital PS2 memory cards, wireless controllers, built-in multi-tap, etc.), Compact Flash, SD, Memory Sticks, four USB ports - these are things I use almost daily. Sony has burned so much goodwill that I think it's time for another change in management, Kaz and Sir Howard.
......once again we are facing the old "PIRACY IT¨S THE END OF THE WORLD" crap, you know what is going to happen?? ps3 is going to have piracy just like EVERY PLATFORM OUT THERE, and they are going to have bussiness as usual, just like the xboxr which hasPIRACY BTW or the wii, or the nds.....piracy will be here forever, just face it. the computer games have been in "danger of disappearing" since the Atari 2600, funny though that one really made the games disappear but it was thanks to an stupid decision of atari, so there you have it... so far more than 30 years and counting until the end of gaming due to piracy......and very likely another 30 years more of "it´s coming".
@airtoast $700 60GB PS3 for life, forget everything that came afterward. 4+ years and still going strong and if this baby ever YLODs she's getting fixed :D
You know what´s the funny thing?? most guys who have an xbox modded for example, don´t play online. The reason well, they want to have the single player games, not the online ones because they don´t want the console banned, although there are a lot of modern mods that allows you to play online without problems they don´t really risk it. Many have two xboxes one to play onine the few titles that they want and the other for the pirated copies. And the multiplayers assholes are going to be there always, once again there is always a way......
@Mcmax3000 in the UK, in the small print it says its illegal to lend games,dvds to friends or anyone outside of yourself/home along with the obvious for playing in public etc silly corporate laws =[
Since the age of 15, this kid has been dominating science competitions, and getting national TV coverage for his work in robotics, and later 3D imaging.
Then he became one of the few people in the world to implement a working jailbreak on the iPhone.
Now he is focused on the PS3.
You do not have to like this kid. But he is motivated by discovery and technical challenge, not by the desire to pirate PS3 games (or "backing up copies of games he owns", for that matter).
