Ever visited the website of famed iOS and Playstation 3 hacker Geohot? Or watched his video on YouTube? Or read his Blogspot blog? Well, you’re now part of a criminal investigation. A US judge has given Sony complete and unrestricted access to all IP addresses which ever visited his website and blog, or watched his YouTube video.
There’s two reasons why Sony wants all this information. First, Sony wants to demonstrate that Geohot’s Playstation 3 code was distributed widely. Second, Sony wants to show that enough Californians downloaded the code, making it acceptable for the case to take place in San Francisco, instead of Geohot’s home state New Jersey.
Magistrate Joseph Spero has ordered Google to hand over all server and IP logs for Geohot’s Blogspot blog. BlueHost, which hosts Geohot’s website, is also forced to hand over all server and IP logs. As for YouTube – they must hand over all account information related to an account named “geohot”, as well as all possible identifying information related to all the people who watched or commented on a video posted by this account. Twitter must hand over all tweets, personal messages, and account information.
That’s a whole boatload of information. Considering we and lots of other websites linked to his website quite a few times, I’m pretty sure many of you are now part of a criminal investigation. It’s absolutely beyond me how any judge with more than two braincells can disregard privacy concerns this easily. It’s very hard to maintain that this judge is impartial. I’ve never had a whole lot of faith in the US justice system whenever large companies were involved, and things like this do little to restore my faith.
Sony has threatened to sue anyone who posts the encryption key or hosts the jailbreak tools. Normally, I would post the key right here, since those silly pro-corporation laws the US is so fond of do not apply in Europe. Sadly, OSNews is a US site hosted in the US, so I can’t take that risk.
This just serves as another painful reminder that the internet is not anonymous like people love to think.
However this doesn’t change the fact that Sony are asshats that I purposefully avoid doing business with.
The real problem with all this is not SONY asking for access to the logs; it is actually the judge giving them access to private information on individuals who have absolutely nothing to do with the case at all that is the problem!
I mean, no sane judge would do that. People who have no relevance to the case, who can’t in any way or form affect the outcome of it, and who may not have even cared about the content of the sites and have just accidentally stumbled in there, are all now handed over to a party who is in no way interested in their well-being or even protecting the private information gained from those logs. There simply is no way in hell such would have gone forward here in Finland, and it smells downright corruption. Can it even really be legal in the US either? Just because a judge gives permission to something it doesn’t necessarily make it legal.
I’m expecting Google to fight this, especially since they’re, you know, not evil and all.
So Lemm’e make sure I’m clear on this. If you guys actually created a product, let’s say sugar cookies, highly regarded sugar cookies, and you sell them in retail outlets to maintain your living. Partners that sell your cookies love the foot traffic that your product generate for their stores, so now you have mutually beneficial interests. For years competition and others alike have been trying to steal your secret recipe for your cookies, your trade secret, to compete against you. But you stayed ahead of the game.
Then someone comes along in the name of freedom, figures it out, and posts it on the internet. Repeatedly. And brings attention to themselves because they are the ones that did it. You would take no action? Are you an asshole/asshat for protecting your financial interests and those of your partners?
You’ve completely missed the point, so let me explain:
In your example, Sony’s “cookies” would be their hardware and games, however the encryption keys are not. If anybody is pirating games or selling stolen consoles, then I don’t think anyone on here would be crying foul about the legal system.
To reitterate: While encryption keys are there to lock the console down and thus reduce the chances of piracy – they are NOT there to make money nor are a trademarked / patented / et al product. They’re litterally there just to lock customers out of their bought and paid for hardware.
Furthermore, using the keys does not automatically make someone a games pirate. Someone might use these keys to unlock “OtherOS” support – which quite frankly was the sole reason hackers went after the keys in the first place.
Sure people might abuse the keys for piracy, but then people might also abuse the console and use it as a weapon to bludgeon victims with. Clearly you can’t assume that all PS3 owners are console-wielding madmen and likewise you can’t assume that all people who read and/or distribute encryption keys are pirates.
This is the crux of the matter. Sony seem to believe that their own customers are all guilty before being proven innocent. That’s simply not how the developed legal systems work – or at least not how they’re supposed to work.
Oh boy!
Except, of course, that Sony wasn’t ahead of the game. Sales figures for the Xbox 360 and the Wii obliterated the PS3’s, and the PSP isn’t even a blip on the radar compared to the Nintendo DS.
Of course, you’re omitting several facts – the most important of which is that in your example, before that someone posted the recipe online, the cookie maker had first gone into the homes of everybody who ever bought the cookies, only to remove the chocolate chips form them. Even though the cookies were advertised as “chocolate chip cookies” for years, the cookie maker decided to go into everybody’s homes and removed the chocolate chips from those cookies – stating you could only get them back if you promised to hand them over the rest of the cookie (leaving you with only the chocolate chips).
Suddenly it makes a little more sense for that someone to post the recipe online so you can bring the cookies you bought back to their original state, right?
Sony is the criminal – not Geohot. Well, he might be a criminal because of the corporate-run US justice system, but heck, that’s a joke anyway.
What Sony wants and what they should be allowed to do are two entirely different things. I can understand why they want the this information although it’s an incredible display of unethical behavior and questionable judgment.
lets put this in context of your cookie example. Lets say the competition put ads in newspapers about their product and also marketed it online. Now the original cookie company comes along and get subpoenas that requests those newspapers to divulge the name and address of everyone who read the competitors ads and the same for everyone who saw the online marketing campaign.
It should be pretty obvious why this, and consequently Sony’s request, is entirely unacceptable.
Absolutely. I’ve loved Sony’s digital cameras, still and video. Loved Vegas, Acid. I’ve got two 10 year old DVD players still chugging away, despite being subjected to peanut butter multiple times (don’t ask).
However my wife’s digital camera was the last Sony product I purchased, ever. They’re tactics and practices are deplorable, and I won’t be a customer anymore.
Actually reading the article makes it clear that
“US Judge Gives Sony IP the Logs to Several Geohot Sites”
or
“US Judge Gives Logs to Several Geohot Sites to Sony”
Sony is not handling this well. I never plan on buying a Sony branded (or derived) product ever again.
I fully agree, do not buy any stuff from Sony. A consumer strike is the most effective means against these kind of terror.
I agree!
The whole, DRM / root-kits / litigation / removed features thing is getting old. I no longer by any products from them.
While I can to some degree understand the argument for the logs of IP addresses that downloaded the zip with the hack the requests to YouTube and Twitter is just downright disturbing. Sony have no business finding out what I or anyone else have or have not watched on Youtube nor is it any of their business who or what has been corresponded on Twitter. Even more so since this has NO bearing on the case at all, it’s just Sony wanting to get their hands on anyone who has ever had anything to do with the hack. It’s disgusting.
Welcome to the corporate fascist state.
Edited 2011-03-07 00:48 UTC
No bearing? It would seem to have everything to do with the case.
How exactly? SONY’s two arguments are that they need to know where all the visitors are from so they can try to move the case to San Fransisco on that basis, and that they need to prove Geohot was distributing jailbreak.zip.
The problem with argument number 1 is that the location of the visitors is irrelevant. It is Geohot that is the accused one, not the visitors, and even then not all the visitors had anything to do with Geohot or his jailbreak at all.
The problem with argument number 2 is that Geohot distributing jailbreak.zip was never even in dispute whatsoever, and again the personal information of the people who downloaded the file is irrelevant to the case. You could argue that SONY needs to know how many times the zip file was downloaded, but that is again doable without seeking for personal information on the people.
With those two problems combined we get a third one: visitors to his Twitter and YouTube posts are irrelevant to the court case, individually and as a whole.
Really now. Pray tell, why does Sony need to know who every individual is who watched Hotz video on YouTube? How does this in anyway at all concern Hotz possible violation of the DMCA and Sony’s copyright? Oh yeah, not at all. Me or anyone else watching his video has nothing to do with the case.
But I guess when you don’t really have a case you get a bit desperate.
This is exactly what worries me. The increase in power corporations seem to gain.
It looks to me like Sony is hoping to create a list of IPs to correlate with PSNetwork users. A user who has watched material related to the hack can be flagged as a potential pirate.
Edited 2011-03-07 01:24 UTC
Yeah right and we all know how accurate IP addresses are.
Hands up how many readers have an IP Addy that changes?
Good. Now will someone tell SONY and their dumbass lawyers that using the IP address of thos who viewed the video is just going to get them sued when people who have never viewd the video etc take umbridge at their sudden removal from the PSN and do what comes naturally and sue the living daylights out of them.
Are you sure there is no “we can disable the service whenever we feel like it” clause buried in PSN EULA?
Well, the really creepy thing is, and this should really be the topic here, is not that they only requested the IP addresses but the accounts and all known personal information about those who viewed the videos and sent Hotz twitter messages. This is much, much more serious than just IP addresses.
…and I never have, and never will own or use a PS3. Gotta love the US legal system.
I’ve been anti-Sony since the original PlayStation days (longtime Nintendo/Sega fan and classic gamer here), although I did get a PS2 for a few original PSX and PS2 games. I vowed to completely avoid any gaming hardware/software Sony makes/publishes (previously gaming was the only exception; I never bought any other Sony garbage, aside from a few CDs and DVDs under a Sony record label/film studio).
I have since ditched Sony, and I don’t pay attention to any PS3 gaming news; Wii and Xbox 360 are good enough for me (and if they weren’t, they would have to do, because Sony can go to hell for all I care). When it comes to Sony, I have always only been interested in the ridiculous things they’ve been doing against their own “customers” and watching the company shoot themselves in the foot over and over again, and I always get a kick out of seeing them get slammed by another company (PS3 imports banned in Europe for a week is the latest–GO GO LG!!!). Sony news can actually be quite amusing.
It’s ironic; I have visited GeoHot’s site, watched his “Light It Up Contest” video on YouTube with amusement a few times, read countless articles on the related news on here, Slashdot and other sites, and now Sony gets access to much of my information for a downright retarded “criminal” case. All I can say is, GeoHot, good luck–beat these pricks in the courtroom, make jailbreaking on non-mobile devices legal as it is mobile. I have no interest in buying, let alone jailbreaking, a PS3–but companies should not be able to beat their own customers around like this.
Sony, I think I speak for many of us, when I say: f–k OFF AND DIE.
Edited 2011-03-07 01:45 UTC
I hope they make me a part of this lawsuit. I would be absolutely thrilled to pieces!
I would make such a mockery of Sony’s actions you would have to be there to believe it!
I’m not going to reveal exactly why, nor would I until actually defending myself ( I am about 100% positive they now have my [near-static] IP address ). This could get REALLY FUN, FAST!
I’m not joking!
PLEASE, SONY, PLEASE!!
Hell, I’ll pay your lawyers if I don’t make a fool out of y’all! I PROMISE!
–The loon
Hmmm… lemme guess… Working at Sony ? Even funnier, as a lawyer ?
This could rock in that case.
Edited 2011-03-07 07:50 UTC
My guess is he is blind / partially sighted and thus couldn’t make use of a PS3 even if he wanted
http://paste2.org/p/1286915
I find it absurd that Sony is throwing the book at this guy for breaking the security on their Sony Playstation 3. Sony broke the security on far many more machines with their rootkit and they didn’t spend one second trying to pull it out of existence. The Judge should really ask them how their doing on recovering all those infectious CDs.
Wrong company there – the CDs were SonyBMG, not Sony Computer Entertainment. It’s like asking the tour guide at the Hoover Dam to fix your vacuum cleaner.
Sony, fuck off. Stop blaming everyone else for your own shortcomings.
erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B
riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D
pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19
R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17
n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1
K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D
Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70
I really wonder just how far the disclaimer that the site isn’t responsible for the content of comments would ACTUALLY go in court. Technically, now, OSNews’ servers are hosting that encryption key.
To state the obvious, they’re perfectly safe iff they “respond in a timely fashion” to a DMCA takedown notice, if one ever comes. If Sony never issues such a notice, I don’t think they have to do anything at all.
I was wondering how long it would be before someone posted that.
edit: in fact, as I’ve quoted it, does that make me a criminal now too?
Edited 2011-03-07 11:11 UTC
Man, if Sony could count the number of times you’ve even glanced over that code with your eyes, I would be so so freaking screwed. LMAO. You wouldn’t imagine how many times I have seen that code posted on the Slashdot comments section of various Sony-related articles. Add another to that. LOL. And now I’m re-quoting it–oops!
But really, I’m not even a programmer, so I wouldn’t be able to a damn thing with that code–it’s all garbage to me. The fact that I will never own a PS3 or another post-PS2 system… makes it even more so. It’s disgusting; it’s like Sony protects this it as if it were their corporate nutsack or something. some of the interviews of George Hotz seem to make it clear that his jailbreaking is really no different on PS3 than iPhone and doesn’t directly allow piracy using his method (as he claims piracy was traditionally done some other way.
Some interesting interviews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG9r7cCpk_g – Geohot G4 Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0FJ5Jimj2w – Some other interview of him
[Ironically, the G4 interview shows part of the code itself… heh.]
Edited 2011-03-07 14:38 UTC
Oo, me too, me too!!
Oh, wait, posting such stuff isn’t illegal here :<
[/q]
Oh bugger.
Edited 2011-03-07 15:16 UTC
No, it just makes you a possible target for Sony’s lawyers.
“Lemme guess… you sank my Battleship?”
Edited 2011-03-07 15:20 UTC
Whoops, I accidentally the whole thing.
… Too bad their marketing and legal department are assholes.
I am now loving the fact that LG has won against Sony over the Blu-Ray issues.
Same here–I just love watching Sony get f***ed by other companies over patents and other “IP” crap. Hey, remember that patent on vibrating controllers Microsoft and Sony were sued over? Haha, Sony kept defending… and defending… and defending… until they *finally* have to pay up. Microsoft just paid upfront to get the lawsuit off their hairs before it even really started; meanwhile, Nintendo was not attacked.
Sony is just a bunch of dumb, arrogant and selfish pricks.
Edited 2011-03-07 16:31 UTC
What about keeping the key in a DNS record as in good ol’ times? 😛
Edited 2011-03-07 08:16 UTC
I own neither PS2 nor PS3 nor PSP. I however own an aging PS1 given from someone (but haven’t not touch much) and still I think I have visited GeoHot’s website just to look.. Now what? Do I need to go to the courtroom or something? Duh..!
Imagine if Anonymous DDoSed Geohot’s website.
Sony parsing through the logs, trying to find out who was actually interested in the contents of the website… He he he…
The Anonymous DDoS doesn’t use zombie computers, but a LOIC program run voluntarily. Also, Geohot’s sites seem to be heavily dependent on Google.
We need some sort of SonyLeaks
Sony as a consumer-friendly electronics mega-company is technically over. Sony’s most successful electronic product today is an electronic card system called FeliCa. This is not honestly related to snazzy consumer appliances.
Sony needs to make something else like innovated ISA (instruction set architecture) chips or something.
I really disagree with the way Sony is handling this. ALL the console and mobile makers out there should give access to homebrew development and a way of accessing that kind of material so we have more options than overpriced (or even underpriced) tat.
I realise that certain people will have unlocked their PS3’s for nefarious or piracy purposes, but for the few seconds I contemplated it, nothing could have been further from my mind.
Never been one of Sonys biggest fans – never had anything other than an MD Walkman which I had for two weeks before it was stolen, the PS3 which I have now was given to me as a present, and the one purchase I have made I’m having doubts about (a new VPC21 3D Vaio laptop).
Actually I seem to have forgotten why I was commenting in the first place….hmmm. Oh well. Too bad Sony aren’t a little more open with the PS3 as they could probably have avoided this in the first place – and also advertising a product as having a particular feature then hiding behind their EULA when taking that feature away (just because they can) is obviously not going to instill a huge amount of consumer confidence is it.
I hope GeoHot does well, and is able to walk away from this without being stepped all over by Sony.
Darn it! I read all the comments in this thread. Now I’m going to be sued by Sony too! :p
The guy was just naively thinking noone would be going after him. You post that kind of stuff using Tor and remain anonymous.
But he wanted attention and fame, so now he’s paying the price.
However it can’t be stopped now. Everyone has the exploit recipe and situation will be as with the PS2. While Microsoft doesn’t care, Sony needs to make a profit with PS3. Piracy on the PS3 ruins it for them.
Also, it’s a PR nightmare going after a 21 yr old, innocent looking guy just for revenge.