Unsurprisingly, George 'GeoHot' Hotz has Some Thoughts About this Whole PSN Hacking Thing

he's so funny

@SavageM2 said:

I know next to nothing about this stuff, but I have to say I really like this quote:"Running homebrew and exploring security on your devices is cool, hacking into someone elses server and stealing databases of user info is not cool. You make the hacking community look bad, even if it is aimed at douches like Sony."

Seems an odd thing to "really like". Is it in an ironic way? Even then it seems like a really generic quote for irony even. Hmm... Or perhaps there is something I'm not seeing?

I know next to nothing about this stuff, but I have to say I really like this quote:
"Running homebrew and exploring security on your devices is cool, hacking into someone elses server and stealing databases of user info is not cool. You make the hacking community look bad, even if it is aimed at douches like Sony."

I find it soo funny

" Telling hackers they can't get into PSN is like telling a teenager he can't get into a bar. Give him some time and he'll find a way if he really wants to. "

Geohot is correct for some of what he is saying. But if you really think about this, he has nothing to do with the hack attempts so you can't blame him for all of this. Honestly completely shutting down the PSN was not their brightest idea and made alot of people upset. But hey, You know. Companies like sony, youtube, and google shouldn't mess with hackers. Frankly its stupid. The only company that hasn't called them out or threatened  them is Microsoft. Its smart to stay out of the fire when everyone else is burning themselves on it. 

I have absolutely no problem with hardware "hacking"

The stuff GeoHot does is simply modifications to a product HE OWNS.
It's no worse than Jailbreaking an iPhone

sure, pirating games on a modified Playstation isn't cool, and I understand why Sony would block that stuff... but why block the homebrew?

I mean, just because the games don't have an ESRB rating shouldn't matter, the Xbox 360 Indie Games section is a perfect example of homebrew done right.  You put a warning before each game that it wasn't rated, and let people put up whatever they want.

Although in that case, the $90 a year price tag is a bit ridiculous, even considering the servers they need to run to host the stuff, it seems like a lot of money.

That being said, Sony should do something similar.

Wait, I can only say "noob" ironically now? Man, you kids with the slang, always changing it around (er, I mean "changing it up") at the drop of a hat (do we still say "drop of a hat"?) It's so hard for us oldsters (is "oldsters" okay?) to keep up because we don't mainline (what about "mainline"?) the "newspeak" (wait, most of you were probably born after 1984).

Please interpret this entire post ironically, if doing so makes it seem more "hip".

" @subvertedhope said:

"
And the number of giant multinational corporation sympathizers on here saddens me. They have plenty of money and lawyers (and judges and politicians on their side as well), they don't need you to white-knight them. Such good little consumers. "

And this is the kind of thinking that cost my entire store, from associates up through store manager their jobs. "Your company has plenty of money, I should be allowed to steal as much as I want" is the same excuse I heard again and again from the thieves who would rob us of our product and lead to the store team being replaced. Because it is not the company that gets hurt by this type of hacking (which is a form of theft). It is the hard working employees who get hurt by it. They get fired, even if the fault in the system had nothing to do with it. It is the PSN users who now have to worry about their identities being stolen who have to worry. They suddenly can't get a mortgage on a house or an automotive loan because someone else decided it would be fun to steal their identity, which is what happened to my mother. But it's always the easy excuse to forget the people who get hurt by these actions when we can just call it the "corporation". "

Hackers done it for such a lame reason...ugh damn nerds would never do something of that scale in public to someones face the pocket protected virgin losers!

P.S. Geohotz looks like a virgin too.

know that was going to be said.

" People still say noob? "

I don't know if I'm the only one but I thought the quote from Anonymous was really funny. It's odd but I actually find that I respect them. I don't know how many other people have seen this  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZJwSjor4hM but I think it's great. They seem like they only go for people who really deserve it, as with this case, or they are just in it for a laugh, like their threat to Sony. 

"
And the number of giant multinational corporation sympathizers on here saddens me. They have plenty of money and lawyers (and judges and politicians on their side as well), they don't need you to white-knight them. Such good little consumers. "

" @SeriouslyNow said:

Sony needs to save legal fees?  Sony, a giant lumbering multinational corporation does not have to save legal fees, they have legal teams on retainer.  Sony wants to save PR face?  The same Sony that told people to get a second job to afford a PS3?  I think not.  Every company says they will persecute hackers.  We don't need to know who settled with who and you're avoiding my point - all that's important is that Sony settled at all.  If their case was rock solid they would've pursued him through the courts and won - they had no qualms in going to lengths that stretch right to the boundaries of the American Constitution when subpoenaing hosting companies and ISPs for people's IP addresses who visited GeoHotz' site.Your last sentence completely ignores my Brute Force Lawyering comment.  George just could not afford to bring as many lawyers to the table as Sony would so there's no way he would win but for him not to lose in this case means that Sony could not have LEGALLY won the case. "

So what did Sony lose from settling? Did they have write an apology? Reinstate "Other OS?" Oh yeah they didn't have to do anything.

P.S. for future reference just because you have the most lawyers doesn't mean you win the case. This isn't a Zerg Rush.

"

" @vidiot said: 

"
So my personal information has been compromised, in-order to counter a grudge? -_- "

" That's about it, yeah. "How dare you not allow people to do things that are technically illegal so we are going to do worse illegal activities in response."


At least George admitted that what Sony really needed was some good security experts working for them and not that the should just allow people to hack into everything they have because hacking is "cool" which is what his previous comments have been. Even if he was smarmy with everything else he wrote. 

And the number of hacker sympathizers on here saddens me. 

"

Sony needs to save legal fees?  Sony, a giant lumbering multinational corporation does not have to save legal fees, they have legal teams on retainer.  Sony wants to save PR face?  The same Sony that told people to get a second job to afford a PS3?  I think not.  Every company says they will persecute hackers.  We don't need to know who settled with who and you're avoiding my point - all that's important is that Sony settled at all.  If their case was rock solid they would've pursued him through the courts and won - they had no qualms in going to lengths that stretch right to the boundaries of the American Constitution when subpoenaing hosting companies and ISPs for people's IP addresses who visited GeoHotz' site.Your last sentence completely ignores my Brute Force Lawyering comment.  George just could not afford to bring as many lawyers to the table as Sony would so there's no way he would win but for him not to lose in this case means that Sony could not have LEGALLY won the case. "

" If they had no case, why did George Hotz settle?  Seems like his Hacker harem had no problem sending him money to finance his case, so why not stick it out and beat Sony like he had claimed he was going to do?Seems like he jumped on an offer pretty quickly instead of "fighting the good fight" and taking down Goliath.Not saying that Sony isn't scum as well, they obviously have corporate interests at heart, we're all just a number to them at the end of the day.  I just think dismissing Sony as not having a leg to stand on also dismisses the fact that George Hotz threw in the towel pretty quick on his campaign to beat The Man.And no, I'm not jealous of some guy who is hated by millions that, at the end of the day, just want to get online and play their games without having to worry about people like George Hotz screwing it up because he's the bitter, self appointed leader of a handful of hackers that want to create anarchy for their own personal recognition. "

" @SeriouslyNow: There is a litany of reasons they would want to settle, save lawyer fees, save PR face, their point was already made they will persecute hackers. I mean you don't know who settled with who, or who came out on the raw end of the deal. If anything what did Sony lose by settling? Geohot can't touch a Sony product and had to write an apology. Sony had to...not continue doing something that was starting to garner bad PR? Maybe there is something else maybe Sony had to pay out a fat sum of money that no one knows about.

At the end of the day if GeoHot's case was rock solid and Sony was going to go down; the suit would have gone on. If only to make a point that big bad Sony can be defeated by someone who uses 'n00b' in everyday speech. 

"

People still say noob?

Ladies and Gentlemen, George Hotz

The Gibson!

These problems matter~♫

How is Geohot a hacker? :o
Swinging that term around a bit don't ya think? :O

Why would Sony settle at all?   Oh that's right, they had no case.   Brute Force Lawyering is all they had. "

Err, SONY offered a settlement and Geohot took it.   Geohot had also promised to carry the fight until SONY apologized and restored OtherOS, that didn't happen.

I read the settlement and it was all in SONY's favor, looks to me that Geohot didn't have a chance of winning and didn't want to risk losing to SONY and screwing himself and his hacker clique by setting a precedent.   So he caved and ran away

 @EpicSteve: George is good at what he does.  Lawyers will leave him alone, the government will ask for stuff in return, he'll go to DEFCON to talk to the masses about hardware cracking, etc.  He's more valuable to companies and the government outside of jail.  People like George are very rare in the States and everyone will do everything to get him to work for them.

" @SeriouslyNow: I thought part of the settlement was that neither party claimed responsibility for the settlement? I.E. it wasn't Sony settling with GeoHot or the other way around.

If I was the kids lawyer whether he had a shot of winning or not I would have said, "Look Sony is going to fight this longer than you can take, even if you win you lose the best thing for you is to settle. Find some term you want and take it outside of that you're in over your head." Happens all the time.

"

Dude, that's awesome! I'm totally changing all my passwords to 4 now! It's so leet!

" does Sony also have "noob" lawyers who didn't make this kid sign an NDA and/or a confidentiality agreement with the release from the civil suit?  "

"
                GeoHot is an asshole. While I agree with the base motivations for hacking the PS3 (i.e. removing a once touted function, even though virtually no one used it and it was so slow it had no real value), what he did (and knew he was doing) was enabling massive piracy and cheating in online games. It's very convenient that he does that (something which ruins the experience for those of us who don't steal content) but then sticks his head and the sand and goes "Well I didn't WANT it to be used this way so clearly I'm not responsible at all!" There are legitimate uses for a hacked console but anyone who looks at the situation realistically knows that virtually everyone with a hacked console uses it to steal games. Just look at your local online classified site and see how many people out there include a stack of burned games with every console mod.I think Sony's heavy-handed legal approach with him was stupid and likely inspired whoever hacked PSN. They're stupid for pursuing the way he did. But this guy is no saint, he screwed up the PS3 experience for a lot of legitimate customers, refused to acknowledge his part in that and then sits back and smugly insults the situation (and indirectly, those affected) because of a movement he started. Fuck you GeoHot.
            "

does Sony also have "noob" lawyers who didn't make this kid sign an NDA and/or a confidentiality agreement with the release from the civil suit? 

" @SeriouslyNow said:

" @Krakn3Dfx said:

" @CL60 said:

" @ComradeKhan said:

" @Krakn3Dfx said:

" It's too bad one of the stipulations in the settlement wasn't that George Hotz would stop talking. "

BOOM!.. Thank you sir, we're all done here. "

No we're not, because I still need an explanation on how he is being annoying or a dick, by pointing out the obvious, and pointing out how the guys that did this are dicks. "

I honestly think given his recent history with Sony and the outcome, he just shouldn't be able to comment on anything related to Sony, and even if he can, I think the less he says, the better it is for him personally.But it's become pretty obvious that George Hotz has become kind of an media whore, so I expect at any point he will make a statement or do something that will end up with him at the receiving end of another lawsuit because he doesn't seem to be very good at leaving well enough alone. "

Jealous much? "

Yeah, obviously that's it. "

" @Krakn3Dfx said:

" @CL60 said:

" @ComradeKhan said:

" @Krakn3Dfx said:

" It's too bad one of the stipulations in the settlement wasn't that George Hotz would stop talking. "

BOOM!.. Thank you sir, we're all done here. "

No we're not, because I still need an explanation on how he is being annoying or a dick, by pointing out the obvious, and pointing out how the guys that did this are dicks. "

I honestly think given his recent history with Sony and the outcome, he just shouldn't be able to comment on anything related to Sony, and even if he can, I think the less he says, the better it is for him personally.But it's become pretty obvious that George Hotz has become kind of an media whore, so I expect at any point he will make a statement or do something that will end up with him at the receiving end of another lawsuit because he doesn't seem to be very good at leaving well enough alone. "

Jealous much? "

I found Alex's tone to be equally as smarmy and disdainful of Hotz as Hotz is of Sony.  That amused me.    

" @CL60 said:

" @ComradeKhan said:

" @Krakn3Dfx said:

" It's too bad one of the stipulations in the settlement wasn't that George Hotz would stop talking. "

BOOM!.. Thank you sir, we're all done here. "

No we're not, because I still need an explanation on how he is being annoying or a dick, by pointing out the obvious, and pointing out how the guys that did this are dicks. "

I honestly think given his recent history with Sony and the outcome, he just shouldn't be able to comment on anything related to Sony, and even if he can, I think the less he says, the better it is for him personally.But it's become pretty obvious that George Hotz has become kind of an media whore, so I expect at any point he will make a statement or do something that will end up with him at the receiving end of another lawsuit because he doesn't seem to be very good at leaving well enough alone. "

" @ComradeKhan said:

" @Krakn3Dfx said:

" It's too bad one of the stipulations in the settlement wasn't that George Hotz would stop talking. "

BOOM!.. Thank you sir, we're all done here. "

No we're not, because I still need an explanation on how he is being annoying or a dick, by pointing out the obvious, and pointing out how the guys that did this are dicks. "

" why give this idiot any newsspace "

" @pkjr92:Geohotz cracks it because he wants to prove he can and even though he doesn't do anything bad with that information...k. "

" Password was 1...2...3...4...5...

"12345? that's a kind of password that some idiot would put on his luggage!"

"

GeoHot is an asshole. While I agree with the base motivations for hacking the PS3 (i.e. removing a once touted function, even though virtually no one used it and it was so slow it had no real value), what he did (and knew he was doing) was enabling massive piracy and cheating in online games. It's very convenient that he does that (something which ruins the experience for those of us who don't steal content) but then sticks his head and the sand and goes "Well I didn't WANT it to be used this way so clearly I'm not responsible at all!" There are legitimate uses for a hacked console but anyone who looks at the situation realistically knows that virtually everyone with a hacked console uses it to steal games. Just look at your local online classified site and see how many people out there include a stack of burned games with every console mod.

I think Sony's heavy-handed legal approach with him was stupid and likely inspired whoever hacked PSN. They're stupid for pursuing the way he did. But this guy is no saint, he screwed up the PS3 experience for a lot of legitimate customers, refused to acknowledge his part in that and then sits back and smugly insults the situation (and indirectly, those affected) because of a movement he started. Fuck you GeoHot.

Prick