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Sony PlayStation (Games)

Police Raid PS3 Hacker's House, Hacker Releases PS3 'Hypervisor Bible' 448

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from PSGroove.com: "Graf_chokolo, who has contributed countless things to the PS3 scene, had his private home raided by police this morning. They confiscated all of his 'accounts' and anything related to PS3 hacking. Some of you may remember that graf_chokolo promised if he was pushed, that he would release all of his PS3 hypervisor knowledge to the world. He kept good on this promise, releasing what is being dubbed as the Hypervisor Bible. 'The uploaded files contains his database, which is a series of tools for the PS3's Hypervisor and Hypervisor processes. It will help other devs to reverse engineer the hypervisor of PS3 further.'"
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Police Raid PS3 Hacker's House, Hacker Releases PS3 'Hypervisor Bible'

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  • by commodore6502 ( 1981532 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @06:35AM (#35298290)

    I think Sony is only a few months away from being told exactly the same thing by the US and EU governments. i.e. Just as cellphones can be jailbroken, so too can consoles.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by devxo ( 1963088 )
      However, they can still refuse to offer you PSN services. Otherwise you are already allowed to use your console as you please.
      • by commodore6502 ( 1981532 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @07:00AM (#35298420)

        >>>However, they can still refuse to offer you PSN services.

        Yep.

        I'm okay with that. Still that doesn't mean I should be arrested for modding MY console. If Sony ever tries, and my life is ruined because of it (like what RIAA did to Jammie Thomas and other victims), the CEO might as well consider himself equivalent to Mubarak (i.e. a liberty-suppressing tyrant).

        Oh and I'm not sure why people think I'm "trolling" or anti-sony??? The PS1 and 2 were my favorite consoles. 10 years of great gameplaying (1995-2005) so I'm hardly anti-sony.

        • > The PS1 and 2 were my favorite consoles. 10 years of great gameplaying (1995-2005) so I'm hardly anti-sony.

          How many games did you buy?

          • > The PS1 and 2 were my favorite consoles. 10 years of great gameplaying (1995-2005) so I'm hardly anti-sony.

            How many games did you buy?

            I'm not sure about anyone else, but I still have my modded PlayStation (original).

            I've purchased over 200 games for it over the years (Many games were imports -- which required the mod-chip.)

            Because it is modded, I can play burned PS1 games. I keep all of the original discs in pristine condition by only playing the backups. I've never pirated a game for the PS1, even though it would be easy to do (I like having the packaging & book -- Lunar came with a hardback book & cloth map (which I framed

        • by Blue Stone ( 582566 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @10:07AM (#35300002) Homepage Journal

          What's amazing to me is the different way that the police forces are treating these hardware tinkerers with Sony itself, which instigated and distributed a massive campaign of installing rootkits on people's computers. Utterly illegal, and yet the Sony CEO or whoever didn't get his door battered in at 6am.

          One law for the serfs and a different, more lenient set of 'rules' for the our lords and masters.

      • First of all, nobody is free to use their console as they please, until we have the freedom to remove, disable, or bypass Sony's restriction systems. That is why jailbreaking is so important; right now, the legality of jailbreaking and jailbreaking devices is in limbo.

        That being said, fine, Sony can refuse me PSN services. I never wanted PSN services, I just wanted to use my PS3 without Sony's annoying and pointless (from the user's perspective) hypervisor.
    • How delightfully naive of you. Sony and it's corporate bedmates own the government. It will not do anything without Sony's permission.

  • by unity100 ( 970058 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @06:43AM (#35298326) Homepage Journal
    DONT buy sony. dont let anyone around you, buy sony.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Friends don't let friends buy Sony!

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24, 2011 @06:59AM (#35298414)

      Right. To recap: CD rootkit, malicious CD drives (see http://kerneltrap.com/node/471 ) and now the PS3 crap. Anybody buying sony is just asking to be screwed.

    • >>>DONT buy sony. dont let anyone around you, buy sony.

      Okay.

      Looks at Xbox... hmmm Microsoft. Nope.
      Looks at Wii..... hmmm Nintendo. Nope.
      I'm running out of options - wish Sega still made a console. I guess this is just like a US election; I have to hold my nose and pick the least-evil candidate. (closes eyes) Um, er, Nintendo it is.

      (later while playing Sonic) Man this controller sucks - doesn't register half my inputs.

      • Looks at Xbox... hmmm Microsoft. Nope.
        Looks at Wii..... hmmm Nintendo. Nope.

        Of the three major video game console makers, the console division of Microsoft is the least evil. Xbox 360 is the only console with a developer program open to the public. Otherwise, you could always put a slim PC by your TV, hook up the HDMI, and game that way.

        I'm running out of options - wish Sega still made a console.

        Sega and Nintendo worked together on the Triforce arcade console. Xbox 360 builds on Sega's and Microsoft's experience with getting a Windows API running on Dreamcast.

        • Of the three major video game console makers, the console division of Microsoft is the least evil.

          It doesn't work that way. Microsoft's entertainment division is part of Microsoft just like Sony's is part of Sony. If they don't wish us to conflate the two they can unincorporate the divisions in question, and they can stop doing all they can to brand them as part of the same corporation. Consequently, Nintendo is the least evil games console manufacturer/distributor. (I do think they are bad guys at heart, too.)

      • by ghmh ( 73679 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @07:42AM (#35298622)
        Maybe it's time to exercise your imagination instead of your thumbs?
      • Here's an idea: don't trade your freedom just to gain access to video games. Don't fall for the bait and switch. You can play games on your desktop, which as far as I know is not designed to restrict your use of it.
      • by vadim_t ( 324782 )

        Buy indie games and a GP2X maybe.

        The problem is that the free market doesn't work all that well when there are just 3 options for an entire class of product. Perhaps that can be fixed by encouraging competition.

      • Options (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @09:20AM (#35299374) Homepage Journal

        Fuck them all. Get a PC. Even running Linux (!) you can play so many games for so long, day after day, completely wasting every spare hour of your life. Medical technology will never advance the human lifespan long enough such that even Linux gaming (and c'mon, it's not like Linux is the gaming platform) can ever be exhausted by any one person, even if that person drops out of school and work completely and takes meth all the time so they never sleep. It is so ridiculous to whine about non-evil game platform unavailability when even the most meager non-evil platform has so much to waste your time on. ;-) Fuck Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. The world is bigger than them.

        • >>>Fuck them all. Get a [Atari, Commodore, Amiga, Sega, SNES/N64/Gamecube] emulator.

          Fixed that for you. There are now so many old games, that are truly fun, there's no need to buy the new stuff.

    • by vadim_t ( 324782 )

      Already been doing that for a while.

      Problem is it's hard to do worse than not buying anything they make when they pull another stunt. I guess there's donating to people they sue.

  • Ownership? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by headkase ( 533448 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @06:46AM (#35298334)
    The entire fiasco with people getting arrested for modifying their own property is due to the DMCA's circumvention clause. Because the DMCA casts doubt on basic ownership rights I think that the base law is flawed.

    If I want to buy a cheap super-computer or mod my Xbox 360 into a media center that should be a given-right: I bought the hardware so go to hell without my Freedom to Tinker [freedom-to-tinker.com].
    • The DMCA's circumvention clause doesn't apply in Germany.

    • >>>DMCA casts doubt on basic ownership rights

      The DMCA is nullified by the higher law known as the Constitution: "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." --- "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained [such as modification of one's property] by the people."

      - "The powers not delegated to the United Sta

      • The DMCA is nullified by the higher law known as the Constitution

        Only nine people in this country know what the Constitution really means. People thought a second successive copyright term extension was unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court of the United States said otherwise.

        • by necro81 ( 917438 )

          Only nine people in this country know what the Constitution really means.

          No, only nine people are presently empowered to have the final say on what the Constitution really means. That's not even remotely the same thing. Over the generations those nine people change, and the collective interpretation of the Constitution changes with it. Even within the Supreme Court, there are plenty of disagreements about what it "really means" - hence the large number of 5:4 decisions.

          I am very wary of a blanket st

  • Another reason (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 24, 2011 @06:52AM (#35298372)

    NEVER to buy anything made by Sony

  • looks like it was already deleted
  • This is the entirety of the original source material for this story:

    Guys, do not contact me anymore because SONY got me. They have all my stuff and accounts now, so be careful.

    It was not a troll guys, it’s me, they really got me, it was a matter of time. So be careful now, i warned you.

    Guys, SONY was today at my home with police and got all my stuff and accounts. So be careful from now on.

    Guys, i don’t joke, it’s serious.
    And to prove it, i kept my word and uploaded all my HV reversing stuff.
    Upload it everywhere so SONY couldn’t remove it easily. Grab it guys, it contains lots of knowledge about HV and HV procs.

    Here is my HV bible: ...

    "SONY was today at my home"? That's not how raids work. In the US, Sony had to go through some rather extensive legal action to be able to get a TRO on geohot, and now they've convinced the German police to raid some random hacker's house out of nowhere? He's also not even one of the more prominent people involved, and had very little to do both with the core hacks and with subsequent piracy tools - he mostly worked on his own on hypervisor reverse engineering and there's just about nothing they could charge him with. This would also be the first action taken by SCEE regarding this entire issue. And you'd expect someone other than graf_chokolo to notice, publish, or somehow independently report the raid. Not to mention that if you're raided, the first thing you do is talk to an attorney, not post a care package online (as "proof"?). None of this makes any sense.

    He did mention that if he ever got a takedown notice from Sony or something along those lines, he'd release his hypervisor disassembler database. I think it's more likely that he got tired of waiting and just made up an excuse.

    • He also used the word "guys", like, five times.

      Ergo, I say it's graf_chokolo's personal graf_chokolo-simulation bot (Beta) struggling to talk and/or attract women via internet.

    • by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Thursday February 24, 2011 @08:39AM (#35298954)

      > "SONY was today at my home"? That's not how raids work.

      "Operation Sundevil" ring a bell?

      Depending on how they spun the story to police, a "raid" could range from anything to a civil subpoena to a SWAT-style assault with Sony "experts" tagging along to "assist" with evidence identification. Maybe Sony decided they wanted something a bit rougher than what they inflicted on George Hotz and made up some kind of uberhacker story?

    • Okay, to be fair, I just found out that Kotaku reports [kotaku.com] getting confirmation from SCEE. I don't exactly consider kotaku (or SCEE for that matter) to be completely infallible, but at least this beats blog comments.

      Nonetheless, I still think this makes no sense, if it did actually take place. If it did, graf_chokolo's reaction is, to put it bluntly, stupid (at the very least, his database, which by its nature contains a full copy of the hypervisor, is copyright infringement if nothing else). Bad plan if you are in fact the target of legal action. He needs a lawyer ASAP.

      • Nonetheless, I still think this makes no sense, if it did actually take place. If it did, graf_chokolo's reaction is, to put it bluntly, stupid

        Sega v. Accolade proved that you can reuse copyrighted strings when necessary to achieve compatibility. Fair Use law says that you can quote as much of a work as necessary to critique it. You're right that he needs a lawyer, but it's not clear that what he did was illegal... yet.

  • by aBaldrich ( 1692238 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @07:32AM (#35298568)
  • I can't pull up the article - web category blocked, so maybe this is explained in the article, but why are local police getting involved in these hacking cases? Shouldn't this be a job for federal investigators - ie, FBI or similar organization, depending on country? This isn't the first story I have seen like this. It seems to me that local police are overstepping the bounds of their jurisdiction in cases such as this. Just a thought.

  • for a strategy other than protectionism?
    Yeah, I know: "free" (not as in beer) - but how can we make that "pay"? And who gets paid?
  • by Stu101 ( 1031686 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @09:21AM (#35299396) Homepage

    I have to say, I am not impressed by this. At the end of the day, it is a CIVIL matter. From the look of that copper (an employee of the state!) bashing down the door, its the type of thing you see on police camera action.

    BTW Sony, kiss my ass with your attempted take downs. Information wants to be free ;) Lets see your effectiveness against TPB

    It's available as always from our friends at the pirate bay.

    I am going to find out which constabulary this is, and write a letter of complaint of the police using heavy handed tactics in non criminal matters. It's almost as though they are sony's personal army.

  • at least apple does not get the cops to bust some a** over Iphone and mac os x hacking.

    No they only took the big guys to court over loading mac os x on a pc and even then over seas they will have a even harder time wining a case over the same thing and as for the iphone the dmca says you have the right to hack a phone.

  • by FunkyELF ( 609131 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @09:36AM (#35299560)

    Money must be involved somehow right?
    Police don't care about this kind of crap do they?
    When they pull someone over and see one of those CD holders on a person's visor they don't care that its all pirated music.... so how do they care about this PS3 stuff?

    Does Sony make a huge donation to their department?
    Was it a court order?

  • by ZorinLynx ( 31751 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @09:36AM (#35299570) Homepage

    Is anyone else scared that companies such as Sony have the power to make the police do their bidding and break into peoples' private homes?

    What the fuck is going on in our country?

  • by JumperCable ( 673155 ) on Thursday February 24, 2011 @01:36PM (#35302902)

    The original uploads are missing. Good thing it's now on the Pirate Bay.

    http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6197257/coolstuff.rar [thepiratebay.org]

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