Fellow Hackers Blast Geohot For Sony Settlement 310
RedEaredSlider writes "The hacker who settled with Sony after the company sued him for modifying his PlayStation 3 console is getting a lot of flak for not taking the fight further. 'Night Breed' [wrote], 'So basically you settled for a job and took people's money, giving them a false hope of settling for their rights? What do you plan to do with the money that was donated to you to provide a cushion for the legal battle? I hope you will be paying all those people back since you obviously didn't live up to your word.'"
Drama aside, (Score:0, Interesting)
there are some legitimate concerns as to what will be done w/ the money people donated to his legal fund.
Also, this whole thing isn't going to forgotten any time soon. Much less in the hacking community. Is it entirely possible Geohot could be black-balled? Is he now considered plagued and 'dirty'? Will Hacking in close circles to him put you in the cross-hairs of Sony, and the other media giants?
Either way, since it doesn't look like he can explain himself due to the settlement restrictions, he's certainly made his bed. Let's see how well he sleeps.
Re:To the EFF (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that people didnt donate to him so that he could settle with sony. people donated because it was a fight to set a precident and they were lead to believe by Geohot that he was going to fight $ony until the end. now people have less $$ in their accounts and nothing to show for it.
Re:Armchair Hackers (Score:3, Interesting)
It's easy to criticize GeoHot when you're not the one being sued by one of the largest corporations in the world. I feel bad for GeoHot, it seems like no matter what he does and how he tries to help -- and make no mistake, he has helped immensely on many projects -- he keeps getting blasted by haters.
Perhaps geohot keeps getting blasted by haters because he makes himself so easy to hate, as he is, in fact, a douchebag.
The legal documents pertaining to his case read like some sort of self-aggrandizing group wank, referring to himself as a "prodigy" of some sort. Sorry, but George is a prodigy in no field other than taking the LEGO Bricks that other hackers have so kindly molded for him, then popping them together and subsequently claiming that not only did he build the entire model from scratch, he painstakingly molded the plastic using rainbows and sunshine, and wrote the manual using calligraphy on papyrus.
Need I point out that it wasn't until Team Twiizers complained - and rightly so - that geohot was taking 100% of the credit for the Jailbreak exploit that he finally acknowledged on his site that maybe he didn't do it single-handedly? Then, after beating his chest to every media outlet that would listen about how HE was the one who completely blew open the PS3, he got sued by Sony - I call it karmic justice, if not legal or moral - and suddenly he's every hacker's favorite martyr, with everyone happily glossing over the fact that it was Team Twiizers that figured out the key exploit in the first place.
The simple fact of the matter is that geohot is nothing more than an attention-seeking douchebag who, when required to face consequences for his actions - something apparently foreign to people under the age of 25 nowadays - ran *screaming* to a lawyer with his Backpedal-O-Meter burying the needle at the far end of the scale.
He is scum, plain and simple, and I would have not lost a blink of sleep if he found himself rotting in the modern equivalent of debtor's prison until the heat death of the universe. He blatantly rips off other peoples' research without giving credit, he tries to portray himself as some utterly transparent martyr, and when it comes to put-up-or-shut-up, he doesn't even have the stones to try to defend his sand castle against the incoming tide.
At the end of it all, though, I suppose I got what *I* want out of the entire thing - he gets to shut the hell up about this whole PS3 debacle and Team Twiizers is unaffected by Sony's suit, so the real hackers behind it all can continue doing what they've been doing, and the loud-mouthed con artist gets gagged.
Re:Armchair Hackers (Score:4, Interesting)
Depends on whether it was civil or criminal. If it's criminal I'd sell out. If it's civil once you declare bankruptcy then it should be all over. You usually get to keep your house and cars in bankruptcy.
You clearly have no idea what happens in bankruptcy.
You might get to keep your house, depends on what state its in and how much its worth. You most certainly may be forced to sell it and move to something more modest. Same goes for the car and pretty much every other posession you own.
Bankruptcy is NOT a get of jail free card, and its been made worse recently to cut down on the number of idiots like yourself who try to use it as such. Its doubtful he would even qualify for it.
Then ... to top it off ... the court can simply say 'you don't get out of this by filing bankruptcy' and he's done. Depending on the laws where the trial was taking case, it may already legally be that way by state law.
Re:To the EFF (Score:2, Interesting)
I donated to him so he wouldn't get crushed by Sony. I got what I wanted. I wasn't expecting some fairy tale ending where OtherOS is restored, the Sony Executives are all vanquished, and hacking your own hardware is recognized by the Supreme Court as a protected activity.
You expected too much.