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Sony sues George 'geohot' Hotz and fail0verflow over PS3 jailbreak.

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borghe said:
the account was created at his house with his credentials, accessed at his house, and created with a username he's used on other boards. yes it's all circumstantial, but this isn't a criminal case either. we're not talking "without a reasonable doubt here" and the amount of stuff keeps on piling up.

May I have a source for all of that? Because the court papers only say that the IP used to create the PSN account matches the city where geohot lives. It says nothing about his "credentials", being accessed at "his house", or anything about a username he has used on other boards. In fact it says the best they were able to regarding the PSN name was match it to a forum discussion about cell phone jailbreaking. You talk as if they confirmed it was him. Source?
 

test_account

XP-39C²
Mithos said:
Was in AudioBoxers post #3961
Thanks for the info :) But i wonder if answering like that would make much of a difference though. Kinda like the people who say "i dont know how the drugs got there", but that doesnt really help their case much i think.
 

Curufinwe

Member
itxaka said:
Sorry guys, I did missed my last comment which I edited later. The proof can be fabricated. Have much weight does it have coming from one of the involved parties?

Who else would proof come from in a civil case? As with any evidence, it'll be up to the judge (and possibly a jury) to decide how much weight it should have.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
itxaka said:
Sorry guys, I did missed my last comment which I edited later. The proof can be fabricated. Have much weight does it have coming from one of the involved parties?
you're asking if sony fabricated it? Honestly, I can't see that happening for two reasons. Number one, if he didn't create the account, it would simply make more sense to say "I didn't create the account". Given the importance of such actions during what he was doing, you would think that he would actually know if he did or didn't create the account. He basically "pleaded the fifth" on the question. he didn't incriminate himself on it, but didn't deny it either.

given that, I won't say sony would have no reason to fabricate it, but occam's razor and all of that. he didn't deny it, they say they have records, the most likely answer is that he did it and they have the proof.

Bumblebeetuna said:
May I have a source for all of that? Because the court papers only say that the IP used to create the PSN account matches the city where geohot lives. It says nothing about his "credentials", being accessed at "his house", or anything about a username he has used on other boards. In fact it says the best they were able to regarding the PSN name was match it to a forum discussion about cell phone jailbreaking. You talk as if they confirmed it was him. Source?
this was all I said Again, you guys are acting like there is a reasonable doubt clause here. if sony's evidence is better than his, that's all it takes.

edit - oh, you did miss one thing. he (george) provided the serial number of the PS3's in his possession (that he purchased, as was also verified), and the account was created with one of those serial numbers.
 

Zoe

Member
itxaka said:
Sorry guys, I did missed my last comment which I edited later. The proof can be fabricated. Have much weight does it have coming from one of the involved parties?

And risk contempt of court?
 

itxaka

Defeatist
Apparently he removed the HDD controllers or something? Whatever it was, it made accessing the drives impossible. And I can't find any confirmation anywhere regarding talk of South America. He updated his blog a few days ago with a pic of himself in some soccer jersey and one of the comments says "welcome to argentina" or something. If he was fleeing, I don't think he would be so open about it. But again, this is geohot and he loves the attention.

I think that he is wearing a shirt with LG on it, the same LG that has sued Sony and tried to stop ps3s from being distributed. That is the point of the picture, no matter which team the shirt is.

Did he was restrained to the US by the judge or he could travel anywhere?


Who else would proof come from in a civil case? As with any evidence, it'll be up to the judge and possibly a jury to decide on how much weight it should have.

Ahh, ok. Didn't know if that was up to third parties to go and check the validity and such or it relied on the judge.
 
borghe said:
this was all I said (though it did say the IP address was the same on both the creation and use of the account). Again, you guys are acting like there is a reasonable doubt clause here. if sony's evidence is better than his, that's all it takes.

No one is saying anything about reasonable doubt. If Sony has better evidence then they have better evidence. But the evidence they have revealed so far is not near what you are portraying it as. You said the IP address matches his house, false. You said it was accessed in his house with the same IP, false. You said it was created using "his credentials", whatever that means, false. You said the PSN username was the same as multiple accounts geohot has on various forums discussing jailbreaking, false. No one has confirmed any of that yet.

The best they have shown is the IP address matches his city and the PSN name matches an account used to discuss jailbreaking on a forum. He could simply say a friend came over and made the account. A friend of geohot is probably someone who is into jailbreaking and gaming. Or maybe he made the account himself. Who knows. But if Sony had the evidence you claim they do then they would have brought up into the case already.
 

N.A

Banned
Apparently Geohot didn't flee to South America, he posted a photo of himself wearing a Argentina football shirt.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
Bumblebeetuna said:
The best they have shown is the IP address matches his city and the PSN name matches an account used to discuss jailbreaking on a forum. He could simply say a friend came over and made the account. A friend of geohot is probably someone who is into jailbreaking and gaming. Or maybe he made the account himself. Who knows. But if Sony had the evidence you claim they do then they would have brought up into the case already.
you left out that the serial number used to create the account was a serial number he turned over to them as owning and showing that it was a serial he purchased from the gamestop which they also had proof on (2/25)

so basically a PS3 with a serial number he admitted to owning and was purchased by him created an account from an IP address located in the city he lived in using a handle that has appeared on other boards talking about hacking cellphones, his previous claim to fame.

I mean we're both grasping at straws... but it looks like one of our grasps are a bit looser than the other.
 

jaxpunk

Member
So wait all this foaming at the mouth was over a twitter picture? There's no actual confirmation that he's in Argentina?

That is fantastic really, geohot master of the troll. Boy there sure are some worked up people in here that are going off a single article.
 
Acquiescence said:
Hells bells, this is hilarious. It practically deserves its own thread.

For all you folks who donated money to his cause - it was well spent, right? No really, GeoHot is very thankful to all of you who supplied funds for his...SPRING BREAK!!! WHOOOO!

I'd say it definitely deserves its own thread. Possibly starting with the word "Rumour:"

DonMigs85 said:
If only Hotz had been more humble and kept his big mouth shut... Typical cocky douche.
I wonder if Mama Robotnik and the other saps regret their donations now.

If this is true (and another source would be helpful in this regard), then its certainly an appalling action by a deceptive, loathesome little human being.

And yet, no I don't regret sending a sum of money. What Sony have been trying to do is incredibly offensive to me, and it was immensely frustrating to not be able to do something to oppose them. At least by donating some money I put my wallet where my mouth was and contributed something to stop their attempts to cement a rental-model of property over us.

kamorra said:
I wish some of you guys could tone down the aggressiveness. Especially the ones who are asking for help in the PSP custom firmware thread.

Would be interesting to contrast the posters in these threads cheerleading Sony's actions with those who regularly benefit from hackers' works to improve their property, certainly.

SuperSonic1305 said:
If he really fled the country then I feel sorry for all his defenders. They just got bent over.

(If this is true) then we've been lied to, certainly. As a few of us have mentioned before, its a shame that the thoroughly unlikable George is the person we have had to support if we wanted to oppose the shit Sony is still trying to pull off.

borghe said:
so you guys seriously just funded his vacation to south america?????

WHERE IS YOUR HERO NOW!!!?!?!?!

That's nice, completely ignore all those posts that said George was unlikeable but the cause and consequences is far more important than him, and diminish our entire postion into us cheerleading our hacking, rapping hero.

Argue your point without strawman building borghe.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
Zoe said:
And risk contempt of court?


Sometimes we forget that this is the same company that installed almost 6 million of rootkits on consumers pcs. I don't see it out of the ordinary for them to fabricate evidence. After all the bad rep they are getting they need to win this. And it's not like it would be really difficult for them to do so.
 

Zoe

Member
N.A said:
Apparently Geohot didn't flee to South America, he posted a photo of himself wearing a Argentina football shirt.

Then why would he tell Sony that he is?

Most seriously, after Magistrate Judge Spero ordered an inspection of Hotz’s devices and ordered Hotz to appear at a deposition in California, SCEA learned that Hotz had deliberately removed integral components of his impounded hard drives prior to delivering them to a third party neutral and that Hotz is now in South America, an excuse for why he will not immediately provide the components of his hard drives as requested by the neutral.

Edit: the third party, not Sony
 
borghe said:
you left out that the serial number used to create the account was a serial number he turned over to them as owning and showing that it was a serial he purchased from the gamestop which they also had proof on (2/25)

It's been confirmed that the account was created on one of his PS3's, he is not denying this fact. He gave them the serial code willingly and that is how they found the records for its use.
 

Vorador

Banned
N.A said:
Apparently Geohot didn't flee to South America, he posted a photo of himself wearing a Argentina football shirt.

So they came to the conclusion he fled to South America based on a shirt?

I hope Sony's lawyers are being purposely disingenuous. That, or they're dumb as bricks.
 

Jobiensis

Member
borghe said:
as I said earlier, I can only assume that what he adjusted was far worse for him (criminal?) than what he's facing.

That doesn't make any sense. Even if there was child porn on the drive, they wouldn't be able to use it to prosecute him. They don't have carte blanche to do what they want with the drives.

It is much more believable, that he thought he could get away with it. Hotz, while very smart in some respects, is a moron in others. If he wanted to get away with wiping of drives, he should have kept multiple drives with the most incriminating evidence on one that he'd wipe once the trouble/lawsuits started.

I hate the fact that out of all in the hacking community it's GeoHot I have to support up against Sony. I never would send him money though.
 

kamorra

Fuck Cancer
borghe said:
you left out that the serial number used to create the account was a serial number he turned over to them as owning and showing that it was a serial he purchased from the gamestop which they also had proof on (2/25)

so basically a PS3 with a serial number he admitted to owning and was purchased by him created an account from an IP address located in the city he lived in using a handle that has appeared on other boards talking about hacking cellphones, his previous claim to fame.

I mean we're both grasping at straws... but it looks like one of our grasps are a bit looser than the other.

Is this a guessing game?
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
You guys really think Sony saw a pic of Hotz in an Argentinian shirt and assumed he fled to South America? Really?
 

kamorra

Fuck Cancer
Canova said:
someone forgot to tell him, even LG lost its case against Sony and got served Sony's legal bill

They lost? How could I miss that? Could you please link me to a news article about it?
 

Maxim726X

Member
Not too bright.

Unfortunately his stupidity could have a huge effect on hacks and modifications in the future.

Of course this could be nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors... Guess we'll find out soon enough.
 

Mithos

Member
Canova said:
someone forgot to tell him, even LG lost its case against Sony and got served Sony's legal bill
Lost the temporary PS3 blockade in Europe YES, but the Blu-Ray patent war rages on.
 

Evlar

Banned
Vorador said:
So they came to the conclusion he fled to South America based on a shirt?

I hope Sony's lawyers are being purposely disingenuous. That, or they're dumb as bricks.
Motion for a Protective Order Filed by George Hotz, Filed March 17, 2011:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2011cv00167/235965/100/

From page 6:
Under Rule 26(b)(2), the court must consider whether the discovery sought is
cumulative or duplicative, or can be obtained from some another source; whether the
party seeking discovery has had ample opportunity to obtain the information pursuant
to prior discovery in the action; and whether the burden or expense of the proposed
discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2). Mr. Hotz is currently out
of the country, and to hail him into California for a deposition is unduly burdensome and
disruptive in the clearest sense of the phrase.
This, coupled with the fact that the desired
information could just as easily be obtained from some other source that is more
convenient and less burdensome, requires a showing of good cause from the Plaintiff,
and an order effectuating such. See In re Google Adwords Litigation (N.D. Cal., 2010).
Indeed, the information sought is likely cumulative from the interrogatories already
provided to Mr. Hotz, rendering such deposition of dubious value. For these reasons,
Defendant seeks a protective order from this Court that limits the deposition of George
Hotz to a written deposition, in order to avoid undue burden and expense where the
information Plaintiff seeks could just as easily be obtained in written form.
 
Maxim726X said:
Whaaat. Is there a link with this information?

It's in the court papers and I do not want to read through them again to find it. But I think they are papers from Sony lawyers, so I guess you can still take it with a grain of salt.
 

faust666

Member
From Groklaw

From: Michael Grennier [redacted email address]
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 7:56 AM
To: Stewart Kellar; Gaudreau, Holly
Cc: Robert Kleeger; Yasha Heidari; Boroumand Smith, Mehrnaz; Bricker, Ryan; Jack C. Praetzellis;
[redacted email address][redacted email address]

Subject: Imaging of encrypted drives. CRM:0003005

All,
We took the drives out of our evidence locker and the evidence bag to image them in their current encrypted state
as stated in the order and agreed to on our phone call yesterday. We have determined that the controller cards
which are screwed onto the hard drives were removed prior to them being given to us. Therefore we are unable
to operate the hard drives in their current state. Keep in mind that we need two days to image these drives as we
have to image two 1TB drives.

I would recommend that Mr. Hotz forward to us immediately both the hard drive controller cards, screws and
anything else he may have including the complete computer system (minus the monitor, keyboard and mouse) so
that we can be prepared to complete the forensic imaging process (both encrypted and un-encrypted).
The drives have been returned to the evidence bag and locker at this time.

Regards,

Mike

Michael Grennier, CFCE, EnCE

TheIntelligenceGroup



Merhnaz,
Your concerns are completely unfounded. To the contrary, Mr. Hotz has gone above and beyond what he has been required to do. Mr. Hotz was ordered to provide his hard drives and storage devices on which any circumvention devices were stored-- nothing more. As your co-counsel is aware, Mr. Hotz is currently out of the country, so your unilateral demand to have him provide the controllers by noon tomorrow is not only unreasonable, but simply not possible. No explanation is necessary as Mr. Hotz fully complied with the terms of the Court's order.

Best regards, Yasha

_____________________________________

Yasha Heidari
 

Curufinwe

Member
jaxpunk said:
That is fantastic really, geohot master of the troll. Boy there sure are some worked up people in here that are going off a single article.

Its not going off "one article", it's going off Sony's filing with the US District Court.

http://docs.justia.com/cases/federa...ifornia/candce/3:2011cv00167/235965/103/0.pdf

Whether he's in South America is really inconsequential to the main allegation that he removed components from the hard drives the court had ordered him to turn over to a neutral third party.
 
jaxpunk said:
So wait all this foaming at the mouth was over a twitter picture? There's no actual confirmation that he's in Argentina?

That is fantastic really, geohot master of the troll. Boy there sure are some worked up people in here that are going off a single article.
A fucking court filing is not just an "article.' DERP. Even exempting whether or not he's in argentina, he still comes out looking like a shithead in light of the tampering with evidence, highly convincing evidence of holding multiple PSN accounts, and, most disconcertingly, his seeming COMPLETE silence in the midst of all of this. Pack your bags and go home people, this party is way over.

EDIT: beaten like a half dozen eggs
 

Curufinwe

Member
Jobiensis said:
That doesn't make any sense. Even if there was child porn on the drive, they wouldn't be able to use it to prosecute him.

If you find child porn on a hard drive while doing discovery for a civil case, I believe you're obliged to report it to the authorities.
 

kamorra

Fuck Cancer

PSGames

Junior Member
Canova said:
someone forgot to tell him, even LG lost its case against Sony and got served Sony's legal bill

LG didn't lose the case. Only the confiscated PS3s were returned. The case is still pending.

Edit: beaten.
 

HaRyu

Unconfirmed Member
Curufinwe said:
If you find child porn on a hard drive while doing discovery for a civil case, I believe you're obliged to report it to the authorities.

This is true, I used to work at a computer repair place, and company policy is to report child porn to the police.

EDIT: Oh, and I have to add, we didn't actively look for it. If a client was stupid enough to put it in plain view (like a folder on the desktop that was clearly labeled). Or if the client asked us to back up his docs (and folder was clearly labeled).
 

Forsete

Gold Member
Your concerns are completely unfounded. To the contrary, Mr. Hotz has gone above and beyond what he has been required to do. Mr. Hotz was ordered to provide his hard drives and storage devices on which any circumvention devices were stored-- nothing more.

Pretty sure the controller cards are part of the storage devices, brah.

Hey, let me give you this USB-stick, without the USB-contact.
 

Curufinwe

Member
Forsete said:
Pretty sure the controller cards are part of the storage devices, brah.

Hey, let me give you this USB-stick, without the USB-contact.

And his lawyer is not arguing with Sony on this point, the lawyer is arguing with the neutral third party E-Discovery vendor who is just trying to do their job.
 

Jobiensis

Member
HaRyu said:
This is true, I used to work at a computer repair place, and company policy is to report child porn to the police.

I may be wrong, but I do believe there is substantial difference between a court ordered search and a computer repair place. Willingly giving someone something is substantially different than being forced to surrender it.

Edit: Doesn't matter as that isn't the case here. Lulz, you didn't specify you wanted the whole hard drive. God is GeoHot an idiot.
 
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