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Comment by CamperBob | Hacker News Reader

Corporations write laws and use the civil courts as a weapon. Nobody can even afford to defend themselves. For those who can't live with the injustice, there aren't many options.

And you can bet that Sony's counterattack will involve buying a few more of those laws.

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So you are somehow justifying this illegal activity to make it "right". It isn't right and nobody should condone that type of behavior.

Of course it's right. A wronged person has a right to have those wrongs redressed. That's fundamental. The legal system is an artificial construct designed to facilitate the process in a civil manner. But if the legal system isn't working, that doesn't mean that you no longer have that right. And it doesn't mean that whoever wronged you should get off scot-free. The redress will have to be through extralegal channels.

Sorry, but this crap long ago passed "redressing a wrong" and went right into piracy and network attacks. There are ways for people with cracked PS3s to access the dev channel and directly pirate titles. Sony's fault for having an insecure system? Sure (and I'd bet that's why their network is currently down), but at this point there is precious little argument that they're "redressing a wrong." You can already run OtherOS and still access PSN; cracking the development servers has no legitimate use.

At this point it's full-on in asshat territory, and people like me (who own PS3s and don't really give a damn about people who can't install Linux on the 3,000th device they own) are getting it in the shorts because of it.

Who said anything about cracked PS3's or piracy? Do you really think this is about a few illegitimate dev channel members? You're right, those people probably aren't still mad at Sony. But most people can't run OtherOS and connect to PSN. It's much more likely that one of the many, many PS3 owners who can't are the ones behind this "intrusion".

I would bet money that it's related, yes. The asshattery perpetuated by geohot et al. lead directly to these sorts of things--that's the most likely way I can see for an attack that necessitates downing the service to fix it to be launched. They've compromised what were assumed to be trusted clients, which seems likely to be the vector for an attack this serious. (And to forestall the usual: from a technical perspective, obviously Sony shouldn't have trusted clients at all, but just because a window's open doesn't mean going through it isn't trespassing and taking things while you're there isn't theft.)

You poke the fate bear, the fate bear eats you. Unfortunately in this case, it's also chewing on my leg, too.

Trying to lump all hackers together is wrong on its face. Geohot had nothing to do with this, so bringing him up serves no purpose but to create false impressions and (unintentionally or not) shill for Sony.

I think GP meant publishing the signing keys for PS3 system code. That allowed the bad guys to sign any binary they wanted and authenticate the hacked PS3 to Sony's dev channels. Not really Geohot's intent, but certainly something he facilitated.

Yes.

I would question whether it was his intent or not, but that's getting into inside-baseball stuff.

Just because you don't get the result you want does not automatically mean the legal system isn't working.

Sony sold me a PS3 and then disabled a piece of it. The legal system did absolutely nothing. If Sony and I ever settle up, it can't be through the legal system because the legal system declined to get involved.

File a small claims court case, I find it hard to believe that the legal system declined to get involved. If you feel you've been wronged, then you do something about it... legally. Otherwise, sell your PS3 and move on. The best thing you can do is to exercise your rights as a consumer and not spend your hard earned money on products made by that particular company ever again.

"Extralegal channels"...um right. DDoS'ing someones site is illegal. Hacking into someones site is illegal. Regardless of whether you think the legal system worked for you, they are still wrong. It isn't right period. You would have to have a screwed up ethical compass to think otherwise. Try moving that view to other portions of the law. Oh wait...it fails there too.

Are you saying that everything that is illegal is wrong? I'm not sure I'm reading that right, but if that's what you are saying, I have to disagree. In many cases what's right and what's legal are, at the very least, orthogonal. in some cases, they are opposite.

Its been argued by some that a DDOS is equivalent to standing in a shop doorway and may be an appropriate form of protest. Protest being something that is perfectly legal.

Lots of dumb things are argued by a lot of dumb people.

If you stand in a shop doorway where I live, you are escorted off the premises by the police. You can protest outside, but you can't screw with people trying to go about their daily lives. As it should be.

The fact that something is illegal doesn't make it wrong, just like the fact that something is legal doesn't make it right. Laws are supposed to reflect ethics, not the other way around. Unfortunately, many of our laws have no relation to what is ethically right, and are used by corporations as billy clubs to batter anyone who causes them the least bit of embarrassment.

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