Apparently 'Hacked Sony PS3 & Got Sued For It' Looks Good On The Resume
from the lulsec-is-updating-their-resumes-as-we-speak dept
Last we heard from George Hotz, aka GeoHot, he was settling with Sony, in the lawsuit it brought against him for jailbreaking the PS3 to restore a feature that Sony used to advertise but retroactively deleted. Apparently, those sorts of skills are in demand at Facebook, who has now made it official that it has hired GeoHot, though it's not clear what he'll be working on. As if people needed any more reasons to hack Sony, apparently now it can help you get a job...![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: geohot, george hotz
Companies: facebook
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
That's something that's hard to come by these days. Maybe I'll consider hacking Sony if it will convince Facebook to hire me :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
hehehe.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hotz also hacked the iPhone, but Sony didn't get their panties in a wad.....but then the Japanese DO like their young girl soiled panties, don't they.
So if you don't believe Sony's stance that you paid $300 for a PS3, but it really isn't YOUR'S to do with as you please.....figure out how to mod it, put up the video, get sued and apply at FB
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
However, are we really to the point where we are debating the definition of the word crack and hack? I have to point out that neither of your definitions fits with the actual definitions and are more like web slang. See Webster, Princeton, Google etc... Below are the closest definitions to what your getting at.
Hack
-Use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data in a system
-Gain unauthorized access to (data in a computer)
Crack
-Break or cause to break open or apart
At best, they are the same thing as they both involve a breach of security measures. It's like saying there is a difference between hit and slap because you can only slap a bitch but you hit a man.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
No! Hacking traditionally meant programming in an ad hoc manner. Some of the people who did that used their expertise to gain unauthorised entry into systems - but that is not the only (or in my book even the main) meaning of the word.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
one of the main themes in the hacker ethic has always been universal access. this used to be a huge deal when computers were super rare and super expensive.
the advent of [relatively] cheap PCs and [relatively] easy to find internet access has mostly eliminated the need for unauthorized access, but that wasn't always the case.
in those dark days, all learning on a computer that wasn't part of a university, business, or government program was basically unauthorized because only universities, businesses, and the government had computers. back then there were no whitehats.
this quest for computer time is why the media uses the word hacker to mean trespasser or criminal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Wikipedia says: Hack (computer security) v., Originally derived from verb HACK, "To cut into repeatedly and/or irregularly," for usage as a Slang Term or Jargon for the act of breaking into (hacking into) computers and computer networks which has been adopted as a common term in Computer Science
If I go to any website and look for something to let me run a program without a CD (thus bypassing the protections) I would have to search for the NOCD Crack.
At one time, in the very limited programmer subculture, participants in that group referred to themselves as "hackers" without the connotation of illicit activities. But that is by far not the most common use.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
A cracker is someone who likes breaking things apart to see to try to gain some sort of advantage. They break locks to try to rob what's inside. They crack passwords to "steal" information. They "crack" games to play them for free. They disassemble toasters to turn them into heat ray weapons. That sort of stuff.
So, basically, they both like breaking things apart, the main difference is their motivation: hackers do it for sport and knowledge, crackers do it for money and personal gain.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
A hacker is someone who is recognized as a type of master programmer. Ah, heck, let's just copy the jargon file:
" 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in �a Unix hacker�. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. "
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
the only thing that definition lacks is a date. AC's definition is a fairly modern definition of a hacker, specifically a hardware hacker or a reverse engineer. in 1980 it would be a passable definition of a fone phreak if you replaced all of the stuff about toasters with phones.
the definition from the jargon file is a great broad definition of hacking or a circa 1985 definition of the academic unix hacker.
what is missing from both definitions is the granularity that exists in hacking. the many facets of subject matter, intent, ethics, and approach can radically change the definition of hacking.
for example, hacking a toaster into a death ray in a controlled environment and disclosing your findings in order to make toasting safer for the general public is very different from secretly hacking a toaster into a death ray because you are fulfilling a contract hit. i would argue that the latter better qualifies as criminality or terrorism than hacking.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Um. That's exactly what I said. I never said he hacked Sony. I said he hacked the PS3 -- which is entirely accurate.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Dumbass
Go back to school you aren't ready for the real world
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The current commonly used meaning is, as you say, different.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Definition of 'hack'
The word literally means:
Make it work.
let me rephrase that, it means:
Make It Work.
I is not specific to software or hardware. You can do software hacks to make it work or hardware hacks to make it work.
The press got hold of the word and defamed it because it sounds oh so scary... Mom! Mom! There's a hacker in the house. Get the shotgun Pa, we got git that hacker!
What a shame.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I was one back then, then i grew old and raised kids, had a mortgage.. blah blah.. and left the whole hacker scene and grew up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hackers - not Crackers or Phreakers
Refer to the book Hackers:Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hacker
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Hacker
Thank you sir
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Hacker
Remember when gay meant happy? But if you call some smiling on the street "gay" today you might get a different reaction than you would have 50 years ago. Very few people will think you are saying the man is happy, since that definition is obsolete.
According to your link, a hacker was originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe. If you can accept that the definition changed once, it should not be difficult to accept it has changed again.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Except that nowhere does it do that.
Which I already explained above.
I'm confused. There are a bunch of these comments coming through -- all from anonymous commenters. Was this mentioned somewhere where someone falsely said that this post conflated hacking hardware with breaking into a server?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And normal people saw that, there is no real difference between the two except for the wishes of people to differentiate themselves from others trying to signal "hey I'm not evil", but to others there were no distinctions, what the white hats do the black hats also do, they use the same tools, the same techniques is just one don't wreck havoc on others systems and the other helps himself to whatever is there.
But this is just my opinion, eventually people will settle the issue and those words can end up with totally different meanings LoL
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How about reporting their losses of members in the US? You know, social media on the wane?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Because Zuckerman is the third richest man in tech.
He's not winning. He doesn't have Charlie Sheen. He's losing big time when you talk about a new service. He's a winner for not integrating Facebook all over the place.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
= (
[ link to this | view in chronology ]