Guy Who Helped Mod Cable Modems Arrested By The FBI

from the freedom-to-tinker? dept

What a world we live in: if you tinker too much with the electronic equipment you buy, you might get charged with a crime. That seems to be what happened to a guy in Oregon who helps mod cable modems. Now, clearly, some people can and do use modded cable modems to access cable service that they haven't paid for, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons to hack your own hardware or to buy modded hardware. Just like unlocking a mobile phone should be perfectly legal, the same is true of unlocking a legally purchased cable modem. As the article linked above explains, most of the indictment seems to focus on the actions of others in this guy's forums, which should lead to an easy Section 230 dismissal (as he shouldn't be responsible for their actions). The only "questionable" issue for the guy is a request for certain information that could potentially have been used to gain unauthorized access -- but that's not evidence that he actually did so. All in all, this seems like an attempt to crack down on anyone interfering with artificial locks put on legally purchased hardware by the cable companies. And, if that's the case, why is the FBI involved at all? Shouldn't this just be a civil issue involving the cable companies?

Filed Under: arrest, cable modems, hacking, modding, tinkering

No Freedom To Tinker: Arrested For Modding Legally Purchased Game Consoles

from the no-innovation-allowed dept

This is hardly a new issue, but it's still troubling every time we hear a story like this. For years, there's been a fight over whether or not it should be legal to modify a legally purchased game console. Those in favor of the right point out that if you've legally bought something, you should always be free to tinker with it. That's just common sense. Those against it say that modifying a gaming console is done mainly to play pirated games or to cheat, which can cause problems for legit players. I find the latter responses unpersuasive, as those are technological or business model issues that can be solved in other ways, rather than a legal issue. But, thanks to that good old DMCA, that's now how the law works.

Instead, we get stories about students getting arrested for "jailbreaking" a video game console. It's interesting to see the use of the word "jailbreaking" here, as that's more commonly been applied to iPhones -- where it's common. Usually, this action has been referred to as "modding" or "modchipping" when it came to consoles. But the basic fact is that the actions are effectively the same -- and both should be perfectly legal. Modifying legally purchased hardware should never be against the law. It's possible that you could then use that modified hardware to break the law -- and no one's saying that's okay. But the act itself of modifying the devices should never be against the law -- especially where it could lead to a ten-year prison sentence, as in this case.

This particular case involves a student who would modify game consoles to let people make use of backup copies of their own games on the consoles. Making a backup copy, by itself, has been well established as being perfectly legal. The problem here (once again) is the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause, which makes it illegal to circumvent any kind of DRM, even if it's for a totally legal purpose. It's difficult to see how that's constitutional. Making it illegal to do something that's perfectly legal, just because someone puts any kind of DRM in the middle doesn't make any sense at all. It's a ridiculous scenario that this kid is now facing 10 years in jail for making video game consoles more useful, allowing people to use perfectly legal backup copies of their games. But, such is the state of the DMCA and copyright laws these days.

Filed Under: arrest, copyright, dmca, game consoles, modding, video games