By Nathan Brown
Internet free speech activist known for actions against Scientology and the movie industry takes aim at Sony.
Private US research university Carnegie Mellon is hosting the files(Here) hacker George “GeoHot” Hotz used to breach PlayStation 3’s security.
The move, spotted by modding website PSX-Scene, is the work of Professor David Touretzky, a research professor in the Computer Science department and a known supporter of freedom of speech on the internet. It follows Sony’s response to the recent developments in PS3 hacking by taking legal action against Hotz and the fail0verflow hacking group.
“Our friends at Sony are having another bad day, i.e. doing something breathtakingly stupid, presumably because they don’t know any better,” writes Touretzky, who clarifies that his opinions are is own and not those of the university. “Hotz’s jailbreak allows PS3 owners to run the software of their choice on a machine they have legally purchased.
“Free speech (and free computing) rights exist only for those determined to exercise them,” he continues. “Trying to suppress those rights in the internet age is like spitting in the wind.
“We will help our friends at Sony understand this by mirroring the GeoHot jailbreak files at Carnegie Mellon.”
Touretzky has previously been an outspoken critic of the Church of Scientology, whose actions he sees as a threat to free speech. He was also an expert witness in a trial brought against the makers of DeCSS, a program that cracked encryption on retail DVDs, where he argued that computer code was a form of speech and therefore protected under the US constitution.
Yesterday GeoHot responded to Sony’s request for a temporary restraining order, filing an affidavit in California rejecting many of Sony’s claims.
