California Student Arrested For Console Hacking

Matthew Crippen was arrested yesterday for hacking game consoles (for profit) in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He was released on a $5,000 bond, but faces up to 10 years in prison. This is terribly disturbing to me; a man could lose 10 years of his freedom for providing the service of altering hardware. He could well lose much of his freedom for providing a modicum of it to others. There is no piracy going on, necessarily — the games a modified console could run may simply not be signed by the vendor. It's much like jailbreaking an iPhone. But it seems because he is disabling a 'circumvention device' it is a criminal issue. Guess it's time to kick a few dollars over to the EFF

http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/0...onsole-Hacking

Wtf?!

for profit

Selling modding services IMHO is not immoral, as long as he is not providing bootleg games. What about clustering university projects that used modchips? They're not getting harassed.

I'm sure we all hope he doesn't get convicted... even if you think what he did should be a crime (and i don't) any prison sentence, let alone at ten year one!! would be a terrible, unjustified and deeply unethical cruelty against a normal student.

but i cant see that happening the judge would have to be a fool.

I don't see a problem in taking a couple bucks for hacking a console. Especially if it's a hard mod.

someone tell him to go out and murder someone - he will get a lesser sentence :-) its pathetic that you can be banged up for 10 years for providing a service yet murderers get maybe 2-3 years on good behaviour. anyone else think this is ****ed up?

Yeah. Crazy arsen bitch that burnt down our garage a few months ago and made terroristic threats may be getting out soon.

Don't you dare mod an Xbox, though!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anger

someone tell him to go out and murder someone - he will get a lesser sentence :-) its pathetic that you can be banged up for 10 years for providing a service yet murderers get maybe 2-3 years on good behaviour. anyone else think this is ****ed up?

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no one says that he wont be out in a few weeks or months on the same terms

Murder in the us is 25 to LIFE, before good behavior and blah blah blah so if you can reduce 25 to life to 3 years by being a kiss up, some blue color vacation should be reduced to maybe max 2 months if they are not a complete retard

course we already know they are a complete retard, sofar they have attracted enough attention to themselves to warrant an investigation where they were proven without a doubt to do 2 counts, and make freakin international headlines

maybe next he can start broadcasting meth commercials on primetime tv, either way its one less desperate for attention wanna be bad boy wasting classroom space for people with a real future

This is just ridiculous... I don't expect anything else from the american legal system… or just in general the legal system.

I never underestimate the stupidity of humanity, because stories like these prove it over and over again.

Ah whatever, I just hope the guy will be fine