Hacking Is console hacking not illegal or what?

PewnyPL · Mar 20, 2018

Noctosphere said:
Ok, I got it, hacking your own console is legal, I got it
But what I'm asking is is developping exploit and releasing hack to public legal?

It is as long as you don't release any copyright protected materials along with it. If they could get sued for it, they would be.
Companies WANT to sue those people, but they can't do anything, not unless they do something stupid. That's why I brought up Geohot. If he didn't publicly release the root key, which was protected by copyright, Sony would never be able to touch him.

kumikochan · Mar 20, 2018

B4rtj4h said:
It is illegal. You are not using the product as advised and as agreed in the TOS.
GeoHotz from PS3 had to stop his development for a police raid on his place.

Then how do you explain shops here that sell modchips and even put them in your console for a price and freely advertise on websites and even on their windows that they do ??? It is not illegal everywhere

Noctosphere · Mar 20, 2018

PewnyPL said:
It is as long as you don't release any copyright protected materials along with it. If they could get sued for it, they would be.
Companies WANT to sue those people, but they can't do anything, not unless they do something stupid. That's why I brought up Geohot. If he didn't publicly release the root key, which was protected by copyright, Sony would never be able to touch him.

alright, thanks

BvanBart · Mar 20, 2018

PewnyPL said:
It's legal. Breaching the TOS just means you no longer receive services from that company (ie. PSN ban for example)
GeoHot had a police raid due to leaking the PS3's root key.

kumikochan said:
Then how do you explain shops here that sell modchips and even put them in your console for a price and freely advertise on websites and even on their windows that they do ??? It is not illegal everywhere

Hmm... missed those in my answer.

sarkwalvein · Mar 20, 2018

AFAIK it is not illegal in most countries.
Also, going again the TOS is not illegal either, it only makes a good cause for stopping the service.
Hence, hacking is not illegal, but it could lead to your console being banned, your warranty voided, etc. as it is against the Terms of Service.

Noctosphere · Mar 20, 2018

sooo... let me know if i'm right
developping hack such as rom loader is perfectly legal since it's just another third party app
but since it wasn't authorised to be used on the console by the company, it is then bannable
am i right?

sarkwalvein · Mar 20, 2018

Noctosphere said:
sooo... let me know if i'm right
developping hack such as rom loader is perfectly legal since it's just another third party app
but since it wasn't authorised to be used on the console by the company, it is then bannable
am i right?

As long as you don't use copyrighted code or provide ROMS together with it, yes.

sion_zaphod · Mar 20, 2018

What about graf chokolo? Didn't Sony go after him and all he did was try to restore other OS (Linux) capabilities to ps3 firmware? Its f***ing ridiculous to say modding is illegal. Oh I'm going to spend £500 on tech and smash it up or solder an LED to the board. Or I'm going to buy a toaster and turn it into a lamp. Should I move underground because the cops will be after me? Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft all argue that modding is about messing with intellectual property IP but in an industry which exists on reverse engineering and Plagiarism they are the biggest hypocrites going.

leon315 · Mar 20, 2018

Noctosphere said:
Because so far, I haven't seen any news about console hacker developer being arrested
I'm not taling about end user like me, I'm talking about engineer who develop those hack/exploit

Is it like not legal, but not illegal as well?
Is it only what you do with those exploit that can be illegal?

when u purchase an item for personal use only, you own that item and it became ur property, you can do what ever you wish, this include bypassing DRM protection or make it into a toaster.
The code executed are coded/wrote/created by crackers, which is not belong to consoles' original creator, that's why none of crackers get arrested because of hacking.
hacking/cracking your own console is legal, while distributing/hosting/downloading copyright protected softwares is illegal.

sarkwalvein · Mar 20, 2018

sion_zaphod said:
What about graf chokolo? Didn't Sony go after him and all he did was try to restore other OS (Linux) capabilities to ps3 firmware? Its f***ing ridiculous to say modding is illegal. Oh I'm going to spend £500 on tech and smash it up or solder an LED to the board. Or I'm going to buy a toaster and turn it into a lamp. Should I move underground because the cops will be after me? Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft all argue that modding is about messing with intellectual property IP but in an industry which exists on reverse engineering and Plagiarism they are the biggest hypocrites going.

Yeah, the problem anyway is that those corporations have big money, big lawyers and big lobbyists.
In the end, though not illegal, they will try to pursue you and make your life difficult by brute force.
Let's say, you are right, but you still need to get into legal battles to prove it, and that costs money and time.
You might win those, but you need to put a lot of effort and money that will only come back after the end, and not everyone has the money or want to put the time and effort into it.

Big corporations are very Mafia style in that type of behavior if you ask me.

Kubas_inko · Mar 20, 2018

lets say it this way. You can do whatever you want with your console, but once it is against TOS and they know, you might get banned.

sarkwalvein said:
Yeah, the problem anyway is that those corporations have big money, big lawyers and big lobbyists.
In the end, though not illegal, they will try to pursue you and make your life difficult by brute force.
Let's say, you are right, but you still need to get into legal battles to prove it, and that costs money and time.
You might win those, but you need to put a lot of effort and money that will only come back after the end, and not everyone has the money or want to put the time and effort into it.

Big corporations are very Mafia style in that type of behavior if you ask me.

Yea, but if you have the rights, you don't really have to pay a cent for it. If you have to put money in it, it is probably not as legal as you thought.

HexZyle · Mar 20, 2018

sarkwalvein said:
Yeah, the problem anyway is that those corporations have big money, big lawyers and big lobbyists.
In the end, though not illegal, they will try to pursue you and make your life difficult by brute force.
Let's say, you are right, but you still need to get into legal battles to prove it, and that costs money and time.
You might win those, but you need to put a lot of effort and money that will only come back after the end, and not everyone has the money or want to put the time and effort into it.

Big corporations are very Mafia style in that type of behavior if you ask me.

This is when you crowdfund against the company's lawsuits. The bigger the company, the more people there are out there willing to see it get pwnd by a little guy.

Localhorst86 · Mar 20, 2018

I think this is not a black/white case. In general I would argue that whatever you do with your property is your business. However, in a lot of countries there is a law that prohibits the circumvention of copyright protection. And that's where things get complicated: local laws.

Let me try to elaborate this with a specific example: Germany.
I know that in Germany, there is a law that prohibits the circumvention of copyright - hence why software like DVDFab or AnyDVD are illegal to be sold or distributed in Germany. A company could argue that certain hacks or tools - like luma3ds - disable copyright protection and are therefore illegal to be sold or distributed in Germany. So far, however, there hasn't been a court ruling on this and no one has tried, afaik. Due to how courts work, a company would only need to find a court that, based on past rulings in similar cases, might be leaning towards their argument and file their complaint there. And then, if the company wins, it could be fought somewhere else, up to the highest court. Private law is a bitch and suing or defending yourself can cost you a lot of money and you never know the result beforehand due to it being dependent on the interpretation of the lawyer. It's not as clear as it is with criminal law where you know "I did not kill that person" and therefore know you're innocent.

There could be a lot of reasons for companies not trying to get this sorted. One possible reason could be that a company would have to take this to court in a lot of countries. And even if they did, if only one country would declare this legal, the company would have created a safe haven for these tools.
Maybe also because it is not a clear cut case and the companies know that there is a specific risk that a court could rule that it is *NOT* circumventing copyright and therefore setting a bad precedent against their argument, making these tools specifically legal and even making them publicly known, thus removing their "gray area" status.

It remains a gray area, but in general it can be said that hacking your console is mostly legal. Sharing your knowledge on how to do that is also mostly legal unless you're sharing trade secrets or copyright content like encryption keys (*). Some specific tools might be illegal in some countries but that always depends on local law.

(*) which is another bullshit story. At what point does a sequence of numbers become intellectual property? If I only share 64bit of a 128bit key, is that already illegal? 127bit? 1bit? - but I digress.

notimp · Mar 20, 2018

Deciding a knowledge question the Millennial way!

Some of the "answers" in here are so wrong and outright shameful, that it hurts reading them. But apparently most people in here believe in them and eat them up like if they were objective truth. Lets show them some advertisements, and hope that they buy stuff. You guys seriously have a problem - if you take that "decision process" to anything concerning legal matters. Its basic ignorance at display - nothing else.

Here are some of the cornerstones in all of this, and how things really work.

- HACKING is not illegal, if you call it reverse engineering, and you are applying it to products you own - without prior knowledge about said product that could have been illegally obtained (f.e. by information theft).

Lets explain why. Fundamentally - trying to understand things you own is not illegal. Although an entire generation of smartphone users tries their hardest to make it "feel that way". Trying to make them work differently - again, is not illegal. Fundamentally - they are your property once you bought them - not the companies, that sold them to you.

Taking that understanding - and even producing your own products that work EXACTLY like your competitors ones - isnt illegal. FRANKLY its EXACTLY what Compaq, HP and a few other silicon (*spit*) valley companies did - about 50 years ago - to help jumpstart the "PC revolution". They hacked and reverse engineered IBM computers bit, by bit - then sold their own "IBM compatible" mashines for cheap. Bill Gates (if you have ever heard of that name) made his fortune, by first selling an IBM compatible DOS (software that was written, not by him - for an architecture not created by those he sold it to - see: https://forwardthinking.pcmag.com/s...-dos-how-microsoft-got-the-ibm-pc-os-contract ) of all things, and not got it made, because he went with IBM all the way - but basically, because he embodied the clone makers infrastructure - and decided to sell software for whatever "compatible devices" those upstarter clonemakers produced. Fast forward a few years - richest man on the Forbes list.

If you want to look it up google "white room reverse engineering" and how it was used legally in court to make HPs and Compaqs behaviour back then legal.

- TOS are NOT legally binding agreements. You goofs. They are pseudo formal contracts, you cant change or negotiate on your part, companies use to remove themselves from as much legally binding responsibilities as possible - then say, you agree to them, if you click button - or use service. THE MOST that can happen, by you "breaking them" - is the company not providing you a service any longer. Which is perfectly their right - since they arent a government entity.

I know that becoming complacent service slaves, and following rules that someone just onesidedly made up, is the premier hobby of many young people in this generation - but please try to understand, that with buying products - you also buy certain ownership rights. Like - you'd theoretically have the right to take them apart, or repair them. And one such right also is figuring out how they work. Which interestingly enough f.e. is also why Linux, or the internet exist - but dont mind those - you'd be just as happy in your smartphone/facebook (formerly AOL) bubbles - getting "feels" on how the world works.

Also - and this might surprise you, you cant be made to sign a TOS just to use a product you bought. That would require you to sign said contract at the POS - which companies would not like. The closest we have come - as a civilization to circumvent that principle is current amazon products - which dont allow the user to do anything with - unless you "connect" them to an online service. Please understand, that you are still allowed to hack them - and that all Amazon can do about it, is to ban you from the service. Which is an issue - because Amazon is a horizontal Monopoly in many fields... Also something you could think about one day... But dont overdo it...

- If police raids you - you are not a convicted fallon - also, the reason given - might be important. Here is how this works. The police has no legislative power - at all. This is a little concept we call "separation of power" maybe you have heard of it - its at the base of every democracy on earth. If you go by what that brick Geohotz Youtube videos look like - you might sure think he was involved in illegal activities - but you havent seen the court papers, have you? Also, he might have been (I dont follow that bricks career), but console hacking was not one of them.

- If you buy a phone - and the carrier locks it to his network, to make more money of of you, turns out device hacking actually was made explicitly legal - to remove that. Under US law in 2014 ( https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/hurray-unlocking-your-cell-phone-is_1.html ) and the reason this had to be written out, was - that there are too many idiots in this world - who only know what the word hacker means to them, based on watching hollywood movies - and news reports from people who put hoodloms in hoodies, because they have to produce pictures. Which brings us to my last point -

- Hackers are not "illegaly breaking into companies servers" all the time, "stealing their data" - they are at its core - trying to understand technological systems. Play around with them, change their behavior. If what they do is not "theft", "fraud", "solicitation" - or any number of made up "cybercrimes" that came with the catchy "cyber, cyber" phrase to begin with - what they do, generally speaking is legal. There are specific side laws, the industry had to lobby into existence (like "circumventing DRM is illegal") that exist on the level of "non criminal law" (the same thing that you and your neighbor use in court to settle differences) that has the equivalent power of giving you a slap on the wrist and taking all your months lunch money. Thats about it.

If you get into illegally infiltrating company networks on the other hand - its a different story. If thats the entire image you have of "hackers" in your mind - then leave homebrew communities now. Nothing is more effective as an insult.

- Last point. If all people followed the millenial mindset of "don't think about things", "follow your feelings", and "follow all rules, that are suggested to you", - no one but maybe an old professor in an institutional tower would be allowed to understand how things work anymore. I'm glad that you are aiming for that world - but please dont make me talk to you much more, this evening...

I hope this leads to a better understanding of the matter -

n.

also - never forget, that the entire world is not the US of A, and rules in other parts of the world might be different. Thank you. What a wonderful usage of asking "- or what?" questions on the web you got out of your smartphone there...

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

lexluth0r said:
Who cares?

Not you.

The Catboy · Mar 20, 2018

It actually depends on the country. In the US, it's technically illegal to hack your systems under the DMCA, although the DMCA is rarely enforced. It's best to check your countries laws to see their standing on hacking.
It's worth noting that even in countries where it's technically illegal, you are extremely unlikely to get in trouble, unless you do something extremely stupid. I honestly can't think of a realistic situation, I guess like run up an FBI agent yelling, "Look at my hacked Switch and pirated game!"
Turns out my information was not up to date, further posts corrected me

Noctosphere · Mar 20, 2018

Lilith Valentine said:
It actually depends on the country. In the US, it's technically illegal to hack your systems under the DMCA, although the DMCA is rarely enforced. It's best to check your countries laws to see their standing on hacking.
It's worth noting that even in countries where it's technically illegal, you are extremely unlikely to get in trouble, unless you do something extremely stupid. I honestly can't think of a realistic situation, I guess like run up an FBI agent yelling, "Look at my hacked Switch and pirated game!"

I get what you mean
here in canada, it is almost impossible to get arrested for piracy due to strong law about private life

notimp · Mar 20, 2018

Lilith Valentine said:
It actually depends on the country. In the US, it's technically illegal to hack your systems under the DMCA, although the DMCA is rarely enforced. It's best to check your countries laws to see their standing on hacking.
It's worth noting that even in countries where it's technically illegal, you are extremely unlikely to get in trouble, unless you do something extremely stupid. I honestly can't think of a realistic situation, I guess like run up an FBI agent yelling, "Look at my hacked Switch and pirated game!"

Thats entirely wrong, but thank you participating...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/10/27/right-to-tinker-victory/

subcon959 · Mar 20, 2018

Lilith Valentine said:
It actually depends on the country. In the US, it's technically illegal to hack your systems under the DMCA, although the DMCA is rarely enforced.

See here: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/hacking-car-pacemaker-toaster-just-became-legal/

The Catboy · Mar 20, 2018

Noctosphere said:
I get what you mean
here in canada, it is almost impossible to get arrested for piracy due to strong law about private life

Honestly I've heard of very few cases in the US. I've literally only heard of one case from Australia.

notimp said:
Thats entirely wrong, but thank you participating...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/10/27/right-to-tinker-victory/

subcon959 said:
See here: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/hacking-car-pacemaker-toaster-just-became-legal/

Thanks for correcting me, it's honestly not always easy to keep up with these laws as I would like it to be.

Taffy · Mar 20, 2018

PewnyPL said:
You are by law allowed to do whatever with your console. So, hacking it IS legal. The only reason Sony was able to get Geohot prosecuted was because he leaked the key publicly, which is a copyright infringement.
However, the manufacturer's EULA still stands, so if they find you modded your console, then they have the full right to block you from using THEIR online services (read as: ban).

Wait...I can legally use my wii as a bread maker! Hooray!

Guess I can appease my friends who say "Taffy you're gonna get arrested for doing this stuff to your 3DS! Stop!"

Hacking Is console hacking not illegal or what?

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