I just read another new update to the sony/hacker situation. I can see that they can make an example out of him, but I don't think he made any money and he probably doesn't have much money regardless. So what is Sony gaining out of a long lawsuit with really just winning and saying hacking is bad?

I don't have a clue about what you're talking about. Source?

A hacker sunk a Sony CEOs battleship on twitter ^^



Wow, this forum has the worst method of inserting urls EVER.

A hacker sunk a Sony CEOs battleship on twitter ^^



Wow, this forum has the worst method of inserting urls EVER.

my company's intranet forum is much much worse for urls.

I just read another new update to the sony/hacker situation. I can see that they can make an example out of him, but I don't think he made any money and he probably doesn't have much money regardless. So what is Sony gaining out of a long lawsuit with really just winning and saying hacking is bad?

Which lawsuit? "Sony" is not just one company, but a bunch of companies, and they have a lot of outstanding lawsuits right now.

The biggest hacker lawsuits right now are the three with George Hotz, [font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]Alexander Egorenkov, and the hacker's "OtherOS" class action. [/font]
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[font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]Once those settle down they have a queue that includes fail0verflow and other groups.[/font]
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[font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]There are many other lawsuits going on relating to the PS3 including the LG lawsuit, three smaller lawsuits over "OtherOS" changes, the parallel processing patent lawsuit, and the US Air Force complaint.[/font]
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[font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]I'm sure if you look outside their PS3 business units you will find a long list of other lawsuits that Sony is involved with.[/font]
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[font="arial, sans-serif"]Sony's family of companies has picked up a reputation of being litigious bullies. They seem to ignore simple reasonable discussion, ignore basic market factors, and jump to a C&D order. They will file suit and play hardball in court for seemingly any minor offense. One of my favorites of the Sony court cases was when Sony's music division was suing Sony's MP3 player division for enticing people to violate copyrights. (Yes they were part of groups suing each other, but Sony was on both sides.) Sony et al v. Sony et al is amusing.[/font]
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[font="arial, sans-serif"]With the Hotz lawsuit and the Egorenkov lawsuit, these feel like "We don't like what you did so we'll sue" lawsuits. [/font][font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]The Hotz suit is still debating where in the country the lawsuit should be filed; the Egorenkov suit is not even that far along. [/font][font="arial, sans-serif"]Sony has fought many of these over the years on many game systems. The few that make it to court have been eventually settled. The settlement terms are confidential, but based on media comments each one was favorable for the individual, including those where their work was purchased by Sony. Of the ones I'm aware of, each time the prospects looked bad for Sony and they asked what it would take to make it go away. Both of these cases appear to be on the same lines, [/font][font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]neither case is very far along, and both look weak. If the individuals can find the money to fight the megacorp, it will almost certainly end in a settlement for them. [/font]
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[font="arial, sans-serif"]The class action lawsuit for OtherOS was brought against Sony, and they've got a lot of fairly good reasons behind it. Sony will probably settle and refund a few cents to each PS3 owner who registers in the class.[/font]
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[font="arial, sans-serif"]The LG lawsuit is another retaliation suit because they are playing patent warfare with various hardware divisions. Similar story with Parallel Processing Corp. Basically Sony has sued these groups in the past for patent violations, and now they're suing back where Sony is allegedly violating their patents. [/font]
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[font="arial, sans-serif"]The US Air Force complaint has quieted down, my guess is there was some closed-door negotiations on it. The US Air Force has enough resources to force the company to the bargaining table without a lawsuit.[/font]

At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, but... what's this about?

Some guy found out some 20-byte "code" which is... whatever.... might just be a SHA-1 value or something, judging from its length?

So, this code allegedly "unlocks" a Playstation, in other words, you have root access to a machine that you own and which is under your physical control anyway. A machine, which by the way is a toy. I mean, it's not like you control nucelar weapons with a playstation.

Some boys put that number on their website and Sony files a lawsuit, and then some PR guy at Sony posts it over half of the internet.

Is this like... an early April's fool joke, or something?

Well I did say hacker lawsuit so it was obviously not the LG one (plus the obvious is that LG has money, so of course if I was talking of that one, Sony has money to gain/lose on that one). I forgot about otherOS and yes I'm talking about the Hotz guy that cracked the security.

[font="arial, sans-serif"]The US Air Force complaint has quieted down, my guess is there was some closed-door negotiations on it. The US Air Force has enough resources to force the company to the bargaining table without a lawsuit.[/font]

"Hello Mr. Smith, I understand we'll be discussing your removal of OtherOS today. Perhaps you've met my associate Mr. F-35 Lightning. He will be moderating our discussions today..."

At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, but... what's this about?

Some guy found out some 20-byte "code" which is... whatever.... might just be a SHA-1 value or something, judging from its length?

So, this code allegedly "unlocks" a Playstation, in other words, you have root access to a machine that you own and which is under your physical control anyway. A machine, which by the way is a toy. I mean, it's not like you control nucelar weapons with a playstation.

Some boys put that number on their website and Sony files a lawsuit, and then some PR guy at Sony posts it over half of the internet.

Is this like... an early April's fool joke, or something?

It was significant because sony stopped allowing people to run non-sony approved code on their console and never allowed access to the PS3's gpu. Having this code would allow you to license any code in theory including game isos eventually.

in theory including game isos eventually.
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Its more than just a theory, and its happened already:

PS3 piracy - it begins. First hacked game shown running on unmodded PS3

Now that their security has been cracked it essentially throws the doors wide open for piracy of games, anyone that wants can go download some tiny software onto a usb drive and stick it in the playstation and then it will play pirated games. Some publishers say it could end up being even worse than on the PSP.

Plus I've heard that this seriously compromises the security of the PSN online network as a whole, so now hackers can modify any game code for online play (similar to hacking on the PC), leading to rampant online multiplayer hacking/cheating. There's probably no anti-cheat functionality built into most of these games probably because they had previously relied of the security of the environment.