OC man charged with hacking video game consoles
Federal agents arrested an Anaheim resident Monday on charges that he modified home video game consoles to play counterfeit games.
Pirated game discs for the Xbox, Wii, or Playstation game consoles can cost as little as 10 dollars. That’s fifty bucks cheaper than legit discs. But manufacturers program game consoles to reject counterfeit games. Federal prosecutor Mark Krause says that’s why a lot of people called on 27-year-old Matthew Krippen.
CA/Local News
"So they would go to folks like Krippen, who would basically hack Xboxes and circumvent the technological measures that manufacturers had employed to try protect their interest in their intellectual property of their games."
Krause says Matthew Krippen advertised online and had a large clientele. Krippen pleaded not guilty in federal court. Krause says the Southland’s rife with these kinds of crimes because a lot of people here have the technical savvy to circumvent copyright protection programs.
The prosecutor also says this is a large market for counterfeit products.
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3 months, 2 weeks ago
This is an issue of liberty. If you but a game console, or an iPhone, etc. you should be able to run what you want on it.
Google for "homebrew wii games". There are many people writing games for Wii that are not signed by the manufacturer, and therefore will not run on the console unless it is modded as Krippen does for profit.
I look at it as providing a service which supports other peoples liberty to use their purchased computer equipment as they see fit.
The DMCA says otherwise, but this is exactly why the DMCA should be repealed. Up to 10 years for soldering, folks.
3 months, 2 weeks ago
@ John R. Hogerhuis:
Sure, it should be entirely legal for people to work on Homebrew applications. However, in this case, advertising for and aiding people in pirating games crosses the line. There are plenty of examples of the DMCA being wrong (DeCSS, etc.) but this probably isn't one.
If he merely advertised allowing the console to run unsigned binaries for homebrew and did not configure the system in a way which allowed piracy, he would probably not be in jail right now. Also, if he wasn't charging for it, he'd probably also still be free, just like the people that wrote the Wii homebrew software.
3 months, 2 weeks ago
Joe,
Whether he charges for it shouldn't matter. I should be able to pay someone else to help me exercise my freedom in using equipment I bought.
As to advertising, or whatever... I read one article that said he worked completely by word of mouth. It makes no difference. I think what he did SHOULD be a legitimate service, but it isn't because of the DMCA.
The DMCA takes your freedom to use the stuff you buy in the way you want, in order to protect a corporate business model. That's wrong.
Of course, prosecute piracy, great. But prosecute piracy, not console modding. They are separable issues.
3 months, 1 week ago
If you ask me,
Pirating games and using modded software to play hacked games is wrong in every jurisdiction. I can understand the homebrew thing but most of the homebrew community is on the PC side mostly since there are a lot of amateurs making games that can somewhat rival the professionals.
That point is Piracy just sucks. Modding ruins the warranty making the modded system that had failed on you let's say an hour before unable to be fixed by the company holding the rights to service the system. I would not mod any of my video game consoles. PCs are fine to mod but then again not all PCs are alike on the inside. Most of the time your Wii will be the same as if not equal to the Wii that is also in the shop.
This is where the DMCA falls into the situation. You can't change what is good for the system. The Consoles themselves are an intellectual property covered by copyright making any mod illegal. Unless the owners say YOU ARE ALLOWED then the Mod Community will win.