Facebook hires George Hotz

[Hellhammer]

http://techunwrapped.com/2011/06/25/geohot-now-working-at-facebook/

I don't usually like posting threads like this but I found this to be particularly interesting news and this hasn't been posted yet.

Essentially, I'm thinking does this give kids the wrong picture? Hacking is something that is in general considered to be illegal but this could give people the picture that by hacking, you can get a great job and be famous. I understand that Hotz must have some serious skills and it would be waste not to put him do some legal work too, but still.

 

[Heilage]

Most hackers are whitehat, e.g. working for software developers with security. This is quite common.

 

[kresh]

Most hackers are whitehat, e.g. working for software developers with security. This is quite common.

Hotz wasn't a white hat though.

 

[Heilage]

Wasn't being the keyword. People can be turned

 

[soco]

Hotz wasn't a white hat though.

For what it's worth, he wasn't a black hat either.

More of a grey hat. Or rather a kid tinkering around with baby stuff. Just happened to be he was really really good at it and now, it's time for him to put those skills to big-boy use.

 

[GoCubsGo]

While I understand it sends one message that could be wrong, it could also be sending another message that is more positive. If you have the skills to do what he has done then why not market them professionally and really make some coin?

 

[*LTD*]

It's walking a fine line, hiring these hackers. I take a rather dim view of the practice, but I can understand some of the positives.

It appears Hotz was the more innocuous kind.

 

[Liquorpuki]

The guy also condemned the stealing of PSN info so he's not of the same mentality as Anonymous, Lulzsec, etc. He's pretty much only a hacker in the sense that people now use the words jailbreaking and hacking interchangeably.

The guy's got a brilliant engineering mind in general that's cross-discipline. Look at what he's done with robotics and image processing. This is not the same thing as Facebook hiring Topiary or Sabu.

 

[0dev]

This is awesome news. I knew one of these big companies would snap him up eventually.

The type of hacking Hotz did/does is 100% legal. Remember, there is nothing wrong with hacking in itself, it's only hacking into other peoples' stuff that's illegal.

 

[rhett7660]

This is awesome news. I knew one of these big companies would snap him up eventually.

The type of hacking Hotz did/does is 100% legal. Remember, there is nothing wrong with hacking in itself, it's only hacking into other peoples' stuff that's illegal.

Then what part would there be for the hacking? What are you hacking into, if it isn't other peoples networks, servers, routers etc? Please elaborate? Unless of course you are going to be paid by said person to find all the security holes in their system, but then would that be really hacking?

 

[soco]

This is awesome news. I knew one of these big companies would snap him up eventually.

The type of hacking Hotz did/does is 100% legal. Remember, there is nothing wrong with hacking in itself, it's only hacking into other peoples' stuff that's illegal.

I agree completely. Can we keep in mind that he's not a hacker like ZeroCool was?

Come on guys.

 

[Hellhammer]

The type of hacking Hotz did/does is 100% legal

Why did Sony sue him then?

 

[Lagmonster]

He was a "hacker" in the old-school sense, not a "cracker". Not a criminal, not a "script kiddie", etc.

 

[0dev]

Then what part would there be for the hacking? What are you hacking into, if it isn't other peoples networks, servers, routers etc? Please elaborate? Unless of course you are going to be paid by said person to find all the security holes in their system, but then would that be really hacking?

If you own an iPhone and you find security holes in your own iPhone and use those security holes to run unsigned code, as he did, that's 100% legal.

Why did Sony sue him then?

Because copyright law is down the s**tter. Jailbreaking a phone is declared legal under the DMCA but exactly the same process under a console isn't because "it might be used for piracy", basically. Sony then used this misconception, and pretended homebrew didn't exist, to win their case. This isn't the same as criminal hacking, however. It's just like any other copyright suit.

 

[Hellhammer]

Because copyright law is down the s**tter. Jailbreaking a phone is declared legal under the DMCA but exactly the same process under a console isn't because "it might be used for piracy", basically. Sony then used this misconception, and pretended homebrew didn't exist, to win their case. This isn't the same as criminal hacking, however. It's just like any other copyright suit.

Doesn't make it legal though. The law isn't always reasonable but it's still there and violating it is illegal. I know Hotz doesn't hack servers and steal personal data like CC numbers or anything like that (or we just don't know about it, he's too good ), but his hacking has gotten him into a lawsuit.

 

[0dev]

Doesn't make it legal though. The law isn't always reasonable but it's still there and violating it is illegal. I know Hotz doesn't hack servers and steal personal data like CC numbers or anything like that (or we just don't know about it, he's too good ), but his hacking has gotten him into a lawsuit.

True, but you can still say it wasn't criminally illegal, and the only reason for the suit is Sony spends more on lawyers than security (as was later evidenced by whoever hacked the PSN and basically every site they run). If they were smart, they'd have hired George first and got him to lock down their network and their consoles, but alas, they prefer the courtroom over caution and look where it got them.

Facebook, on the other hand, has hired hackers in the past, and they've never had a data breach breach and are growing more and more everyday (for better or for worse; I personally despise Facebook as a site but I admire it as a business).

 

[rhett7660]

True, but you can still say it wasn't criminally illegal, and the only reason for the suit is Sony spends more on lawyers than security (as was later evidenced by whoever hacked the PSN and basically every site they run). If they were smart, they'd have hired George first and got him to lock down their network and their consoles, but alas, they prefer the courtroom over caution and look where it got them.

Facebook, on the other hand, has hired hackers in the past, and they've never had a data breach breach and are growing more and more everyday (for better or for worse; I personally despise Facebook as a site but I admire it as a business).

He got into something, which makes it illegal. Doesn't matter if he took anything he still went in. Correct?

 

[Lagmonster]

It was a civil suit, not criminal.

 

[0dev]

He got into something, which makes it illegal. Doesn't matter if he took anything he still went in. Correct?

No. If you get into a device you own it's completely legal. If you get into someone else's server/computer/phone/whatever than, yes, it's illegal no matter what, unless they've specifically given you permission to do it.

But, Hotz never hacked anyone else's devices. He found security holes in his own and ran unsigned code, then he provided tools for anyone else who wanted to use them to run unsigned code on their own devices too (i.e., a jailbreak).

 

[rhett7660]

No. If you get into a device you own it's completely legal. If you get into someone else's server/computer/phone/whatever than, yes, it's illegal no matter what, unless they've specifically given you permission to do it.

But, Hotz never hacked anyone else's devices. He found security holes in his own and ran unsigned code, then he provided tools for anyone else who wanted to use them to run unsigned code on their own devices too (i.e., a jailbreak).

Ok, that is what I was getting at, getting into others is bad, doing it to yourself is good! Boy we could run with this one all night long lol.

 

[*LTD*]

Ok, that is what I was getting at, getting into others is bad, doing it to yourself is good! Boy we could run with this one all night long lol.

Certainly better than taking down the CIA's website for kicks, I must say.

 

[0dev]

Ok, that is what I was getting at, getting into others is bad, doing it to yourself is good! Boy we could run with this one all night long lol.

That's it in a nutshell.

It's also important to note that when you run a jailbreak tool, you are hacking. You're using a pre-built tool, and that loses you some l33t points D), but it's hacking none the less, and if you jailbroke someone else's iPhone without asking permission, that would technically constitute an offense in most countries.

But more to the point, hacking gets too much of a bad press. We always hear about the hackers who've just DDoS'd the police or whatever, but we rarely hear about the genius who's single handedly outsmarting Apple every time they come out with a new firmware (and I say rarely because Mr. Hotz has had a few media appearances, but they hardly made it big news because they can't sensationalise a white hat).

At the end of the day, though, hacking has a lot of legitimate uses - you've got the guys who find exploits in Firefox and report them to Mozilla, you've got the guys who test network security, you've got the guys who learn hacking in order to better secure a network they actually run, you've got the guys coming out with the jailbreaks, and so on.

It's also worth noting that the very term "hacking" only refers to the act of breaking through security because that's what the media use it for. The correct term for that is "cracking", however, and "hackers" can just be software developers. In fact, in the Linux community, that's what the term is often used for.

So, yeah, end of lecture, hope you learned something today

 

[Heilage]

Why did Sony sue him then?

Because they are idiots and exploit the technological analfabetism of most of the justice system?