What he did is called *harassment*, and is punishable by law. It's not a free speech matter, because the intent here was perfectly clear. He pleaded guilty. Feel free to disagree with prison as the punishment, though.

In a case he *didn't* plead guilty, the prosecutor would have to prove over any reasonable doubt that his intentions were malicious. Which would be pretty easy, as the evidence is there. Nothing this guy posted or did goes under satire either. It was done solely to cause severe distress.

You wouldn't use the free speech card on the right to bully someone in the workplace, or follow someone dead in their tracks for a whole day. It's harassment, stalking and/or antisocial behavior. That this was done via the Internet doesn't make any difference.

Phew, I thought I was the only one here with this opinion.
It's not about what's right, it is about what is legal and not. I totally agree with Hotz; the laws are braindead. But to *knowingly* challenge the laws and then ask for donations when the shit hits the fan? He gets no help from me. I don't condone the means.
The proper way to address this is with politics. SONY has him by the balls, no matter how unsound the laws are.

You misunderstood my proposition here. I'm not making a case for what is morally right or wrong. My point is that there are laws that exist and are very real. The fallacy "It's just a number" is not something that will hold up in court and protect you from litigation. Simply because intent and context is of the essence. So please stop using this stupid argument. It's not some silver bullet that will protect you from litigation.

This is a fallacy. Reddit people didn't get it either. In the legal system intent can be important too. The number sequence GeoHot shared is *of course* not illegal to share. But sharing the numbers *and* the inherent meaning of the numbers in how they can be used to break the PS3 security might as well be. See the difference?
Here is another analogy. No data is useful without understanding its meaning in some context. Books written in English are only useful for people who can read English. Otherwise it's just gibberish. Furthermore all data has a number representation. Do you think the stupid "it's just numbers" fallacy can be used to circumvent copyright? After all, files are "just numbers".
The key was a Sony trade secret. They do *not* own the number in any way, but it's still probably illegal to associate the number with the specific usage in breaking the PS3, and exchange this fact with others.

I've coded AVR-code in C++ with the help of a simple linker script and clever use of the GNU binutils. That's an architecture where the hardware often only has kilobytes of storage and memory. Stop spreading FUD about C++ operator overloading. No one forces you to use that feature. C++ is perfectly fine for embedded programming, as long as you have a clue about what you're doing.
Furthermore, there are no "convoluted implicit casting rules". Perhaps you mean implicit type promotion like 4 + 'a' becoming ints? It's no different from C. If you want to blame C++ for something obscure, rather take a potshot at the template system, where template candidates are chosen based on access specifiers and SFINAE. *That* is difficult to understand.

I praise EU for strengthening consumer laws, but I think this could be difficult to implement, depending on how strict it will be. Surely account information is often backed up by companies. Does this imply that they are forced by law to delete my accounts from backups as well? It sounds like a huge challenge. What if companies restore an old backup, including deleted account information? I'm all for consumer protection, but let's file this together with "company liability for computer software". Both are well meaning, and maybe even "right" in principle, but would have bad effects in practice.

Movie censorship in the US of A is bad enough as it is.
Skipping all the issues with the actual censorship process, movie companies effectively sensor themselves, which gives us a clusterfuck of PG-13 rated movies, just so they can cash in more on the extra audience/target group. I'm not saying all PG-13 movies are bad, but I'm personally left with a feeling that such movies don't show their true potential; especially when the story/theme inherently targets adults. I feel I was robbed for a better experience, just so some children's feelings won't get hurt. $deity forbid if they were to see a boob.
I like games and movies that push the limits of what's considered 'proper' (by the US moralists and people in general), and I also enjoy my slasher/grindhouse/exploitation movies occasionally (Incidentally they're all made in the 70's). There is no reason to believe that game censorship won't have a similar side-effect. This could be remedied by stretching the limits of what is considered appropriate for teenagers, so most games could be made for this age demographic without having to butcher their expressiveness in the process. Be it scary scenes, violence, cussing, drug use or sex. But since the moral values of whomever makes these censorship laws are warped compared to most people who actually *watch* movies and *play* games, I don't see this happening anytime soon.

If the score and rankings don't match up properly because of cheaters, what's the point with scoring in the first place? Just local scores to beat your own personal records? In Starcraft 2? Give me a break. And "It's a game, so why take it so seriously" is a stupid fallacy. Just because something is for fun and recreation doesn't mean it can't or should not be taken seriously. In games with other players, people expect fairness for all players. It's a basic principle.