Along with my friend I have hacked Furby…seriously. All I need is a computer for him and his usb board. WE will create a new breed of Furbys…Furby Battles…imagine a skillful swift towards a furbys infrared ultraviolet sensors. They’ll have knives to kill eachother, and mines (of course electronically charged one) I have also comed close to cracking his code and creating the perfet program for such things. Any other known Furby hackers otu there? If so, I have a question. Is this illegal or is it lawful? Will I get payed by anyone (please dont tell me about google already searched it and nothing valueable) As well as battling they’ll speak in any language and voice. They will have a keyboard remote, and they’ll speed on wheels theres only one thing that will make them distinct among others (their cloak, otherwise known as their fur) Thanks!
You may be interested in this site: http://www.afu.com/furby/winner.html.
You might also be interested in what’s for sale here: http://www.appspec.net/products/UpgradeKits/FurbyUpgrade/root.html
Um…chukum, thanks for your help but I already knew about that site lol.
IANA lawyer, but generally speaking, I believe that hacking software and electronic games is technically illegal.
Which is probably why there are no Google hits for “help wanted–Furby hackers”.
Making modifications to something you lawfully purchased is lawful. It’s your property.
I take it you’re not familiar with the DMCA.
freido: I am familiar with it, but I don’t see how it applies here. No copyright controls are being broken.
True, but I just wanted to make the point that there’s existing law which specifically says that you can’t make modifications to certain things that you own, regardless of your intent.
But the OP is also talking about being paid to hack software, not just about modifying something he purchased, for his own amusement.
**This, taken together with his recent threads on Are there any on-line jobs out there for a 14 year old? and “How can I become a computer programmer at age 14?”, indicate to me that he’s looking for a way to make money by hacking Furby.
The answer to that is, no, it’s illegal, nobody’s going to hire you to hack Furby.
Ducky, there’s nothing that implies he’s going to do something illegal by modifying something he bought. He’s not trying to modify something with a copy protection, like a DVD or a game, he’s just trying to get a little experience, and, perhaps, money, out of a toy.
“I’m a high school dropout. Is there any way for me to make money with my Altair 8800?” – Little Billy Gates.
“I’m a college student. Is there any way for me to make money by modifying a freely-available UNIX clone for Intel PCs?” – Little Linus Torvalds.
Right, I understand that, but what I’m addressing is that it sounds to me like he’s wondering whether he can modify a Furby and then re-sell his modified Furby to someone else.
Which is illegal, ain’t it? The software that runs Furby is copyrighted, ain’t it? So if you rewrite Furby’s software and then resell the toy, it would be like rewriting The Tommyknockers and then reselling it.
Wouldn’t it?
Well, If I did hack Furby…then itd be my sole property, if Tiger ® wants to hire me…would they allow my invention to be sold? (itd be mine tho)
fauxpas, why don’t you modify the Furby you have and take the resulting masterpiece to Furby’s R Us (or whoever makes the things) and show it to them. Most businesses are usually pleased to find a new way to make money.
You have the idea and the prototype and they have the money and manufactoring facilities. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
wow! IM RICH!! I mean we’re rich…im going to call him up now. Thanks SandyHook…I see peace upon you.
Lord knows I would like to hack my sister’s furby…into small pieces.
Not until you learn to spell, son.
You can buy something, modify it, and sell it. Just don’t make it violate FCC interference rules, and don’t give away the code that you extract from the Furby. Also, don’t use the word furby in any advertising.
The DMCA does not prevent you from doing anything you want to something you own. What it DOES do is prevent you from doing things with stuff you do NOT own. It’s a common misbelief that you own a DVD or CD that you buy in a store. You do not. You own a license to the content and the physical medium it comes on, not the content itself. When you buy a furby, you own the furby itself, and a license to the operating software. If you modify that software, you may have committed a crime. If you write your own software in a clean room to replace the existing software, you have not.
Disclaimer: I am a geek, not a lawyer.
Funny, I don’t think they ever bothered to include an End User License Agreement with each Furby sold.
Ok, we now have out program from Furby (i find it very very queerish why they’d let us just have it?) now we’re deciphering it, yet the schematic seems to involve other components (we’re thinking of getting a Heavy Risk Loan from the bank…mabey a few grand to buy our laptops and equipment for the games and Furby)