I can't say I'm surprised, but the world view of the console hackers really doesn't make sense to me. Sony had PS3 with Linux, so most of them were happy, but some guy decided to jailbreak it anyway. Sony removes Linux because of the guy who jailbroke the PS3. ( i believe this falls under "one bad apple spoils the bunch" and "this is why we can't have nice things" Hackers get annoyed at Sony for removing an advertised feature and hack the PS3. Admittedly they don't do anything to allow piracy, but they've revealed how they've done it to the world. It's like, I'm having a party, everyone's having fun until one dweeb starts a fight or spikes the punch. I make everybody leave and lock the doors and windows. Partygoers, angry at no longer having anywhere to party, decide to break into my house and rummage around my drawers, revealing to the world my hidden secrets and then leave. The doors and windows left wide open. And everyone knowing about my Jonny Depp pyjamas.
While I understand the objective of this is going to be piracy. I can't condone the illegitimate use of DCMA (can't copyright hardware), and misuse of anti-terrorism/national security legislature (CFAA) to help a private corporation. At the end of the day you are slapping a guy, who tinkered with a piece of hardware he bought. The illegal act would be those who run with it and actually COMMIT a crime.
At best he is an accessory before the fact to copyright infringement. You'd have to really stretch the imagination to even be charged with that. Of course, we can't have people going against corporate interests in America. So they have to skew the intent of other legislation in order to charge this guy with what exactly? Nobody knows, or really cares. There was a time this obviously smart guy would be offered jobs for what he did, maybe even with Sony to work on future security. But in this pussy-whipped corporate oligarchy we live in, they go crying to federal court instead. Federal court itself has turned into Corporate Americas version of Murder Inc, they will enforce Sony's will and stomp his ass.
I'm with Supersonic. I think you should be able to tinker as much as you like with hardware you've purchased. Sure, this might have been used for piracy later, but I don't see a crime here. The goal could have just as easily been homebrew development or installing Linux on a PS3 Slim. You can't assume things. I hope this guy knows about DBAN.