Famous iOS Hacker, George “GeoHot” Hotz who is known as the founder of iPhone hacking is working on Sony PlayStation 3 these days. Recently he released the “root keys” for Sony PS3. By using these keys anyone can install custom HomeBrew Application on the PS3. He is not the only one jailbreaking the Sony PS3, there are few guys from Germany known as fail0verflow who worked on decrypting the root keys.
Sony filed a Lawsuit against GeoHot and fail0verflow, because they consider this act as installing pirated Games on PS3.
The Lawsuit says:
Defendants George Hotz, “Bushing,” Hector Cantero, Sven Peter and “Segher”
(collectively, “Defendants”) are computer hackers. Working individually and in concert with one another, Defendants recently bypassed effective technological protection measures (“TPMs”) employed by plaintiff Sony Computer Entertainment America LLP (“SCEA”) in its proprietary PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system (“PS3 System”). Through the Internet, Defendants are distributing software, tools and instructions (collectively, “Circumvention Devices”) that circumvent the TPMs in the PS3 System and facilitate the counterfeiting of video games. Already, pirated video games are being packaged and distributed with these circumvention devices. Declaration of Ryan T. Bricker In Support of Ex Parte Motion for Temporary Restraining Order And Order To Show Cause Re Preliminary Injunction; Order for Impoundment (“Bricker Decl.”) ¶2, Exh. A. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65 and Local Rules 65-1 and 7-10, SCEA moves ex parte to put an immediate halt to the ongoing distribution of these illegal Circumvention Devices and avoid
irreparable harm to SCEA and to other video game software developers stemming from video game piracy.
After that GeoHot posted the following note on his website:
As of 1/11/2011 7:20 PM EST, I have been served with papers, see below…
Also he appeared on the show G4′s The Loop talking about his Lawsuit and the Sony PS3 jailbreak. GeoHot claims that jailbreaking is not piracy, infact it helps Sony to improve their security system.
Check out the video below of GeoHot after Sony filed Lawsuit against him.
Update 1:
GeoHot Rap Sony against Sony
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The reason that OtherOS was removed was because of Mr Hotz activities in the first place. Ironically, if he’d have left the PS3 alone, none of this would have happened, but he just couldn’t help himself.
As for the ‘I don’t condone piracy issue’. I think he’s got his head buried in the sand. It’s a bit like me picking the lock on a jewellery warehouse in the middle of the night, then informing all the local thieves of my actions, but at the same time saying: ‘Now the doors are open, but it’s wrong to steal!’
So, now the doors are open, what’s next? Well, here’s a thought. you hack your PS3, get a custom firmware from wherever, you put it on your PS3, all is working fine except of course you don’t know that your PS3 is actually part of a DDOS system. Oops. How we have a bigger problem.
PS3 antivirus anyone?
You’re logic is extremely flawed and your jewelry metaphor is completely inapplicable. Maybe if the jewelry warehouse was your property that you legally own and the jeweler sold these warehouses to everyone, then I could maybe make a connection.
Think before you speak. It’s ignorant paranoid people like yourself that give big brother the ability to take away civil rights.
Lets say the hackers has the exact same door and security on the jewelry store (thats his own property), Hacks it and tells everyone how to use it…Sure, all is fine if you hack on your own doors but people will try and hack the jewelry store next, And now the store is at risk.
What ever GeoHots intentions are, He’s opening the doors for other people to hack the ps3 and pirate games.
they paid for the fuckin thing. if they wanna shit on it they can! if it gets a virus, thats their problem. all this really did was tell the consumer that when you buy something its not really yours cause you cant to what you want with it. fuckin moron. get a clue, he is fighing for your rights to do what the fuck you want to do with your property…..
I’m glad he did this. Just because you jailbreak doesn’t mean you condone piracy. I jailbroke my iphone so I could tether and do the things I paid for my phone to do, not what Apple WANTS me to do with the phone. Really? He didn’t create any backup managers with it, what people did with that info is up to them but not all of us are running backups or want to.
You can use any analogy, piracy is out there yes, but don’t tell me when I spend $300 on something that I am only able to use it the way the manufacturer wants me to use it.
George said it perfectly “If you buy something, do you really own it?” Obviously not so why do we spend our hard earned money on things we can do with what we want?
I hope he wins.
i think u r right my fren. u paid for it u will do whatever u want to do with. sony u need to improve ur security system rather than hunting the hackers
True, it was hackers who caused other os to be removed, but it was not just them. People were using the system as a second computer, loading computer games and other things onto it and not buying more sony games. Sony got mad and took it out. Also, this has very little to do with other os.
The only signifigance for it was that it made hackers angry that they took out the “fun” features of the ps3.
As for the firmware openening the way for piracy, his didn’t. If you pay attention, in order to pirate games you must either buy a jailbreaking device, or make a firmware yourself that patches the ps3’s syscalls. The way the ps3 is designed makes patching the syscalls painful at best.
As for the rest of the “pirated” things, how can you pirate something that is made freely availible by the developer? All the homebrew out there (pretty much) is available from the developer, free of charge. Somehow, I think we got pirating and stealing mixed up, and then forgot that you can’t steal free stuff. Otherwise, I pirate on my ps3 everytime I download and play a demo.
This jailbreak has completly ruined mw2 every single game is a challenge lobby, i cant wait for the next update and i hope geohot doesnt make another jailbreak for ps3
I thought the iphonejailbreak was worth it cuz apple doesnt make too much money on apps, so I’m fine. But the problem with the ps3 is that these games are expensive, and real living people do this for a living. A dollar app is different to a 10 dollar app, as apps were overpriced. But the actual console games, I mean that its people’s kifetime working, its not ethical. But more over I know most of you are Gamers and think selfishly.
UNCHARTED 3 gets released this year, and those developers did a great job on their games, years amount of work, you think if people start stealing their work they’ll be motivated to do their best work on Uncharted 3, probably not. So please guys I ask you to think about not Geohot or free games but the people who make games for a living, and future games, how good they’ll be if developers wern’t motivated to do work for us fans, reakky think about it.
Geohot you went too far this time…
i understand u buy it its yours campaign but releasing this info to the public and showing every one how to do it is like hackers the final frontier. this is not for personal use anymore its affecting people who choose not to hack and play their games the way they wee suppose to be played. maybe if u hacked it and couldn’t mess with other people stuff who didn’t wanna get involved with it that would be fine but when im playin MW2 i dont wonna see people flying around the map like there on a space ship.
Yeh I agree to this fully but sony is making legit customers pay for Geohotz actions this is not fair buts sonyz stupid rules of policy same as taken away the other os and ps2 playback I feel the ps3 would have been hacked without geohotz and sony should take more action on people selling Branded sony products on ebay that are clearly not official goods from sony this is where they should be focusing on and keeping there customers happy :+)
These f*ing hackers need to get a life. There ruining my online gaming experience. Hopefully this GeoHotz guy gets sued up the a**.
This guy is ridiculous, hacking a phone that is for PERSONAL use is completely different from hacking a console. These hacks are going to affect everyone that plays online games on the PS3 whether they want it to or not. Lets not kid ourselves, people are going to use this to pirate and cheat, and it will most likely ruin the industry. I hope Sony wins any lawsuits that are brought up against this guy.
the thing is he’s done his part. now people know how to create custom firmware it will be very hard to stop them so he never has to even jb again as ther ew ill be loads more people developing jailbrake. if sony want to stop hackers bring microsoft in to do their security and then sony will never be hacked again
hmmm…maybe paying for xbox live will pay off, haha.
Take that sony!
ps3 can suck me Wii Wii.
I think that if you bought it then you own it and you have the right to use it however the hell you want. No multi-billion dollar corporation or anyone are going to tell me otherwise.
I think this hack just made sony realize the fact that they cant just put any thing they want to sell through the customers throaght,think about the price tag of a newly released games,its insane,if sony wanted people not to adopt piracy,then bring down the games title price to half or atleast near to half,increase the core console price a little,so that they can tally up their profits,they wont do that right,their console was unhackable at a point before,if they had taught abt the poor consumers who pays for this kind of money to sony titles even some times for a f****d game,they would have reduced price a little bit ri8,and then they would have sold more titles than before and that would have got them more profit,but they were greedy and taught that since they had a unhackable console,they can just put a price tag on their console titles that they found profitable for them.now how does it feel sony,i will say join the club of xbox 360 and wii’s hacked console club
xbox 360 and wii are eagerly waiting to ask their beloved sony ps3 brother “what took you so long brother” 
Your price argument is funny. I paid $120 for street fighter 2 on the super nintendo (1993?). With all the extra high def graphics, story, audio, movies, development time, playstation network, etc, etc on a ps3 disk they should be worth $1000. I personally don’t mind paying 50 bucks for a quality game.
These hacks indeed affect everyone on the PlayStation Network, and maybe you hackers should consider that most people don’t want to play a game that is hacked, maybe some people want to play fair?
Sony removed network play modes from games I legally bought, because I did not want to remove Linux from my console. This is a fraud. It is incorrect to blame Geohot for fascist practices at Sony. Also despite x360 being hacked for many years already, new great games are still appearing on both platforms. BTW, I don’t care much about PS3 overhyped exclusives, except for Demon Souls, maybe.
Sony probally have overreacted to Hotz’s work, but if you really think about, it still a fair decision. The statement that the jailbreaking will not push the piracy issue forward is just wrong. Even if by intention Hotz’s did not want to push piracy, it can STILL be done by tweaking his original jailbreaking so that is allows unnoficial games to be run. Releasing this device to open source is like releasing an tutorial on how to make a homemade nuclear bomb, this is just too dangerous and too powerful to be handled to anyone. If Hotz’s really wanted to make homebrewing an free and supported activity he shouldn’t have released, but approach sony with it and propose de developtment of a free SDK supported or controlled by Sony.
Hacking a powerful video game console has a lot of different implications on hacking a phone. The concept of fairness is essential do gaming, therefore add hacking to it is just too dangerous for the sake of it, look at what modern warfare 2 has become. It is by no means the same thing as hacking a phone.
Hotz’s might be a programming genius, but he still has a lot to mature.
i don’t see how this is any different than a phone. my phone does gaming, and online gaming. they are both for personal use. yes just because u play online doesn’t mean its not for personal use. seems to me a lot of you guys are getting mad at this guy cuz you have been the victim of cheating online. he didn’t do it, some1 took what he did and made the cheat engines you are all so pissed about. all he did was make it so we could sign code. (something that should be included in the consels core features in my opinion) what people do with that ability is on them. you don’t blame gun manufactures for gun deaths. you blame the person pulling the trigger. all i see is people blurring the real issue.
Iphone gaming is a lot simpler than console gaming, it’s way more casual. The rules are simple and low effective, breaking them doesn’t make too much of a fuzz. Console gaming on the other hand is the oposite, not only that, but different than the phone, gaming is It’s major feature, the core function of the device. Someone is hacking Iphone games? Who cares about it? as long as the device is doing and receveing calls is doing the job people pay them to do. Now, if Hotz released a device that allowed people to make and receive calls for free, and used it’s signal for a lot of other things like tracking and hacking people and harass their lifes, Im pretty sure apple would be pretty pissed about. yes gun manufactures produces weapons, and you shouldn’t blame the weapon for killing, you should blame the person who used it to kill, however, it’s not anyone who can produce weapons freely and release to everyone who wants to use it. They have to pass by test, by laws, by organizations of safety, by control rules, in order to prevent the bad use of it, in order minimize the number of bad guys using it. And you can’t purchase any weapon that you want, some weapons are just too powerful to be handled to common people. Hotz hack didn’t pass by nothing of it, just it’s bare imagination of what people could use don’t quite make it. And the same goes for the PS3, wheter you like it or not, PS3 is the most powerful console in this generation, his processing power is even being used to make researches (see PS3 grid and Folding@home), but it was also used to make bad things, I remember 4chan used a cluster of PS3 to make alot of attacks by exploiting it’s cheap FLOPS. People need to see things as a whole, not just one harmless act out of teenage angstk from a nerd that doesn’t ahve anything to do with anything else.
i know next you guys should get pissed at the person who taught him.
The basic gist of Sony’s argument is that the researchers accessed their own PlayStation 3 consoles in a way that violated the agreement that Sony imposes on users of its network (and supposedly enabled others to do the same). But the researchers don’t seem to have used Sony’s network in their research — they just used the consoles they bought with their own money. Simply put, Sony claims that it’s illegal for users to access their own computers in a way that Sony doesn’t like
So, by your concept of owning, the goverment can’t act againstt you if you used products from convenience store to make a homemade bomb? it your fair use of the product don’t? How about to use the bomb on other people? It’s the use of something you made yourself! How pedantic of them to do something.
Are you seriously comparing governments protecting the general public by passing laws to regulate guns and bombs to a corporation that is trying to protect their profits by suing a kid who hacks his PS3 that he owns?
There is more at stake here than piracy and cheaters on PSN. Sony is threatening to use intellectual-property laws to control how we use the products we paid for and own. This is a bad precedence to set. Go after the people that pirate the games not someone who freed the device that can also be used in legitimate ways.
This is not the first time Sony has infringed on our rights as consumers to protect their profits. In 2005, Sony BMG included copy protection on audio CDs that installed a rootkit on computers running Windows that introduced vulnerabilities that malware can exploit without user consent. Best part? Part of that code violated GPL license for somebody else’s source code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
well said dude. if we let them sue us for opeing our own stuff, then we open flood gates for them to tell us how to use something we paid for. so do we really own it if we paid for it or are we basically renting it from sony? load of crap man…. power to the people!! lol
… We PAID for our PS3’s, We OWN our PS3’s so why can’t we use them however we want?? That’s like you BUYING your OWN house but someone tells you that you can only decorate it the way that they say you can. But it’s your house right??? So WHY THE FUCK CAN’T YOU DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO IT!!!!!!
PS.. LEARN HOW TO SPELL!!!! almost everyone of you are typing like illiterate retards! wtf! this isn’t a cell phone(txtng)!
We should be able to mod our systems because WE OWN THEM!!! WE’RE NOT RENTING THEM!!!!!!
What you people dont seem to understand is George Hotz never condoned piracy nor cheating in game (by the way game hacks were around long before custom firmware) also custom firmware opens the door for devs to use the PS3 as it was registered to be by law in the US the PS3 is considered as a PC not a console (for tax reasons).
If Sony couldn’t afford to pay the extra tax to sell the PS3 system as a console then they shouldn’t have removed the other OS feature (as lets be real how can you call a locked system a PC!!!!!)
I also think some one should mention graf_chokolo here as him and geo are the pioneers of PS3 CFW/Hipervisor hacks, thank god for freedom and i hope geo F#$%’s Sony from the behind for there gross abuse of power!!
so pirating is stealling? you guys have something wrong,stealling is taking the original object from a place and,pirating is making a copy of an original item,dont mix the things,or you will be supporting companies on they effort that making an illegal copy and stealling its the same shit.You guys need to be carefull with that,or one day you guys wont be hable to backup your music cds and games,because you go to jail from “stealing” are you guys taking the picture now?
All I can say to this is… Wow… What a bunch of idiots… Every single one of you and Sony! I can see a simple solution to this, and yet no one has thought about it. Everyone is crying like a baby cause there are hackers on a game, online…
So why can’t Sony just make a security on THEIR side, on the PS network to scan your computer. If everything checks out fine, your good to go! It finds a file wrong, something changed, something added. Like firmware, or messed up setting, then oops, No access for you. I don’t mean banning, or anything like that, just no access to the internet part for pirated games or hacked systems. Or even better, so people can have custom apps, Why can’t PS3s be like PCs? To access the internet in most PC games now a days, you need a CD key. Pirated the game, but don’t have the CD key? Well you can play it offline in single player, but can’t play online. Want to play online? Buy the game and get your own key! Win – Win – Win for everyone! Sony, the game makers, and the players! I mean, is it really THAT hard to do?
Everyone else has done it, I might as well too. An example of what George Hotz has done. Now read carefully, it will be almost like something said earlier, but less stupid. You own common items from the common store and build a bomb. You bought it, it’s yours. Now what do you do with it? Do you A) Use it in your back yard for your own personal fun, effecting you and only you. Or B) use it to hurt someone else, Effecting not only you but everyone else. Ofcourse option B is against the law. But should option A be? if you say no, why can people have guns? They can pretty much do the same thing, Use for personal use, or kill someone. Same thing here. Kinda. You get the point!
All he did was let us make apps for the PS3, OTHER PEOPLE made it so they can play pirated games and use hacks. Why is he being punished and not them? Because his “code” let it happen faster or easier? It’s Sony to blame not him. They could have contacted him for any number of things to offering him a job, putting up rules about his code he could have agreed to, or even asked him to stop. What do they do? Sue him… Yeah…. That will surely set an example. They royally screwed themselves big now. That, or they want him to win and hopefully let it be allowed to jailbreak everything you own legally, including every other gaming system. like the 360.
First to clear something Sony’s reputation hasn’t gone anywhere, PS3 is still one of the best selling consoles. Secondly Sony is a huge corporation and PS3 is a small market compared to their other markets. And more people play legitimately then not.
What Geohat and people like him does, actually makes us normal gamers suffer and not benefit cause of them our second os was taken away and more and more things will go. PS3 right now doesn’t charge for online play and soon they will to cover the loses for these jackasses. Whose suffering again? not these jackasses cause they don’t play games. Sony is doing the right thing by suing this little shit. If justice prevails at all he will end up getting his ass pirated in jail. Geohat says that he did it to his system and for fun, ok! then why did he share it online? with everyone else? All these piracy will end up making every console charging money for booting up the system let alone playing it. You fuck turds don’t understand that you are actually destroying it. oh one more thing Sony doesn’t give a shit about little shit holes like you cause they have paying customers unlike you faggots. Little tip you wanna hack/develop why don’t you apply for a job at Sony and you can do all that and get paid for it, you dumb fucks. but no you gotta do it at home and share it with your little friends for that recognition. So in reality you are no Robin Hood so don’t fucking pretend to be one, you are just a fucking tick ruining gaming for everyone. Fuck you and hope you go to jail and get your ass pirated you mother fucker.
I agree with everything you’ve said, Jack.
Also, being in the computer industry, jailbreaking and pirating is an insult to all the developers out there. Many companies crumble or suffer great losses; I don’t care much for the companies, but the developers deserve much more than that. They become dispossable as many need jobs and companies can afford to underpay them.
ok its 4/24/11 and the psn is down again !!! geohot is the reason behind it sony has shut down psn because he is attempting to jailbreak again this whole hackers anonymous thing hes in needs to stop ive done alot of research and there are alot of lodgical explinations as to y this is happing bu i think im on sonys side with this one if u want system that does it all make one your self and stop fu***** with sony
Guys like this should be hired by the military… On second thought, no, they shouldn’t.
Anyone want to tell me why Jimmikaelkael & Neme (FreeMcBoot), Dark_AleX (PSP CFW), or Team Twiizers (HBC) were never sued? Why attack George? Millions of people have hacked tons of other consoles over the years. Why did Sony choose to pursue him? It makes absolutely no sense to sue GeoHot for something that’s been done twice (Sony Consoles) before by others. Corporate bigots.
It’s pretty clear that you’re all smoking crack