Skip to main content

Anyone who visited GeoHot’s PS3 jailbreak website is now part of Sony lawsuit

A US federal magistrate judge has ruled that Sony may learn the identities of anyone who visited the website of PlayStation 3 jailbreak hacker George Hotz since January 2009, Wired reports.

Hotz — a renowned 21-year-old hacker, famous for his iPhone jailbreaks, who goes by the handle GeoHot — has been accused of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for hacking the Sony PS3 in a way that allows users to install whatever software they like on the normally-closed device. After completing the jailbreak hack, Hotz published an encryption key and software tools on his website, providing anyone with the means to recreate the hack on their own PS3.

The subpoena, issued by Magistrate Joseph Spero of San Francisco, requires Bluehost, which hosts geohot.com, to provide Sony with “documents reproducing all server logs, IP address logs, account information, account access records and application or registration forms” related to Hotz’s website. This includes “any other identifying information corresponding to persons or computers who have accessed or downloaded files hosted using your service and associated with the www.geohot.com website, including but not limited to the geohot.com/jailbreak.zip file.”

Additional subpoenas give Sony the right to access information from YouTube about anyone who watched a video showing the Hotz jailbreak in action, or simply commented on the video. Google must hand over logs related to Hotz’s Blogger.com blog, and Twitter must also relinquish any information related to Hotz’s tweets, including “documents sufficient to identify all names, addresses, and telephone numbers associated with the Twitter account.”

Sony’s reasons for requesting such a wide-reaching subpoena are two fold: First, they want to show how pervasive Hotz’s PS3 jailbreak is. And second, they want to provide evidence that a large number of people in northern California downloaded the jailbreak file, which would help justify them suing Hotz in San Francisco rather his home-state of New Jersey.

Technology rights advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) say the subpoenas are too far-reaching.

“I think the these subpoenas, the information they seek, is inappropriate,” said EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry.

Sony says Hotz’s jailbreak has helped people run pirated copies of games, which is one of their primary reasons for filing the lawsuit. Hotz contends that his jailbreak was written in such a way as to thwart pirates as much as possible.

Editors' Recommendations

Andrew Couts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
How to buy and customize ships in Sea of Thieves
The name King of Red Lions floats above a red, customized ship in Sea of Thieves.

The newest season of Sea of Thieves is here to take you back to your favorite swashbuckling adventure world. And whether that means you're checking out the series for the first time or you're having trouble remembering everything from the last time you played, you're probably aware that you'll need a ship to find a transport your booty around. Here's how to get a ship in Sea of Thieves as well as customize it to your liking.

Read more
Quick! This PS5 bundle just got an unprecedented price cut
The Playstation 5 system standing upright.

We didn't expect the PlayStation 5 Slim, the updated version of Sony's video game console, to go on sale this soon, but you can already get the PlayStation 5 Slim Marvel's Spider-Man 2 bundle from Amazon with a 20% discount. From its original price of $559, you'll only have to pay $449, which is a fantastic price for this gaming machine. PS5 deals always attract a lot of attention, so we expect this offer to get sold out quickly. If you want to take advantage of it, you're going to have to hurry in completing your purchase.

Why you should buy the PlayStation 5 Slim Marvel's Spider-Man 2 bundle
The PlayStation 5 Slim is more than just a slimmed-down version of the original PlayStation 5 -- though the difference is noticeable with 18% less weight and 30% less volume for the disc version. There's no performance upgrade between the PS5 Slim and PS5, and you'll be able to play all of the PlayStation 5 games on either model, but the PS5 Slim comes with a 1TB of storage with around 842GB usable, compared to 825GB with 667GB usable in the original PS5. That's nearly 200GB of extra space for your installed games, save data, and screenshots.

Read more
How to change your Steam username
Steam library.

Unless you've got an absolute premium username or have too many linked accounts to name, there's no reason to stick with the same username forever. Unlike some services that offer limited username changes or charge to change your tag, Steam allows users to adjust their usernames at any time.

You don't have to keep that awful username you picked on some random Tuesday before hopping into a game. Here's how you can make a change.

Read more