14 DAY TRIAL // George Hotz, or Geohot, as the iOS jailbreak community knows him best, is facing legal action from Sony, the company whose PlayStation 3 has been successfully hacked by Hotz.
The hacker could have easily avoided the legal backfire from the Japanese electronics manufacturer, had he not released a custom (hacked) PlayStation 3 firmware build to the world, documents handed to Hotz show.
Sony has reportedly asked for a restraining order against Hotz, as well as against the "hacking group" fail0verflow (Hector Cantero, Sven Peter, "Bushing," and "Segher"), and several other (unnamed) individuals, over the exploit and its release, Engadget reports.
According to the Proposed Order, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) has alleged that each defendant, individually and in concert with the other defendants, has:
1. Circumvented effective technological protection measures (“TPMs”) employed by SCEA to protect against unauthorized access to and/or copying of SCEA’s proprietary PlayStation 3 computer entertainment systems (“PS3 System”), and other copyrighted works;
2. Trafficked in circumvention technology, products, services, methods, codes, software tools, devices, component or part thereof, including but not limited to the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (“ECDSA”) Keys, encryption and/or decryption keys, dePKG firmware decrypter program, Signing Tools, 3.55 Firmware Jailbreak, and/or any other technologies that enable unauthorized access to and/or copying of PS3 Systems and other copyrighted works.
The makers of the PlayStation 3 home entertainment system cite violations of Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, various copyright infringements, and other acts of binary malfeasance, the tech site informs.
Geohot is best known for his Blackra1n and Limera1n jailbreak tools which work well as alternatives to the iPhone Dev Team’s programs aimed at compromising the iPhone operating system.
In July, 2011, George Hotz, announced his retirement from hacking iDevices, saying that it was not fun as it used to be.
According to Hotz, people were taking too seriously something he used to do when time hung heavy.