Judge lets Sony see identities of visitors to GeoHot's PS3 hacking site

Emil

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Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero has awarded Sony a subpoena that allows the company to obtain the IP addresses of everyone who visited geohot.com, the personal website of PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as GeoHot, for the past 26 months (since January 2009). Furthermore, Sony's request for subpoenas on the account names of anyone who has accessed a PS3 jailbreak video on the 21-year-old's YouTube account, his tweets relating to the hacking on Twitter, information on people who posted comments to his blog on Blogspot, and information about his account on the PSX-Scene website, have all been granted, according to Wired.

As a result, Sony can now ask GeoHot's Web provider, Bluehost, for the IP addresses of visitors to his website who accessed or downloaded files from it. Court documents show that Sony rejected arguments submitted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that the requests were "overly broad" and violated GeoHot's rights to Free Speech. GeoHot has reportedly agreed not to oppose the subpoenas in exchange for Sony narrowing the scope of some of them.

Last month, Sony demanded that Google hand over the identities of those who have viewed or commented about the jailbreak video posted on YouTube. GeoHot posted the video on January 7, later made it private, and then pulled it on a judge's orders.

Sony's legal attacks against the hackers that released the PS3 root key and custom firmware began two months ago. The group known as fail0verflow is accused of posting a rudimentary hack in December 2010 after finding security codes for the PS3. It was refined by GeoHot weeks later when he independently found and published the PS3 root key. The resulting hacks allow homebrew apps and pirated software to run on unmodified consoles. Sony is still threatening to sue anybody posting or distributing PS3 jailbreak code, despite the fact that the company accidentally tweeted the PlayStation 3 security key.

Sony's official stance is if you crack your PS3, you'll get banned. GeoHot meanwhile says "beating them in court is just a start."

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Sony is just being ridiculous. Have they nothing better to do with their time and money?
 
Just because someone visited his site doesn't mean you can charge them with anything. A download list would be different but they could argue by downloading it there not breaking the law because the action of downloading it isn't breaking any laws especially ones regarding hacking ps3's however if they can prove you hacked your ps3 then it's a diff story. Sony is only angering the hackers who are updating and hacking the system more and more in revenge, good job Sony!
 
I've seen the code. I've watched the video. I own a PS3.

How long till I get hauled into court, do you reckon?
 
Great. Let me see what Sony will send to me. Maybe Sony will ask Techspot for my IP address? Techspot also reposted the key, lol.
 
Sony needs the information in order to create a list of people in the So Cal area. With an impressive enough number to the courts, it'll allow hotz to be tried in San Diego where sony has a larger chance of winning due to copyright laws. They also might use the list to get a potential list of ip's to to cross check with ps3's online to check for any funny buisness. It is also funny how blind you people are. If Sony does want the list to find more candidates to sue, geo hotz agreed to sell all of you out, as he didn't fight to protect any of your guys rights for visiting his site. I hope all of you who gave him money feel really stupid right about now.
 
GeoHot is a criminal and needs to be in JAIL and needs to be made an example of.
 
Guest said:
If sony does want the list to find more canadits to sue, geo hotz agreed to sell all of you out, as he didn't fight to protect any of your guys rights for visiting his site.
Source?
 
So let me get this right. Most of you feel it's OK for GeoHot to hack into a PS3?
Let's not stop there. Let the people who hack corporations and government agencies go free too.
 
This article, genius: "GeoHot has reportedly agreed not to oppose the subpoenas in exchange for Sony narrowing the scope of some of them."
 
Guest said:
So let me get this right. Most of you feel it's OK for GeoHot to hack into a PS3?
Let's not stop there. Lets let the people who hack corporations and government agencies go free too. You're all a bunch of uneducated ****** who should have your PC's hacked!
Hacking a PS3 and hacking government agencies are on completely different levels.
 
Hacking is Hacking. Period. The principles are the same. Hacking is NOT hard to learn.
Of course, the AJ-Kidd wouldn't know that.
 
Down with sony. Geohot we believe in you! Take those corporate bastards down!
 
So according to you we also can infer that killing is killing and even self defense should be a punished.

Your are just talking nonsense
 
Read the article aj? maybe read any article on the matter? they all report agreed to let sony have the information.
 
it is a very happy bright sunny day in Sonyville, long live Sony and its products.
 
My next video game machine will be a Microsoft box. Screw sony. And no I didn't hack my PS3, but Sony has a long history of abuse to consumers. It's my PS3 I should be able to do whatever I want to it. Hack someone else's machine is a totally different matter of morality, and is wrong. For the people who can't see the difference, you need to go get your IQ checked, you're can probably get government entitlements for being mentally handicapped.
 
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