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Judge in Sony vs. Geohot orders YouTube and others to give up users' personal info
Remember when Sony sued Geohot and demanded that YouTube hand over the user info of all the folks who posted comments to Geohot's PS3 jailbreak video? Well, score a victory for SCEA, as the judge overseeing the case's jurisdictional discovery process has ruled that Sony can get what it wanted -- information from: Bluehost (who hosts Geohot's website) regarding who downloaded the jailbreak, Twitter regarding any tweets made by Hotz, Google Blogspot regarding comments made on his blog, and the aforementioned YouTube user data. Keep in mind that Sony's getting this information to show that many of the downloaders and commenters are from Northern California and that Hotz's hacking efforts were aimed at Californians -- meaning the case should remain in the Bay Area instead of moving to New Jersey where Geohot hacked his PS3. With this new information at its disposal, Sony's better equipped to oppose Hotz's motion to dismiss in a hearing early next month, but this doesn't mean the company will succeed in its bid to keep the litigation a West Coast affair. We'll have to wait and see if this latest victory helps Sony win the war. Stay tuned.
Sony vs. Geohot litigation heats up, SCEA demands YouTube give up Hotz and Fail0verflow's personal info
Now that Sony has started gathering the evidence it needs via discovery in the lawsuit over Hotz and friends' PS3 jailbreak, the company has dropped a hammer by moving to reduce the amount of time the hackers have to get Sony the information it wants. Sony filed the motion -- which will be heard by the court tomorrow -- to better arm itself with information to oppose Geohot's motion to dismiss, scheduled to be heard in early March. Casting its evidence-gathering net far and wide, SCEA has demanded that YouTube surrender not only information for Hotz's account where his jailbreak video was posted, but also how many users accessed the video, the usernames of those with access to the video, and all usernames and IP addresses of everyone who posted or published comments to the vid. In addition to hitting up YouTube for dirt, Wired reports that Sony has demanded Twitter hand over the personal info of fail0verflow's members -- we're waiting for Sony's lawyers to don TSA gear as the next step in their search. Geohot's attorney thinks the requests seem a bit much, but we think they make sense given Sony's strategy of going after the entire fail0verflow team. While these goings-on make for fairly standard legal tactics, they won't do much for Sony's public image.
Court grants Sony's temporary restraining order against Geohot, PS3 jailbreak still available everywhere
It looked for a moment like Geohot and fail0verflow might beat Sony's DMCA lawsuit over the PS3 jailbreak on a jurisdictional technicality, but things didn't go their way: the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted Sony's request for a temporary restraining order forbidding Mr. Hotz and his merry men from distributing or linking to the jailbreak, helping or encouraging others to jailbreak, hacking into the PS3 or PSN, or distributing any information they've found while hacking. What's more, they've been ordered to turn over any computers or storage media used to create the jailbreak to Sony's lawyers -- although we've got a feeling Geohot's attorneys will raise a bit of a fuss about that. Of course, this doesn't mean that Sony's won anything substantive -- it's just proven to the court that the jailbreak will cause it ongoing harm while the case continues, and it still has to actually win its formal lawsuit to collect any damages or a permanent injunction. And let's not forget that forcing Geohot to stop distributing it won't stop anyone else -- in almost an exact mirror of the deCSS case, we're already seeing the jailbreak mirrored all over the internet. Way to learn from history, Sony. [Thanks, Henry]
Sony follows up, officially sues Geohot and fail0verflow over PS3 jailbreak
We figured Sony would follow up last night's temporary restraining order against Geohot and fail0verflow for distribution of the PS3 jailbreak with a copyright infringement lawsuit, and well, here it is. It's actually pretty straightforward, as far as these things go -- Sony alleges that George Hotz, Hector Martin Cantero, Sven Peter, and the rest of fail0verflow are: Violating §1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids bypassing access control measures; Violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which forbids accessing computers without authorization; Guilty of contributory copyright infringement for encouraging and helping others to crack PS3s as well; Violating the California Computer Crime Law, which is the state computer fraud act (think of this as a backup fraud claim); Violating the PlayStation Network's Terms of Service (which feels meaningless, really); Interfering with Sony's relationships with other PSN customers (also meaningless); Trespassing on Sony's ownership right to the PS3 (this one feels weak) and; Misappropriating Sony's intellectual property (another weak argument, but there in case the copyright argument fails). Sony's asking the court to forbid Geohot and fail0verflow from distributing the jailbreak and turn over all computer hardware and software that contain the jailbreak code, as well as unspecified damages and attorneys' fees. Yep, these boys done got sued -- and we're sure there'll be some serious fireworks once they lawyer up and fight right back. Update: And here we go -- Carnegie Mellon professor David Touretzky has posted up the first mirror of Geohot's code as a First Amendment protest, openly challenging Sony to take action. That's moxie -- we love it. [Thanks, Pedro G]
Geohot demos homebrew on 'jailbroken' PS3, Sony vows to 'fix' via software update (video)
We just saw how you can now add an Install Package Files option to the PS3 using some custom firmware, but that darn hacker George "Geohot" Hotz has taken it a step further by demonstrating homebrew in a quick, Mr. Blurrycam-approved video. It's a barebones app that only says "sup dawg, it's geohot," but in reality it's a pretty huge step. Geohot's provided the file on his website along with a copy of the METLDR root key that enables the homebrew. Sony, meanwhile, has issued a statement saying it'll "fix the issues through network updates, but because this is a security issue, we are not able to provide you with any more details." This runs counter to what pytey from fail0verflow (the famed group that kickstarted this new round of hacking) just told the BBC, "the only way to fix this is to issue new hardware... Sony will have to accept this." Hey, at least you'll be in good company, eh Sony? Check out geohot's proof of concept video after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
