Sony Seeks Restraining Order Over PS3 Hacks
Geohot, fail0verflow cited.
Published: 4:30, 12/01/2011 by Staff.
37Sony has asked for a restraining order against George Hotz and the so-called fail0verflow group over the recent ‘jailbreak’ hacks against the PlayStation 3, along with a few other unnamed entities.
Rather than a straight lawsuit over copyright infringement (or otherwise), it looks like Sony are citing Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and requesting that all “circumvention tools” be taken offline.
Indeed, Geohot’s website has been updated to reflect this, with the restraining order request published on there (and on Engadget) as PDFs – looks like Sony just want the ‘jailbreak’ taken off the web.
We’ll update as we can.
Source: Engadget.
TheSixthAxis does not condone piracy and does not recommend the modification of your console – doing so is against the Terms of Use of the console and is possibly illegal.
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12/01/2011 at 05:47
Member since: Apr 2010
It saddens me to see such promising hacking brought down by the possibility of piracy. Tis the nature of humans though. You get dedicated hackers and genuinely fascinating technology online but then you get the pirates who have to ruin any possibility of homebrew for everyone soon after. Why do people suck so much?
12/01/2011 at 07:24
Member since: Aug 2008
The usual response to trying to take something off the web is that it spreads even further, so good luck with that one.. Fortunately, the DMCA is only a US law so will only affect the US. It’s a sad state of affairs, tho, when people can be penalised for modifying their own property.
12/01/2011 at 14:08
Member since: Aug 2008
the thing is, i bet its so difficult to hack for the normal person it will never become a major problem. Making a USB key, that just plugs in, then a rom plays is the level at which mass market will take hold. All i seem to be getting from all this court stuff, is that Sony are making it more publicised.
12/01/2011 at 07:36
Member since: Jan 2011
The part where Geohot went wrong was to publish his creation therefor making him and associates liable….
12/01/2011 at 07:54
Member since: Oct 2008
I’ve already commented on previous threads on how Geohot is clearly a very skilled programmer, and clearly not stupid, he knew what the consequences would be when he started tinkering with the PS3.
If you mess with Sony’s premium bit of kit then you must expect repercussions.
12/01/2011 at 08:25
Member since: Aug 2010
If Geohot is so clever then why doesn’t he use his cleverness to get himself a nice well paid job? And to stop wasting Sony’s time with legal action and new firmware that tries to fix security loopholes. We’ve already lost OtherOS thanks to him. I bet if Sony came out and said Cross Game Chat has been delayed 12 to 18 months because of him, his popularity would plummet.
12/01/2011 at 08:40
Member since: Dec 2008
I think that most of the best hackers end up working as developers once their notoriety has spread and they realise that their skills can earn a good living instead of just fame.
12/01/2011 at 09:24
Member since: Mar 2010
Fair points Tony, but I don’t think Geohot was the sole party responsible for the loss of OtherOS, and if Sony were to pull a stunt like blaming him for the delay of a feature coming to the firmware I think it’d be percieved by everyone as the attempted smear it’d be and it’d have no influence on the pirates anyway.
I’m just waiting for the influx of forum posts, images and comments that contain the PS3 mastercode, just as we had before when DVD copy-protection was hacked.
12/01/2011 at 09:28
Member since: Mar 2010
One quote that keeps coming to my Trekker mind, Q to Sony -
“Con permiso, Capitan. The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged. It’s now time to see if you can dance.”
12/01/2011 at 11:48
Member since: Aug 2010
True Geohot isn’t the sole reason for the removal of OtherOS but he was certainly the catalyst. And anyone can see that Sony have a finite amount of resources to put into firmware development (including additional features) and if they have to use that resource combating those who break the AUP/TOS then it is clear they are delaying further improvements and features.
12/01/2011 at 20:17
Member since: Mar 2010
As the hackers have said, this is it; 5 years into the cycle of the console the security’s finally been hacked with no going back. Sony should be chuffed that it’s taken this long – the PS2 was hacked earlier in its cycle than this and it was still a profitable system for them.
12/01/2011 at 08:39
Member since: Dec 2009
Hang on, didn’t a US court rule that it was ok to jailbreak iphones? Won’t that affect the outcome of this?
Anyway, i hope this is just one phase one and that they can also ban modded PS3s.
12/01/2011 at 08:49
Member since: Forever
Yes, they did – although as the iPad still doesn’t fall under the same DMCA ruling, I can’t see how PS3s would.
12/01/2011 at 08:52
Member since: Dec 2009
Ah, that’s good.
12/01/2011 at 09:50
Member since: Feb 2009
but a precedent has been set, it could still affect this case.
12/01/2011 at 09:11
Member since: Jan 2011
In case you missed my link before for the PS Blog share ideas:
http://share.blog.us.playstation.com/ideas/?s=TURRICAN-808
12/01/2011 at 09:44
Member since: May 2009
ok?
12/01/2011 at 10:01
Member since: Dec 2009
Slightly off topic but a subject i can forgive! :)
Strangely it won’t allow me to sign-in to vote but i’ll try again later.
12/01/2011 at 18:09
Member since: May 2010
??? What does that have to do with the topic.
12/01/2011 at 09:23
Member since: Aug 2009
At least Sony haven’t gone in all guns blazing and sued their asses! I know Gehoot was affraid of a law suit. Hopefully they can come to an arrangement (Sony hire him!), but it’s allready too late and the code is out there. I think he shouldn’t have released it though, that was a bad idea!
12/01/2011 at 09:47
Member since: May 2009
Geohot might be in problems, fail0verflow will not, as they have not released anything which was copyrighted.
I guess this was to be expected, to bad it’s not going to do any good, the damage has been done.
12/01/2011 at 09:58
Member since: Jun 2010
Wow! Looks like Sony have taken my idea of “asking them nicely to stop”…
12/01/2011 at 10:32
Member since: Aug 2009
quick suggest something else before your power wears off!
12/01/2011 at 10:46
Member since: Jun 2010
Free games for all! Oh, wait, isn’t that piracy and what Sony are trying to stop?
12/01/2011 at 11:35
Member since: Dec 2009
jail the little toe rag and his band of hacking twats!,lets see him hack his way out of that!.
12/01/2011 at 19:07
Member since: Dec 2010
Maybe Sony should have just engaged the infamous “kill switch” on all of Geohot’s hacked PS3 consoles… then he wouldn’t have been able to develop the code. :)