GeoHotz Case Settled

Peter Chapman 57 Comments

Word just in on the PlayStation US blog that the court case against George Hotz has been settled. Apparently the agreement to settle was reached, in principle, on March 31st. That’s before the Anonymous attacks.

As part of the agreement, Hotz has consented to a permanent injunction which we assume means he will no longer be allowed to legally own or work with the PlayStation 3.

George Hotz made the following statement:

It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier, I’m happy to have the litigation behind me.

Which is hardly surprising, given the ferocity with which SCEA have been pursuing this litigation and the concessions that the Californian courts have allowed them.

So, an outright victory for Sony or a degree of face-saving for the man who made himself marginally famous by breaking one of the most successful security systems of modern times?

Source: PS Blog

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57 Comments

  1. As much as I’d like to sigh with relief, I have a sinking feeling that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Mr Hotz…

  2. Said it before and saying it again. Hire him!!!!

    • and why don’t the US government hire bin laden while they’re at it? ;)

      • Osama bin Laden worked with the cia

      • @SCTOAGPN you are on their radar now ;)

    • hardly a good idea… all you’d achieve with that is a slew of wannabe hackers attempting to break security in the hope of getting a job at the end of it instead of the more likely outcome of fines or incarceration…

      • But sometimes you need to hire people with those skills in order to protect your company. As long as they are able to go from black hat to white hat hacking.

    • skills are skills. Who do you think they hired to test the PS security? Obviously someone beneath Geos level.

      • True but jobs require a degree of social skills to,not sure internet legend is enough.

      • also true. Interview then?

      • “True but jobs require a degree of social skills”
        Have you worked in the IT industry?

      • Haha bunimo, comment of the day!

  3. Geohot (the ant) tickles an elephant (Sony). The elephant then steps on the ant. Then, because the ant is so small, the ant crawles his way out of the crack in the pad of the elephants foot.

  4. Thats the guy temporarily outta the news then?

  5. Geohot = a piece of genitalia attached to ones head

  6. Coolio – so anon should piss off now then, causing yeast!

    * Yeast – the word I use for anything which is annoying, disliked or causes any form of discomfort. Yeast.

    • So you are saying that anon gave the PSN a yeast infection? Ew. :)

      • you don’t like beer? Yeast Yeast the more you drinks the more you piss

    • Love an Ale or ten but the end result is normally Yeastville, Hangover Central.

      I have a hangover today from saturday night beers….

    • Best thing since sliced bread tbh.

    • There’s still that Graf fellow being sued…

  7. I don’t think the PS3 will get hacked any time soon now he’s out the way. Good for it too.

    • GeoHotz is far from the only person with the abilities and drive to hack a console; what this case has achieved is that the hackers, now aware of how far Sony is willing to go, will go even further ‘underground’ and post releases in such a way as that they cannot be traced – a very basic Action – Reaction lesson, hard learnt. Well done to Sony though for accepting that they’d tied their shoelaces together without realising it, and dropping the case before falling flat on their face. I wonder if GeoHotz will work on the 360 now…

      • lol and we all know how much money MS has got to throw at their lawers

      • If there’s so many others out there why was GeoHotz the first to successfully break the system? Its been out 4 years and he’s the first to crack it…if there was so many others out there why have they been sitting in the dust for all those years? Because he’s the only one to actually have the talents, time and dedication to do it properly. And we’re talking about multi-million dollar lawyers here, as well as private investigators, they could still be tracked.

    • @heywoodstock if we have to belief the Fail0verflow guys nobody was working on the hack before OtherOS was removed.. I could go with them for the ‘good’ hackers, but I can not believe the pirate-hackers where not busy with since launch.. and there where some minor breakthroughs which gave some users the ability to play Playstation2 copies I think..

      • Yeah, valid point. However, if the ‘pirate-hackers’ were working since launch they haven’t exactly got far in four years. And considering you could play PS2 games on the old 60GB that isn’t much of a breakthrough. If we want to see the root-key leaked again (I don’t want to see it leaked again, obviously) we’ll need someone with equal talents to GeoHotz and I think we’ll be waiting a while for that. Good too, because I hate it being hacked.

      • there’s plenty of hackers out there that have much better talents than geohotz I think the problem is that people find it really trying to find a program that can open Sony’s Playstation Update files (.PUP) outside of Sony. Sony has habit of creating file extensions that no one outside of Sony can open with a program

      • There were minor Java exploits early in the PS3’s life which used Java exploits or various buffer overuns to be able to run code, I remember it being possible for pirates to play Warhawk & Motorstorm disc-based backups from the HDD

  8. And when the PS4, NGP e.t.c. come out?

    • If SCEA’s lawyers were smart they will have stitched all of that stuff up in the same contract.

      • Ah good point. Would be silly of them to say in the statement that it included future models as that would be them admitting that PS4 exsisted.

      • Let hope so, I hope he is never alound to own or use Playstation product

  9. Ahhh, someone got ‘lubbed’!!!

  10. Well at least thats all done and dusted. Who else can they find who’s is hacking the PS3?

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