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Sony Files Lawsuit Against PS3 Hacker GeoHot
Kayot writes "George Hotz, or, as he is known on the internet, GeoHot, has been served court papers. Shorty after Team fail0verflow discovered faults in the PS3's TPMs, Geohot and others figured out how to extract the long sought after holy grail encryption keys. Apparently Sony is not pleased and is very keen on defending their poorly defended system with the US legal system. The basis is that GeoHot released programs that allow the signing of homebrew which can be used to make PSN-like games out of normal PS3 games. However GeoHot has never supported any form of piracy and in fact has taken a constant stance against it."
They also know that by suing this guy into oblivion, they make it slightly less likely that someone else will want to release similar exploits / keys for things in the future.
Geohot, as douchy as he is, serves as sort of a figurehead for a theoretical 'community' of hackers. He sort of serves to legitimize console hacks to lot of the more mainstream community. And by posting instructions and details he allows and encourages copycat behavior from people who wouldn't have otherwise hacked their hardware. (When I say 'he' I'm only partially referring to Geohot himself, mainly the type of hacktivist that he represents)
These lawsuits won't stop homebrew types, or really anyone with gumption, from hacking their hardware. But I think they may serve to deter more mainstream types from following someone else's instructions and doing it themselves. The only reason I ever hacked my original Xbox was because I could buy a chip on Ebay and follow an instructional video. I never would have sat down with a soldering iron to figure it out myself. That's the kind of hack that I think a lawsuit like this is trying to stop.