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Judge Lets Sony Access GeoHot's PayPal Account
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from TechDirt that says "Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero has awarded Sony a subpoena that grants the company access to the PayPal account of PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as GeoHot, for the last two years. Emil: Spero ruled that the Japanese console maker may acquire 'documents sufficient to identify the source of funds in California that went into any PayPal account associated with geohot@gmail.com for the period of January 1, 2009, to February 1, 2011.'"
I donated $50.
Not if you donated to his legal fund. The legal fund donations only started AFTER Feb 1st.
This time period only covers donations made during the time period is was actually working on the hacks.
you should dig a bit deeper. SCEA is seeking this information in order to argue that the case should be argued in California rather than New Jersey. So far, this has nothing to do with "the funds he has made from his work' -- and it likely never will. As to whether Geoot did anything illegal, that's what the whole case is about... if we're lucky, Geohot will prevail.
Since it's a civil suit, law enforcement doesn't really have a right to go through his financial records. There is something called "Discovery" though, where each party in a case can petition the courts to force the other side to turn over pertinent records that they believe could help make their case. Discovery is what gives Sony the right, since they managed to convince a judge that the information there could be constructive to their case.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
The defendant is from New Jersey and obviously wants the case tried there, where as having it there would be more costly for Sony.
What do you mean by "more costly for Sony"?
Sony does business in all 50 States. Getting a team of lawers in/to NJ isn't an issue for them.
Sony wants this case heard in California because of the favorable Judicial climate there.
In that sense, allowing the case to be heard in NJ would be costly, but only because it lowers their chances of winning.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Not just Geohot.
There are a variety of others named in the suit, though mostly they are not based in the US and so aren't involved so much.
However there is also graf_chokolo, who has been thoroughly deconstructing the hypervisor and (unlike geo) publishing his work in a very community-oriented way. The guy's fascinaction is complete control of the PS3 and hypervisor from linux (not piracy).
A week or so back he was raided by the German police and much of his equipment confiscated. Now he is being sued by Sony for almost a million dollars.
Please go here and donate if you would like to support the efforts to fend off Sony - http://grafchokolo.com/
The guy just doesn't have the public profile that geohot does, but he deserves public support every bit as much.