As 2011 dawned, a group of hackers operating under the name ‘fail0verflow’ announced that they had bust open the PlayStation 3’s security routines. Not long after that, in/famous hacker George ‘Geohot’ Hotz decided to open up a veritable Pandora’s Box of problems for Sony by rereleasing the PS3’s master security key to the public.
This move essentially allows anyone to run custom code on the PS3 and worse, with a bit of additional fiddling, pirated games. Both of these outcomes have already become a reality.
While Hotz claims that he only wanted to enable the PS3 to run Linux and open up the machine to a development community, Sony wasn’t too impressed, and they promptly let slip the dogs of law, going after both Hotz and members of fail0verflow.
Initially Hotz kept quiet about the lawsuit, simply sharing the legal documents he was served. Recently he appeared on G4TV to discuss the debacle.
Hotz once again reinforces his claim that he did not intend to enable piracy on the PS3. “The way piracy was previously done doesn’t work in my jailbreak. I made a specific effort while I was working on this to try to enable homebrew without enabling things I do not support, like piracy.”
The legal argument from his point of view is that since a federal US court has deemed it legal to jailbreak mobile phones under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), this sets a precedent for the legality of jailbreaking any closed system, such as the PS3. Indeed, his lawyers are arguing that point, stating that the PS3 functions as a multimedia personal computer and that having paid for the hardware, the owner has the right to use it however they wish.
Meanwhile, the legal case made its first appearance in a court only to be hindered by questions of jurisdiction. The presiding US judge questioned why the case was being brought before her under Californian jurisdiction, when George Hotz resides and performed the in hack in the US state of New Jersey.
Sony’s lawyers argued that because Hotz distributed the security key through Californian based businesses such as Twitter and Facebook, that justified bringing the case under Californian jurisdiction. A fairly dubious argument, and the judge quipped: “That would mean the entire universe is subject to my jurisdiction, and that’s a really hard concept for me to accept.”
A more solid argument was that under the PS3 terms of service, the Californian Federal court was indicated as the jurisdiction for legal disputes. We are awaiting the judge’s ruling on the matter, and also on whether Hotz must hand over his computer equipment as evidence.
Sony is also seeking to have a restraining order put in place as soon as possible, preventing the hackers from distributing the security key information. One would rather think that this is a futile attempt thanks to the nature of the Internet. Lawyers from the Hotz camp also raise this point – there is no way to un-release the security code; it’s loose in the wilds of the Internet.
“Make no mistake, this case is not about Sony attempting to protect its intellectual property or otherwise seek bona fide relief from the court. Rather, it’s an attempt from Sony to send a message that any individual using Sony hardware in a way Sony does not deem appropriate will result in harsh legal consequences from a multi-billion dollar company, irrespective of any legal basis or authority for such action,” said Hotz’s attorney Stewart Kellar.
After consulting with his legal team, Hotz has said “I am a firm believer in digital rights. I would expect a company that prides itself on intellectual property to be well-versed in the provisions of the law, so I am disappointed in Sony’s current action. I have spoken with legal counsel and I feel comfortable that Sony’s action against me doesn’t have any basis.”
Meanwhile, gamers are beginning to suffer from the unscrupulous types who would use the security exploit for their own gain. The PS3 Modern Warfare 2 community has been particularly vocal, complaining that hackers are now running riot on the servers and messing up gameplay stats across the board.
Infinity Ward representatives have come out saying that the security key breach is the core of the problem and there isn’t much they can do about it, relying on Sony to fix the problem. The cynical among us might point out that Modern Warfare 2 has been troubled from day one and hacks and cheats were rife before the security key breach became a convenient scapegoat.
Share your views on the PlayStation 3 jailbreaking fiasco on the MyGaming forum.
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