{"id":12453,"date":"2011-06-20T09:52:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T07:52:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T22:00:00","slug":"ps3-hacker-off-to-prison-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/12453-ps3-hacker-off-to-prison-soon","title":{"rendered":"PS3 hacker off to prison soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

German PS3 jailbreaker Alexander Egorenkov aka ‘graf_chokolo’ was arrested late February 2011 for his part in the PS3 jailbreaking debacle<\/a>. Sony was seeking 1 million Euros in damages from Egorenkov.<\/p>\n

For those who missed this saga, mere months before the disastrous PSN hack attack, PS3 jailbreakers were making news. The culprits were American George ‘GeoHot’ Hotz along with hackers working under the collective moniker of fail0verflow, and Egorenkov.<\/p>\n

Hotz went through a highly publicised legal battle with Sony in America, eventually settling out of court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Germany, Sony convinced German law enforcement to raid Egorenkov’s home and seize his computer equipment. Sony filed suit for 1 million Euros in damages with the Hamburg District Court.<\/p>\n

The court ordered Egorenkov to take down any copies of the ‘Hypervisor Bible’, a guide he authored detailing Sony’s PS3 security layer. He refused to do so, and also distributed a file named ‘coolstuff.rar’ which contained, according to Sony’s lawyer Peter Ruess, “copies, decrypted copies and reverse-engineered information of files belonging to the confidential core firmware used in the PlayStation3 which is distributed by our client.”<\/p>\n

At the time, Egorenkov issued a defiant statement in the comments section<\/a> of his website (now taken offline). Some paraphrased highlights include Egorenkov saying that he hasn’t ever slept so well for a long time. He also says that the threats of financial penalty and jail time doesn’t bother him at all, and that Sony doesn’t understand what makes him tick.<\/p>\n

Apparently a thirst for knowledge is the driving force in his life, to the extent that the prospect of “jail or even death cannot hold it back anymore.” He also says that Sony has failed again because they have simply removed his tools but not his mind, which they can never control. He throws down the gauntlet and says that Sony should kill him if they want him to stop, because he cannot live without programming.<\/p>\n

In a more recent update<\/a>, it seems that Egorenkov has run out of time and money to wage the legal battle necessary to keep him out jail. He writes:<\/p>\n

Hi guys, no money left anymore. Going to jail soon probably because i cannot pay court costs.<\/em><\/p>\n

But i’m ready to stand up for everything i said and go to jail for that too. It’s not important to win, more important is to show them that we are ready to fight, that they cannot scare me off easily. Yeah, i’m ready to go to jail for my believes and my principles.<\/em><\/p>\n

Most of people probably think that all computer and kernel hackers are weak kids, hiding in a cellar, eating pizza whole day, writing software and looking for attention \ud83d\ude42 Maybe, but that’s NOT me. And i will get out eventually and continue my work. My work means very much to me.<\/em><\/p>\n

With the seemingly unrelenting hacking attacks of late, one wonders if Sony is bold enough to follow through with the persecution of another hacker and perhaps make themselves a renewed target for those with a score to settle.<\/p>\n

PS3 hacker off to prison soon<\/a><\/strong> << Comments and views<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexander \u2018graf_chokolo\u2019 Egorenkov is running out of time and money<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}