The back and forth between Sony and famed PS3 hacker George Hotz – aka GeoHot – is hotzing up (apologies). Not content with seizing his equipment and slapping him with a lawsuit, they’ve now been given access to his Paypal account – and will be sifting through it to see if he’s profited at all from his hacks.
According to Wired, Joseph Spero gave Sony the rights to 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 1st January, 2009, to 1st February, 2011.”
This will also help Sony decide where to base their case. Should it come to light that donations came from California, the trial will be held in San Francisco. Why? I have no idea. He’s accused of breaching the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other laws after publically exposing the secret root keys behind the PS3’s layered security – and profiting from it.
Should Sony find that he’s made any sort of money from his exploits, he’s in for a world of trouble. Geohot has denied taking donations, except of course for the time he asked for donations to cover his ever increasing lawyer fees.
I’m not a fan of Geohot – and I understand Sony’s position in wanting to keep their systems secured – but this is all starting to seem rather bullyish, and an infringement of Hotz’ civil liberties. When corporations have that level of access to people’s private information – remember this is a civil case and not a criminal one – that’s something we all need to be wary of.
Source : Wired
Last Updated: March 17, 2011
