Sony asks for restraining order against Geohot, fail0verflow over PS3 exploits

We knew Sony would be non-plussed about the PlayStation 3 jailbreak, and now we have a better idea as to the full extent of its anger. The company has filed suit against George "Geohot" Hotz, the "hacking group" fail0verflow (Hector Cantero, Sven Peter, "Bushing," and "Segher"), and numerous John / Jane Does over the exploit and its release. To be more specific, the company cites violations of Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, various copyright infringements, and other acts of binary malfeasance. A temporary restraining order has also been sought, asking that all "circumvention tools" be taken offline and his computers and related media (i.e. anything storing said tools) be impounded. It looks like Geohot's servers are being slammed at the moment, so we've gone ahead and hosted the relevant PDFs ourselves below. We're still sifting through ourselves and will let you know what we unearth.

Update: Nilay here -- let's take a look at what's going on. This isn't a "lawsuit" in the traditional sense, since Sony hasn't filed a complaint for copyright infringement or whatever against Geohot and friends. Instead, the company appears to be trying to shove the genie back in the bottle and have the jailbreak and any information about the jailbreak removed from the web by filing a temporary restraining order. That might work in the short term -- Geohot's already pulled his pages down -- but history suggests that the forces of paperwork rarely triumph over the righteous anger of nerds, and that this code is out there for good. That said, we'll see what the court says tomorrow; although we very much doubt Sony's melodramatic proposed motion and order will be granted as written, we wouldn't be surprised if some sort of order is eventually granted -- and then from there a formal lawsuit is likely just a few days away.

PDF Files:
http://podcasts.aolcdn.com/engadget/files/GeohotProposedOrder.pdf
http://podcasts.aolcdn.com/engadget/files/GeohotMotion.pdf

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sony can put files all they want still be pass aoround sony know they cant patched this so now there scared and filing stupid shit

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List of charges:

* Confidential Information On Computer
* Intent To Defraud And Obtain Value
* Knowing Transmission of Code
* Intentional and Reckless Damage And Loss
* Trafficking in Password
* Intent to Extort

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Sony may actually be handing out bans to everyone who has CFW on their PS3. Whenever you start up your console, it connects to several domains on PSN's servers. When these servers see a boot-up that is NOT in their database, they can ban that PS3 from the PSN (Or block your IP to access the internet entirely). This has been proven as people with JB'd PS3's have managed to see the coding to these servers but refused to tamper with them due to it being considered illegal.
That is also information sourced form ps3hax.net.

it too bad that goehunt nor the over flow team live in the us so suing them doesn't make since fail on Sony banning your own customer based wtg Sony that make sense you will fail just like apple with the iPhone and that jail breaking scene wait unitl poeple sue you for banning there accounts when make jail breaking on ps3 legal

lmao... If Sony gets sued for banning consoles, and it's actually a legitimate law suit.. that would just wow.. That's like adding insult to injury and kicking Sony while they're down.

people sue apple after make the iPhone jailbreak was made legal for all troubles they caused so it can happened

BBC wrote:
Legal worry

Sony takes a dim view of people hacking its system.

Last year, a team released a USB dongle called PSjailbreak that contained software that allowed gamers to play homemade and pirated games on the PlayStation 3.

Sony updated its consoles to block the software and took legal action against distributors in many countries.

However, according to pytey, it may not be so easy to fix the problem this time.

"The only way to fix this is to issue new hardware," he said. "Sony will have to accept this."

He said that he thought his group was on safe legal ground with its work.

"I haven't stolen anything," he said. "It's my own hardware, I can run whatever I like on it.

Mr Hotz also defends his actions, although admits he is "scared of being hit with a lawsuit".

"I am confident I would win since what I released was just a number obtained by running software on the PS3 I purchased".

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Sony law suit will fail because hacking system to do what you want it to do istn against any law beside if pricary software. You can mod things to do what first attend to do this instance running linux on ps3 they cant stop you from doing this iPhone try and failed so will Sony

Indeed, it was actually in fact made legal to jailbreak the iPhone under U.S law, so clearly Geohot won that case. However, Sony seems like they're going for same approach but adding a few extra charges to their suit. It's only a matter of time before jailbreaking the PS3 is considered legal under U.S law as well, or, Geohot is forced to remove any addition information pertaining to the CFW.

even if made to remove them they where on internet that means there be a way to get them sony so fucked

Today they followed up that up with a full copyright infringement lawsuit [Scribd]. The suit was filed in San Francisco District Court.

Sony claims that geohot, in circumvent its copy protections. It says that the geohot and the other named defendants:

* Violated section §1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids bypassing access control measures;
* Violated section §1030 the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which forbids accessing computers without authorization;
* Contributed to copyright infringement in violation of section §501 of the Copyright Act
* Violated trespass, "common law misappropriation", breach of contract, "tortious interference with contractual relations" as per Penal Code §502 of the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (commonly referred to as the California Computer Crime Law)

We're not lawyers, but as Jay-Z says we "know a little bit". But all of these charges seem pretty tenuous.

The DMCA accusation is weakened by the Library of Congress's recent addition the DMCA, stating that in the cell phone arena it is permissible to:

Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

If it is permissible for cell phone apps, it seems unclear why it wouldn't be similarly permissible for gaming consoles.

Similarly, the Computer Fraud accusation seems tenuous, given that geohot and others reportedly owned legally purchased PS3s and thus should be authorized to access them.

Lastly, the California Computer Crime Law violations seem somewhat hard to prove, given that Sony will have to establish their business was being significantly harmed via the distribution of the root keys.

Still Sony is a company with a lot of money and power so geohot, et al better retain top notch legal aid and better find someone(s) (quickly) to bankroll that legal campaign. Of course, given all of his clashes with Apple, we're guessing Mr. Hotz has a pretty good lawyer on retainer.


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This is craziness! I wonder what'll happen as the end result of all of this..that is...if it ever does end...

Our friends at Sony are having another bad day: i.e., doing something breathtakingly stupid, presumably because they don't know any better. This time they're suing George Hotz for publishing PS3 jailbreak information, as reported by EnGadget and Attack of the Fan Boy. Hotz's jailbreak allows PS3 owners to run the software of their choice on a machine they have legally purchased. His site is geohot.com.

Free speech (and free computing) rights exist only for those determined to exercise them. Trying to suppress those rights in the Internet age is like spitting in the wind.

We will help our friends at Sony understand this by mirroring the geohot jailbreak files at Carnegie Mellon.

GeoHot Mirror

Note to Sony lawyers: no doubt you're eager to rack up another billable hour by sending legal threats to me and my university. Before you go down that unhappy road, check out what happened the last time a large corporation tried to stop the mirroring of technical information here: The Gallery of CSS Descramblers. Have you learned anything in ten years?

David S. TouretzkyResearch Professor of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

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sony want to ban us because they know GeoHot pwned them already.

More court documents have surfaced in the suit between Sony and PS3 hackers, mostly declarations on the part of each of Sony's lawyers in support of the restraining order against George "GeoHot" Hotz and other hackers. One document contains over 280 pages of "evidence" to provide cause for enjoining them against further hacking -- said evidence consisting of full, copy-and-pasted pages from Twitter accounts, forum posts, and news stories relating to the recent discoveries of the PS3's private and root keys.

Also included are summons for the hackers, and a document from Sony declining to bring the case before a magistrate judge, requesting a district judge instead. According to PSX-Scene, there's also evidence that Sony sent $1 to Hotz's PayPal account through his email address, in order to prove he is accepting donations, even though he hadn't actually requested donations.

NeoGAF's Sangreal also obtained responses from the lawyers representing Hotz. The opposition statement claims that the California court has no jurisdiction over Hotz or any of the other defendants, and that Hotz has no connection to the other hackers.

More substantially, Hotz's attorneys' statement asserts that "Defendant Hotz has not produced, manufactured, sold, nor does he have any intent whatsoever to produce, manufacture, or sell, any devices that facilitate piracy." It dismisses Sony's use of other piracy cases for precedent, because those cases involve hardware used to circumvent the PS3's protection, and not software. Moreover, the statement makes the point that enjoining Hotz from his programming activities won't do anything. "Sony's own pleadings admit that the code necessary to jailbreak the Sony PlayStation computer is on the internet," the statement reads. "Sony speaks of 'closing the door', but the simple fact is that there is no door to close. The code sought to be restrained will always be a Google search away."

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Hacker group fail0verflow, which was partly responsible for the recent security key generation hack on PS3, has issued a response on its website after Sony started legal proceedings against it earlier this week. The group claims the only reason it hacked the console was over Sony’s “removal of OtherOS”.

Courtesy of Yahoo News, fail0verflow said: “Our exclusive goal was, is, and always has been to get OtherOS back”, adding that it does not, and has never, “condoned, supported, approved of, or encouraged videogame piracy.”

George Hotz, who goes by the moniker GeoHot, has also spoken out on the matter, telling the BBC: “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,” he added.

After both fail0verflow and GeoHot broke news of the console’s hack, Sony applied for a temporary restraining order from the courts and an order of impoundment.

A NeoGAF user and Digital Foundry have both suggested Sony could disable hacked PS3 consoles without the system being connected to PSN, as the machines automatically connect with Sony upon booting up.

Meanwhile, Ubisoft has weighed-in on the matter, stating that the only way to fully combat the security breach is to issue new hardware – which would be an expensive option for Sony.

Sources: CVG & vg247.com

this only mean ps4 going to be sooner so who was right

Currently in the legal crosshairs of SCEA, famed hacker George “Geohot” Hotz will appear on G4TV’s ‘Attack of the Show’ later tonight at 7 p.m. EST, as revealed on his official site. We’ll update this with a link to the video once it’s live.

In related courtroom drama, today’s filings indicate that the hearing date for Sony’s motion to place a temporary restraining order on Hotz has been pushed back by a day. It’s now scheduled for Friday, January 14 at 9:00 a.m.



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i really dont think law suit go any where Sony wasting money and time