Sony's asking the court to forbid Geohot and fail0verflow from distributing the jailbreak and turn over all computer hardware and software that contain the jailbreak code, as well as unspecified damages and attorneys' fees.
- Violating §1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids bypassing access control measures;
- Violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which forbids accessing computers without authorization;
- Guilty of contributory copyright infringement for encouraging and helping others to crack PS3s as well;
- Violating the California Computer Crime Law, which is the state computer fraud act
Updated from CJ over at ps3news.com
GeoHot on IRC: (IPs/other users/etc removed)
geohot: http://geohot.com/
geohot: they expect me to be in SF tomorrow at 9am :/
geohot: they also say i am taking donations, which i am not
geohot: and that i have a twitter, which i do not
geohot: moving to spain :P
geohot: old index page and jailbreak.zip has been restored to geohot.com
geohot: i assure you i am takely this matter very seriously
geohot: after reading the documents and consulting with my legal team, i have decided to repost the information and jailbreak
geohot: the tro is proposed, not signed
geohot: if the court signs off on the tro, i will comply with the courts decision
geohot: whats ironic is the program to get the metldr key was run under otheros
geohot: 100% legally
geohot: on 3.15
geohot: nothing was circumvented
Charges include:
• 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C) – Confidential Information On Computer
• 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4) – Intent To Defraud And Obtain Value
• 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(A) – Knowing Transmission of Code
• 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(B) and (C) – Intentional and Reckless Damage And Loss
• 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(6)(A) – Trafficking in Password
• 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(7)(B) – Intent to Extort
"Upon information and belief, Defendant George Hotz is bound by the Playstation Network Terms of Service and User Agreement (the PSN User Agreement), 14 of which states in relevant part that both parties submit to personal jurisdiction in California and further agree that any 23 dispute arising from or relating to this Agreement shall be brought in a court within San Mateo County, California.
By distributing the Circumvention Devices discussed herein, Hotz has caused irreparable injury and damage to SCEA. Russell Decl. at 9-10. Recognizing the harmful impact of his unlawful conduct on SCEA and attempting to leverage his circumvention activities, Hotz addressed SCEA when he posted the Metldr Keys. Bricker Decl. at 22, Exh. U.
In an attempt to obtain employment, he wrote: “if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me.” Id.
Furthermore, in a January 6, 2011 interview with the BBC, Hotz acknowledged that his conduct will catalyze the piracy of video games: “I hate that it enables piracy.” Id. at 27, Exh. Z.
Despite feigning disturbance resulting from the proliferation of piracy, Hotz then went on to release 3.55 Firmware JailBreak and the Signing Tool – both components of Circumvention Devices that are designed to facilitate videogame piracy.
Finally, SCEA will likely prevail on its claim under §1030(a)(7)(B), which prohibits intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value by threatening to obtain information from a protected computer without authorization or in excess of authorization or to impair the confidentiality of information obtained from a protected computer without authorization or by exceeding authorized access. Hotz violated this provision when, in the same post in which the published SCEA's Keys, he attempted to obtain from SCEA thing of value in the form of employment: if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me."
PSX-Scene has also posted some additional and the following, to quote: "My Wikileaks Fax machine just finished dumping the finished E-filings for today by Sony, with the official Court Stamp and Signings, and included now is what SCEA wants to claim in damages and their reasons, and dates of when the info was released by Team Fail0verflow and Geohot and various other info like sharing of work via twitter, posting youtube videos, etc."
__________________________________________________ ______________________________________________
"As of 1/11/2011 7:20 PM EST, I have been served with papers" -Geohot
SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA LLC
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION
SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, Plaintiff,
v.
GEORGE HOTZ; HECTOR MARTIN CANTERO; SVEN PETER; and DOES 1 through 100
Sony has filed a legal a complaint against hacker GeoHot and the fail0verflow team, which earlier this month cracked the PS3 root key.
The documents below accuse Geohot and company violating the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" also Computer Fraud and Abuse act after knowingly hacking the Playstation 3 hardware.
George is also accused of taking financial benefit through unlawful conduct through his public PayPal account and attempting to exhort Sony into giving him a job by claiming: “if you want your next console to be secure, get in touch with me.”
Currently no formal lawsuit has been filed, only a restraining order to take the root key and modified firmware offline.
PDF documents of Geohot legal documents can be found here, here, and here.
We will continue to follow this story as it unfolds.
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