In the ongoing legal struggle between Sony and George “Geohot” Hotz, the hacker who published the Playstation 3 rootkey, a court has granted Sony access to “limited information” from Hotz’ PayPal account. Specifically, the court allowed Sony to access data “to identify the source of funds in California that went into any PayPal account associated with geohot@gmail.com for the period of January 1, 2009, to February 1, 2011.” Additionally, the court ordered Hotz to consent to Sony’s access to all of his Twitter messages dating back to January 1st, 2009.
Sony recently subpoenaed several major corporations, including Google, Youtube, Geeknet, Paypal, Bluehost, Kickstarter, and Twitter. It is unclear if Sony will be given access to data from any of these other parties.
Sony has already acquired Hotz’ Playstation 3 and the equipment he allegedly used to hack the device. His hard-drives are currently being subjected to a forensic analysis by a third party, a move to which Hotz has consented.