George “Geohot” Hotz is the key defendant in a lawsuit against Sony Computer Entertainment America, and is being charged with facilitating piracy on the PS3 console with his “jailbreak” hack. Hotz, who was also the first person to “jailbreak” an iPhone, has issued a response to the suit – and its recent evolution into a move for a temporary restraining order against him and his supposed affiliates – saying that he is being sued only for “making Sony mad.”
In a recent episode of G4’s “Attack of the Show,” Hotz commented, “I think this case is about a lot more than what I did and me, it’s about whether you really own that device that you purchased.” He continued his defense, describing the results of his “jailbreak” as follows: “What it lets you do is install homebrew applications…These are applications that have been developed by anyone.”
When asked if his hack enabled piracy on the system, Hotz responded, “Actually no. The way that piracy was previously done doesn’t work in my jailbreak. And I made a specific effort while I was working on this to try to enable homebrew without enabling things I do not support, like piracy.” He continued, referencing how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is only considered with the “jailbreak” hacking of mobile phones, “But I think the same precedent should apply [to PS3]… If you can jailbreak one closed system, why can’t you jailbreak another?”
Hotz is right and wrong… while his hack doesn’t enable piracy, it can allow for Updates to be sent across the servers to other PS3s. This is what Sony is scared shitless about, because if this happens, it can be possible to pirate any game.
So I think this hack as a gateway to piracy, and Sony isnt doing anything wrong by wanting to protect their product (plus, he did break the terms of use).
There are also stories going around that hackers have started messing around with the trophy system. Basically the hackers are unlocking trophies and assigning random times for unlocking a trophy (well not totally random, but random after the first story progression trophy is unlocked, and then following down that chain).
I like the aspect of knowing that every system can be hacked just to see how people did it, but I wouldn’t partake in the action myself. The hacks have shown the Failure on Sony’s part by assigning the random value in the code as the same value, making it easy to hack the system once that value was found (basically there is no way for Sony to stop pirated games from being blocked).
I wouldn’t say it was easy for the PS3 to be hacked… it took 3 years longer than the other 2 systems.
But yeah, reports have been coming in saying hackers have been exploiting online games and trophies. Although, there is a small chance that the hack will literally break your PS3.