Jailbreak PS3: Sony settles their lawsuit with GeoHot

Sony has announced that they have settled their contentious lawsuit with George Hotz, alias GeoHot, the hacker who broke the PS3 games console.

Already known as the first person to have jail broken the iPhone, George Hotz was also Sony’s nemesis in the United States. The 21 year old provided the master key (en encryption key) and divulged on his tools site all of the required steps to jailbreak the PS3 games console.

This gave the PS3 user full control over the devices firmware, while also allowing them to run software that had not been approved by Sony. This jailbreak also potentially opened the way for pirated games to be run. Sony didn’t really appreciate this information being made public, and started legal proceedings against the informant.

Sony has been repeatedly criticised for their closed system and corresponding legal action, especially since jail breaking a Smartphone isn’t an illegal action. A friendly agreement has now consequentially been reached, ending all litigation, with both parties indicating that they would like to put this affair behind them.

On one side, Sony Computer Entertainment America has confirmed their intention of "protecting their intellectual property and their consumers". While on the other, George Hotz declared that he "never had the intention of causing user problems or making piracy easier".

GeoHotz is now subject to a permanent injunction which makes it illegal for him to perform reverse engineering, de-compilation or dissembling all encryption, security or authentication mechanisms. If he breaks the terms of this agreement, George Hotz will receive a 10 000 dollar fine for violation.

While he is not allowed to comment on the signed agreement, he nevertheless indicated on his blog that GeoHot had yesterday decided to join the boycott of Sony products: "I will never again purchase another Sony product. I encourage you to do the same. If you recently purchased a Sony product, return it."