Anonymous Attacks Sony Over GeoHot Trial

Ah yes, the infamous George Hotz. Hacker extraordinaire. Father of the blackra1n iPhone jailbreak.

 

For those of you who don't know, this is the same GeoHot who cracked the uncrackable Playstation 3 console in January of 2010. And said crack, requiring the OtherOS function on the Playstation 3, could allow for homebrew and Playstation 2 emulation (as well as cheating and pirating, but shhhhh).

 

Perhaps getting a bit lofty, Hotz declared, "Sony may have a difficult time patching the exploit." Well, Sony fixed the security hole, and did so by releasing a firmware update removing the OtherOS feature altogether, upsetting legitimate users operating Linux on the console. Thanks?

 

GeoHot continued working on hacking the system, despite making public in July of 2010 that he had given up. And then the bombshell came: On January 2nd, 2011, Hotz posted the root keys of the Playstation 3 on his website. That officially ticked Sony off.

 

Long story short: We now have the lawsuit of Sony Computer Entertainment of America vs. George Hotz. The claims SCEA is filing against Hotz (along with associates of the group fail0verflow for assisting in the hack) are as follows: violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Contributory Copyright Infringement, violating the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, Breach of Contract, Tortious Interference, Misappropriation, and Trespass.

 

Phew! Sony sure pulled out all the stops here in order to not only silence GeoHot but also to make an example of him. But while they are well within their legal rights to do so, isn't this a bit extreme?

 

The statement has never been truer.

 

Another famous hacking group that goes by the handle Anonymous sure thinks so. They claim that Sony's lawsuit against George Hotz is an attack against the right to free speech, and have decided to take matters into their own hands. Yesterday, Anonymous took down Sony.com and Playstation.com as a demonstration. Cool, right? Well, I guess, except that the Playstation Network went down as well. All of a sudden Anonymous' actions in support of consumer rights were ultimately hurting those very same legit consumers.

 

But that's not the bad part.

 

A radical offshoot of Anonymous has now decided that the attacks aren't enough, and are "prepared to take the fight to a more severe level" as stated by playstationlifestyle.net. The group, called OpSony, even brought down the Playstation Store. But there's an even newer group called SonyRecon, and they have been literally getting personal.

 

SonyRecon have already begun uncovering family records and personal details of Sony employees. Details like marital status, age, home address, education, and children have been released (none of which will I host on this website). They're taking it even further, now targeting the judge of the case of SCEA vs. Hotz, the lawyers, and the plaintiffs.

 

Yesterday, with DDoS attacks on websites alone, we asked the question, how much is too much? Today, we have our answer in spades. A company's desire to maintain security of their product has now resulted in an attack against them on the grounds of censorship, and it is resulting in an exponentially more invasive violation of human rights. Fight fire with fire? I suppose that is one way to look at it, but this is looking more and more like a bunch of hackers playing Batman from their basements than a true stand for consumer rights. And frankly, the demonstrated power that these hackers have is disturbing. The situation is quickly spiraling out of control, and the worst may not be over.

 

UPDATE 4/6/11: Anonymous has made it clear that they have many more tricks up their sleeve, and that what they have done so far amounts to "poking and prodding." They are adamant in that customers of Sony are not targets, but that they are collateral damage in this case. The situation continues to escalate faster than I can keep up with, so for the most substantial coverage we've been able to find on this issue, follow the consistent articles provided by playstationlifestyle.net. Be aware to expect another development , as they are planning on taking new action against Sony today, as well as their defense system, Prolexic.

 

NOOBFEEDERZ: Discuss this ongoing event in the forum thread! Voice your opinions!

 

Matt Buckley, NoobFeed