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George Hotz, an infamous hardware hacker better known online as Geohot, has a PlayStation that he’s not allowed to play with — at least not the way he likes to, which involves figuring out how to bypass manufacturers’ artificial limits on what users can do with their gadgets.

Geohot settled a civil suit filed against him by Sony for figuring out how to let people play homebrew games on the popular console — in violation of a federal law that prohibits getting around encryption in hardware and software, even if the reason to do it is perfectly legal. He settled the suit last year by agreeing never to tinker again with a Sony product, but his hacker itch has him awaiting a looming decision by federal copyright regulators that, for the first time, could legalize videogame-console jailbreaking.

That, Geohot thinks, might let him “jailbreak” the PlayStation again, freeing it for the world of tinkerers to use as they wish, the same way that a decision in 2010 to allow mobile phone users to liberate their smartphones to run whatever programs they like bolstered a vibrant alternative to the tightly constrained and capriciously run Apple App Store.

“I would really like to get back into that scene,” Hotz said in a recent telephone interview.

Every three years the U.S. Copyright Office entertains requests to create temporary loopholes in the law that makes it unlawful to circumvent encryption technologies in items that you buy. It’s that time again, the fifth go-round since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s 1998 passage. Exemptions, about two dozen granted so far, are allotted if regulators are convinced consumers are “adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing use due to the prohibition on circumvention.”

It’s part of a long-running showdown between the big copyright holders who view the world as divided starkly into creators and consumers, and a motley coalition of librarians, digital rights groups, disability activists and hackers who seek to preserve a world where people can re-purpose, upgrade and build upon the devices and media they legally buy, just as hackers, painters and culture jammers have done for decades before the DMCA.


The popular mobile phone jailbreaking exemption came against the protests of Apple, which claimed jailbreaking would ruin its business and open the nation’s cell phone networks to “potentially catastrophic” cyberattacks. But copyright regulators decreed that it was finally legal to “jailbreak” smart phones so that iPhone users could install apps that Apple didn’t approve.

Today, there are more than 1 million jailbroken iPhones using a third-party app store called Cydia, and Apple has incorporated into its mobile operating system many of the same tweaks that came out of a freedom it said would doom its business model. Those promised cyberattacks never came and, clearly, Apple’s mobile business is thriving, helping push the company’s stock to stratospheric levels.

The decision also gave legal clearance to Android hackers who busted their way past carrier and manufacturer imposed locks on smartphones so users could install custom flavors of Google’s open-source mobile OS that are devoid of the bloatware and limits carriers put on the handsets.

But under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it’s still unlawful — a civil or criminal fine — to hack a gaming console or a tablet like the iPad for the same reason.

That might soon change under proposed exemptions offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Hotz, 22, understands this anomaly of the DMCA all too well. Last year, Sony dropped its PlayStation 3 jailbreaking lawsuit against Hotz in exchange for promises that the Palo Alto, California man would never again tinker with the game console or any Sony product. For the moment, he said, he has “put all Sony products in a box.” He said that, since the settlement, he has not “touched them since.”

lol we post this probably the same time bad timing for honda lol but he doesnt read so well tho :ha!:

Yes! I miss my baby geohot. In my opinion, only legit hacker to keep promises.

I'm not a US law expert, but I don't think laws being altered are going to help geohotz. He signed on the line to settle a suit saying he would never tamper with another Sony product again. If he did, even if it's legal, wouldn't he be royally screwed?

If he tampered with it offline and didn't exceed his boundaries on his agreement with Sony, then he does nothing wrong. Laws won't change, but this doesn't mean you can't push it to the limit. I'm sure he would read over his agreement countless times to not push past it... Or he can just go under a different alias. Who knows?

If there is a new console, unless it is previous software with new hardware, then I don't see a jailbreak. If they create whole new software for the new hardware, then I do see it possible.

Hardware hacks however are pretty much always possible, just takes the right amount of skill.

Do you listen to yourself?
'Previous software with new hardware'
Alright when you have a new console, you have both. New software and new hardware. More than likely, you're not finding a newer code language on it. PS series all run on PowerPC.
Flaws will always be out there no matter what.

'new software for the new hardware'
Basically what I said. Both changes when you have a newer console.

I see anything possible if you put your mind to it. If there's hardware, then you can obviously find what you need to the developer or factory options. Nothing is untouchable or unbreakable.

Mini edit...
'hardware hacks...' '...skill'
Doesn't take skill. It takes knowledge and time. Then you put in effort before, during, and after your whole process.

First of all, when I say same software, I mean from software version 1.0 to 1.1, 1.0 to 1.1 is the same but just patched. When someone says new software, it's written back from a base up again.

Skill = knowledge. Someone must know how to do something before they can do it. It's like someone skateboarding, it takes skill to ride it and do tricks, this skill is knowledge. Without knowing how to do any of it, you really can't do anything with it.

Never said anything about newer coding language.

Before you quote me and suddenly assume

-------
Yes, I do listen to myself and obviously you don't read what I write properly.

I like how people groan you.
I bet they groaned you because you spoke the truth and didn't speak from "fantasy land"

we love you GEOHOT....