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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.”

Its Obvious He Doesn't Have A 4.11 CFW, As He Hasn't Touched A PS3 For More Thank A Year, Obvious Dude, Groan At This All You Want But He Wont Have A 4.11 CFW, As Much As We Would All Love Him To, And If It Does Get Legalized Then He Will Make One But By Then The PS4 Will Be On Everyone's Mind

I'm not so sure. I don't think it would take him that long to make a new CFW. It only took him 2 weeks to crack 3.55, so double that because of the new security measures, I can see it taking him about 1 month

Dont make a 4.11 CFW. because the amount of kids who talk **** just because they got a JB Console will greatly increase.
The only thing us 3.55 users need is the 3.55+ Keys. making it for 4.11 is a waste and will make it worse. go on and groan my post, prove me right. like it or not, The lazy people who only beg and didnt do anything dont deserve to jailbreak their console like that.

he released the cfw so everyone could use it mate

Sure, everyone could use it. but the way they ask for it is unacceptable. They just keep whining about it when he does all the work. You wont understand how it is. he got himself in such trouble working for them. when all they do is keep saying "OMG MAKE A JAILBREAK FOR 4.11 PLZ PLZ"
give me a break.

sweet :p !!!!!

wtf your quote 2 me is a joke i took it personally as you quote (you) meaning me ?? lol about plz plz ive never asked anyone 4 anything on this site im no leech bro u need 2 do your research b4 u start posting stuff u have no idea about from your quote anyone would think u helped him make the cfw or sumin trololol

Software as in firmware. The only knowledge you need is basic know-how of hardware and PowerPC (if PlayStation will carry PowerPC still; hopefully not, but may have to since PS3 games would have to be on PS4 like PSX/PS2 on PS3)
By software I thought you meant the base of the PS3. Not the firmware. By version, you mean firmware or any form of update. You can't update what you can't modify though -- hence why older models are still able to be downgraded by You must login or register to view this content..

Also, I will quote if you don't define closer to the matter since my first assumption is the person I quote is retarded until I read what they wrote and lower the retardation level inch by inch. It happens.

awesome man