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Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony

Posted Mar 7, 2011 at 12:40AM EST by Mabie A.

Listed in: News, Hacks and Exploits Tags: george hotz, Sony

Article Index
1. Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony
2. What Sony needs it for
3. Other subpoenas issued

Page 1 of 3

The latest development in the ongoing battle between Sony and George Hotz just got hotter, and you just might find yourself smack in the middle of it all. Turns out that a federal magistrate has just given Sony the green light not only to access Geohot's hardware devices, but also to gain access to the IP addresses of those who have visited his website.

george-hotz So if you're a huge fan of Geohot, and has been following his hacks and developments, then it should be safe to assume that your IP address is now in the hands of Sony. *cue Jaws theme song*

Magistrate Joseph Spero laid down the decision on Thursday, giving rise to a slew of criticisms and concerns pertaining to online security and privacy. Because of the decision, Bluehost, Geohot's site host, is compelled by subpoena to surrender their "documents reproducing all server logs, IP address logs, acount information, account access records and application or registration forms" in relation to Geohot.

The subpoena also requires Bluehost to give up "any other identifying information corresponding to persons or computers who have accessed or downloaded files hosted using your service and associated" with Geohot's website, which could include, but not necessarily be limited to the "geohot.com/jailbreak.zip.file".

Whatever could Sony be needing these information for? And how did the magistrate ever think it could be okay for Sony to hound down all those other people who paid Geohot's site a visit?

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i think sony's biting off more than they can actually chew. there are just so many loopholes to this subpoena, and all of it boils down to internet identity security. what, are we to expect sony to start sending out birthday and christmas cards to everyone on the list? i don't like where this lawsuit is heading, sony. it's setting a dangerous precedent.

+1 # RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — UltimaXX 2011-03-07 12:55

It's an IP address. That's public information. Just by connecting to someone, you're making your IP address known. That someone then has the right to publicly acknowledge your existence, if desired. It's not as if Sony was given the ability to subpoena actual sensitive information from ISPs.

I don't like the lawsuit either, but I do think that people are overreacting. Sony probably knew the scene would react like this, because being able to prove the precise number of individual views a page received isn't all that important in a case. They just want to delay a 3.56 CFW by as much as they can. After all, DRM isn't about stopping piracy but delaying it by as long as possible.

# RE: RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — Snaku 2011-03-08 05:38

True enough, but if they can match the Ip address with one that's accessed psn (which is an almost certainty for the majority of people who have used the jailbreak), they'll have all the personal information they need on those individuals. Obviously there's a little more to it than that since most isp's use dynamic IPs, but if they can verify that someone's psn account was active with a certain IP at the same time or nearly the same time that that IP accessed Geohot's site, then they'll know it's the same person.

+3 # RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — Aramisathei 2011-03-07 04:47

They aren't going to sue every person that visited his, or any of the corresponding sites. Despite Sony's tenacity and track record, they aren't fiscally capable of it.

The IPs are being used to track how many people downloaded content in Northern California rather than New Jersey (geohot's home), to determine where he should be tried in court. Sony's probably got a lot more friends (if Sony still has friends) in North California, so they have much better "sway" there. The IPs will likely also be used as a secondary source against whatever Sony's currently found to try and track down other hackers. But they're incapable of suing anyone who's hacked their PS3 at this time, or they would've already done so. Not like they'd wait on that - it'd be Christmas for them.

+1 # RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — Walo 2011-03-07 09:32

I agree with you on that they will not sue anyone at random, but the privacy concern is still there. Nobody knows under what terms the court allowed Sony to access that list. So like I said in another post, they may use it for other purposes other than tracking the number of people who accessed that site.

-1 # RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — M16 2011-03-07 04:50

More fearmongering to get people to the hacker's side.

# uh-oh — JI29 2011-03-07 04:56

Well i do hope they don't send me a birthday card, it might be at the end of this month but no thank you :)

Anyway, how would it be possible to chase these IP's? chances are nothing will come of it from a visitor's side as their is too much work and international red tape to get through. Sony, I take my hat off to you.

# Wow — Derp789 2011-03-07 05:09

Sony seems to haves things going their way. This will set definitely set a precedent. Hopefully it will deter people from pirating I guess.

# RE: Wow — UltimaXX 2011-03-07 12:20

You really think that pirates give a shit about Geohot? Nothing on his website actually helps with piracy for the average end-user.

+1 # . — Derp789 2011-03-07 18:05

So being able to download custom firmware here doesn't help people use a pirated version of games at all? What about emulators? I can't take you seriously.

# RE: . — UltimaXX 2011-03-08 13:46

Geo's CFW is absolutely useless on the piracy front... you do know that, right?

+1 # . — Derp789 2011-03-07 18:06

I completely misread your comment. Just ignore what I said.

# RE: . — UltimaXX 2011-03-09 08:30

This place really needs an "edit" feature, huh?

+1 # hahaha — sosad 2011-03-07 06:09

So sad for Sony, all they can do is sue, sue, sue. PS3 is done. It's Xbox1 all over again, only M$ had some tact and learned a lesson which helped them to lock down the 360. Sony is going about this all wrong... the bigger they are the harder they fall, and fall they will. Thank you Sony for the awesome Bluray player (that also runs homebrew and free games).

+2 # ? — jackstraw419 2011-03-07 09:39

Lock down the 360? What planet do you live on?

-2 # RE: hahaha — UltimaXX 2011-03-07 12:22

Yeah. The 360. Locked down. Totally. Nobody pirates on that thing, right? I mean, it's not as if such a thing called ixtreme LT exists. Could you just imagine if a custom DVD drive firmware called ixtreme LT existed?

Of course not. That's crazy talk.

# ... — Yamagushi 2011-03-07 13:33

You should check your shit before you go about mocking someone. PS3's private keys were hacked. It is FAR FAR worse than a cd drive hack. 360's security is in far better shape than PS3's.

# RE: ... — UltimaXX 2011-03-07 14:23

A) You're pulling statements out of your arse. I never said that the PS3 had better security, I only commented on the 360's complete absence of much-needed security.

B) You should be a little bit more pragmatic before you go around making obvious (and irrelevant) statements and knocking people down for not including well-known technicalities in every sentence they type up. I already "know my shit", but in terms of piracy which is the manufacturer's REAL concern here the 360 is just as bad as the PS3, if not worse. It's been many years and MS still haven't been able to put a plug on piracy, even online.

Sony managed to make piracy inconvenient enough to never fully hit the mainstream.

-2 # RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — AsuraBP 2011-03-07 06:21

Sony is a fail getting our IP's who visited geohot's site. What about those people who just visit his site just to take a look on it and NOT test it (which I don't have a Ps3 or etc..)

+1 # RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — Musev 2011-03-07 07:55

Sony is a fail?
Your English teacher was the one that failed.

# OWNED — Mysev 2011-03-07 17:06

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH A you just treated AsuraBP XD

+2 # RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — Winkoko 2011-03-07 07:55

Their information is not being used against them. These IPs are being obtained to be used in the case against GeoHot. These people will never even be aware that their IPs have been discovered.

Normally I would say learn how to read but it seems the moron who wrote this article was writing her own non-sense as fact; so I cannot fault you there Asura.

# RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — Erod188 2011-03-07 12:22

If you visited the site you might be ok I think they sited a specific part of his website which looks like a download link if you hit that I don't know how people are going to justify that one

+1 # RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — HangmanSwingset 2011-03-07 07:07

They're shooting themselves in the foot. There IS a such thing as internet privacy, and the judges are doing very good at making unconstitutiona l rulings. That alone might break the case in George's favor. Horray for double jeopardy if that happens.

-2 # Good for them — John Jason 2011-03-07 08:07

You make your bed so you have to sleep in it. I for one am glad Sony's cracking down on hackers and piracy. Both of them are ill-gotten gains, both of them harm the game community, and both need to be stopped. I say go get them Sony.

-2 # RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — PR1NC3 2011-03-07 12:29

I highly doubt sony cares about your ip address.. yes the same ip address that is used to go on psn. They already have it, they already have where you live, they already have your name and identification i mean you put that info in when you decided to join psn, think about it people stop making stupid accusations. If you had a psp and knew how much it sucked then you would understand why sony is taking these steps to make sure we all don't quit playing the ps3 like everyone did for the psp. Im on sony's side and if xbox360 got hacked (probably already has) and people were cheating online (which they already do)i would be on microsoft's side if they sued. I doubt they care though because your paying them monthly, every 3months, or every year to play online with others as for psn your playing for free no need to take advantage of it and make it a world of suck for others. Geohot has had this coming for the longest I'm sure apple is sitting by laughing as hard as they can, I know I am. SONY FTW

+2 # RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — Vintage 2011-03-07 14:37

That's enuff. I'm putting C4 inside the PS3...

-1 # Ip address — Bigbud 2011-03-07 14:48

So Sony have your ip address. Don't prove who was using your pc.

-4 # Looking good for sony — David G. 2011-03-07 15:11

I suppose that if they can show that geohot was actually distributing the hack (like they inteand to do), and this shouldn't be hard, then geohot might be in big trouble. I really hope that Sony will create a big precedent concerning hackers. It's because of them that some of us don't pay, while most of us pay MORE for their games... GoeHot be damned with the other hackers and hack users.

-1 # RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — CkGordon 2011-03-07 16:44

I am happy with everything sony is doing.

I have pirated games on PC to try them out before I buy them but on consoles there is no excuse. All console games are guaranteed to run on your console. You can also buy used and return within 7 days for a refund or rent to try them out to see if you like them.

I am happy with this crackdown on console piracy and believe it is going to lead to a better future for console gaming.

The reason for the strong decline in PC gaming (most pc games are now just ports of console games, with the exception of pc specific genres like rts, sim, etc.) has been attributed by several developers to piracy.

There are many options for people who cant afford a $60 game to still play it without the need for piracy on consoles.

Homebrew is just an excuse IMO. Sure there are some neat things you can do with homebrew, like running mods on your PS3 games, but the overall effect that the byproduct, piracy, would have on the console market (higher prices, higher priced DLC, more cheap gimmicks like VIP, even entire IPs being cut due to them no longer being as profitable)as publishers struggled with the rising profit loss is not worth it.

# RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — IIlllllllII 2011-03-07 17:25

it shouldnt

+1 # RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — UltimaXX 2011-03-07 17:40

Quote:

I have pirated games on PC to try them out before I buy them but on consoles there is no excuse. All console games are guaranteed to run on your console. You can also buy used and return within 7 days for a refund or rent to try them out to see if you like them.

You can't justify your acts of piracy and call it exempt for reasons that're invalidated by the wide availability of demos and services such as willitrun, only to judge everybody else.

Seriously, if you're a pirate, then where do you get off judging other pirates, just because it's a different form? It's like a rapist looking at another rapist with contempt because he didn't use a condom.

Quote:

Homebrew is just an excuse IMO. Sure there are some neat things you can do with homebrew, like running mods on your PS3 games, but the overall effect that the byproduct, piracy, would have on the console market (higher prices, higher priced DLC, more cheap gimmicks like VIP, even entire IPs being cut due to them no longer being as profitable)as publishers struggled with the rising profit loss is not worth it.

You're forgetting that a lot of the hackers involved are doing it purely for nerd-pleasure and the ability to mess with legally purchased hardware with genuinely no inclination towards piracy. Whatever you think about the costs, what this all boils down to is rights; do private interests really have the right to ban certain activities just because they may inadvertently harm the company?

Today, hacking a PS3 to play tetris is illegal because similar methods are used to run pirate copies, harming sales.

Tomorrow, Nike is sued for encouraging people to walk to work as opposed to paying for the metro.

-1 # RE: RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — CkGordon 2011-03-07 18:24

Alot of the games I was interested in on PC didn't have demos and I've never heard of willitrun before. I am mostly a console gamer and always have been. I have used srtest.com before but that only lists a handful of games. If there is a demo for the game I use that to judge whether I will purchase it or not (instead of the risks that come with trying to torrent it) and if it is a good game that runs good on my computer I buy it so that I can play around with mods and multiplayer and whatnot. I wasnt justifying my actions, only stating that that is sometimes my only option as I got sick of buying a game only for it to not work and being stung on the price (no returns), whereas consoles have much less risk with buying games.

Im looking at the effects on the gaming industry in the long term and saying I support what sony is doing and hope microsoft and nintendo take note aswell. Theres a difference between hacking something to get your nerd pleasure and hacking something and then releasing it to the world knowing that it is ultimately going to harm sony or microsoft or nintendo.

# RE: RE: RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — UltimaXX 2011-03-09 08:33

But again I ask you if the protection of profits is so important that consumers deserve to lose some of their intrinsic rights.

# D* 2011-03-07 17:48

da internet is gettin seriousss ROFLLLL ... betchu the court case gonna be held over the net still, geOH at his crib, SONY location; undisclosed, judge on the crapper webcammin LoL but the guy with the MILLY fine got stung OUCH, id donate to him still, 20 bones

# RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — Micker9999 2011-03-08 08:45

I can download what ever the F I want. Doesn't mean someone used the hack, even if they downloaded it. I didn't personally use it, as I don't ge much, but Sony would have to prove someone actually installed and used the hack. Good luck on that expense lol!!

# 1st upon a time.... — ThrasherBZ 2011-03-08 09:27

1ce upon a psp there was 1 who introduced us all to OE-A. Soon after, merged to help another in need and allied himself with another team and joined forces to rise against Sony, calling themselves M33. But when he mysteriously vanished there were others that kept the dream alive, like the infamous DGEN, but it just wasn't the same spark as it was when he was around.

DAX, (aka Dark_Alex), when will u make ur come back, but to the PS3 world?

# RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — PR1NC3 2011-03-08 12:48

And "DAX" will get his shit sued also in the "PS3 World". I would do the same if i was sony, sue the shit out of you no life bastards. Buy the game play online don't download it and think its perfectly fine lol everyone was like "oh yeah ps3 is hacked!" now people are scared to turn on their systems with a ethernet cord in. If sony started charging for PSN i wonder how many of you will bitch then. You guys are taking advantage of such a great system. It gave you OtherOS option hackers fucked that over. It gives you pretty much the best and cheapest blu ray player/ entertainment system they are on their was to fucking that over because piss sony off it'll just be a damn blu ray player lol it has free network usage (PSN) i wouldnt be surprised if they started charging people to make money for the games that are pirated. Man Gotta love the law nothing is equal dammit get that through your head when is the law ever fair? Keep up the work sony!

# RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — steveajames 2011-03-08 15:17

I went to the public library to get a movie, it was checked out, so I downloaded it over uTorrent. The next day I got a message from my ISP that Sony NBC/Universal Studios, etc. tracked my activity. They knew everything but my name and street address. The ISP stated that if the copyright holders got a court order they would have to give my name and address out to them.

# RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — steveajames 2011-03-08 15:30

Sony is using the same laws that catch the purveyors of kiddy porn to hassle hackers and pirates.

# RE: RE: Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony — UltimaXX 2011-03-09 08:41

That's just how it goes. New laws are slowly introduced, when they're scrutinized all politicians have to say is "IT'LL HELP US STOP THE PAEDOPHILES" and then suddenly everyone's too chicken shit to disagree or it'll look like they're siding with paedophiles, which is political suicide.

Next thing you know those same laws are being applied to cases where common sense tells you it's inappropriate, but the small print says it's okay.

Remember how the nation-wide Australian internet censor got brought in?

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Geohot visitors IP to land in the hands of Sony

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