The Saga of George "GeoHot" Hotz Has Reached its Only Natural Conclusion

Maybe he will stay out of trouble now that he has a job.

As if facebook didn't have enough security issues already. 

Let's be real he is now a B- list celebrety, he will get dozens of letters every day...most of them threats...and in the due course of time somone will shoot at him. I give him a 50/50 chance of NOT getting shot withing the first three years. Inside of ten years he will be dead no matter what.

Sorry for saying that but the one that wrote this is an assh%$# . First this guy (that can be a jerk, I don't know him in person) has not done anything illegal. Once you purchase something, is your property and you are free to study or modify your property as you like while you don't get profit from it. This guy was persecuted by sony without doing anything wrong in the first place.  Now he is hired by facebook. So what? you are critic with that too?.  Not the writer nor the fuc$% holligans that applaud him have a 10% of the talent that this guy have shown, and that is why he is hired by facebook and will earn 100 times more money that all of them.    Now go and spit hate on someone else, like in sony for having the personal data of ppl not encrypted and give thanks to the gods that the breach of security has been performed by the anonymous geeks and not by the mafia.

Sorry for saying that but the one that wrote this is an assh%$# . First this guy (that can be a jerk, I don't know him in person) has not done anything illegal. Once you purchase something, is your property and you are free to study or modify your property as you like while you don't get profit from it. This guy was persecuted by sony without doing anything wrong in the first place.
 
Now he is hired by facebook. So what? you are critic with that too?.  Not the writer nor the fuc$% holligans that applaud him have a 10% of the talent that this guy have shown, and that is why he is hired by facebook and will earn 100 times more money that all of them.  
 
Now go and spit hate on someone else, like in sony for having the personal data of ppl not encrypted and give thanks to the gods that the breach of security has been performed by the anonymous geeks and not by the mafia.

@chaosnovaxz: The point isn't his intentions, it's that the software wasn't his to mess around with. He didn't have the right to crack it.

@Atramentous said:

The dude was a fugitive at one point. He fled the country. Only job he should have is making licence plates. 

He was never a fugitive, what are you talking about? He's never done anything illegal.

@CL60 said:

@Atramentous said:

The dude was a fugitive at one point. He fled the country. Only job he should have is making licence plates.

He was never a fugitive, what are you talking about? He's never done anything illegal.

Exactly. Well... at least until Sony pays enough money so that it is illegal.

It is really incomprehensible to me why people hate this guy so much...

The dude was a fugitive at one point. He fled the country. Only job he should have is making licence plates. 

As if facebook didn't have enough security issues already. 

@Atramentous: Hotz developed the software unlock for the iPhone's new Bootloader Version 4.6 that was previously only achievable with a "testpoint based hardware unlock". On July 3, 2009, Hotz announced purplera1n, the first public software exploit for jailbreaking the iPhone 3GS. Since then he has continued making it possible to use the iPhone in the ways power users want to.

Also his stance on the PSN hacking

At the end of April 2011, hackers broke into the PlayStation Network and stole personal information of some 77 million users. Hotz denied any responsibility for the attack, and said "Running homebrew and exploring security on your devices is cool; hacking into someone else's server and stealing databases of user info is not cool"

That seems pretty consistent with what he has done. He is a hardware hacker and it benefits the user.

In contrast, Sony has been pretty tyrannical

After the hack of Sony, Sony took George Hotz to court. George Hotz made a video on Youtube singing a song about the "disaster" of Sony. The Sony PS3 console was hacked, or more appropriately "jailbroken", by iPhone hacker Geohot. He managed to reverse engineer his own PlayStation 3 to run homebrew applications on it. He then later released the method to the public through his site, geohot.com. Sony responded with a lawsuit and demanded social media sites, including YouTube, to hand over IP addresses of people who visited Geohot's social pages and videos; the latter being the case only for those who "watched the video and 'documents reproducing all records or usernames and IP addresses that have posted or published comments in response to the video'".

PayPal has granted Sony access to Geohot's PayPal account, and the judge of the case granted Sony permission to view the IP addresses of everyone who visited geohot.com.

You know what?

Just forget about it, if you want to hate on him go ahead...

Expect GeoHot to probably wind up hacking wherever he's at, really doubt that hackers can just easily stop hacking for whatever reasons once they get going.

The only code left for him to work on is his moral code. Therein lies the ultimate challenge. Furthermore, that is a very punchable face, huh?

@AriesDog said:

@DG991 said:

@AriesDog: When has he ever done anything to hurt people? He has only helped users.

Who has he helped? Was there some great outcry from the public needing to crack the firmware? Sony was forced to remove the Other OS option when hackers exploited it to play pirated games. There's no reason to crack the system firmware except to pirate games or mod the system so users can cheat in online games. To quote moms everywhere, "This is why we can't have nice things."

GeoHot wasn't a white hat hacker quitely letting Sony know there was a flaw in their security. He did what he did for hacker glory. Which is what concerns me about the news that he's behind the scenes at a site that houses so much personal and business info.

They were not forced to remove Other OS. Microsoft doesn't remove the ability to use virtual disc programs just because it is commonly used to mount an iso.

There are reasons to crack the system. 1. Other OS. 2. A proper HTPC 3. more options 4. emulation.

And before you bring it up... yea i personally don't care if the big benevolent corporation Sony suffers. I only care about the users.

And when I said he helped people I was NOT referring to sony (even though he did). I was talking about all his good work on the iPhone and the resulting court case that sets a precedent for consumers.

He is a hardware hacker, he does it for the challenge. He has never hurt a user like I said. And he didn't do anything illegal against Sony... Well, not illegal yet. Not until Sony pays enough money so it is illegal.

What I am getting at is people who defend big companies are idiots since all they care about is making money for themselves even if it isn't best for the consumer.

@AriesDog said:

@DG991 said:

@AriesDog: When has he ever done anything to hurt people? He has only helped users.

Who has he helped? Was there some great outcry from the public needing to crack the firmware? Sony was forced to remove the Other OS option when hackers exploited it to play pirated games. There's no reason to crack the system firmware except to pirate games or mod the system so users can cheat in online games. To quote moms everywhere, "This is why we can't have nice things."

GeoHot wasn't a white hat hacker quitely letting Sony know there was a flaw in their security. He did what he did for hacker glory. Which is what concerns me about the news that he's behind the scenes at a site that houses so much personal and business info.

They were not forced to remove Other OS. Microsoft doesn't remove the ability to use virtual disc programs just because it is commonly used to mount an iso.

There are reasons to crack the system. 1. Other OS. 2. A proper HTPC 3. more options 4. emulation.

And before you bring it up... yea i personally don't care if the big benevolent corporation Sony suffers. I only care about the users.

And when I said he helped people I was NOT referring to sony (even though he did). I was talking about all his good work on the iPhone and the resulting court case that sets a precedent for consumers.

He is a hardware hacker, he does it for the challenge. He has never hurt a user like I said. And he didn't do anything illegal against Sony... Well, not illegal yet. Not until Sony pays enough money so it is illegal.

What I am getting at is people who defend big companies are idiots since all they care about is making money for themselves even if it isn't best for the consumer.

The dude was a fugitive at one point. He fled the country. Only job he should have is making licence plates. 

when i first saw this guys picture i thought "who the hell is this Daniel masterson look alike and what the hell is he doing?" but maybe it's a good choice and a good job for the guy but a job is a job good luck to him but then he also kinda looks like patrick too

Can we caption every image of this guy with "douche"? Thanks.

I'm no lawyer, but I don't think getting a job will keep you from going to jail. But if I'm wrong....Casey Anthony, Hooters is hiring! If a job she can get, you must acquit!

Aww, anticlimactic indeed. I was hoping for a one last big hack before riding into the sunset and never to be heard of again ... until ... twenty years later, when he announces Skynet ... launching in North Korea.

@DG991 said:

                   

@AriesDog: When has he ever done anything to hurt people? He has only helped users.

                   

               

Who has he helped? Was there some great outcry from the public needing to crack the firmware? Sony was forced to remove the Other OS option when hackers exploited it to play pirated games. There's no reason to crack the system firmware except to pirate games or mod the system so users can cheat in online games. To quote moms everywhere, "This is why we can't have nice things." 

GeoHot wasn't a white hat hacker quitely letting Sony know there was a flaw in their security. He did what he did for hacker glory. Which is what concerns me about the news that he's behind the scenes at a site that houses so much personal and business info.

Great. Does this mean we can stop talking about him now?

What a completely unnecessary article that almost serves as the perfect subtle satire of Alex's style of writing articles at this point. At least other times he can occasionally channel his bitterness into actual news stories. Has Alex broken out a "I bet this guy is living in his parent's basement, amirite?" in any articles, yet? Hopefully as time goes on he can continue perfecting his dude-on-the-internet-being-so-much-cooler-than-you persona with more time.

I'm no lawyer, but I don't think getting a job will keep you from going to jail. But if I'm wrong....Casey Anthony, Hooters is hiring! If a job she can get, you must acquit!

Yep now facebooks backdoors will be wide open for more ugly nerds to exploit.

God some people in these comments can talk some bullshit.

                   

@AriesDog: When has he ever done anything to hurt people? He has only helped users.

                   

               

Who has he helped? Was there some great outcry from the public needing to crack the firmware? Sony was forced to remove the Other OS option when hackers exploited it to play pirated games. There's no reason to crack the system firmware except to pirate games or mod the system so users can cheat in online games. To quote moms everywhere, "This is why we can't have nice things." 

GeoHot wasn't a white hat hacker quitely letting Sony know there was a flaw in their security. He did what he did for hacker glory. Which is what concerns me about the news that he's behind the scenes at a site that houses so much personal and business info.

No one's personal information on Facebook is safe!
 
Oh wait...

@Kintaro said:

The end totally gave away that Alex wrote this.

Haha yeah, you can here him say "And, like, not go to jail." so much!

People on this site need to grow up.

The only reason that people hate this guy so much is because he interferred momentarily with their Sony ball licking.

hes fugly

               

@Thusian: That's incorrect. The one that encouraged hack attacks was Sony by implementing a mediocre network security system. Lets remember that they had to go outside Sony to find out what was going on.

           

The end totally gave away that Alex wrote this.

And so begins the destruction of facebook.

I hate his stupid face. I hate his stupid voice. I hope the rest of his life will be miserable.

@sreya92: No. That's not how it works. Yes, he owned the hardware. He did not, however, own the software. When you buy a copy of software, you don't own that, it is licensed to you, and one of the terms of that license is that you're not going to fuck around with it. Other OS was poor and slow, was added in an update (and was thus not a launch feature), was never advertised by the company (and thus could not really be called a "selling point"), and the reason it was banned was because it created a security flaw.  
 
Also, "This pissed off a lot of people because the Linux OS was a big deciding factor for them in buying a PS3 and Sony essentially said, "Just kidding you can't have that feature anymore" and removed it."
 
Bull-fucking-shit. I assure you, very, very few people who weren't cops bought a PS3 just to run Linux, and again, Sony had a legitimate reason. 
 
Anyway, Hotz didn't have any right to go cracking the software, especially not with the intention of distribution, and it doesn't matter if his intentions were to let people play homebrews or open fucking donut shops, he did something that allowed piracy, and thus got sued.  You don't seem to know what you're talking about. Like, at all. Plus, don't call Hotz "the little guy" when he constantly acts like a smug douche.

Yeah alex your so hilarious, hahahah curly hair hahahahah coding dates, wow. That and the extremely high proportion of people wanting to punch this guy (or worse) because of his face?!   People on this site need to grow up.

Yeah alex your so hilarious, hahahah curly hair hahahahah coding dates, wow. That and the extremely high proportion of people wanting to punch this guy (or worse) because of his face?! 
 
People on this site need to grow up.

Oh Alex, you always write the Snarkiest of articles, I love it.

Alex Navarro, snarky snark snark.