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

The former bane of Sony's existence is shacking up with Facebook now.

Over the last few months, we've had a bit of fun at the expense of George "GeoHot" Hotz, the floppy-haired, hip-hopping hackster who kicked off The Great PlayStation Network Kerfuffle of 2011 by cracking the PlayStation 3's firmware, releasing the tools for other people to do the same, getting sued by Sony over said tools, and thus inspiring a roving gang of Internet hooligans to start taunting and screwing with the console-maker.

Don't lie: You totally missed us writing news stories about this dude.
Don't lie: You totally missed us writing news stories about this dude.

Of course, the shit got a little more real when actual hackers stole actual vital information pertaining to actual PlayStation 3 users. At that point, the whole thing became a lot less funny. Well, Hotz's statements regarding that hack were pretty funny, actually. But the rest was totally serious business.

Anyway, after settling his lawsuit with Sony and making the aforementioned comments, Hotz went into radio silence mode. Evidently, that's because he went and got himself a real damn job.

Confirming a few rumors floating around late last week, Facebook representatives announced today that Hotz has gone to work for the company. His exact role at the company wasn't revealed, but it's presumed that he may be working in the company's mobile division, specifically on Facebook's upcoming iPad app. That would make some sense, given Hotz's previous proclivities toward jailbreaking iPhones.

It's actually a perfect fit, given Facebook head honcho Mark Zuckerberg's own history as an authority-mocking coder back in his college days. One could easily see the two of them becoming fast friends, going on coding dates together and curling each other's hair.

Still, that is a bit of an anticlimactic end to the antics of the gaming industry's own Dennis the Menace. Some of you out there almost assuredly were hoping for more of a Thelma & Louise type ending with Hotz's fellow lawsuit victim Alexander "Graf_Chokolo" Egorenkov (who is still being sued, by the way, and also probably will go to jail), but let's be realistic about this. A nice, quiet desk job at a major social media company is probably more reasonable.

Hey, maybe he can hook his buddy Alexander up with a job, too! You know, so he can pay his legal fees. And, like, not go to jail.

Alex Navarro on Google+

172 Comments

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deactivated-5eca34e37141a

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@Doomshine: Excuse me if that was crass, perhaps I should have said rapant fanboyism instead of Sony ball licking. Besides I think we both know there is a difference between expressing the desire to physicaly harm somebody because of their appearance and the use of a commonly used sexual metaphor.
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MrAristocrates

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Edited By MrAristocrates
@chaosnovaxz: Yeah, I think it's just scale, coupled with the fact that lending could never be as harmful due to the fact that two people can't have the same copy at the same time.
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Colonel_Fury

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Edited By Colonel_Fury

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

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Michaelblack18

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Edited By Michaelblack18

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

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71Ranchero

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Edited By 71Ranchero

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

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DG991

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Edited By DG991

@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.

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71Ranchero

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Edited By 71Ranchero
@DG991 said:

@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.

What a crock of shit. 
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NellyK

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Edited By NellyK

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?

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fox01313

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Edited By fox01313

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.

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DG991

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Edited By DG991

@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...

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Xsheps

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Edited By Xsheps

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

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John1912

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Edited By John1912
"It's actually a perfect fit, given Facebook head honcho Mark Zuckerberg's own history as an authority-mocking coder back in his college days. One could easily see the two of them becoming fast friends, going on coding dates together and curling each other's hair. " 
 
Lulz.....Nice  Alex
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CL60

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Edited By CL60
@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.
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DG991

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Edited By DG991

@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...

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deactivated-6050ef4074a17

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@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.
But he's such a loser! Just look at his hair! Isn't it ugly?
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CrimsonNoir

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Edited By CrimsonNoir
@MrAristocrates said:
@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.
actually the Library of Congress recognized jailbreaking as an exemption to the DMCA, so sony would have had a hell of a time proving he did anything illegal.
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Democritus

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Edited By Democritus

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.

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xXwindoverXx

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Edited By xXwindoverXx
@Democritus said:
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.
U mad bro?
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monkeyking1969

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Edited By monkeyking1969

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.

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deactivated-6050ef4074a17

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@xXwindoverXx: You are part of the problem.
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Edited By Radar
@xsheps said:
As if facebook didn't have enough security issues already. 
that's....why he was hired....
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Edited By MeatSim

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