Sony Given Access to Jailbreak Website IP Access Logs

Have you been to George GeoHot Hotz’s website about PS3 jailbreaking between January 2009 and now? Then Sony might know about it as they have been granted the ability to access the IP address logs of all visitors to the site in that time.

Wired reports that Joseph Spero has approved Sony’s request to gain access to Bluehost server logs, IP address logs, account information and account access record and any other registration information for the website.

Pretty much, Bluehost has to give it all up as well as personally identifiable information on people and computers that visited the site.

Sony also go the right to gain access to Hotz’s YouTube, Google and Twitter accounts. That would mean any subscribers, followers and correspondence as well most likely.

While they are stating that they only need this information so that that can sue Hotz in California (San Francisco to be exact) it could mean a lot more than that for anyone who did so if they decide to attempt to criminalize those that downloaded the hack.

It certainly seems like they are asking for far more than they should. IP addresses would be required to geo-locate anyone who downloaded or accessed the hack, however, even the EFF believes that Sony has taken liberties with its request and that the requested information is unnecessarily broad.

From YouTube they will gain IP address of those who watched or commented on his videos and details from Twitter on communication.

It certainly looks like Hotz is going to be in some deep and hot water at this rate.

More importantly it could directly impact potentially thousands of others if Sony decides to attempt to pursue the matter beyond Hotz. It is entirely possible that even GDN has linked to the website or information about it and that I have personally visited the site. However, if they do decide to pursue it further it would be a public relations disaster undoubtedly even though they would see it as a ’strong message to those who would reverse engineer Sony products’ meaning pirates because that is what this is all about.

Wikipedia states (oddly and proving it is not truly a valid form of research for journalists, FYI):

This means he has massively failed and that Sony has been given permission to access his website and retrieve all the IP adresses of anyone has has been on the site, therefore tracking them.

The claims in the Sony lawsuit are:

• Violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 1201)
• Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030)
• Contributory copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. § 501)
• Violating California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (§ 502)
• Breach of Contract (related to the PlayStation Network User Agreement)
• Tortious interference
• Misappropriation
• Tresspass

It seems like they are somewhat unsure of their claims and so made sure to go overboard. They might also use some as leverage against him in an effort to get a settlement more beneficial by dropping some charges and maintaining others.

Geohot has started a blog (Geohot got sued) and continues to post news about the lawsuit, Sony and other topics. The TRO does not prevent him from doing so, only from talking about jailbreaking.