Sony has gotten a lot of knocks for the way it handled the PlayStation 3 jailbreak, the subsequent dealings with the hacker involved, the hacking of the PlayStation Network, and the resulting six-week disruption of the network last year.
But one interesting tidbit emerged in a profile of that hacker, George “Geohot” Hotz, by David Kushner in the New Yorker. The story revealed that Geohot met with Sony’s engineers months after the PS 3 jailbreak. That seems pretty enlightened on the part of Sony.
“If there were going to be lawyers there I was going to be the biggest asshole ever,” said Hotz.
But Hotz found a group of “respectful” engineers who were interested in his programming talents and how he used them to circumvent the console’s security system.
“We are always interested in exploring all avenues to better safeguard our systems and protect consumers,” said Jim Kennedy, the senior vice-president of strategic communications for Sony Corporation of America.
Hotz announced that he hacked the PS 3’s security system in January, 2010. That earned him a lawsuit from Sony, after he made the information public. Sony’s tactics in the lawsuit earned it the ire of Anonymous, which turned its mass cyber-attack skills against the big corporation. Anonymous launched an attack on Sony, forcing it to bring down the PSN for six weeks.
In the story, Hotz said, “I don’t hack because of some ideology. I hack because I’m bored.” He also said, “I live by morals, I don’t live by laws. Laws are something made by assholes.”