A California court has granted Sony access to logs containing the IP addresses of every visitor to PS3 hacker George “Geohot” Hotz’s website.
Wired reports that Magistrate Joseph Spero gave the order last Thursday. It gives Sony not only the rights to the data pertaining to visitors of Hotz’s website, but also his Blogspot blog, everyone who watched his YouTube video showing off the jailbreak, and the full details of his Twitter account.
Sony says it needs the information for at least two reasons. First, to prove the “defendant’s distribution” of the hack, including the number of people who downloaded the hacking files from Hotz’s website.
The second is aimed at settling the jurisdictional argument that has been a key component of Hotz’s defence. SCEA wants the case to be heard in California, while Hotz maintains a more suitable venue would be his home state of New Jersey.
Sony says the server logs will back up its belief that many of those downloading his files did so from Northern California, making San Francisco a proper venue for the case. A hearing set for next month willl decide in which state the case will be heard.
SCEA began legal action against Hotz and up to 100 unnamed members of the fail0verflow hacking group in January. The device was hacked – with fail0verflow finding a critical flaw in PS3 security, and Hotz turning it into a shareable jailbreak – late last year.
Source: Wired