A roundup of the latest updates in the Sony PS3 hack saga ...
Sony's lawsuit against hacking group fail0verflow and hacker geohot, aka George Hotz, has been delayed because of jurisdiction issues. Sony wants to sue in California, but Hotz is actually located in New Jersey. Sony argues that the PSN terms of usage says it can sue any violations in California, and because the hack was distributed via Californian companies Twitter and YouTube (Google), it's further reasons to locate the trial in California. The judge in the case, Susan Illston, doesn't think it's as clear cut, and wants more time to make a decision. But this will only be a minor setback for Sony, regardless of judge Illston's decision.
Meanwhile, geohot says Sony is wasting their time with a lawsuit, since once the leak has occurred, it's pointless to have the temporary restraining order in place.
One of geohot's, or George Hotz's, attorneys says that this lawsuit is all about Sony sending a message to those thinking about attempting to break future Sony devices, not about any actual "bona fide relief" for this particular hack. "Rather, it is an attempt from Sony to send a message that any individual using Sony hardware in a way Sony does not deem appropriate will result in harsh legal consequences from a multi-billion dollar company, irrespective of any legal basis or authority for such action, " said Stewart Kellar.
And another custom 3.55 firmware has been released, this time by Waninkoko, and this firmware does allow pirated games to be played via the included "backup manager". But users should be careful since there are reports the firmware bricks PS3s that have an onboard 256MB NAND chip (update: list of affected PS3 models here), not to mention any actions Sony will be taking too to ban modified consoles.
And a more negative side effect of the hacking - cheaters! The security system's flaw now allows Modern Warfare 2 "gamers" to mess around with player stats and all sorts of other things which the developer, Infinity Ward, says they are unable to prevent. MW2 used PS3's own security framework, as opposed to relying on a custom framework.
Keep track of all the updates in the PS3 Hack saga, and post your opinions in our forum:
http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=94339
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