As the legal battle rages on, it seems that Sony may be grasping for straws in their attempt to lock down the PS3. Sony’s latest moves have seemingly been intended to strike fear into the hearts of would-be-hackers, rather than solve the PS3 security problems. Moves like raiding graf_chokolo’s home, suing George Hotz, and now their latest move: a subpoena granting Sony access to every IP that visited geohot.com, the domain owned by PS3 jailbreaker George Hotz, from 2009 to present. We’ve covered how Sony’s scare tactics have silenced hackers like Mathieu from releasing PS3 exploits. It would seem that Sony now intends to scare customers away from showing any support for Mr. Hotz.
This move comes after a series of lawsuits directed at Sony, including copyright infringement and a violation of consumer rights. The former involves PlayStation3s being held at customs in Europe for at least 10 days, and LG, who claims their patents were violated, has the option to file for an extension of the hold. This hold could be devastating on its own, but will be much worse for Sony if they are found to have violated LG’s patents. Reparations to LG could could Sony millions of dollars.
Couple any losses from the LG lawsuit with potential costs if Norway succeeds in suing Sony over the violation of consumer rights, and Sony could be looking at a very big loss overall. With losses like this lined up, it’s difficult to say whether or not it was really worth the hassle of suing PS3 hackers, especially those who did not condone or engage in piracy.
Do you think “securing” the PS3 will be worth the losses Sony could face? Leave a comment below with your opinion!
You can find the official court documents for the subpoena here.
