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Sony granted temporary restraining order against PS3 hacker

George Hotz can no longer share information about hacking the PlayStation 3, …

US District Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco granted Sony a temporary restraining order against hacker George Hotz, despite initial misgivings about California courts having jurisdiction in the case. Hotz can no longer make any information about the hack available on his website, and he must turn over his computer equipment to Sony within 10 days.

Judge Illston ruled that California can try the case due to the concept of "purposeful direction," where the defendant "committed an intentional act, expressly aimed at the forum state, causing harm that the defendant knows is likely to be suffered in the forum state." In this case, the forum state is California. This concept is explained in detail in the Schwarzenegger v. Fred Martin Motor Co. legal documents.

Hotz's lawyer, Stewart Kellar told the Register he was disappointed in the ruling. "But this doesn't end the question of personal jurisdiction of Mr. Hotz, and we still intend to go forward with that motion,” he said “Suffice it to say it is burdensome to my client for him to give up his computers and hard drives for the order.”

Sony has also asked the courts for monetary damages due to the hack's deleterious effects on software sales. As of this writing, it's a simple task to find the offending code, open your PlayStation to third-party software, and begin installing new programs or playing pirated games.

This is a win for Sony, in that the loss of his computers will hurt Hotz personally. It won't do much to help the company, though. "The code necessary to 'jail break' the Sony PlayStation computer is on the Internet. That cat is not going back in the bag," Kellar wrote in previous court documents. "Indeed, Sony's own pleadings admit that the code necessary to jailbreak the Sony Playstation computer is on the Internet. Sony speaks of 'closing the door,' but the simple fact is that there is no door to close. The code sought to be restrained will always be a Google search away."

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