April Fools: Sony Drops Lawsuit, Hires Geohot

Geohot

In a stunning reversal, Sony Computer Entertainment of America has decided to drop their lawsuit against George “Geohot” Hotz and hire the hacker to head up a new division of cyber security focusing exclusively on the Playstation 3 and Sony’s upcoming handheld platform, codenamed NGP.

A Sony spokesman was quoted as saying:

He just had so many good ideas, we felt that he would be a better asset to us and the gaming community as an employee rather than a defendant.

Hotz, the infamous hacker who was the first to jailbreak the iPhone, expressed a desire to return the Linux operating system to the PS3 via firmware update by the end of April and upload a PS2 emulator before the end of the year. Sony also promised to compensate Hotz for his legal expenses, which seems decent of them.

Well, frankly, I am pretty shocked and more than a little upset. It seems that the online hacker community, which has been clamoring for Sony to just shut up and hire Hotz, has finally gotten their wish. I think this sets a dangerous precedent, where bad and perhaps illegal behavior is rewarded. Although PS2 emulation rocks my socks.

Am I being too harsh? Did Sony do the right thing here? GO!

Source: Wired

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Age: 34 PSN ID: Starkiller81. I've played games since before I can remember, starting with my dad's Atari and I haven't stopped yet. Keep them coming and I will keep playing them.

9 thoughts on “April Fools: Sony Drops Lawsuit, Hires Geohot”

  2. I think you’re being too harsh, actually. This is the Catch Me If You Can story for video games. When the FBI hired Frank Abignale, Jr. to help them find and punish fraud, there wasn’t a sudden rush of people trying to make fraudulent checks so they could get hired by the FBI. Sony was pretty smart here, I think. If someone’s that good, why not pay him to work for you rather than fight him tooth and nail?

  4. This is the right move. The hackers you should worry about are the ones putting worms on your computers. The ones who show their face usually are white hats, or morons. In this case, they did the right thing and it’s an awesome story!

  5. Looks like an April fools joke to me. Come clean Anthony and provide a reliable link to the story 🙂

  6. It’s a trap~

    Valve did the same thing to the guy who leaked Half Life 2 and arrested him when he was about to fly over to get an interview.

  8. [quote comment=”16022″]I’m surprised at how many people bit on this one. Good job, Anthony![/quote]

    Give the people what they want.

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