By An interesting interview with George Hotz – better known as GeoHot in the hacking world – that sees him unofficially exacting revenge on Sony in this ongoing legal battle between the two. If you didn’t know, GeoHot was the guy who jailbroke the iPhone and hacked the PlayStation 3. Sony’s a bit peeved and has tossed him into an expensive legal battle, but that isn’t stopping the guy from doing what he’s going to do.
In the interview above at around the four minute mark, he states that he’s bought a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 to look at the encryption and security Sony Ericsson’s implemented. He also mentions he’s going to buy an Xperia Play and look at that, so I assume the X10 is to help him get a head start and see how exactly Sony Ericsson does things so he can crack the Xperia Play ahead of time.
I’m not so sure that strategy is the right way to go as the Xperia X10 is nowhere near the Xperia Play, software wise. The Xperia X10 sits on Android 2.1 while phones such as the Play and Arc will launch on Android 2.3/2.4 with the newest version of TimeScape. Encryption practices may end up being similar between the two families of Xperia phones, but there’s no way to tell right now. [Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog]
PS: In other news, the X10 has messed around and gotten itself a Gingerbread port. (Perhaps THIS is what GeoHot was planning to do with it.) The build comes straight from the Xperia Arc. Things aren’t perfect, but you have to imagine the devs behind it are hammering away at its issues. [XDA via Android Community]
GeoHot is The Man!!!!! , I respect him for having great confidence….. well Imma get myself a NGP knowing Geohot is coming after Sony
Why dont they give the guy a job?
Geohot is kinda a idiot. I’m all for openess, but he’s making it bad for everybody.
@ paul. you’re going to get hacked by him. Lol. I wish I have his brain.
I mean…you know lol.
Its not illegal to root devices you own. If sony were to “lease” devices at a discounted rate then they would have a case. Go geohot! PS I used to use a PC OS that was called pc geos….it rocked.
I hope we see geohot join the Android community, his talents would be much appreciated.
Okay so…he’s hacking a phone that isn’t even popular to stick it to Sony. Or he could become a true hero of “openness” and hack the Droid 2/Droid X/Atrix.
What a waste.
yea go out and buy more of their products, that will show them Geohot. I like his enthusiasm and I dont think what he is doing is wrong but the way he carries himself and how immature he acts towards the whole situation has me kinda hoping sony buries him
He definitely isn’t the best spoken person out there, but good for him for standing up to sony.
I like that hes standing up. But check with your legal team first dude, this kind of public plaintiff bashing in a very public “we’re going to teach them a lesson” law suit, will make his legal team change their shorts. Like I said, I do like that Geo is standing up to the corporate giants who are throwing big money to scare us.. so please donate to his legal fund so he can fight back!
@jj u dumb f#ck. Geohot is a hacking prodijy, go bury yourself you fu#ckin loser
@beast Your immature respone to jj makes me think you are geohot trolling sites mentoning you. Geohot is an ass. He might be smart, and have some valid points, but that doesnt cover up the fact that he’s an ass.
If he’s gonna hack the play then why doesn’t he just start making roms? Become a part time dev or something!
The only thing i really see wrong with all this hacking is that people put time and money into making games only to have them ripped off!
GeoHot, I’d love to buy that guy a beer!
This kid is a smart kid, he for sure knows what he is doing… but he is a fame whore. He is doing this all for attention. It has nothing to do with openness. Ironic part is people who complain Adrian Lamo was a fame whore act like this kid is god just because he paved the way for them to pirate things on their PS3(even if he left that out of his version of CFW)
@Crater,
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I think he is taking it to the point that these companies are going to be hungry to do ANYTHING they can to take him down just because he is so cocky. I have been following this guy since he first started on the iPhone. His jailbreak and unlock was the first I used and have used many since (from him and other of course). Now he just seems like an arrogant bastard (pardon the language) that is just taunting these big corporations.
You can tell he Neutron-smart cuz he sure is a strange talkin mof*cker
This is bad, and this guy is an idiot. He mentions “sending back a message” to Sony, dumb. What’s going to happen is manufacturers will make it so you DONT own the products you “buy”… they’ve already started this by making software online only and you just pay to use it, not own it. So they can make it so you pay to use their services, but the hardware will be “rented” or “leased”…. way to kickstart that crappy trend and screw us all over!
fk him
I hope Geohot loses since he hacked the ps3 and released a know how some games are completely unplayable online I hope they make where if he hacks anything he gets sent to jail immediately
Well i’m pretty sure we don’t have to worry about leasing our equipment from a game console manufacturer in the future.
After all Nintendo and Microsoft have had their consoles hacked for a long time without giving a damn. They got hacked, did what they could to fix the problem, and life went on basically as usual with only a small percentage of console owners hacking their consoles let alone even knowing about it.
Then sony being sony comes along and throws a tantrum like a spoiled kid. Now everyone with half an ear to the media has heard that their console is hacked and if they do even manage to push this case (which i’m reasonably sure was only a failed attempt to scare away other would be developers) to the point where they may win, then you suddenly have half the country forming up to crucify them for infringing on constitutional rights. And rightly so i would add.
So now maybe out of anyone, the only company i could see even loosely entertaining the idea of leasing their next system is sony. But despite the fact that this whole situation is quite ridiculous on their part, i doubt they will look at their already shrinking market share on the console platform and say “Hey, lets give people another reason not to buy our product.”
But who knows right, they are SONY after all, and apparently their EULA is law according to them. So why not.
@Paul Monroe Jr-
@junyamint-
@InspectorGadget80-
You are the Hater parade, walk in lockstep with what corporations decide is best for you, Human Zombies! If you buy a car/ouse/boat you can modify it to whatever you want, why do you think it is not OK to do the same with your phone or your game console?
It’s wrong – hacking Xperia doesn’t depend on Android version as it has NOTHING to do with S1Boot/EROM/bootloader… I think every Xperia will be based on S1 platform, only keys will differ, so if he manages to hack X10, he’ll easily hack Xperia Play and every other Android Xperia phone ;)
Talk about being hugely late or what!
The X10 was hacked last year, it’s android it’s not hard to get the root access as it’s all run under linux.
The play uses android as well so it’ll end up rooted as well, but not by geohot he’ll be slow to the game as the XDA guys usually hack a phone within a few days of it coming out.
and with an android phone it’s not hard because the platform is the same deal on a bunch of phones.
@zag – um, what? do you know what hacked means? sure the x10 has root access and has been modded to a significant level now, but the bootloader remains UNHACKED and as such the x10 is a valid target to be Hacked.
back to school with you.
rooting is childs play compared to hacking – rooting is simply enabling the root user.