Sony will be able to peer through virtually all recent Internet activity of famed PS3 hacker George Hotz.
Hotz, who is currently in the middle of a lawsuit from Sony, is facing charges related to the fact that he hacked PS3 systems and provided information to people about how to run illegal software on the console.
Sony has been winning battle after battle in this hacker war, and just scored another victory after San Francisco judge gave Sony permission to retrieve records from Hotz’s Paypal, Twitter, and Google accounts.
The main issue it wants to address with these subpoenas is whether or not Hotz can be tried in the California court. Hotz says he is a resident of New Jersey and should not even be tried in San Francisco, but Sony believes Hotz has enough ties to the city to make the case relevant there.
Sony has also struck victory against Hotz in an early court ruling the forced Hotz to surrender his personal computer equipment for evidence, and also to remove all information he posted online about how to compromise the PS3’s built-in security features.
Additionally, the company recently was granted permission to subpoena Hotz’s Web hosting service to get the IP addresses of everyone who visited his website. What Sony hopes to do with that information remains in question.
All in all, it is not looking good for Hotz, who still contends it was never his intention to let people run illegal software, but only so they could play legitimate back-up copies of games they already owned. Sony doesn’t buy it for a minute.
