He was able to break crack the iPhone without consequence and survived a David-vs-Goliath battle with Sony, but now there’s something that has defeated him.
Yes, the thing that has been the downfall of so many geniuses (or at least people who think they’re geniuses while they’re on it) – marijuana. Hotz was checked at a border patrol point in Texas during this week’s SXSW conference, where they discovered the drug on him.
Hotz has an incredibly infamous history. He became well-known for his masterful ability to hack Apple’s legendary impenetrable iOS software.
Then, he took his efforts to the next level and was able to gain direct access to Sony’s Playstation 3 by enabling read and write access to the machine’s system memory and gaining hypervisor level access to the machine’s processor. Essentially, this allowed homebrew and PlayStation 2 emulation.
Hotz was to stand trial for numerous counts against Sony, but the case was ultimately dropped after Sony essentially let Hotz off with a slap on the wrist.
Even though he used it for nefarious means, Hotz’s intelligence was realized by Facebook, which offered him a job in its technical department.
But Hotz seemingly hated the life of a cubicle worker and quit that job shortly after being hired. That’s right. He quit a job that engineers and technical masterminds throughout the country would give their right arm for.
So now, there’s another black spot on his record, but he posted bail so he won’t have to get a new prison nickname.
