Sony goes to court to get PS3 key crackers to shut up already.

The PlayStation 3 is currently the Wild West.
The system's master key has been published
online, custom firmware allowing the use of
pirated games and custom software is easy to
find, and Sony is not at all pleased with this turn
of events. The company is asking the courts for
a temporary restraining order to get the
infringing keys and software offline, and is
targeting George Hotz, the FAIL0VERFLOW
group, and 100 unnamed John or Jane Does.
No money is being asked for; Sony just wants
everyone to stop telling the world how to hack
its system.
The court documents lay out the case simply.
"The FAIL0VERFLOW Defendants intentionally
circumvented SCEA's [security], accessed the
PS3 System and trafficked in Circumvention
Devices and SCEA's proprietary information,
with full knowledge that their unlawful conduct
would irreparably harm SCEA," Sony alleges.
"Indeed, five days prior to appearing at the
Chaos Conference, Bushing echoed a fellow
hacker's comment anticipating this irreparable
harm: 'Last chance to sell any Sony stock you
may have.'"
Sony isn't looking for money, simply injunctive
relief. This temporary restraining order's only
job is to get the information off the Web, right
now (good luck with that). "The lack of
injunctive relief will... result in the loss of
goodwill to licensees, encourage infringers to
increase operations, and discourage anti-piracy
enforcement which is great and irreparable
harm," Sony states.
The consumer electronics giant is using a clause
in the user agreement to justify suing a
Hungarian and a Spaniard in the great state of
California. That clause says that if you download
even a single update from the PlayStation
Network, you have given your consent to be
sued in California.
The hacking work was bad enough, but George
Hotz, the man behind the iPhone jailbreak, took
things many steps further, according to the
lawsuit. "Building on the FAIL0VERFLOW
Defendants ’ Circumvention Devices, Hotz
circumvented certain other TPMs in the PS3
System, intentionally accessed the PS3 System
without authorization, and misappropriated
critical SCEA Keys," Sony claims.
These digital signatures opened the PlayStation
3 completely, as they can be used to sign any
piece of software so the PlayStation 3 believes
it's legitimate code. Hacked firmware arrived on
the Internet in short order, allowing anyone to
run any form of software or pirated game on
their PlayStation 3. The system, which was
always considered highly secure, has been
compromised in the deepest way.
The reason for this increased interest in the
PlayStation 3? Sony's removal of the Other OS
feature from all PlayStation 3s, taking away a
feature that was heavily promoted during the
hardware's launch. "It became a valid target,"
pytey, a member of the FAIL0VERFLOW group,
told BBC News. "That was the motivation for us
to hack it... It was not trivial to do this."
Sony also claims Hotz extorted the company,
saying that he asked for employment and said
that he could make its consoles more secure.
In a nutshell, Sony simply wants everyone to
cut it out and stop sharing these exploits on the
Internet. That problem is that the keys are
already widely available, the custom firmware is
easily obtained, and the methods used to gain
the key needed to create the firmware are
known to a large group of people. The damage
has been done.
As of this writing, cracking the PlayStation 3 is a
trivial thing. You download the custom
firmware, update your system, and you then
have access to everything in a matter of
minutes. You can run pirated games, install
other operating systems, or simply muck about
and do some coding. It's all available to you,
and Sony has lost control over what you do
with your system. This suit may silence the
groups that originally opened the door to an
open and compromised PlayStation 3, but it
won't close it again.


Source: Http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/01/sony-goes-to-court-to-get-ps3-key-crackers-to-shut-up-already.ars