GEORGE HOTZ, AKA GEOHOT, HIRED BY FACEBOOK

George Hotz, the hacker better known as “geohot” has joined the team at Facebook. Hotz made a name for himself in the enthusiast community as an iPhone and iPad jailbreaker with his blackra1n tool, and he’s was also sued for jailbreaking the Sony PlayStation 3. Reportedly, Hotz joined Facebook in May and recently wrote on Facebook that the social network is “really an amazing place to work.”

SONY AND GEOHOT SETTLE LAWSUIT

After all the talk of TROs, tweets, and YouTube user info, it seems that the SCEA vs. Geohot litigation has come to a rather uneventful conclusion. According to Sony's Playstation Blog, the case has been settled, and Hotz has agreed to a permanent injunction preventing him from distributing his PS3 jailbreak hack ever again. Of course, while this settlement has cowed the man who did the initial distribution deed, the jailbreak genie's out of the bottle, and no court order can ever put it back.

JUDGE ORDERS PERSONAL INFO BE BE TURNED OVER IN SONY v. GEOHOT

Remember when Sony sued Geohot and demanded that YouTube hand over the user info of all the folks who posted comments to Geohot's PS3 jailbreak video? Well, score a victory for SCEA, as the judge overseeing the case's jurisdictional discovery process has ruled that Sony can get what it wanted -- information from: Bluehost (who hosts Geohot's website) regarding who downloaded the jailbreak, Twitter regarding any tweets made by Hotz, Google Blogspot regarding comments made on his blog, and the aforementioned YouTube user data.

Keep in mind that Sony's getting this information to show that many of the downloaders and commenters are from Northern California and that Hotz's hacking efforts were aimed at Californians -- meaning the case should remain in the Bay Area instead of moving to New Jersey where Geohot hacked his PS3. With this new information at its disposal, Sony's better equipped to oppose Hotz's motion to dismiss in a hearing early next month, but this doesn't mean the company will succeed in its bid to keep the litigation a West Coast affair.