Facebook hires PS3 hacker Geohot

Facebook has hired George Hotz, the young programmer whose hacking of the PlayStation 3 allegedly led to crippling attacks on Sony’s network.Mr Hotz, 21 and also known online as “Geohot”, is not a hacker in the sense of illegally accessing private data, rather he is known for circumventing software controls on consumer hardware.

He first found fame in 2007 when he broke restrictions on Apple’s iPhone to allow it to work on any mobile network. And last year he gained further attention for “jailbreaking” the PlayStation 3 to allow it to run unauthorised software.

The act angered Sony, which sued Mr Hotz in January after he published details of the process online. The case was settled out of court, but Sony had stirred a hornet’s nest of hackers who supported Geohot.

Anonymous, the online “hacktivist” collective, targeted it with Denial of Service attacks, which the firm told the US Congress led to the theft of 77 million PlayStation network users’ personal details. The network was subsequently shut down for six weeks to improve security.

Sony said the hackers also left a calling card implicating Anonymous, but people claiming to speak for Anonymous have denied responsibility for network intrusion. Facebook has not commented on what Mr Hotz will work on.
At the firm’s Palo Alto HQ posters celebrate the positive connotations of hacking and developers are encouraged to experiment and tinker with software.