PS3 Jailbreak: Hotz strikes back

The lawyers representing infamous PS3 hacker George Hotz are fighting back, fiercely disputing Sony America's right to try Hotz in California - or, indeed, at all.

Sony America traced the IP of PSN account "blickmaniac" near to Hotz's house. If that PSN account belongs to Hotz then he will have broken Sony America's terms of service - a crime SCEA can latch onto.

But in new papers (digested by Groklaw), Hotz's lawyers claim the serial number linked to the "blickmaniac" account does not match the serial number of a new PS3 Slim bought by Hotz.

But Hotz owns three other, undisclosed PS3s. Couldn't it have been one of those? Yes, but Hotz's lawyers have an answer for this, too: blame it on the neighbour. Included in Hotz's defence is a convenient statement from Hotz's neighbour claiming she, not he, created "the blickmaniac account".

"See, I live next door to George Hotz and we've always been good friends," the neighbour wrote.

"At the time I bought the console, I was waiting to be connected to the internet by my ISP so I asked Hotz if I could use his for a while. Good neighbours, that's all."

Hotz's lawyers go on to claim that Hotz wasn't even aware of Sony America as a company. All references Hotz saw of Sony were made about Sony Japan - the company accredited with building the PS3. If Hotz was attacking anybody, it was they.

Furthemore, Hotz apparently never opened the PS3 manual - and his lawyers have the still-sealed evidence to prove this.

"The message that Sony Computer Entertainment America ("SCEA") is conveying to George Hotz ("Mr. Hotz") and the public is of great consequence," the paper declares. "SCEA advocates and encourages the Court to accept that simply by connecting to the Internet, you are consenting to jurisdiction anywhere in the world.

"SCEA has taken advantage of these unfamiliar concepts in order to present the Court with misleading sets of facts and affidavits."

The case continues.