GeoHot still has a way to hack the PS3 and future Sony products

After the months-long legal battle between George “GeoHot” Hotz and Sony came to its conclusion this week, after both parties, agreeing to settle the matter via a joint settlement, wherein Hotz agreed to a permanent injunction against making public, any methods to hack the PS3 or any other Sony product, either, offline or online.

However, this settlement doesn’t permanently restrict Hotz from hacking Sony products, including the PS3 and sharing them with the public. There’s a clause, which enables him to do so, if he wants to.

The court order states that, should Hotz violate the injunction, he will have to pay $10,000 to Sony, with a penalty cap of $250,000.  Yes, you heard it, correct, the injuction is capped. Although, 250,000 is not by any means, a small sum, but for a globally recognized, hacker as Hotz, it’s merely change. Why? All he needs is 50,000 people willing  to donate a mere $5, in order to amass that amount and then, he’s free to do whatever he wants with Sony products. It’ll take even fewer people to contribute that much, if the average donation is higher.

Although, unlikely, but the possibility of Hotz, amassing that much money from his supporters and paying it to Sony, and going on to hack the PS3 or the NGP won’t be a surprise either.

Could this be his next target?

More so, because of his reactions after the settlement, with him, publicly declaring, that he has decided to boycott all Sony products in his blog.

Hotz also shot back at Sony and had this to say regarding the class action suit filed against the company for the removal of OtherOS:

“These class action lawsuits are the type that can bankrupt or do seriously financial harm to a company, and finally get Sony to realize that they are not above the law as they would like to believe,” he wrote.

Although, without paying a fine, Hotz can’t do as much as, touch a Sony product, but this penalty cap certainly leaves an option open for him, if he desires to resume his fight against Sony.

The penalty cap is an extremely surprising loophole in the clause and it’s baffling that Sony’s allowed such a thing to be included.

Alarmed by this news? Let us know your thoughts regarding this below.  We’ll have more updates if they emerge later.