ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Crunch Gear
05March2011 12:00pmEST
GCIS CYBER-SECURITY UPDATE: This is a rather disturbing turn of events. Federal Magistrate Joseph Spero has approved a request by Sony to subpoena the hacker GeoHot’s web host, as well as YouTube, Google, and Twitter, for identifying information on anyone who has accessed, commented, or viewed information relating to the hack. At best this is lazy on Sony’s part and irresponsible on Magistrate Spero’s, and at worst it is a deliberate and malicious wholesale violation 
of privacy.
The pretense for this wildly overreaching action is that Sony needs this information to prove the case should be tried in San Francisco, in federal court and close to Sony’s headquarters. Why? Because it’s in Sony’s terms of service. This after another judge noted previously that by Sony’s standards, “the entire universe would be subject to [her] jurisdiction.”
Sony contends that the subpoenas are “narrowly tailored for jurisdictional discovery.” Yet their subpoena for Bluehost, GeoHot’s host, requires “all server logs, IP address logs, account information, account access records and application or registration forms” and “any other identifying information corresponding to persons or computers who have accessed or downloaded files hosted using your service and associated with the www.geohot.com website, including but not limited to the geohot.com/jailbreak.zip file.” Essentially, everyone who visited GeoHot’s site (or his blog at Blogspot) is subject to involvement in this case.
They also will subpoena YouTube and Google requiring identifying information for anyone who watched GeoHot’s video showing a PS3 hack. (read full report)
