George Hotz

George Hotz
Born	(1989-10-02) October 2, 1989 United States
Alma mater	Bergen County Academies

George Francis Hotz (born October 2, 1989), alias geohot, million75 or simply mil is famous for working with other people to temporarily unlock the iPhone allowing the phone to be used with other wireless carriers, contrary to AT&T and Apple's intent. and jailbreaking the iPhone OS. He also developed a method for cracking the PlayStation 3 and released an exploit.

Hacking Apple iDevices

According to his blog, Hotz traded his unlocked 8GB iPhone to Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell, for a Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones. Hotz said he wanted to give the iPhones to the other members of the team who created the hack with him. Hotz's hardware based unlocking technique has largely been replaced by software unlocking that does not require dis-assembly of the iPhone.

On February 8, 2008, Hotz developed the software unlock for the iPhone's new Bootloader Version 4.6 that was previously only achievable with a "testpoint based hardware unlock".

On July 3, 2009, Hotz announced purplera1n, the first public software exploit for jailbreaking the iPhone 3GS. Details were posted on his blog.

On October 11, 2009, at 3:33AM Hotz released blackra1n, a jailbreak for all iPhones and iPod Touches. The only caveat was that the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3G would need a "tethered jailbreak" to work.

On October 25, 2009 Hotz released Blackra1n RC2 an update to his previous blackra1n utility, This version allows MC Model users to jailbreak their iPod touches as well.

On October 31, 2009 Hotz announced the impending release of Blacksn0w RC3, this version will allow SIM unlock of all iPhones. Blacksn0w was originally scheduled for release on November 4, 2009, but due to positive test results it was moved to the 3rd. Blacksn0w was the #1 trending topic on Twitter as requested by GeoHot only moments after its release.

Hacking the PlayStation 3

In the end of 2009, Hotz announced his efforts to hack the Sony PlayStation 3, a console widely regarded as being the only fully locked and secure system of the seventh generation era. Hotz opened a blog to document his progress, and five weeks later, on January 22, 2010, he announced that he had successfully hacked the machine by enabling himself read and write access to the machine's system memory and having hypervisor level access to the machine's processor. Hotz also detailed the many things his work could allow, such as homebrew, PlayStation 2 emulation (a feature removed by Sony in newer revisions of the console to tackle production costs) and the capability to run pirated PlayStation 3 games.

On January 26, 2010, Hotz released the exploit to the public. It requires the Other OS function of the machine, and consists of a Linux kernel module and gaining control of the machine's hypervisor via bus glitching. Hotz declared that "Sony may have difficulty patching the exploit". On March 28, 2010, Sony has responded by announcing to release a PlayStation 3 firmware update that removes the [Other OS] feature, a feature that was already absent on the newer Slim revisions of the machine. This generated an uproar by the PlayStation 3 community. Hotz had then announced plans of a custom firmware, similar to the custom firmware for the PlayStation Portable, to enable Linux and Other OS support, whilst still retaining the features of newer firmwares.

As of April 7, 2010, Hotz had posted a video on the internet detailing his progress with custom firmware on the machine, and showing a PlayStation 3 running and having the Other OS feature enabled on firmware 3.21. He had named his custom firmware as 3.21OO, and claims that it may work on newer Slim models of the console, as the feature was removed altogether with the launch of the newer revision. He has not yet announced a release date for the firmware.

Other accomplishments and recognition

Hotz was a finalist at the 2005 ISEF competition, with his project "The Googler". Continuing with robots, Hotz competed in his school's highly successful Titanium Knights battlebots team. George also worked on his project, "Neuropilot," in which he was able to read EEG signals off his head with hardware from the OpenEEG project.

Hotz competed in the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a science competition for high school students, where his project, entitled "I want a Holodeck", received awards and prizes in several categories. Hotz has received considerable attention in mainstream media, including interviews on the Today Show, Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, G4, ABC CNBC, and articles in several magazines, newspapers, and websites, including Forbes, and BBC.

The Forbes article said Hotz hopes to go into neuroscience: "hacking the brain," he called it. In March 2008, PC World magazine listed George as one of the top 10 Overachievers under 21.

In December 2007, Hotz travelled to Sweden to attend the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar and talk about his 3-D imaging invention (called Project Holodeck) that netted him a $20,000 Intel prize earlier that year.

Controversy

YiPhone

On July 12, 2008, Hotz posted on his blog that he had obtained a copy of the iPhone Dev Team's unreleased hack for the iPhone 2.0 firmware. Hotz created a website, www.yiphone.org. It was widely accepted that should the Dev Team fail to release their hack by the time the counter hit 0 that Hotz would release his exploit under the name of yiPhone. The Dev Team responded to the threat and created the site www.ihazsupper.com.

The website was a spoof rework of The last supper that targets Hotz and Kroo who are identified by Google sweaters and with the distinct lack of a halo that are adorned by the rest of the other characters in the image, Hotz takes the place of Judas Iscariot and the character of Kroo was made to lay in the lap of Steve Wozniak, these being obvious references to the leaked software and underhandedness of the subject matter.

Hotz later claimed that yiPhone itself was a spoof of the controversial unlock/jailbreak utility, ZiPhone and was Hotz's commentary on the claim that the author of Ziphone was using stolen code and soliciting large amounts of money. Hotz, in a statement on his blog stated that he "[has] never done the jailbreaks for any previous versions of the phone..."

Responsibility for PS3 security measures

After Hotz had released his exploit for the PS3, Sony took the decision within weeks to remove Other OS support from the machine, by launching 3.21, a new firmware update which completely removes the feature from older models of the machine. The feature was already removed with the launch of the newer slim model of the machine. This generated an uproar within segments of the PlayStation 3 community, as users who were uninterested in these potential exploits used the feature for legitimate reasons. Hotz had however developed a custom firmware, similar to that found for the PlayStation Portable, which enables the Other OS feature whilst still retaining the newer additions of the PS3's firmwares. He had called this 3.21OO. He has claimed that the firmware may possibly enable Other OS support for the newer slim model of the console, but hasn't tested it yet. He has yet to announce a release date for his firmware, re-affirming PS3 owners not to update to the newer firmwares.

Personal life

Hotz grew up in Glen Rock, New Jersey, where he attended the Bergen County Academies, a magnet public high school. He has one sister, Julia Hotz, alias "Fifty". The 17-year-old Glen Rock resident posted the complicated steps on his blog Thursday.... 'I've lived and breathed that phone for the last two months,' said Hotz, a Bergen County Academies grad who won a prestigious $20,000 Intel science fair prize this year for a device that projects a 3-D image.

External links

Official

• Hotz's iphone blog
• Hotz's PS3 blog
• George Hotz on Twitter

Additional Reading

• The New Video of Unlock (blacksn0w)
• YouTube Video of Hotz's Unlocked iPhone
• YouTube Video demo of PlayStation 3 CWF 3.2100
• Hotz's Website (through Internet Archive)
• NJ teen unlocks iPhone + YouTube Video
• GeoHot's guide to iPhone unlocking
• GeoHot HYI Search