Name - George Francis Hotz
DOB - October 2, 1989
Nick Names - geohot, million75
About Hotz:
Hotz is an American
hacker known for
unlocking the
iPhone, allowing the phone to be used with other
wireless carriers, contrary to
AT&T and
Apple's intent.
He is also noted for hacking the
PlayStation 3 and subsequently being sued by and settling with Sony.
His Achievements:
Hacking Apple IOS Devices:
In June, 2007, Hotz became the first person to jailbreak an iPhone.
According to Hotz's blog, he traded his unlocked 8 GB iPhone to
Terry Daidone, the founder of
Certicell, for a
Nissan 350Z
and three 8 GB 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hardware-based unlocking technique has largely been replaced by software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 13, 2009, at 3:20AM Hotz released
blackra1n, a jailbreak for all iPhones and iPod Touches.
On March 27, 2010, Hotz established a website for his newest jailbreak software, limera1n.
On October 8, 2010, Hotz confirmed he was releasing a Jailbreak on 10/11/10, one day after the release of
Greenpois0n.
On October 11, 2010, Hotz released what appears to be the final version of his jailbreak (RC1b).
Hotz also put on his website that the Mac version of this jailbreak is
"coming in 7 years", but was released about 2 weeks later.
Hacking the PlayStation 3:
Towards 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.
On January 14, 2011, Hotz appeared in an interview on G4′s The Loop,
where he explained why he jailbroke the Sony PlayStation 3.
Employment By Facebook:
On June 27, 2011, it was reported that Hotz had been hired by Facebook. However, according to a CNET
article, he had actually been employed since May, which was confirmed
by Facebook. It is unknown what his role at the company was. In January
2012, Hotz stopped working at Facebook.
Other Accomplishments:
He was a finalist at the 2004
ISEF competition
in Portland OR with his project "The Mapping Robot".
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.
In March 2008, PC World magazine listed George as one of the
top 10 Overachievers under 21.
In May 2012, Hotz was the subject of a feature article in
The
New Yorker.
