Update: Although Facebook would not give a full statement, a Facebook spokesperson did confirm to me that Hotz is employed at the company.
George Hotz, also known as geohot, now reportedly works for Facebook. Multiple sources confirm this information, including a post from Hotz himself.
It all started with a comment from Joshua Hill, a member of the Chronic-Dev Team also known as P0sixninja, during a recent MyGreatFest interview. Hill challenged Hotz to find a bootrom exploit for the iPad 2, and this news quickly spread on Twitter. As you can see in the video above (via TechUnwrapped), Hill said the Hotz was mad at him because he doesn’t want that much attention and backed out of the challenge to work at his day job… at Facebook.
Gave Rivera, the creator of Techmeme, did some sleuthing. He then posted the following two messages on Twitter (one, two)
Interesting: based on http://t.co/iOXRtAt Geohot works at Facebook now (note Facebook network + friends). So http://t.co/P5Afx0y was right.
@pspfano @sebastienpage He started in May and announced it on 6/17/11: facebook.com/geohot?sk=wall
Indeed, Hotz’s Facebook profile (over at facebook.com/geohot) reveals quite a bit. He is part of the Facebook network, in addition to RIT, Bergen County Academies, and Google. Furthermore, his most recent public post, which was made at 9:36AM on June 22, 2011, reads as follows: “George Hotz is Facebook is really an amazing place to work…first hackathon over.”
Hotz is a young American hacker born on October 2, 1989. He is known for unlocking the iPhone, as well as hacking the PlayStation 3 and subsequently being sued by Sony.
It’s not clear what Facebook will challenge Hotz with, but I would be surprised if there wasn’t some type of hacking involved. Speculation is already running rampant that he is involved in Project Spartan, Facebook’s rumored HTML5 platform that will take on Apple’s App Store.
