Geohot settled a civil suit filed against him by Sony for figuring out how to let people play homebrew games on the popular console — in violation of a federal law that prohibits getting around encryption in hardware and software, even if the reason to do it is perfectly legal. He settled the suit last year by agreeing never to tinker again with a Sony product, but his hacker itch has him awaiting a looming decision by federal copyright regulators that, for the first time, could legalize videogame-console jailbreaking.

That, Geohot thinks, might let him “jailbreak” the PlayStation again, freeing it for the world of tinkerers to use as they wish, the same way that a decision in 2010 to allow mobile phone users to liberate their smartphones to run whatever programs they like bolstered a vibrant alternative to the tightly constrained and capriciously run Apple App Store.

“I would really like to get back into that scene,” Hotz said in a recent telephone interview.