http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/02/google...> Sony is also asking Judge Illston to order Google to surrender the IP addresses [.pdf] and other identifying information of those who have viewed or commented about the jailbreak video on Hotz’ private YouTube page. The game maker is also demanding that Twitter provide the identities of a host of hackers who first unveiled a limited version of the hack in December.
Do you think the above is "reasonable" per definition? In essence, anyone who stumbled across some page where the youtube video was embedded is now suspect. Anyone who made comments on twitter is now suspect. And if you slide down the slippery slope, all of us are now suspect for discussing it here on HN.
The above is excessive, and hence, unreasonable. The lawyers of the plaintiff intentionally asked for the moon, gift wrapped, and the judge agreed. The lawyers from Sony did their job correctly, as they are expected to ask for everything they possibly can to help their case. The judge, Susan Illston, failed to do her job. She was supposed to take the expected unreasonable requests from the lawyers, weigh their merit, and rule on a limited compromise to both enable discovery and protect the privacy of the people. The discovery process is not an excuse for excessive privacy invasion.
That's just the above issue of other parties.
As for the issue of searching the hard disk of George Hotz... --it's an interesting debacle. Discovery is very important but it comes down to where and how one draws the lines. Opinions of reasonable and unreasonable will vary.