The Hacker Who Found the Secrets of the Next Xbox and PlayStation

An anonymous reader writes "Stephen Totilo at Kotaku has a long article detailing the exploits of an Australian hacker who calls himself SuperDaE. He managed to break into networks at Microsoft, Sony, and Epic Games, from which he retrieved information about the PS4 and next-gen Xbox 'Durango' (which turned out to be correct), and he even secured developer hardware for Durango itself. He uncovered security holes at Epic, but notified the company rather than exploiting them. He claims to have done the same with Microsoft. He hasn't done any damage or facilitated piracy with the access he's had, but simply breaching the security of those companies was enough to get the U.S. FBI to convince Australian authorities to raid his house and confiscate his belongings. In an age where many tech-related 'sources' are just empty claims, a lot of this guy's information has checked out. The article describes both SuperDaE's activities and a journalist's efforts to verify his claims."

Comments

Sort of interesting, but...

[Frosty Piss]

In an age where many tech-related 'sources' are just empty claims, a lot of this guy's information has checked out.

And he still broke into other people's networks without permission. But I suppose that's OK here since the private info that he released was of interest to Slashdotters and was "accurate"? It was OK because the victims where Microsoft and Sony? Or, shall we see another case of the famous Slashdot Double Standard?

Re:Sort of interesting, but...

[Mitreya]

And he still broke into other people's networks without permission. But I suppose that's OK here since the private info that he released was of interest to Slashdotters and was "accurate"?

It may be ok to a degree for the cases where he broke in and then notified the company of a breach (without doing any damage or requesting a payment)
Companies should be required by law not to pursue anyone who notified them of security holes in good faith. Instead they choose to harass such people, scaring them off and making MY data less secure.

Re:Sort of interesting, but...

[Frosty Piss]

It may be ok to a degree for the cases where he broke in and then notified the company of a breach...

Hi, I broke into your house and ran may fingers through your dainty underthings and fondled your tooth brush.

Don't you think you should buy a better lock and maybe an alarm system?

Don't bother thanking me, it's what I do...

Re:Sort of interesting, but...

[Luckyo]

Depends. Did he ask for your permission beforehand? If he did and you gave him OK, that's fine.

If he didn't, he's committing a crime for obvious reasons. Else this would become a perfect excuse to burglars who didn't manage to steal YET. "But I was just showing the residents how weak their lock was!".

Need to nip it in the bud

[Anonymous Coward]

It starts out like this, a hacker looking for the latest games, then it leads to Global Thermonuclear War.

Re:No damage?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There seems to be this common misconception that a network can be broken into without causing any damage. Tell that to the IT department that has to re-flash and re-image every damn machine on the network to make sure no backdoors were left behind.

There seems to be this common misconception that having to fix a network to remove holes and backdoors is somehow worse than having lived with it for some time without knowing it Not to mention the fact that your second sentence does not substantiate the first, also known as the non sequitur fallacy: not having caused any damage and being under suspicion for having caused some are two completely independent things.