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Hacker Releases 1.7TB Treasure Trove of Gaming Info
mvar writes "According to Kotaku, a hacker named SuperDaeE who breached multiple gaming companies (Valve, Sony, MS to name a few) has released a 1.7TB treasure trove file for download. The file which contains source code for older titles plus development kits for the PS4 and Xbox One consoles, is encrypted and SuperDaeE claims that it is his insurance in case he gets arrested."
Right...cause if he gets in trouble, blackmail will surely get him out of it.
Now hackers everywhere have a reason to get SuperDaeE arrested.
> using centralized resource to distribute "insurance"
>> 2013
Valve too?
Please SuperDaeE tell me: can they count to three?
This sounds like too large of an "insurance" to be useful. Most people don't have the bandwidth or the space to hold 1.7 TB of encrypted info. Smaller files might make sense but not huge ones like this.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I have 2.0 GB of source code for Windows 8, Windows 9 alpha, Call of Duty Ghosts, World of Warcraft Annihilation and Donkey Kong Junior. I have encrypted the file and am withholding the key in case I get arrested. But trust me, it's all there.
These retards give the word 'hacker' a bad name. Goddam imbecile, I hope he rots in jail.
--
I never user products from companies who feed customer data to the NSA. Are you listening, Google?
..that nobody knows what it is?
that's a lot of hd to keep as insurance for some random dude.
and ftp? wtf? ever heard of bittorrent. or tor.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Insurance from whom, against whom? Like, Valve is going to call in its favor and get the FBI to get off his case, for fear of their DRM being compromised? I can totes see that happening.
I totally believe it's possible to exfiltrate data from multiple game companies (or indeed any companies). But how do we know he didn't just upload a 1.7 TB encrypted blob of random garbage? The word of a 17-year-old script kiddie is not exactly a lot to go on.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Insurance in what sense?
1. Get arrested;
2. Release password to unencrypt source code for old software;
3. Get charged with yet another crime;
4. ???
Just like Wikileaks two insurance files. Anyone remember those? They still haven't been cracked. Anyone still care? Well, whatever, I'm sure this will work.
Since this is encrypted this could be 1.7TB of shit for anyone knows. Or is there a sampler or something people are supposed to download to know it isn't?
1. He's Australian not American
2. He's announced he hacked these people previously
3. He's already been raided
4. He wants more attention
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/24/4024062/the-secrets-of-hacker-and-xbox-durango-leaker-superdae
"China: Bastion of civil rights." Has kind of a funny ring to it...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
At least we know this hacker isn't Canadian. With our current ISP plans, it would have taken 1.5 years to upload 1.7TB of data without busting the bank in extra fees for bandwith.
China: where they spy on you also, but at least they don't try to hide it
Following such way of thinking, you'd have to conquer most of Europe and murder 6 million Jews before you could "take the piss" out of Hitler.
Don't forget commissioning a small economic car and being a vegetarian painter while doing all that.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I've released a file which contains the complete plans for the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator which can blow up the earth.
The file is encrypted, and if the local parking meter attendants put anymore tickets on my suburban, I'll release the passphrase.
I really, really will!
That is all.
This sounds like too large of an "insurance" to be useful. Most people don't have the bandwidth or the space to hold 1.7 TB of encrypted info.
Some of us do have the space[1] and bandwidth[2], but are utterly lacking in motivation to do so. Motivation would still be absent even if the file were unencrypted and the download had the blessing of the games companies. Big clue: we're not gamers, so we're not in thrall to games or gaming companies.
[1] We have 6 TB of available space in a single volume on a server at home
[2] We have 100Mbps symmetric fiber (with no caps) at home
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
You can't just decrypt stuff just because you want to. It's protected by the power of math.
He's a minor himself. The "child pornography" could be pictures of his own dick for all we know, or a 17 year old girlfriend. The "drug" charges are "posession of cannabis and cannabis paraphernalia" so who gives a shit and the "weapons" charge was supposedly a stun gun. Not a taser, just one of those sparky things.
Someone please tell me City of Heroes code is in there! Help me, I'm dyin' here!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
": Bastion of civil rights." Has kind of a funny ring to it...
FTFY
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Has someone downloaded this and tried the password "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, start"?
If someone tries to kill you, you try and kill them right back
He has an Australian bank account on his site and there is more than enough info out there to track him down in 5 minutes :)
This "insurance policy" might have been a good idea if he didn't have ongoing cases and not left a treasure of information online to track him down!
By next week his a*r*s*hole will be the size of arizona
Maybe in a divergent future where they prove that P = NP and where rap music is actually relevant.
Which I will release to the public in a 1.7TB archive. If I'm arrested, I will release the one-time pad decryption key.
I'm confused. If they have nothing to hide then they shouldn't worry about someone providing access to look over everything they do. They're probably worried because they're all criminals with something to conceal.
2. Doesn't matter. So what? All they'd do is confirm he is not bluffing.
3. Is the flaw in the plan. It's based on the idea that the games companies he hacked are headed by executives who would ask the FBI to let him go free to protect their own trade secrets, and that the FBI is obliged to obey if such a request is made. Neither of these is true. Chances are at least one of those companies would rather crucify him to set an example, and even if they all back down the FBI can go ahead and prosecute anyway - and now this is all public they have little choice, as no prosecutor who values their career can be seen to back down to threats made by a criminal - especially now they have done their trawling and managed to find some drugs and something legally classed as child porn (I suspect he has pictures of a 17-year-old girlfriend).
Which stinks of an FBI trawl - that's the type of charge list you'd expect when the FBI wants to take someone down but can't actually convict them, so goes hunting for anything else illegal they may have done instead.
Everyone is a criminal in some way. Just got to dig deep enough to find how.
I can not imagine any greater waste of bandwidth or disk space than wasting my life with this shit.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
SuperDaeE Os0orne. Luckily his insurance is re-enforced with super sealskin bindings. Still an idiot though.
- I stole your sig.
Should the headline read "Hacker allegedly claims to have 1.7TB of data that could possibly be something". ?
I mean really. I can upload 1.7TB of cat pictures encrypted and claim it's CIA secrets. Right now he has nothing that one should describe as a "treasure trove"
Is there any reason to doubt that he really claims it? Because that's the meaning of "allegedly claims".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Wow. I tried to post serious contentions that I seen about this issue and I get knocked down for trolling, when in fact I wasn't trying to troll. Trolling isn't something I do here.
Let me see if I can clarify it in a way that won't come off as trollish:
First: I have never heard of this guy till Loadmaster directed me to an article about him. Until I did, I had the same reaction I had when I heard of Lulsec and various other high profile incidents (I will attempt to refrain from using the word "hacker" because that phrase isn't a correct description of this event), which was: Some lax in security invited some person to infiltrate and gather data. Then said individual wanted to seek attention and is/was acting all surprised when the law came after him. Basically: blabbing about it only draws the wrong kind of attention and in certain cases makes one look like an attention seeker. I'm not sure if that is what he is or not but what he is doing isn't a wise idea either way.
Secondly: Don't be so sure that Encryption == Keeps things secure. Without knowing how this individual encrypted the data, I can only speculate. However, and this greatly depends on how tech savvy the LE is, if the person assigned to decode it recognizes the algorithm as some kind of readily available tool, they might be able use that to decrypt it.
Then again, I could be wrong and over grossly overestimating the tech savvy of the world's law enforcement tech skills. However that can be made up for by pestering/harassing/legal bombarding/forcing the individual to do that hard work for said law enforcement. That I am positive of regardless of your country origin.
Thirdly: From the article it said he had source code from old games. I know game companies have from time to time released source code of their games. So I wonder what source code he has and if it is already publicly released SC, why the big deal? If it is publicly available, why encrypt it with the other stuff? It's not precisely "hidden info" and the game company isn't going to do anything. They said it was OK after all. If the FBI or LE wanted to jump him for it, it'd backfire in their face due to the fact it was already a publicly released work.
Now if it is for something like a new game or from a game that the makers didn't make public, THAT would make more sense.
Finally, whenever I hear stories of somebody who's done some dubious feat and is sharing the bounty of said feat, I fall back on the old children's lesson: "Never take candy from strangers". To me this is a 1.7 TB Encrypted piece of candy that I have skepticism about. If that gets me labeled as a troll, I have no issues as I'd rather be cautious than end up finding out the 1.7 TB Candy was laced with Digital GHB. Then again, I am not so skeptical that I am not willing to admit I'm wrong or not be further informed. In fact, that is what I'd like: To be convinced that my skepticism is wrong.
I can't decide who's stupider, him or anyone who believes him.
Actually, no, it's definitely anyone who believes him.
Soooo his idea of insurance is collect evidence that he is indeed guilty so that if he is arrested he will more easily be convicted and face even more extensive charges? I don't get it, exactly how is that insurance unless he really wants to ensure he gets his free meals and accommodation for at least an extra 10 years?
More to the point, unless the 1.7TB contains something of interest in the first place (ex: stolen source code that isn't encrypted), who is going to bother to download it? See, you have to give people an incentive to download that much shit before they are going to act as your own personal distributed storage service.
Bet when he gets arrested (not if), that there aren't any copies of his 'get out of jail card' in the wild.
Also, just for the record, have there ever been instances of anyone successfully blackmailing the cops into letting them go? Ever?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Bet its a 'Rick Astley video, re-sized to massive resolution and the password is 'RickrollAll'.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
So are we, the public, supposed to now cheer him and and support him not getting arrested? Oh, hell no, I want all of those goodies released. I hope they arrest his ass, and the sooner, the better.
People in the 10th century fucking wish they could teleport their castle into another dimension that nobody else could get into. Then nobody could break in and steal anything. Fast forward to now. Get 2 routers, 2 servers, pairs of 2 PCs, and one modem. TADA! You've got a LAN #2 (like a VLAN except real and physically separated) and you put all your game and console development data on the separated one. Then use your other LAN for internet access. Every desk gets 2 PCs and the internet and e-mail cruiser can be a pentium G series chip with a 60GB SSD so really the extra costs aren't insane. Not one single person in the entire world could hack into network #2 because they never ever touch. Simple!
If you don't want your crap stolen, don't put it on the internet. Tada, magical trans-dimensional shifting super-fortress.
10 MB of sources for a new and small game would be pretty bad because many coders can figure out how to compile the thing, and then perhaps improve or develop on it.
1 TB of sources is useless to anyone. You need a building full of coders who coded this very thing from the day zero to even put it all together, with all the libraries, linker files, batch files, tests, models, setup projects, and so on. Hardly anyone on this Earth has time to sift through a terabyte of sources. If I need a game, I will not spend a year of my life to hack it from a snapshot that was taken who knows when and without a guarantee that it is complete. In some software houses the head of the tree may compile, but it doesn't mean that the end product is a usable build. Only tagged revisions are of some value. This means that if I need a game I will spend $50 and buy one, with the latest code and with all the updates that are available to this date.
Most of it could be game assets and not source code.
Perhaps. But it's even more useless then. Who needs textures and models that are encoded with a proprietary editor for a very specific use, with zero documentation, and can be rendered only by a very specific engine? (Like the swaying grass in Far Cry 2, for one example.) Music could be the only readily usable asset - if somehow it pains one too much to plug the S/PDIF in and record it in all its digital glory. Sometimes studios publish the music separately, in better format. Such music is "out there" for many games, and it was not recorded during the game.
He also mentioned he's managed to get SDKs and secret licensed-developers-only tools, so there's probably something like a customised version of visual studio in there - and perhaps game asset sources, the PSD files complete with layers for all the textures. Things like that could bring it up to 1.7TB.
Sources for a recent version could be used to easily subvert copy-protection, especially if he got code for a non-released server of a multiplayer game. Or used for cheating - if you can get it to compile, not hard to set wall.opacity=0.5 and commence pwning everyone. He's not just an inept boaster - he's confirmed as having broken into companies before, so it's plausible that he may not be bluffing.
I can't see the bluff working though. Not at this stage. It might have been enough to convince a game company or two to back down, but now the FBI is involved - if you try to blackmail the FBI, it just makes them all the more determined to pile on the charges.
Any old copper telephone line supports at least 512kbit/s.
A DSL line supports service burstable to 512 kbps. But that's only if you happen to be able to afford real estate close enough to the DSLAM, as others pointed out. And for the file sizes we're talking about, the upstream is oversold. Comcast, for example, sells "6 Mbps", but if you read the fine print of the acceptable usage policy, you discover that that's a burst rate, and the 250 GB/mo cap makes it closer to 768 kbps sustained, or half a T1: 768 kbps * (86400 seconds/day) * (30 days/month) / (8000000 kbit/GB) = 248 GB/mo.
I guess you never heard of the possibiliy of direct server-to-server transfer, did you?
Internet connections in data centers have caps too, implicit in the phrasing x kbps burstable to y Mbps. For example, a 768 kbps CIR is comparable to the Comcast Cap of 250 GB per month.
I'm sure a lot of pirated dev kits are floating around already, as for the source code, who cares? Another game company isn't going to go near it, I guess in the worst case if everything is there a bunch of devs could get together, strip out all the drm, and release a really good pirated version, but I just don't see this being a big risk for the game companies.
Oh yeah,
Recently, Kotaku reported that SuperDaE, a 17 year-old minor, was facing an array of eight legal charges, including "possession of cannabis and drug paraphernalia", "possession of a prohibited weapon", "possession of identification material with intent to commit an offence", and "possessing and copying an indecent or obscene article, possession of child exploitation material".
So an Australian, being charged by Australian police for crimes that have nothing to do with computers, apparently thinks a bunch of American and Japanese game companies can protect him if he blackmails them?
Good luck with that...
I stole this Sig
He said if he is prevented access to a computer the file will be decrypted. He likely has the file set on an access timer, to self-decrypt if anything in his regular pattern changes. After all, what 17 year old has time to do anything but be on a computer?