According to Microsoft’s Paul Rellis, the culprit responsible has been caught, and discovered to be a… 14-year-old Irish kid. What’s more, instead of punishing the boy or turning him over to the law, Rellis says that Microsoft is “working with the teenager to develop his talent” in an attempt to “help him use his skills for legitimate purposes”.
If the Jason Bourne of the future has an Irish accent, at least we’ll know where he got his start.
Dublin teen (14) in new Xbox hack alert [Herald, via VG247]
Dissection
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 4:28 PMMicrosoft have done this before and it’s a smart move. Why piss off someone who clearly has the skills to cause you trouble when you can bring them on to your team.
Sony could learn from this.
SuperFred
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 4:52 PMMicrosoft would act completely differently if the 14-yo reverse engineered their software and enabled large scale piracy because of it.
Phising scam on a third party game != allowing wide scale piracy on proprietry software
Effluvium Boy
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 4:59 PMAgreed.
Braaains
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 5:21 PM^^^
What SuperFred said.
Dissection
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 8:53 AMActually back in the late 90′s a guy hacked right into Microsoft’s most secure servers just to prove a point. He got a job.
Widespread piracy is also quite a claim. You got anyhting to back that up other than Sony’s PR team?
Craig D
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 2:17 PMUm, no.
That just happened with Windows Phone 7. They flew him to Redmond and gave him a pat on the back and a T-Shirt.
James Mac
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 4:59 PMIs he developing his talent on Sony systems?
Matthew
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 7:43 PMa 14 year old? Obviously someone has taught him, and this is suspicious if you ask me. What legitimate purposes could they use someone who lead phising scams on a popular game? Not to mention what would activision say about this?
If you ask me, they are just using him to cover loop holes up so another Sony incident doesnt happen
Jack j
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 10:31 PMNo, it’s really easy to self teach, believe me.
A good community forum, an you’re off on a great start.
Or you can tough it out alone.
Brody Gaw
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 1:57 AMOne of the greatest hackers of all time self taught, Kevin Mitnick was phone phreaking when he was 14, then he managed to get his first job at a community college when he managed to hack their network and change everyones scores. He later become one of the most difficult people to track for I think it was 15 years or something ridiculous. He’s now working for homeland security as one of their leading supervisors and security testers. If you can’t beat them, use their potential and snap them up before someone else does. It’s like poaching, but instead you’re poaching the guy who just stole all of your information.
RJ
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 9:08 PMMicrosoft is building an army of hackers to bring down Sony for good. Sony fanboys, assemble!
Adrian Milano
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 9:59 PMBLARGH!!!**pounds chest**
I mean assemble for what? lol.
Jack j
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 10:29 PMWhy couldn’t education Queensland do this with me…. Lucky kid.
Niall Campbell
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 2:25 AMHey! I want Microsoft to support me too! Pity I’m 26 and know that Hacking is bad. If only I was 14 again and didn’t pay attention to all those insisting that I be good.
Andrew
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 6:41 AMDoes anyone remember the very first scene in Dollhouse? It’s kind of how I imagine that conversation going.
Neil Williams
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 6:26 PMI would, but I’ve suppressed absolutely everything to do with Dollhouse. It’s just easier on me that way.