The Australian hacker who breached Sony, Microsoft, Epic, Valve, Blizzard and other gaming companies before being raided by authorities in February is facing an array of unseemly charges, according to a report by an Australian wire service.
The report by the AAP wire service in The Australian indicates that the teen hacker who goes by the name SuperDaE (real name Dylan) is “facing eight charges including possession of child exploitation material… [as well as] failure to obey a data access order, possession of identification material with intent to commit an offence, dishonestly obtaining personal financial information, possession of cannabis and drug paraphernalia, possession of a prohibited weapon, and possessing and copying an indecent or obscene article.”
SuperDaE is out on bail, according to the report.
We’ve reached out to SuperDaE for comment on the matter.
Earlier this year, SuperDaE had supplied Kotaku with information about the next-gen PlayStation and Xbox. He did so before his home was raided by Australian authorities. He believed that raid was conducted with the support of the American FBI, something we’ve not been able to confirm, as the FBI has not commented to us about any investigation and would not traditionally be open about activities outside of its U.S. jurisdiction.
Shortly after the raid, SuperDaE shared his story with Kotaku, demonstrating the depths to which he had hacked various top gaming companies but swearing he did so out of curiosity and not with an intent to harm anyone.
From our story on him:
“I was treated like a criminal,” he complained to me, looking back at the raid.
It seemed to me that it didn’t matter if he really didn’t pirate or if he really didn’t use any stolen credit card numbers. He’d said that he got access to companies’ computers by using others’ logins. That alone might seem pretty bad.
“No one was hurt from what I did,” he said to me. “So it’s shocking that they want to ruin me like this.”
Dylan says he hasn’t been charged with anything yet. He says he’s living with family.
“I am a hacker in the eyes of the law,” he told me a couple of weeks ago. “However, how I see it is [that] I am someone curious with information and obsessed with owning everything that I otherwise shouldn’t.”
Authorities took his stuff, but SuperDaE didn’t immediately get charged. He kept a relatively low profile after the raid but made waves late last month when he suggested his arrest was imminent. SuperDaE claimed any arrest was being instigated by Microsoft, the company that had sent a top investigator to his home last summer after he’d tried to sell one of their next-gen Xbox development kits on eBay.
In retaliation, he was threatening to release two terabytes of data procured from the companies he hacked, setting an FTP server to grant access automatically if he wasn’t around to tell it not to. That trove included unreleased game projects from Gears of War maker Epic, though subsequent Twitter exchanges between SuperDaE and Epic’s Mark Rein appeared to indicate that copyrighted Epic data was removed from the FTP. SuperDaE rescinded his threat but declined to explain to us what charges he was facing nor the details of any arrest.
The charges outlined by the Australian wire service today don’t seem to have much to do with the mountains of game data that SuperDaE appeared to obtain. Instead, they focus on vices like drugs, weapons, and obscenity as well as some unclear intent to cause trouble with personal information. They report that he’ll be back in court next month.
We’ll have more on this story as it develops.
Comments
16 responses to “Report: Australian Gaming Hacker SuperDaE Facing Child Porn, Dishonesty Charges”
It sounds like something out of a movie. Guy gets done on a minor charge, but the corrupt cops “just happen to find” all sorts of banned and illegal stuff all over the place. I’m not saying the guy is innocent as hacking is a major crime, but drugs, weapons and child pornography seem a bit unbelievable. It’s like they are trying to make this kid, who hacked a company, into some sort of terrorist mastermind.
Once again, I’m not saying he is innocent, but there seems to be so much being found that it sounds unbelievable and like something out of a movie.
Just thought id say, and i am in NO WAY implying this is what has happened here. BUT, Stuff like animated porn, such as hentai if the charterers are under age are classified as child porn in this country.
So say for example you had that really bad simpsons porn that spawned the “Get out Bart Im Piss” meme. By Australian law, you have ‘possession of child exploitation material’.
You’ve got a point there. Australian Law is written that way, its just that people don’t think of “child pornography” in the context of things like Hentai.
As I said, and is somehow lost on people, I’m not defending this guy. I’m making a comparison between a movie plot device and real life events.
Yeah. It seems more believable that an international conspiracy has taken place involving multiple law enforcement agencies than the fact that he actually did what he is accused of. I don’t think that defence will stamd up in court or to anyone with a modicum of intelligence.
Re-read my last bit. I’m not defending this guy, I’m saying this sounds like something out of some sort of Hollywood produced corrupt cop movie than real life.
I get it but you are stating that a conspiracy is more believable than what he is accused of. Your reasons are 1- because so much was found 2 – because the stuff found is ‘a bit unbelievable’ 3- the fact that so much was found. Because of this you liken it to a movie. You categorically state that finding ‘drugs, weapons and child-pornography is a bit unbelievable’. I am merely saying that is far more believable than the ‘movie-based conspiracies’ that you liken the situation to.
Aren’t I and 3 the same thing n what you just said “…because so much was found…the face that so much was found.”?
Yes. They are. Which is my point.
Okay, just checking.
This
“how I see it is [that] I am someone curious with information and obsessed with owning everything that I otherwise shouldn’t.”
He sounds like those idiots who poach animals to have in their private zoos, just to complete a collection. I have no sympathy for them, nor him. He knows what he did was wrong, he just thought that he’d get away with it.
And when it was clear he wouldn’t, he brought out threats and blackmail. Smooth.
I face palmed when I read that line. As if that is an excuse for wilfully and maliciously stealing private information from someone else. Plus he stole(under false pretenses obtain hardware) the demo box and tried to profit from his endeavours.
There is no way this idiot is innocent. Maybe, just maybe if he stole all this stuff but kept it secret and only wanted to know for his eye only, I’m sure MSFT would have been more sympathetic, but he tried to profit from all of this. He’s getting his just deserts.
And when it was clear he wouldn’t, he brought out threats and blackmail. Smooth.
From what I’ve read he just seems to be genuinely naive bordering on delusional. His side of the story reads like he doesn’t understand that Microsoft and the rest were only being friendly because they thought he was unstable. He tells it like he did some stuff, talked to Microsoft and explained what he was doing/why and Microsoft were cool with it.
He was complaining at one point that Microsoft wanted him to hold their hand on everything and do all the work when it came to security breaches, and he just didn’t seem to get grasp that they weren’t trying to get him to explain word for word how to fix it, they were trying to get him to say word for word what he did so they knew what he saw and exactly how he got in.
I mean that’s no excuse for what he did, but I don’t think he’s trying to lie his way out of this. I think he sincerely doesn’t grasp what happened, as if he thinks everyone was fine with what he was doing and this is all about a bad breakup.
if he stole all my financial details I wouldn’t let him go because he was “just curious”, If he wasn’t going to do anything with the personal details then I don’t see why he wants them in the first place, guys an ass no doubt but worse then that he thinks he hasn’t done anything wrong, I don’t understand how someone can think it’s OK to steal and cheat and try to profit from said stealing and cheating.
Must have been a Kinect 2.0 prototype that was with the dev-kit.
Maybe going off on a tangent here but I think the term ‘hacker’ is thrown around far too much these days. Did he actually circumvent anything to gain access to anything? Didn’t he just scam some usernames and passwords? And make a phone call to Microsoft with someone else’s details? Is that what hacking is or is that just identify fraud?