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."

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...

[TapeCutter]

Why do they feel the need for a battering ram to serve a warrant on a kid stealing plans for a toy? Why did they take his credit and bank cards and leave him without access to his own accounts? What he did was wrong but it does not warrant a jackboot response from the authorities.