Nintendo Seeks Discord User's Identity Following Major Pokemon Leak

Nintendo has filed a request for subpoena in California's Northern District Court to compel Discord to reveal the identity of user "GameFreakOUT," the alleged source of last year's extensive Pokemon leak. The company is demanding the name, address, phone number, and email of the individual behind the "Teraleak," which contained claimed source code for upcoming title Pokemon Legends: Z-A, next-generation Pokemon games, builds of older titles, and numerous concept art and lore documents.

Court documents obtained by Polygon show Nintendo included a partially redacted Discord screenshot as evidence, where GameFreakOUT shared files in a server named "FreakLeak." The breach occurred around October 12, 2024, two days after Game Freak publicly acknowledged a hack affecting employee information without confirming game data theft.

I have an idea

[CEC-P]

Try and get the name, phone number, and address of the person who failed to secure your damn data. I swear, Nintendo is so backwards and out of touch. They can take their $80 games that never go down in price and shove them. They didn't even want to give away Wii Sports Resort with the Wii because they were so greedy and obsessed with getting paid for their work. Then they never make enough of their damn hardware to go around and there's shortages for 2 years. They are so clueless, I can't even figure out how they're still in business. Then they get hacked twice.

Re:

[smooth wombat]

How about when someone goes into your home and steals something we post your name, address and phone number because you didn't lock your door.

Forget the thief, you're the one who failed to secure your home.

Re:

[Powercntrl]

How about when someone goes into your home and steals something we post your name, address and phone number because you didn't lock your door.

Actually, it's more like you're a YouTube content creator and someone copied your raw footage for things you hadn't yet posted and they shared it online. Except in this case, you've got an army of lawyers to send takedown notices if anyone even thinks about doing anything with the footage without your permission. The analogy otherwise breaks down once you take it outside the realm of IP-related theft, because in the case of your physical possessions, if someone used a "Star Trek"-style replicator, scanned

Re:I have an idea

[Rinnon]

Try and get the name, phone number, and address of the person who failed to secure your damn data.

You mean the IT department? Pretty sure they have that. I don't disagree that when your security fails, you should complain to the person who failed to manage that security (or perhaps fire them), but why wouldn't they also want to find the person who actually stole their stuff?

Re:

[drinkypoo]

why wouldn't they also want to find the person who actually stole their stuff?

Nobody stole their stuff. They copied it.

Yeah, that's pedantic, but this is the most warranted "that's not theft" pedanticism that ever was, because Nintendo is one of the biggest assholes when it comes to IP that ever was.

Re: I have an idea

[drinkypoo]

No one said what you think I said, but I'm supposed to be the stupid one? Try learning to read.

Re:

[Rinnon]

Yes, you're technically correct (the best kind of correct), but there is no law against being an asshole, and it doesn't mean they aren't entitled to the same rights under the law as any other person/entity. It doesn't need to be "theft" for Nintendo to have certain legal rights that they are entitled to pursue, though IANAL, so if someone who is wants to say that there is in fact no legal rights that Nintendo has against this person, I'm in no position to argue.

Re: I have an idea

[drinkypoo]

Point to where I said they had no legal rights.

Re:

[Rinnon]

I'm well aware that you didn't say that and that you weren't making that argument. I ceded both of your points, and then mused about the implications on my original statement of ceding those points. This isn't a formal debate, this isn't court, we're all free to elaborate and expand on points and respond with additional thoughts.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Fair enough. I conflated you with well-known troll taustin, because I'm used to the piling on.

Re:

[ewibble]

In what practical sense do you see an individual being able to do the same under the law against nintendo's lawyers if the situation was reversed?

Sure they have the right under the law to do so, however the law is broken.

Re:

[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

What does this story have to do with Trump, at all?

Re:

[Tyr07]

Quick fix to everything, doesn't matter which "side" the "sides" have put you into.
Accountability.

Just make the actual political party responsible for the results of their leadership, with facts and data, not feelings.
Boom, suddenly politicians on both sides are actually good for the citizens period.

Re:

[ihavesaxwithcollies]

Accountability.Just make the actual political party responsible for the results of their leadership,

The courts are doing that and one orange side is ignoring and lying about what they are doing. They are breaking the law and shredding the constitution.

Re:

[zenlessyank]

It's called humor. I refuse to slash ess anything. Figure it out on your own!

Re:

[taustin]

Some lefties are literally incapable of saying anything about any subject at any time or anywhere without pointing out that Orange Man Bad.

They literally can't .

Their world ended when the voting public chose Trump over Carpet Bagger Harris. It broke them, mentally, and they'll never recover.

Re:

[taustin]

You're one of the losers I was talking about. But you know that.

Re:

[ihavesaxwithcollies]

You know trump lost the 2020 election?

Does Discord Have Identifying Information?

[PastTense]

Does Discord have the name, address, phone number, and email of its users?

I would have guessed Discord only has a made-up user name and email address.

Re:

[Burdell]

It depends on the Discord server. At minimum, they'd have an email address that the user controlled at least at some point (to confirm it). Due to spam bots, a lot of servers require a phone number verification via SMS as well.

uncontrolled squirtling

[Pseudonymous Powers]

If they don't want Pokemon to leak, they ought to make the balls better.

If Nintendo will pay, I'll tell them what I know

[hyades1]

I have it on good authority the guy's name is Lou Skunte, and his email is [e-mail]. I can't help with a phone number. The spoor ended at a Moscow area code.

Why do people use Discord?

[allo]

I won't even think of giving a chat service my address.

Re:

[RitchCraft]

"I won't even think of giving a chat service my address." - Unless you have been doing this all along, since 30 years ago on the Internet, it's not going to matter. Your personal information has been sold and cross-linked hundreds of thousands of times with all other mined data for at least 25 years now. Stupid little things like using the same password or username on multiple sites will get you discovered in no time. Your IP address right now pinpoints your general location with nothing more than a request

Re:

[allo]

You're not wrong, even though you may be a bit more paranoid than necessary about how Nintendo might find you. I doubt they can query the NSA database to link your usernames together. But the main point is, I neither give Discord nor Slashdot my address. Even if everyone knew it, I wouldn't give it to Discord on principle. That's none of their business, so they don't get it.