DaFreak
Legacy Member
Wired is eindelijk terug bezig met kwaliteits journalistiek. Hoort prolly bij het beste dat ik dit jaar al gelezen heb.
The Teens Who Hacked Microsoft's Videogame Empire—And Went Too Far
Artikel gaat over een crew van tieners die idealistisch en naief begonnen met enkele interessante projecten na het kraken van de originele xbox. Zo hielpen ze mee aan de ontwikkeling van XBMC. Maar zoals altijd weet de roep van het grote geld zielen op het foute pad te brengen. Uiteindelijk zaten ze in de netwerken van zowat alle grote bedrijven in de games industrie en begonnen ze met het verkopen van pre-release copies van gigantische titels zoals Gears of War en Call of Duty.
Lang artikel maar imo zeker waard om volledig te lezen. Enkele snips om je appetijt aan te wakkeren;
The 18-year-old Clark had experience disassembling Xbox games—reverse-engineering their code from machine language into a programming language. (van binary 000011010010101 naar leesbare programmeer taal, redelijk gestoord.)
"Wheeler cold-messaged the Canadian and offered him the chance to get inside one of the world’s preeminent game developers internal network; he didn’t mention that he was only 14, fearing that his age would be a deal breaker."
"For fees that ranged up to $100 per half-hour, players with JTAGed consoles could participate in death matches while wielding superpowers: They could fly, walk through walls, sprint with Flash-like speed, or shoot bullets that never missed their targets. For an extra $50 to $150, Pokora and Clark also offered “infections”—powers that players’ characters would retain when they joined nonhacked games. Pokora was initially reluctant to sell infections: He knew his turbocharged clients would slaughter their hapless opponents, a situation that struck him as contrary to the spirit of gaming. But then the money started rolling in—as much as $8,000 on busy days."
Na het lekken van Gears of Wars 3 en het daaropvolgende FBI onderzoek dat die kinderen in real time konden volgen via het tracken van email verkeer; "He kept trespassing on sensitive areas of Epic’s network, making few efforts to conceal his IP address as he spied on high-level corporate meetings through webcams he’d commandeered."
Through Epic Pokora and Wheeler came across login credentials for Scaleform, a so-called middleware company that provided technology for the engine at the heart of Epic’s games. Once they’d broken into Scaleform, they discovered that the company’s network was full of credentials for Silicon Valley titans, Hollywood entertainment conglomerates.
"the group stumbled on a tunnel to a US Army server; it contained a simulator for the AH-64D Apache helicopter that Zombie was developing on a Pentagon contract."
Na penetratie van MS netwerk wilden ze eerst de specs van Durango verkopen (xbox one codename) aan competitie, maar uiteindelijk hebben ze zelf Durango nagebouwd en beginnen verkopen.
" Clark, meanwhile, refined Leroux’s FIFA coin-minting technology and started selling the virtual currency on the black market. "
"In December 2012 the FBI raided Sanadodeh Nesheiwat’s home in New Jersey. Nesheiwat posted an unredacted version of the search warrant online. Wheeler reacted by doxing the agents in a public forum and encouraging people to harass them; he also spoke openly about hiring a hitman to murder the federal judge who’d signed the warrant."
Lid van hun crew; "The burglar was a recent high school graduate named Arman, known on the scene as ArmanTheCyber had cloned a Microsoft employee badge that belonged to his mother’s boyfriend; he’d been using the RFID card to explore the Redmond campus ever since, passing as an employee by dressing head to toe in Microsoft swag."
"Leroux was granted bail and was allowed to live with his parents as his case progressed. But as he lingered at his Maryland home, he grew convinced that, given his diminutive stature and shy nature, he was doomed to be raped or murdered if he went to prison. His fear became so overpowering that, on June 16, he clipped off his ankle monitor and fled."
"He paid a friend to try to smuggle him into Canada, nearly 400 miles to the north. But their long drive ended in futility: The Canadians flagged the car at the border. Rather than accept that his escape had failed, Leroux pulled out a knife and tried to sprint across the bridge onto Canadian soil. When officers surrounded him, he decided he had just one option left: He stabbed himself multiple times."
Van deze hele saga kunnen ze een redelijk gestoorde film maken.
Voor de fans van Cliffy B;
"Then they pried into the computers of Epic bigwigs such as design director Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski; the pair chortled when they opened a music folder that Bleszinski had made for his Lamborghini and saw that it contained lots of Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus tunes."
The Teens Who Hacked Microsoft's Videogame Empire—And Went Too Far
Artikel gaat over een crew van tieners die idealistisch en naief begonnen met enkele interessante projecten na het kraken van de originele xbox. Zo hielpen ze mee aan de ontwikkeling van XBMC. Maar zoals altijd weet de roep van het grote geld zielen op het foute pad te brengen. Uiteindelijk zaten ze in de netwerken van zowat alle grote bedrijven in de games industrie en begonnen ze met het verkopen van pre-release copies van gigantische titels zoals Gears of War en Call of Duty.
Lang artikel maar imo zeker waard om volledig te lezen. Enkele snips om je appetijt aan te wakkeren;
The 18-year-old Clark had experience disassembling Xbox games—reverse-engineering their code from machine language into a programming language. (van binary 000011010010101 naar leesbare programmeer taal, redelijk gestoord.)
"Wheeler cold-messaged the Canadian and offered him the chance to get inside one of the world’s preeminent game developers internal network; he didn’t mention that he was only 14, fearing that his age would be a deal breaker."
"For fees that ranged up to $100 per half-hour, players with JTAGed consoles could participate in death matches while wielding superpowers: They could fly, walk through walls, sprint with Flash-like speed, or shoot bullets that never missed their targets. For an extra $50 to $150, Pokora and Clark also offered “infections”—powers that players’ characters would retain when they joined nonhacked games. Pokora was initially reluctant to sell infections: He knew his turbocharged clients would slaughter their hapless opponents, a situation that struck him as contrary to the spirit of gaming. But then the money started rolling in—as much as $8,000 on busy days."
Na het lekken van Gears of Wars 3 en het daaropvolgende FBI onderzoek dat die kinderen in real time konden volgen via het tracken van email verkeer; "He kept trespassing on sensitive areas of Epic’s network, making few efforts to conceal his IP address as he spied on high-level corporate meetings through webcams he’d commandeered."
Through Epic Pokora and Wheeler came across login credentials for Scaleform, a so-called middleware company that provided technology for the engine at the heart of Epic’s games. Once they’d broken into Scaleform, they discovered that the company’s network was full of credentials for Silicon Valley titans, Hollywood entertainment conglomerates.
"the group stumbled on a tunnel to a US Army server; it contained a simulator for the AH-64D Apache helicopter that Zombie was developing on a Pentagon contract."
Na penetratie van MS netwerk wilden ze eerst de specs van Durango verkopen (xbox one codename) aan competitie, maar uiteindelijk hebben ze zelf Durango nagebouwd en beginnen verkopen.
" Clark, meanwhile, refined Leroux’s FIFA coin-minting technology and started selling the virtual currency on the black market. "
"In December 2012 the FBI raided Sanadodeh Nesheiwat’s home in New Jersey. Nesheiwat posted an unredacted version of the search warrant online. Wheeler reacted by doxing the agents in a public forum and encouraging people to harass them; he also spoke openly about hiring a hitman to murder the federal judge who’d signed the warrant."
Lid van hun crew; "The burglar was a recent high school graduate named Arman, known on the scene as ArmanTheCyber had cloned a Microsoft employee badge that belonged to his mother’s boyfriend; he’d been using the RFID card to explore the Redmond campus ever since, passing as an employee by dressing head to toe in Microsoft swag."
"Leroux was granted bail and was allowed to live with his parents as his case progressed. But as he lingered at his Maryland home, he grew convinced that, given his diminutive stature and shy nature, he was doomed to be raped or murdered if he went to prison. His fear became so overpowering that, on June 16, he clipped off his ankle monitor and fled."
"He paid a friend to try to smuggle him into Canada, nearly 400 miles to the north. But their long drive ended in futility: The Canadians flagged the car at the border. Rather than accept that his escape had failed, Leroux pulled out a knife and tried to sprint across the bridge onto Canadian soil. When officers surrounded him, he decided he had just one option left: He stabbed himself multiple times."
Van deze hele saga kunnen ze een redelijk gestoorde film maken.
Voor de fans van Cliffy B;
"Then they pried into the computers of Epic bigwigs such as design director Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski; the pair chortled when they opened a music folder that Bleszinski had made for his Lamborghini and saw that it contained lots of Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus tunes."
