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Hacker Releases 1.7TB Treasure Trove of Gaming Info 293

mvar writes "According to Kotaku, a hacker named SuperDaeE who breached multiple gaming companies (Valve, Sony, MS to name a few) has released a 1.7TB treasure trove file for download. The file which contains source code for older titles plus development kits for the PS4 and Xbox One consoles, is encrypted and SuperDaeE claims that it is his insurance in case he gets arrested."
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Hacker Releases 1.7TB Treasure Trove of Gaming Info

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  • Insurance Policy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Orestesx ( 629343 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:02PM (#43963531)
    Right...cause if he gets in trouble, blackmail will surely get him out of it.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:24PM (#43963849)

      "Listen up, world! I've got evidence that the senator's been holding a human trafficking and slavery ring in the #7 warehouse on the docks, as well as papers showing the exact schedules of these activities and how they've helped his campaigns! And here's all of that evidence for download! I'm using this as insurance against him arresting me for my breaking and entering into his office to get this information!"
      "So... how is this insurance?"
      "Because if he tries to arrest me, I'll release all the information to the world!"
      "But you just did that."
      "Of course I did! That way he knows I'm not bluffing! If he tries something stupid, I'll release it all again! So you see, Senator, I hold all the cards!"

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:32PM (#43963939)

        Just for reference, if you look at the summary you'll see that what he's released is that trove... encrypted. The idea is that if he gets arrested, he yells out the passphrase, but until then this might as well be 1.7TiB of /dev/random

        • by spiffmastercow ( 1001386 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:44PM (#43964091)

          Just for reference, if you look at the summary you'll see that what he's released is that trove... encrypted. The idea is that if he gets arrested, he yells out the passphrase, but until then this might as well be 1.7TiB of /dev/random

          My guess is it's 1.7GB of /dev/random anyway.

          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Repeated 1024 times to account for the 1.7TiB of data?

          • by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @02:54PM (#43964837)

            Or his personal porn collection.

            Why back it up if you can get the world to do it?

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward

            It's 1.7 GB of /dev/random. All he needs to do is release the correct one-time pad!

        • So neither we nor the companies may even know the extent of what he has.
          Kinda shitty plan on his part it seems.

          And even then, why release it to begin with?
          Had he kept quiet he might never have been caught, by putting it out there he all but guaranteed his arrest.

          Also what good is the Dev SW for a PS4 or XBone without the hardware? We already know what the HW will be like, does anyone give a shit what SW the consoles will use? The people who could make use of it, developers; already have their Dev kits in ha

        • by Zencyde ( 850968 )
          I'm under the impression that he has something automatically set up to yell the passphrase for him if he isn't there to stop it once every arbitrary schedule of time. I imagine that this is some sort of timer system, possibly set on a weekly basis. Easier to guarantee it working as this situation, in which he is behind bars, would be expected. If he's as smart as he comes off, he even has this trigger set across multiple locations through sources that he's accessed only anonymously. He could even have a bot
        • Just for reference, if you look at the summary you'll see that what he's released is that trove... encrypted. The idea is that if he gets arrested, he yells out the passphrase, but until then this might as well be 1.7TiB of /dev/random

          If you read the article, you'll see that it gets auto-decrypted if he fails to check in. So if he gets arrested and can't access the failsafe to reset it the timer, it gets released.

    • Besides that, that is a big So What in data.

      Ok Source code for OLD GAMES, So games that have already been pirated and hacked, but lets the the source so we could compile it before we play it.
      SDK, that would be handy, if only you wanted to be licensed with the gaming company, to you know distribute your code. Even OSS projects would avoid it as to not get sued for using a pirated SDK.

      So when he gets arrested for hacking, they will just add Pirating to the list too. Good thinking!

    • by lbmouse ( 473316 )

      It might help determine how rapey his cellmate will be.

    • Must post the obligatory reply:

      "I didn't do it." [youtube.com]

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:03PM (#43963545)

    Now hackers everywhere have a reason to get SuperDaeE arrested.

  • FTP? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:04PM (#43963557)

    > using centralized resource to distribute "insurance"
    >> 2013

  • OMG (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lesincompetent ( 2836253 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:06PM (#43963581)
    Valve too?
    Please SuperDaeE tell me: can they count to three?
  • by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:07PM (#43963609)
    This sounds like too large of an "insurance" to be useful. Most people don't have the bandwidth or the space to hold 1.7 TB of encrypted info. Smaller files might make sense but not huge ones like this.
    • Just uploading that must have been a real bitch.

      • It takes about two days at 100Mb/s

        • If I were to start the download on my home connection which tops out at about 100kb/s(fastest in my area) it won't be finished before I receive the 4 year degree I start in the fall. Then there's the keyfile to think about. I think I'll skip this one.

    • by VorpalRodent ( 964940 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:13PM (#43963703)
      And even if they did...what's the value? Please explain to me if I'm missing something, but if I can't decrypt it, then my having a copy is just to protect his "insurance policy", in which case I'm aiding and abetting. I assume additional risk with zero potential benefit, except perhaps helping "stick it to the corporate blah blah blah"?
    • Perhaps he will take a wikileaks like approach. Release individual games slowly over time but have the larger file available should he be interupted
    • This sounds like too large of an "insurance" to be useful. Most people don't have the bandwidth or the space to hold 1.7 TB of encrypted info.

      Some of us do have the space[1] and bandwidth[2], but are utterly lacking in motivation to do so. Motivation would still be absent even if the file were unencrypted and the download had the blessing of the games companies. Big clue: we're not gamers, so we're not in thrall to games or gaming companies.

      [1] We have 6 TB of available space in a single volume on a server at home
      [2] We have 100Mbps symmetric fiber (with no caps) at home

    • by rodrigoandrade ( 713371 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @02:06PM (#43964339)

      I bet he's too young to have ever used alt.binaries to know how it's done.

    • Only one person needs to keep a copy, though.

  • by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:08PM (#43963619) Homepage Journal

    I have 2.0 GB of source code for Windows 8, Windows 9 alpha, Call of Duty Ghosts, World of Warcraft Annihilation and Donkey Kong Junior. I have encrypted the file and am withholding the key in case I get arrested. But trust me, it's all there.

    • When you start releasing info on yet to be confirmed or released hardware, services and sdk's, which are then verified, then you can take the piss.

      • Following such way of thinking, you'd have to conquer most of Europe and murder 6 million Jews before you could "take the piss" out of Hitler.

        Don't forget commissioning a small economic car and being a vegetarian painter while doing all that.

        • I was merely pointing out that there is some credibility that what he says is in the archive, actually is in the archive, and that acting as if it's just some script kiddie making stuff up has to ignore the fact that this kid has proven credible with the info already leaked.

    • It does say he "leaked loads of accurate new info to Kotaku about the then unnamed Xbox One and PS4 earlier this year," which is possibly why the generally-not-born-yesterday kotaku may be taking it somewhat seriously.
      • which is possibly why the generally-not-born-yesterday kotaku may be taking it somewhat seriously.

        My faith in Kotaku has diminished quite a bit following the attack piece they published against Silicon Knights and Dennis Dyack. Dyack (who is certainly no saint, but is also not the embezzler he's made out to be) later did a point-by-point rebuttal to it, providing convincing information and evidence to contradict each of its claims, and even managed to get a hold of a copy of an e-mail from a Wired editor to the freelance author of the Kotaku attack piece, in which the editor turned down the article due

        • I'm not saying they're great journalists. I'm not even saying they're great for a video game news website, just that they are a little more skeptical than supermarket tabloids usually.
          • I can agree with that. On the whole, they're "not bad", but they are certainly not as careful as they should be.

    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:32PM (#43963937)

      You needed Donkey Kong Junior just to make you hit 2.0 Gigabytes exactly. Right?

    • It's collectively worth $200 million. If you wire me $20,000 right now, I can get it out of the country and you can take 20% of the profits from the sale.

    • by oztiks ( 921504 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @06:47PM (#43967445)

      I have 2.0 GB of source code for Windows 8, Windows 9 alpha

      Please, if you're going to steal something you should check to make sure it's of real value to someone first. Donkey Kong Junior is perhaps the biggest ticket item you've mentioned!

  • by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:09PM (#43963637) Homepage Journal

    ..that nobody knows what it is?
    that's a lot of hd to keep as insurance for some random dude.

    and ftp? wtf? ever heard of bittorrent. or tor.

    • Yeah, but when he gets arrested and the key is released it will be pretty awesome to have the file already.
    • Why would a torrent swarm of people download a giant file that they cannot decrypt?

      You know what, don't answer that. I am sure enough file hoarders will grab the file to keep the torrent alive alive.

  • by Darth Snowshoe ( 1434515 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:09PM (#43963643)

    Insurance from whom, against whom? Like, Valve is going to call in its favor and get the FBI to get off his case, for fear of their DRM being compromised? I can totes see that happening.

    • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      Insurance from whom, against whom? Like, Valve is going to call in its favor and get the FBI to get off his case, for fear of their DRM being compromised? I can totes see that happening.

      pretty much all games on steam have had their checks cracked. not much to defeat there.

    • I assume you are referencing the HL2 leak. [wired.com] Where valve got the guy to come to the states for a job interview at which point the FBI arrested him. And the same trick was used by valve years before.

      So this guy should be skeptical of any job offers he gets from valve, rather than hold an insurance file.
    • I assume the guy is planning to release the source code chunk by chunk but hes at risk of being interrupted and arrested. His insurance policy makes sense because hes saying "you can arrest me but if you do then hundreds more will have access to the source and then you'll have to find them all too"
    • It doesn't seem realistic. But he is seventeen - he may well expect it to work, being still naive about the level of assholery humans are capable of.

  • Encrypted blob (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SirGarlon ( 845873 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:11PM (#43963663)
    I totally believe it's possible to exfiltrate data from multiple game companies (or indeed any companies). But how do we know he didn't just upload a 1.7 TB encrypted blob of random garbage? The word of a 17-year-old script kiddie is not exactly a lot to go on.
    • Re:Encrypted blob (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:19PM (#43963759)
      And it seems odd that there would be so much data. Source code doesn't take that much space, and neither do development kits. Perhaps he's including game assets like textures and cut scenes from the games, but I don't really see much point in including that, since it would mostly be easy to extract from the actual game files themselves.
      • Re:Encrypted blob (Score:5, Informative)

        by loufoque ( 1400831 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @02:14PM (#43964445)

        The xbox 360 base SDK is 2GB. If you count all extra stuff for Kinect etc. it's even bigger.
        And they probably have tons of other middleware software, some of which could come with their own editing and authoring tools. That alone could account for a hundred gigs if not more.
        Then there is source code. It's not unusal for a piece of software to have sources that account for 500MB, and several gigabytes if you include binaries.

        All in all they probably also have binary assets of some sort, but software does take quite some space on a disk.

      • Remember, this is encrypted, not compressed.

        I run a small-sized website. Not including graphics, I have almost 40MB of data.
        Heavily commented source
        Archives of old, or out-dated source
        Upgrade scripts
        Notes
        API information
        DOC files
        UI examples
        etc...

        It doesn't take that long to build up data now a days.

      • And it seems odd that there would be so much data. Source code doesn't take that much space

        Um, it's really not that uncommon for source code to occupy much more space than it's compiled form. Perhaps you need to stop writing so much stuff in debug..

  • lol wat (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Insurance in what sense?

    1. Get arrested;
    2. Release password to unencrypt source code for old software;
    3. Get charged with yet another crime;
    4. ???

  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:32PM (#43963935)
    Since this is encrypted this could be 1.7TB of shit for anyone knows. Or is there a sampler or something people are supposed to download to know it isn't?
  • by Kinwolf ( 945345 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:43PM (#43964071)
    At least we know this hacker isn't Canadian. With our current ISP plans, it would have taken 1.5 years to upload 1.7TB of data without busting the bank in extra fees for bandwith.
    • by tom17 ( 659054 )

      It would actually take a little over 2 months at 10MBps if you restricted it to the unmetered times (6 hours a day) (That's a TekSavvy example).

      But this would not apply if you were with one of the Big Two. Maybe that's what you meant? They barely count as internet service if you ask me. Rip-off merchants!

      • by tom17 ( 659054 )

        I made a mistake. Uploads don't go towards your 300GB cap. So it would, in fact, only take ~16 days.

  • by Hartree ( 191324 ) on Monday June 10, 2013 @01:49PM (#43964141)

    I've released a file which contains the complete plans for the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator which can blow up the earth.

    The file is encrypted, and if the local parking meter attendants put anymore tickets on my suburban, I'll release the passphrase.

    I really, really will!

    That is all.

  • Has someone downloaded this and tried the password "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, start"?
  • Which I will release to the public in a 1.7TB archive. If I'm arrested, I will release the one-time pad decryption key.
  • I can not imagine any greater waste of bandwidth or disk space than wasting my life with this shit.

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