this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023

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GTA 6 Hacker Found To Be Teen With Amazon Fire Stick In Small Town Hotel Room (hackaday.com)

submitted 1 year ago by fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org 231 points 1 year ago (17 children)

The story is more interesting than the title suggests! This guy was arrested for hacking two telecom companies, got released under investigation, then immediately hacked Nvidia before being put under house arrest. After that, he was relocated to a hotel (due to being doxxed) where all he had to work with was a Fire TV stick, which he promptly then used to hack Rockstar.

All in all, he's believed to have stolen $14 million+. By the way... he's 18, autistic, and enrolled in a special education school.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)

After that, he was relocated to a hotel (due to being doxxed) where all he had to work with was a Fire TV stick, which he promptly then used to hack Rockstar.

Fuckin' bravo. I mean, don't do that, but on a purely technical level - nice.

[+] WoodlandAlliance@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

[deleted]

[–] chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, between getting doxxed and annihilating any chance he had at getting a lenient sentencing, the more sensible decision would have probably been to sit on his hands and bide time for a couple months lol.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Given he's autistic, that's probably actually impossible for him to do.

[–] chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well in that case I guess he's been cursed by fate in an uncaring world 🤷

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 5 points 1 year ago

But at least we can punish him. Eh?

That'll teach him for being congenitally neurodivergent.

[–] CoderKat@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He didn't just steal content. He then tried to blackmail the company to not release the content he stole.

Also, while you might be able to justify piracy of a released product in various ways (the common argument is that the would be pirate wouldn't have paid for the product anyway and digital goods don't have any cost to the developer from pirating them). But when the product hasn't been released yet, then it has a much bigger cost because the pirated copy is the only option available and thus it can eat into actual sales. The inability to go through with their planned launch (something big publishers will spend millions hyping) and the release of an unfinished product can absolutely have financial damages. It's hard to recover from a bad launch.

And that's without getting into the fact that hackers like this don't usually stop at just leaking video games or the likes. They'll also often steal people's personal information. It's a lot easier to see the moral issues when it's your information being stolen.

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

There's no ethical use of ransomware.

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[–] StarkillerX42@lemmy.ml 41 points 1 year ago

Prior to reading your comment, I considered myself to be a skilled software developer.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The fact he used a FireTV stick to hack Rockstar is pretty impressive lol

[–] KIM_JONG_JUICEBOX@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I’m guessing those things run Linux. So you would just need a shell.

Though I’m guessing term of his house arrest didn’t allow him to have a keyboard. That part has me curious.

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[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Rock, fire, stick... there's a theme

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[–] XTornado@lemmy.ml 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Da fuck....

Waiting for the movie btw 🍿.

[–] mustardman@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Rain Man 2

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[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It always warms my heart when a single person is able to outsmart large multi-million/billion dollar tech companies like Nvidia and Rockstar. Really shows how piss poor these companies security can be.

I would definitely look to hire that kid with a high wage just to make sure he doesn't hacke me again, if I were one of the companies he hacked into. Companies should really think about trying to hire these hackers because then the threats against them might go down ever so slightly.

[–] chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Counterpoint: he got caught. Whatever his offensive capabilities are, his security posture is evidently lacking. Recruiting a glass canon like that might not work out if you're looking for help with security hardening.

[–] d3Xt3r@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Counter-counterpoint: he could work as a pentester, where his sole purpose is to just break into things.

Leave the policy making and actual hardening to someone else.

[–] rar@discuss.online 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then comes the issue of a rogue pentester selling his clients zerodays into black market for crypto. Don't know if the myth of being hired by government agencies is true.

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[–] Mountaineer@aussie.zone 7 points 1 year ago

I would definitely look to hire that kid with a high wage just to make sure he doesn’t hacke me again, if I were one of the companies he hacked into. Companies should really think about trying to hire these hackers because then the threats against them might go down ever so slightly.

I understand your thought, but some people just want to watch the world burn and you definitely don't want to bring that sort inside.
This guy seems to be driven, capable and lacking the common sense to know when to stop.

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[–] wutBEE@programming.dev 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Jesus Christ, this man is a criminal Tony Starks

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

With the right education he could be the genius we need. Instead of prison he needs a decent mentor.

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[–] Pat12@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

This guy was arrested for hacking two telecom companies, got released under investigation, then immediately hacked Nvidia before being put under house arrest. After that, he was relocated to a hotel (due to being doxxed) where all he had to work with was a Fire TV stick, which he promptly then used to hack Rockstar.

All in all, he’s believed to have stolen $14 million+. By the way… he’s 18, autistic, and enrolled in a special education schoo

wild

[–] mycroft@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

The story is more interesting than the title suggests! This guy was arrested for hacking two telecom companies, got released under investigation, then immediately hacked Nvidia before being put under house arrest. After that, he was relocated to a hotel (due to being doxxed) where all he had to work with was a Fire TV stick, which he promptly then used to hack Rockstar.

All in all, he’s believed to have stolen $14 million+. By the way… he’s 18, autistic, and enrolled in a special education school.

Heh Kid's handle better be dr0id or some shit: "give me an android terminal and I'll hack the world"

[–] timespace@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Uhhhh so when’s that movie coming out? I’d watch the fuck outta that!

[–] tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.uk 7 points 1 year ago

This has to be a movie plot..

[–] Decay5663@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Fed will offer this guy a job. He's got a future.

[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Uh, have you ever seen a federal job application requirements?

#1: not a felon

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[–] Petter1@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Seems like a person I like and would love to smoke a joint with, lol

[–] cubedsteaks@lemmy.today 4 points 1 year ago

All in all, he’s believed to have stolen $14 million+. By the way… he’s 18, autistic, and enrolled in a special education school.

that kid's my hero

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[–] Echo71Niner@lemm.ee 228 points 1 year ago (2 children)

British teen from the Lapsus$ gang hacks GTA 6 details in a small town hotel room using an Amazon Fire Stick. Despite compromising British telcos, he's exposed, caught by authorities, and leaks GTA 6 footage after using the Fire Stick to access cloud services and breach organizations. The tale highlights untapped talent and lack of support in his education system.

[–] yads@lemmy.ca 52 points 1 year ago

Good tldr

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 94 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Was reading Hackaday's source article on BBC and came across this:

That did not deter the duo who continued hacking with Lapsus$ and successfully breached Nvidia, a Silicon Valley tech giant that makes chips for artificial intelligence chatbots, in February 2022.

That's a funny as fuck way of classifying Nvidia.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Sounds like something written by AI, ironically. That's the most talked about thing for the moment, so that's what it picks up on. It doesn't care if it's correct.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

But it is correct now. Nvidia is making way more AI chips cards whatever then it is GPUs.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not inaccurate though. They do make a AI chips.

They probably make more than than they do GPUs now. Which is depressing.

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[–] Marsupial@quokk.au 38 points 1 year ago

Technically impressive but also fuck this kid and other hacker spreading ransomware and stealing user data to hack their accounts too.

[–] Xttweaponttx@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Has anyone seen where to check the footage out?? Looks like it's all been DMCA'd from the majority of the web... I'm not a huge GTA Stan but I kinda wanna see what got leaked!

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

IIRC it looked a lot like GTA V with some debugging info added. Most changes seem to be under-the-hood.

[–] SphereofWreckening@ttrpg.network 6 points 1 year ago

It did look very similar to GTA V, but it's also worth noting that pretty much all of the footage was from very early production. It's likely that they were using less detailed character/world models for testing purposes. I imagine the game will look pretty damn good and modern once the proper lighting and textures are applied.

Ultimately I don't remember anything incredibly interesting from the videos I saw outside of a couple of story beats revolving around the new main characters. It seemed like most of the videos were pretty much testing certain console and systems at non-specified points in game.

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[–] downpunxx@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

power to the people right on

[–] 0Empty0@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Never underestimate a kid with free time

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