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Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
- greyface- 2y agoThe "wildest story of a leaker you dealt with", where they describe bullying a child for perfectly legal behavior, certainly was interesting.
- hibern8 2y agoExactly. This guy sounds like a massive POS.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- upon_drumhead 2y ago> I might have a talk with David. I might say, ‘Listen, I’ve figured out it was you. Do I not seem approachable? Why are you and I not having a conversation about this?’ Talk about an absolute terrible way to approach someone who went public about a sexual harassment claim. From just this article I don't think I'd feel comfortable talking with this dude about anything serious going on.
- rkachowski 2y agoabsolutely terrifying power play from someone who wants you to know both, that they can identify your anonymous activity and that they're unhappy with you. It just stifles further whistleblowing
- praptak 2y agoYes, that was the line where my bullshit detector went to over 9000. "Obviously, my job is to protect the organization, but ‘protect the organization’ takes on different meanings to different people. To me, ‘protect the organization’ has always meant: protect your people from bad things." I have no words to express how far from the truth this is. The only lawyer who protects you is the one you hire. The company lawyer protects the company from you.
- gorlilla 2y agoOr in the case of sexual harassment, from _both_ of you. Edit:autocorrect typo
- resonanttoe 2y ago100% that even if that situation were to arrive, it would never go down that way anyway. It's a complete fantasy they have in their head about how they're not the corporate stooge they actually are along with everything else this guy views about himself.
- stavros 2y agoThe kid likes Pokémon so much he decided to look around the game and discovered some info, and this guy decides to call the kid up and harass/bully him so everyone will know that you don't just look around in his executables. Fuck this guy and this company.
- resonious 2y agoYeah, it sounds like the images were made publicly available by the devs. Maybe he should've gone after the devs instead!
- seanthemon 2y agoExactly, that is clearly an engineering issue and this guy only called because he knew it was a child, this guy is so small and insignificant he had to use BULLYING AND HARASSING a child to make him legendary. Lawyers are the worst, man.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Narhem 2y agoAs a child who has been bullied by adults for legal behavior this hit home with me. Glad there are more people coming forward.
- hackernewds 2y agomind sharing the story? else you've contributed little besides seeding curiosity, and a commented form of an upvote
- poopsmithe 2y agoPeople can comment however they want
- peddling-brink 2y agoYou’ve contributed the commented form of a downvote. As have I. Nether of us contributed to the discussion. Requesting the parent to share their likely painful memories or else they’ve committed some sin against hn leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- KennyBlanken 2y agoThe whole "oh I have totally pure motives for wanting to identify someone saying they're being sexually harassed" angle was a little more concerning. It's wild so many comments thusfar are about that and not about the blatant bullshit around why he hunts down sexual harassment victims.
- neilv 2y agoYeah, the lawyer's description of the approach there sounded a little off, and that part of the discussion overall sounded... incomplete. I believe that his job was to protect the company. Knowing the truth of the situation might be one of the first things they want, but that's not the only thing on their mind and influencing their actions.
- bowsamic 2y agoIt’s pretty clear that he’s proudly projecting an asshole persona throughout the article. I think it’s intentional
- blueblimp 2y agoThat was strange. I had to reread it to confirm that he's just talking about some random kid looking at the publicly-available game data files, not an employee or anyone else with special access.
- constantcrying 2y ago>‘Hacking software, that’s a federal crime, but I don’t want that to be the conversation. Why don’t we make it a conversation about the good and bad things he can do with a computer?’ What a complete piece of shit. Threatening a child and his parent because the child dumped some memory and found some file. He also knows that there is exactly zero chance for any legal actions towards that kid (and of course it is not his decision in any case), nevertheless he, the super helpful lawyer, gets to make threats however he wants. Genuinely disgusting. How do these people live with themselves? "Honey, today I made a kid afraid he was going to jail, because he copied some file of something we sold to him, how was your day?".
- jarsin 2y agoI thank god I never became a lawyer. They are $300+/hr thugs for hire whose only mission is to bully you into complete submission until you pay to make them go away.
- zx8080 2y ago> $300+/hr thugs for hire whose only mission is to bully you into complete submission until you pay to make them go away. Sounds like a great success that many would kill for. /Sarcasm, but still. Meh.
- squarefoot 2y agoWorst thing is that to fight a lawyer you need another lawyer, so if taken as a category they never lose.
- CPLX 2y agoIn my experience they cost a lot more than $300 an hour.
- gorlilla 2y agoMy lawyer for a minor traffic accident in juvenile traffic court was $300/hr in a low CoL market, 22 years ago....
- constantcrying 2y ago> "A veteran investigator of video-game leaks reveals the tricks of the trade" Complete lie by the way. The highest revelation is that the found out that some streamer leaked something, because they noticed the leaked photos had the same icons as he did. Besides bullying a kid, this is just irrelevant.
- protastus 2y agoThe streamer used publicly available binaries so if there's a leak here, it's on the dev team for embedding assets that they shouldn't have.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xeonmc 2y agoThis reminds me of how the head of Riot Vanguard basically just amounts to snitching in Discord servers/forums of paid cheats for info rather than actual technical mitigation. [1] info about Vanguard: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242692
- jmholla 2y agohttps://archive.is/0ODTi https://archive.is/0ODTi
- ycombinatrix 2y agoHow far removed from reality is Don McGowan to brag about using his position to threaten a random child and their family? Lawyers are wild man.
- DannyBee 2y ago99.9% of lawyers give the other 0.1% of us a bad name.
- ackbar03 2y agoat that point your just a rounding error
- DannyBee 2y agoYou got the joke!
- hackernewds 2y agoyou're
- iwontberude 2y agoHe’s a piece of shit human being and that’s me being nice.
- jobulanus 2y ago[dead]
- gpderetta 2y agoHey, at least he didn't send the Pinkertons.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago> When it’s somebody complaining about workplace issues, I don’t really necessarily want to know who it is, > unless what they’re complaining about is, ‘My boss is sexually harassing me.’ Then I want to know who it is > because I want to know who their boss is. I’m investigating, not to try to out the person, but to try t > assess the truth of what they’re saying. > I might have a talk with David. I might say, ‘Listen, I’ve figured out it was you. Do I not seem approachable? > Why are you and I not having a conversation about this?’ Obviously, my job is to protect the organization, but > ‘protect the organization’ takes on different meanings to different people. To me, ‘protect the organization’ > has always meant: protect your people from bad things. Good grief - do not fall for this shit. The reason someone like him tries to figure out the identity of a person claiming sexual harassment is estimating and minimizing the liability. How credible are you (to the public, press, investigators, a potential jury), how big a platform do you have, etc. An unlikable, not-stereotypically-attractive loner who has no little social media connections? Not a threat. A person who has a thousand followers, is likable/attractive, etc? Big threat. The only reason they care about the identity of the harasser is to figure out how big a deal this might be. Manager of some QA testing group? Not a problem. C-suite or Vice President, etc? Big problem, that both legal and PR will be quickly roped in on. Just like with HR, nobody that works for your employer ever has your best interests even remotely on their priority list beyond getting you to trust them so they can pump you for as much information as possible to sabotage your claims by doing things like creating alibis, destroying evidence, and searching out reasons to accuse you of being a poorly performing / combative employee who is simply a malcontent. If you've been or are being sexually harassed, your first stop should be an attorney (and in case it's obvious, not one you find via your company's EAP.)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- burnished 2y agoDon McGowan, what a shitbird. Calls up this kid's mom to insinuate the kid has done wrong and raise the threat of a serious criminal accusation. Kinda seems like you shouldn't be allowed to practice law after that. I thought lawyers were supposed to have standards?
- iwontberude 2y agoLol and then he brags about it to a reporter. Fucking douche canoe.
- burnished 2y agoIt just occurred to me that he doesn't think what he did was wrong, it sounds even like he received professional praise for it.. and thats probably because they all viewed it as a light touch. This was probably seen as easier (maybe even kinder) than the legal threats they would have otherwise started with or moved to.
- Suppafly 2y agoseriously, someone should write it up and file an ethics complaint with whatever bar he's a member of.
- donatj 2y agoI am guessing from the brief vague description of the "hack" that they had like cdn.pokemon.com/pokemon/1025.jpg and the kid incremented it to 1026.jpg and found the next Pokémon and that's what was construed as "hacking"?
- Kwpolska 2y agoIt's possible that the "hacking" involved extracting data from some binary files making up a mobile or PC game. This isn't as trivial as incrementing an ID, but still should not constitute hacking.
- denysvitali 2y agoOr a leak. Technically if it's distributed it's already public knowledge
- protastus 2y agoWhat an incredibly tone deaf admission of unethical behavior. As general counsel he happily admitted to making false accusations of a federal crime against a minor. This level of comfort and pride in unethical behavior raises the question of what else has Don McGowan done that is improper?
- ekianjo 2y ago> Back when I was at Pokémon, some kid figured out how to extract the images from the card game. He found an icon from the developer and said ‘Holy s----, I found a new Pokémon.’ This kid included his email, and because of the way Pokémon did account creation, when we got the child’s account, we got the parent information, which included a phone number. > So I called his mom and said, ‘Listen, I wanted to tell you some things that Andrew is doing on the computer.’ She says, ‘So you’re saying he hacked your game.’ And I hear in the background: ‘I didn’t hack anything!’ I start describing it more technically. She says, ‘Is this a problem?’ I say, ‘Hacking software, that’s a federal crime, but I don’t want that to be the conversation. Why don’t we make it a conversation about the good and bad things he can do with a computer?’ When you boast about threatening kids, that says a lot about what kind of person you are
- saberience 2y agoWhat's bizarre is that this guy says that tracking down this kid (who btw didn't try to hide at all) made him a "legend" at Pokemon. Quote from the article: "Which was fantastic. Absolutely baked my legend in at Pokémon for like five years." Don McGowan is a legend though, a legendary asshole for being proud of bullying a curious kid that was poking around in legally obtained game-files.
- anal_reactor 2y agoThat's a product of our culture where we're encouraged to put our corporate job before everything else.
- ginko 2y agoKind of weird that the interviewer didn't push back on that story.
- KeplerBoy 2y agoChances are the guy was just horrible at reading the room and people made fun of him for like five years.
- stef25 2y agoLike that cop in The Wire who was so proud he "caught the Unabomber" and McNulty goes "didn't his brother turn him in?"
- chx 2y agoWhat's even worse that this asshole was legally correct, of course he was, one of the bad laws is the passage of DMCA which bans circumventing digital protections. That's how you get bullshit like DVD Jon who was accused of trespassing on his own computer.
- matheusmoreira 2y agoWhat digital protections did the kid circumvent? As far as I can tell he just dumped the game's graphics and found a previously unknown creature among the results. No circumvention of anything whatsoever, just direct access to the data. If the corporations don't want stuff like this to be found, they should try not putting it into the game in the first place. I guess copyright monopolists who are delusional enough to believe they can publish information world wide and control what happens to it do not have this sort of common sense. For the record, there's an entire website full of people dedicated to doing what that child did: https://tcrf.net/ https://tcrf.net/
- matheusmoreira 2y agoLet's review the facts... The Pokémon company, in their own incompetence, leaked information by literally shipping it out to everyone on the internet who cared to download a copy of their game. A child with computer skills found the data, got all enthusiastic about it and told the world via social media. This fucking guy called the kid's house and bullied and threatened his family with legal repercussions that would likely not ever materialize. He threatened a kid whose only crime was loving his employer's shitty game too much with a federal crime. An empty threat at that. "Hacking software, that’s a federal crime". What hacking software? Your own incompetence led to this. Try not sending people data you don't want them to have. This piece of shit is actually so proud of what he did he brags about it in public instead of keeping it to himself. This fucking asshole actually got a kick out of watching the kid's live reactions to his nonsense on Twitter. A child's curiosity was destroyed for the sake of a corporation's profit and control. Using his skills to analyze files? He will never do it again. Bullying a child and his family somehow made this guy a legend in the Pokémon company. Nintendo and all related corporations willingly employ people like this guy. At those firms, shitting all over your customers and their families makes you a legend. Did I understand all the facts correctly? I need to double check because what I just read made me doubt my sanity. I refuse to believe this guy is stupid to the point he actually thinks the kid "hacked" the game. I must conclude that this was just a power play from the rich corporation he represents. The real threat was to bankrupt his family with a nonsense court case which would no doubt drain their time and money. Even if they won in court, it would be a pyrrhic victory due to the costs involved. Therefore despite likely having no leg to stand on this asshole leveraged the legal system to bully a child and his family into obedience to their corporate overlord. I've always suspected this was the real intention behind all the "threats" coming from these corporations. Never thought I'd actually see them not only confirm it but also brag about it in public. What a wortless piece of shit.
- gorgoiler 2y agoThe anecdote about setting the lawyers on the kid who extracted the art assets from Pokémon.exe feels like a real ethical low point. If you’re a lawyer going after children who take the screws out of the backs of alarm clocks then I’m afraid you’re the bad guy. People like that ought to be held accountable by their regional bar association.
- n4r9 2y agoIt's tempting to feel bad for the kid, but he knew exactly how to not get any threatening phone calls: never unscrew anything. The parents are liable for leaving screwdrivers in accessible places. The inside of alarm clocks are our currency, for God's sake. If you ask me, every screw should have a uniquely shaped slot in the head and come with a single matching drill bit. This reckless screw compatibility situation we've ended up in is terrible for business.
- yupyupyups 2y agoIt is of paramount importance that IP is protected. With an electricution mechanism perhaps?
- butlike 2y agoMake the screws poison-tipped to seal the deal if they survive the electrocution.
- butlike 2y agoFit in the box and color in the lines! I say
- roastedpeacock 2y agoCard game? Does he mean there is a console/PC version of the Pokemon card game or this is simply bad journalism?
- mylastattempt 2y agoMost likely referring to: https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-trading-card-game-live https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-tradi...
- 0xDEADFED5 2y agoBookmarking this story as an uplifting reminder that even though I'm awkward and socially inept at times, at least I haven't bragged to Bloomberg about bullying children.
- neilv 2y ago> A veteran investigator of video-game leaks reveals the tricks of the trade Revealing tricks of the trade might be... leaking.
- zephyra334 2y ago[dead]
- josephcsible 2y agoIn the answer to "What’s the wildest story of a leaker you dealt with?", is Nintendo claiming that it's a federal crime just to look at icon files in a game you bought that's installed on your computer?
- synicalx 2y agoPutting aside the fact this lawyer is a scumbag (surprising no one), it really is amazing how bad leakers are at covering their tracks. Almost makes me wonder if there's a market for some kind of "Leaking Agency" where we can help people leak information safely in exchange for a cut of any media buys or other income they might get from it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- upon_drumhead 2y agoLeak enough valuable information and you will be caught in a sting operation. https://9to5mac.com/2023/05/10/apple-leaker-sting-operation-source-fired/ https://9to5mac.com/2023/05/10/apple-leaker-sting-operation-...