this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
716 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
71759 readers
3417 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
The fact he used a FireTV stick to hack Rockstar is pretty impressive lol
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.
They run Android, so not really standard Linux, but yeah.
The article or maybe the comments said he accessed a cloud based Linux service using the FireStick and went to work from there.
So either a remote control or voice control.
Anyway, kid has too much time on his hands, lol.
Rock, fire, stick... there's a theme
… what?
Da fuck....
Waiting for the movie btw 🍿.
Rain Man 2
Exploit boogaloo
Prior to reading your comment, I considered myself to be a skilled software developer.
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.
Counterpoint: he got caught. Whatever his offensive capabilities are, his security posture is evidently lacking. Recruiting a glass cannon like that might not work out if you're looking for help with security hardening.
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.
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.
I know nothing about anything but I definitely believe the government would do it. If anyone has the power to keep the hackers acting nice it's the government. Especially if they write your paychecks.
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.
Its kind of inevitable, you know that meme about the overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists? Well the same is true for secure working practices and the dumbest/laziest employees. Any system too secure will also be enough of a pain in the ass that some people will start doing stupid shit that nullifies that security.
For others like me interested in the exact example; it's about the difficulty of designing a trash can that smart bears cannot open and dumb tourists still can. You cannot create something too secure if you still want dumb people to use it as well, due to the overlap.
The quote is not really saying dumb people will break / nullify security, like I read in the above comment, but more that they just will not be able to operate it.
some companies do.
I want this guy's energy. Nothing could stop him!
If you’re autistic, the outside world is horrifying to you and technology is the only thing you care about, so that’s what you’ll eat, drink and breathe all the time. It’s not really about the energy, it’s about the environment and your ability or inability to tolerate certain aspects of it.
Jesus Christ, this man is a criminal Tony Starks
With the right education he could be the genius we need. Instead of prison he needs a decent mentor.
seriously, lets put this kid to good use.
Fucking legend
wild
This has to be a movie plot..
Seems like a person I like and would love to smoke a joint with, lol
that kid's my hero
This is a bit of a crossover ep between the movie Hackers and the DS9 ep where Julian basically got introduced to a group of obviously coded autistic anarchists.
Heh Kid's handle better be dr0id or some shit: "give me an android terminal and I'll hack the world"
The Fed will offer this guy a job. He's got a future.
Uh, have you ever seen a federal job application requirements?
#1: not a felon
That's only for the plebs that apply through the normal means, not for savants whose skill balances the risk - they can put a few agents to track what this dude is doing, but its much harder to find another guy eith this much skill whos also not a felon.
Also this is all speculation ie I pulled it out of my ass but doesn't it sound plausible?
I mean sure, if you're the one applying. If they're offering they can choose whatever the hell criteria they want.
It doesn't sound like he's been convicted of a crime yet...