Over the weekend a hacker named "Predator" took over Xbox Live director of policy and enforcement Stephen "Stepto" Toulouse's Xbox Live account. Today Toulouse discussed it with Joystiq, pointing out that "Predator" wasn't trying to be helpful and that he didn't hack Xbox Live - he simply got information from Toulouse's web provider.
"He got an old cell phone [number] of mine, and yeah, he called it occasionally," Xbox Live director of policy and enforcement Stephen "Stepto" Toulouse told Joystiq. "I can play you a voice message if you want, to show you the nature of his contact with us."
He did just that and Joystiq described them as full of expletives not suitable for print. Toulouse went on to mention one six-minute call where "Predator" and some friends talked about having sex with his wife.
"I would say 'reaching out for contact' is an extremely generous phrase," Toulouse said. "Most of the stuff that he leaves on there is flat out harassment. It's not contact. He's not trying to help or do anything. He's mostly just insulting me. And I get that from time to time. It's just the nature of my role. The kids sometimes try to go after me -- it's not that big a deal."
Elsewhere Predator had characterized his contact with Microsoft as "reaching out" to "offer his help" in resolving the security issues he'd claimed to have exploited. But Toulouse said that "Predator" didn't actually breach Xbox Live security:
"What happened here had absolutely nothing to do with Xbox Live," Toulouse told Joystiq. "What these kids try and do is, all day long, they try and get my account or someone's account who's popular or prominent. We're talking like hours and hours and hours of phone calls and trading tips and tricks on forums. It's quite humorous sometimes to watch."
"What he did, from a lot of people's point of view, I think, is a crime, and we're going to be investigating that," Toulouse added.
Source: Joystiq
Comments
Re: Toulouse Comments on Xbox Live Account Hacker
I hope this punk kid gets his ass thrown in jail. What he doing isn't "helping" anyone.
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Re: Toulouse Comments on Xbox Live Account Hacker
There really isn't much question about whether this was a crime or not, it was.
Most states have a "Computer Crimes" statute that, with varying language, amounts to "Causing a computer located in [State] to take any unauthorized action..." The language gets more specific then that but that's what it boils down to. If you cause a computer inside a state to take an action you aren't authorized to make it do you've violated that state's computer crimes law.
He doesn't even have had to actually caused the guy's ACCOUNT to take an action (i.e. sending messages, or posting something). That would probably be ID theft/fraud. But just accessing the computer system in any way is causing the computer to "take an action." They're pretty broad statutes.
Re: Toulouse Comments on Xbox Live Account Hacker
Even if what he did in regards to the account wasn't a crime, and from the sounds of things it was. But let's say that it wasn't...wouldn't the harrassing phone calls be enough to take some kind of action against him? Not knowing exactly what was said in the messages, I can't be sure. I would think the stuff about his wife would be grounds for legal action, and if he said something about "I'm gonna *expletive* you up" or something along those lines, couldn't that be considered a threat?
It just sounds like computer fraud/crime isn't the only thing they could charge him with from my (admittedly limited) point of view.