Report: Gaming Hacker SuperDaE Facing Child Porn, Dishonesty ...

The Australian hacker who breached Sony, Microsoft, Epic, Valve, Blizzard and other gaming companies before being raided by authorities in February is facing an array of unseemly charges, according to a report by an Australian wire service.

The report by the AAP wire service in The Australian indicates that the teen hacker who goes by the name SuperDaE (real name Dylan) is "facing eight charges including possession of child exploitation material... [as well as] failure to obey a data access order, possession of identification material with intent to commit an offence, dishonestly obtaining personal financial information, possession of cannabis and drug paraphernalia, possession of a prohibited weapon, and possessing and copying an indecent or obscene article."

Because of his age, SuperDaE's case is being handled by Australian Children's Court. The 17-year-old is out on bail, according to the report.

Remember, innocent until proven guilty.

UPDATE: SuperDaE tells Kotaku that these are "completely false charges. I will no doubt be refuting these charges."

Asked if he had weapons and drugs, as the charges indicate, he said, "No There was a 'stun-gun' recovered during the raid. I am a known psychonaut, however I did not have 'cannabis' on me, not do I use the drug. They're saying that they recovered drug paraphernalia that isn't even listed on the seizure receipt."

And the child porn? "I have no idea where they are getting this from," he said, suggesting someone might have been planting things on his servers.

SuperDaE has previously said he could see personal information during his hacks but wouldn't use it. He rejects the claim he was going to use idenitfication or financial information for any possible offense. "I never have, nor would I ever commit an offence using personal information," he said. "Epic would've known if I'd taken a million dollars out of their Amex."

Earlier this year, SuperDaE had supplied Kotaku with information about the next-gen PlayStation and Xbox. He did so before his home was raided by Australian authorities. He believed that raid was conducted with the support of the American FBI, something we've not been able to confirm, as the FBI has not commented to us about any investigation and would not traditionally be open about activities outside of its U.S. jurisdiction.

Shortly after the raid, SuperDaE shared his story with Kotaku, demonstrating the depths to which he had hacked various top gaming companies but swearing he did so out of curiosity and not with an intent to harm anyone.

From our story on him:

"I was treated like a criminal," he complained to me, looking back at the raid.

It seemed to me that it didn't matter if he really didn't pirate or if he really didn't use any stolen credit card numbers. He'd said that he got access to companies' computers by using others' logins. That alone might seem pretty bad.

"No one was hurt from what I did," he said to me. "So it's shocking that they want to ruin me like this."

Dylan says he hasn't been charged with anything yet. He says he's living with family.

"I am a hacker in the eyes of the law," he told me a couple of weeks ago. "However, how I see it is [that] I am someone curious with information and obsessed with owning everything that I otherwise shouldn't."

Authorities took his stuff, but SuperDaE didn't immediately get charged. He kept a relatively low profile after the raid but made waves late last month when he suggested his arrest was imminent. SuperDaE claimed any arrest was being instigated by Microsoft, the company that had sent a top investigator to his home last summer after he'd tried to sell one of their next-gen Xbox development kits on eBay.

In retaliation, he was threatening to release two Terabytes of data procured from the companies he hacked, setting an FTP server to grant access automatically if he wasn't around to tell it not to. That trove included unreleased game projects from Gears of War maker Epic, though subsequent Twitter exchanges between SuperDaE and Epic's Mark Rein appeared to indicate that copyrighted Epic data was removed from the FTP. SuperDaE rescinded his threat but declined to explain to us what charges he was facing nor the details of any arrest.

The charges outlined by the Australian wire service today don't seem to have much to do with the mountains of game data that SuperDaE appeared to obtain. Instead, they focus on vices like drugs, weapons, and obscenity as well as some unclear intent to cause trouble with personal information. They report that he'll be back in court next month.

We'll have more on this story as it develops.

To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo

Source: http://kotaku.com/report-gaming-hacker-superdae-facing-child-porn-disho-511993542

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