How 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.
Hey, at least he didn't send the Pinkertons.
Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
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Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#42What'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.
Kind of weird that the interviewer didn't push back on that story.
Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#43I 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"?
It'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.
Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#44What'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.
That's a product of our culture where we're encouraged to put our corporate job before everything else.
Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#45I 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"?
It'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.
Or a leak. Technically if it's distributed it's already public knowledge
Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#46What'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.
Chances are the guy was just horrible at reading the room and people made fun of him for like five years.
Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a child who has been bullied by adults for legal behavior this hit home with me. Glad there are more people coming forward.
mind sharing the story? else you've contributed little besides seeding curiosity, and a commented form of an upvote
You’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.
Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#48Let'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.
Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#49Don 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?
seriously, someone should write it up and file an ethics complaint with whatever bar he's a member of.
Re: Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers
#50>‘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…
Unfortunately there is no lawful way to penalize someone for being an absolute piece of shit, since being a piece of shit is totally legal. Shame doesn’t work: people don’t even feel or respond to shame anymore. You can’t punch them, even if they deserve it. So lawyers like this just live their shitty lives, threatening children and sleeping soundly at night on mattresses stuffed with $100 bills.
This guy’s actions are 100% in line with Nintendo’s policies. They actively hate their fans. There is a legal way to punish Nintendo: Stop giving them money, and make sure everyone knows that the reason why is that you don’t do business with bullies.