Attempted Nintendo Blackmail Leads to Arrest

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Attempted Nintendo Blackmail Leads to Arrest


Police in Spain have arrested a man for stealing data on thousands of Nintendo [http://www.nintendo.com] users and then attempting to blackmail the company with it.

Spain's Interior Ministry said yesterday that an unnamed man had stolen the user data of roughly 4000 Nintendo customers, after which he contacted the company and attempted to blackmail it by threatening to reveal the breach to the country's data protection agency. That would presumably land Nintendo in hot water for failing to adequately protect the privacy of its users.

When Nintendo didn't bite, he began leaking the data online, which quickly and predictably led to his arrest. It's not known how much data got out, although authorities alleged the suspect intended to eventually release it all. It's also interesting to note that while Nintendo said the attacker used "various techniques of hacking" to access the data, some members of a forum he used claimed that he was able to do it simply by changing the "www" in the "www.pruebayveras.com" URL to "admin."

Whatever the case, let this be a lesson for all you would-be extortionists out there: there's a big difference between having photos of a congressman with a naked intern and having the names and addresses of a few thousand Wii owners. Only one of those things is likely to get anyone to play ball.

Source: Google translation [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12456922])


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Quaidis

New member
Jun 1, 2008
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Haaaaaaaa, busted.

When you get right down to it, 4,000 isn't that much considering that there are millions of Wii owners out there.

I'm glad Nintendo didn't bite, or that no mention of it was made until the guy was caught.

That picture with the news article is fitting.
 

gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
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Wow, didnt think anyone would be stupid enough to even try blackmail Nintendo. Nintendo, like every major company, only cares about its customers as long as they still have money in their pockets.
 

brunothepig

New member
May 18, 2009
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Does anyone know what his demands were? Either way, what the hell did he think was gonna happen when he started breaking the law in an incredibly obvious way?
Wow... Idiot. Although if it's true that Nintendo's security was so lax, it's kinda scary...
 

Ragsnstitches

New member
Dec 2, 2009
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The picture that accompanies this article was really cleverly chosen. I will never look at mario the same way again.
 

fanklok

Legendary Table User
Jul 17, 2009
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Pendragon9 said:
Now let's relate the picture to the story.

Mario- Nintendo
Green Pipe- Blackmailer
No I think the pipe is the spanish police and that koopa about to get domed by it is our would be blackmailer.
 

Eri

The Light of Dawn
Feb 21, 2009
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According to a commenter on Kotaku, this isn't how it went down.
Long story short: the guy, a user of one of Spain's most popular internet forums (mainly dedicated to piracy btw... yeah, Spain...) gained access to all the data just by using "admin" and no password (the guy is not a hacker in any way).

He contacted Nintendo twice to inform of the security flaw, stating that the security issue should be amended or it could be reported for a violation of data privacy. It was later reported to local newspapers by other forum members.

Nintendo, instead of accepting guilt, closed the website and reported a "hacker attack" and blackmail.
http://kotaku.com/#!5760691/nintendo-blackmail-attempt-ends-in-handcuffs