Microsoft treats kid hacker with kid gloves in wake of PSN debacle

[jkipp82]

Soon after Sony's aggressive pursuit of hacker George Hotz -- and potentially in an act of retaliation -- other hackers shut the whole PlayStation Network down and made off with millions of users' data.

Microsoft seems to have learned a valuable lesson from that ("don't incite hackers"). During a keynote presentation at the Bank of Ireland Business Week, MS's Ireland General Manager Paul Rellis revealed that the company is dealing with a 14-year-old who hacked Modern Warfare 2 not by suing him, but by working with him. According to the Herald, Rellis said that Microsoft was helping the youngster "use his skills for legitimate purposes."

It's a happy ending in this case, but we doubt this will work every time. If you get all up in big companies' systems, you're still a lot more likely to end up with police confiscating your computer than with a cool internship.

[Sephiroth]

"UPDATE - Microsoft has since contacted Kotaku to inform us that the original report is inaccurate.

The comments attributed to Microsoft Ireland's Managing Director Mr. Paul Rellis, when speaking at a business event last week, are inaccurate. He never said anything close to what is being reported in some Irish media. Mr. Rellis was commenting on various developers and hobbyists using drivers that allow other devices to display the raw data output from Kinect for Xbox 360 sensors. Microsoft can also confirm that the company has not offered to mentor a 14-year-old from Tallaght who purportedly was related to a phishing scheme."