Microsoft Xbox

He’s real all right. He is one man, and he really did gain inside knowledge of Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox, among other once-secretive industry projects. But he’s not a former Microsoft employee or developer who has worked on a game for the platform said to be codenamed Durango. He’s a hacker.

The skilled Australian hacker previously known to the public only as “SuperDaE” has at varying times gained surreptitious computer access to Microsoft, Sony, Epic and Blizzard. What exactly he was privy to once on the inside of any of these industry titans’ systems is still up for some debate, as many of the reported details differ between publisher and hacker. However, there was a time when he was almost certainly in possession of myriad whitepapers containing intricate details about Microsoft and Sony’s respective next-gen console plans.

“Was” is the operative word here. SuperDae, whose real name is Dan “Dylan” Henry and who once attempted to sell what was either an actual Xbox Durango development kit or an uncannily convincing replica of one, has been caught. On the morning of Tuesday, February 19, Australian police — along with an American who Dylan alleges to be an FBI agent — raided Henry’s home and confiscated enough items to fill a 6-page police report. In a tell-almost-all, Kotaku Editor-in-Chief Stephen Totilo recounts in fascinating detail not just the search and seizure of Henry’s belongings, but Totilo’s entire history of dealings with the man who is undoubtedly the most publicly known spiller of next-gen beans.

“I’ve lost everything,” Henry told Kotaku a few days ago. After the seizure of his computers, paperwork, his Blackberry, his Visa, banking records and, strangely, a phallic-shaped cup, the hacker described his life as now being in ruins. Members of Western Australia’s Technology Crime Investigation Unit who took part in the raid reportedly told Henry, who has not been charged with any crime, that he was not allowed a lawyer and taunted him over how he would be treated in prison.

Henry himself seemed to be unsure as to whether or not the punishment for his actions was apt. “Was what I did wrong?” he asked Totilo. “Did I really deserve it? As the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat.”

It was just a few weeks ago that he told Kotaku, “I am a hacker in the eyes of the law. However, how I see it is [that] I am someone curious with information and obsessed with owning everything that I otherwise shouldn’t.”

Though Henry claims to have not done anything criminal with any of the information he obtained through his exploits, it would seem difficult to make a case for breaking into protected company networks and accessing sensitive data being legal. His intentions may not have been insidious, but forcefully taking ownership of something that doesn’t belong to you is generally something that authorities frown upon. Of course, it’s now up to the Australian judicial system to determine whether or not Henry has in fact broken ay laws.

For their part, Epic and Blizzard both confirmed to Kotaku that Henry had hacked his way into their networks and even managed to get a playable version of the company’s third-person shooter, Gears of War 3 in early 2011 — months before its September 2011 release. For his assistance in pointing out security flaws, Epic sent him a signed poster.

Other SuperDaE tips have proven more difficult to confirm, but the intricate details about PlayStation 4 he had leaked out to Kotaku was validated when Sony unveiled the machine at an event in New York City five days ago.

As regular readers of XBLAFans will know, Microsoft still refuses to acknowledge that it has even so much as conceptualized a next-gen console. Despite this, rumors of an April or E3 (June 11-13) reveal of Durango have been swirling as of late. Nevertheless, it’s a situation that prevents Microsoft from commenting on the legitimacy of Henry’s supposed Durango information and dev kit. However, Kotaku claims that its development sources have confirmed that the image of the unit the ruined man was selling on eBay before Microsoft stepped in and halted the transaction is identical to an actual development kit.

XBLAFans reported on the information SuperDaE leaked to Kotaku about Durango last week. We should know within a few months how accurate the report was, but readers should head on over to Kotaku and read their full Dan Henry feature in the meantime.

Source: Kotaku