Former Bungie, Pokémon lawyer explains how they caught leakers

What'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.

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.

> "A veteran investigator of video-game leaks reveals the tricks of the trade"

Complete lie by the way. The highest revelation is that the found out that some streamer leaked something, because they noticed the leaked photos had the same icons as he did. Besides bullying a kid, this is just irrelevant.

> Back when I was at Pokémon, some kid figured out how to extract the images from the card game. He found an icon from the developer and said ‘Holy s----, I found a new Pokémon.’ This kid included his email, and because of the way Pokémon did account creation, when we got the child’s account, we got the parent information, which included a phone number.

> So I called his mom and said, ‘Listen, I wanted to tell you some things that Andrew is doing on the computer.’ She says, ‘So you’re saying he hacked your game.’ And I hear in the background: ‘I didn’t hack anything!’ I start describing it more technically. She says, ‘Is this a problem?’ I say, ‘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?’

When you boast about threatening kids, that says a lot about what kind of person you are

The anecdote about setting the lawyers on the kid who extracted the art assets from Pokémon.exe feels like a real ethical low point.

If you’re a lawyer going after children who take the screws out of the backs of alarm clocks then I’m afraid you’re the bad guy. People like that ought to be held accountable by their regional bar association.

Bookmarking this story as an uplifting reminder that even though I'm awkward and socially inept at times, at least I haven't bragged to Bloomberg about bullying children.

I 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"?

In the answer to "What’s the wildest story of a leaker you dealt with?", is Nintendo claiming that it's a federal crime just to look at icon files in a game you bought that's installed on your computer?

The "wildest story of a leaker you dealt with", where they describe bullying a child for perfectly legal behavior, certainly was interesting.

>‘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 his decision in any case), nevertheless he, the super helpful lawyer, gets to make threats however he wants.

Genuinely disgusting. How do these people live with themselves? "Honey, today I made a kid afraid he was going to jail, because he copied some file of something we sold to him, how was your day?".

> When it’s somebody complaining about workplace issues, I don’t really necessarily want to know who it is, > unless what they’re complaining about is, ‘My boss is sexually harassing me.’ Then I want to know who it is > because I want to know who their boss is. I’m investigating, not to try to out the person, but to try t > assess the truth of what they’re saying.

> I might have a talk with David. I might say, ‘Listen, I’ve figured out it was you. Do I not seem approachable? > Why are you and I not having a conversation about this?’ Obviously, my job is to protect the organization, but > ‘protect the organization’ takes on different meanings to different people. To me, ‘protect the organization’ > has always meant: protect your people from bad things.

Good grief - do not fall for this shit.

The reason someone like him tries to figure out the identity of a person claiming sexual harassment is estimating and minimizing the liability. How credible are you (to the public, press, investigators, a potential jury), how big a platform do you have, etc. An unlikable, not-stereotypically-attractive loner who has no little social media connections? Not a threat. A person who has a thousand followers, is likable/attractive, etc? Big threat.

The only reason they care about the identity of the harasser is to figure out how big a deal this might be. Manager of some QA testing group? Not a problem. C-suite or Vice President, etc? Big problem, that both legal and PR will be quickly roped in on.

Just like with HR, nobody that works for your employer ever has your best interests even remotely on their priority list beyond getting you to trust them so they can pump you for as much information as possible to sabotage your claims by doing things like creating alibis, destroying evidence, and searching out reasons to accuse you of being a poorly performing / combative employee who is simply a malcontent.

If you've been or are being sexually harassed, your first stop should be an attorney (and in case it's obvious, not one you find via your company's EAP.)

Don 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?

Let'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.

> A veteran investigator of video-game leaks reveals the tricks of the trade

Revealing tricks of the trade might be... leaking.

What an incredibly tone deaf admission of unethical behavior.

As general counsel he happily admitted to making false accusations of a federal crime against a minor.

This level of comfort and pride in unethical behavior raises the question of what else has Don McGowan done that is improper?

Card game? Does he mean there is a console/PC version of the Pokemon card game or this is simply bad journalism?

Putting aside the fact this lawyer is a scumbag (surprising no one), it really is amazing how bad leakers are at covering their tracks.

Almost makes me wonder if there's a market for some kind of "Leaking Agency" where we can help people leak information safely in exchange for a cut of any media buys or other income they might get from it.