So in the process of listening to the Drunk Tank podcast from the folks over at Rooster Teeth I was alerted to this story of a bizarre criminal event at PaxEast.
Apparently, on the last day of PAX, Justin D. May wandered into the Atomic Games booth where the new game "Breach" was being demoed, hooked up an ethernet cable, and allegedly started grabbing the source code for the game. He initially claimed that he was just attempting to get some internet because the wireless was overloaded, but when pressed he not only was discovered to be attempting to grab the source code via the XBox Neighborhood application (an application that apparently allows you to see an XBox hard drive on a network and move files to and fro via FTP); but also offered to give up other hackers in exchange for leniency. Not only that but he allegedly also tried to bribe arresting officers.Now the interesting thing is that earlier in the day, May had attended a panel at PAX called "Enforcement on XBoxLive: Tales From The Din Part 2." May asked during the panel to have his gamertag unbanned. When asked why he had been banned, May was playing an illegally downloaded copy of Forza 3 before street date. So May had been 1) playing a pirated game 2) on a modded Xbox 3) before the game was even on the street.
After being detained by police, May was released on $200 bail. Because his gamertag had come up during the earlier panel, gaming blog Joystiq actually tracked down May via XBox Live and interviewed him regarding the incident.
May was scheduled to appear in Suffolk County court on March 30, but failed to appear. Joystiq, having May's XBoxLive gamertag, hopped on XBoxLive and discovered that May was playing Modern Warfare 2. Hey, those n00bs aren't going to frag themselves.
May later contacted the Suffolk County D.A., presumably after learning that skipping bail is a little more serious than suddenly quitting a Domination match. He is scheduled to appear May 19th. The D.A., in a surprising show of leniency, is not interested in pursuing additional charges related to May's failure to appear, stating "Given that he and his whereabouts are known to authorities, that he has no criminal record, and that he affirmatively contacted the court, his request was granted. At the end of the day here, we aren't exactly dealing with John Dillinger, you know?"
"Breach" gets breached at PAXEast (Joystiq)
Alleged "Breach" thief jumps bail, playing MW2 (Joystiq)
Alleged "Breach" thief emerges from hiding (Joystiq)
