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Comment by floatboth | Hacker News Reader

> The Gears of War 3 leak triggered a federal investigation, and Epic began working with the FBI to determine how its security had been breached

Ugh. Why do even supposedly "cool" companies go to the cops when they get pwned? Own up to your mistakes, change your passwords, fix your security. Don't report anything to the fucking authorities. What would punishing a kid even give you?

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Most organizations don't have the resources to find out where the way the crackers got in. Once someone is in, changing the passwords and fixing the security may not be sufficient to prevent them from getting in again. Until that someone is tracked down and identified, there is no way to know if this is some kid doing it for fun or industrial espionage from a competitor. Furthermore, there's no way to know what they actually got - source code to a product? plans to some hardware? Payroll and identity information?

It isn't practical for each organization to maintain a staff of forensic security specialists. When one does need them, they can be found rather inexpensively in law enforcement given that a crime (likely) has been committed.

You don’t act “cool” when someone attacks core of your multi billion dollar business. This isn’t high school popularity contest.

They don't know it's some kid.

Millions of dollars in IP and potential liability depending on what was taken.

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