Grand Theft Auto 6 Leaker Sentenced to Life in a Hospital Prison

A London judge has issued an “indefinite hospitalization” sentence for the teenage hacker responsible for breaching Rockstar Games and leaking in-development Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay footage, as reported by The BBC.

The 18-year-old, identified as Arion Kurtaj, managed to infiltrate Rockstar’s servers from a Travelodge hotel while already under police custody, using an Amazon Fire TV Stick, smartphone, keyboard, and mouse. (He was promptly re-arrested.) Kurtaj held a significant role within the international hacking group Lasus$.

Arion Kurtaj, diagnosed with autism, underwent a mental health assessment that concluded he “persistently expressed the intention to resume cybercrime at the earliest opportunity.” Due to his acute autism, doctors declared Kurtaj unfit to stand trial.

The jury was then directed to assess whether he committed the alleged crimes rather than determining criminal intent.

Following a mental health evaluation that indicated his “continued expression of intent to return to cybercrime,” the judge concluded that he posed a significant risk to the public.

The court also heard accounts of Kurtaj’s reportedly violent behavior while in custody, including instances of injury and property damage.

In contrast to Rockstar Games’ assertion that the hack incurred a cost of $5 million and consumed thousands of staff hours, Kurtaj’s legal representatives contended that the overwhelming success of the GTA 6 trailer, amassing 128 million views within its initial four days, indicated that his hack did not result in significant harm.

In the same trial, a second member of Lapsus$ was found guilty; however, the identity of the 17-year-old was not disclosed due to their status as a minor. This unnamed individual faced accusations of collaborating with Kurtaj and other Lapsus$ members in breaching NVIDIA alongside telecommunications company BT/EE.

This involved not only data theft but also a $4 million ransom demand. The minor received an 18-month youth rehabilitation order with “intense supervision,” including a prohibition on VPN usage.

These two associates mark the initial convictions of Lapsus$ members. Authorities suspect that additional “digital bandits,” primarily teenagers in the UK and Brazil, affiliated with the group are still at large. The extent of any payment received from the ransom demands remains unclear, as none of the affected companies have admitted to compliance.

It’s not quite as simple as to say that an 18 year old has been put away for life because they inconvenienced Rockstar’s marketing team, though without question Rockstar Games most certainly tried to throw the proverbial book at the young hacker.

Rockstar Games are notorious for being stingy pricks when it comes to issuing DMCA takedown notices for user created mods of their games, such as “GTA Underground” which was essentially a large compilation of maps from the likes of GTA III, Vice City, alongside Bully and Manhunt all incorporated into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Rockstar also once tried to cease and desist OpenIV, the most infamous modding tool for Rockstar’s HD titles, including Max Payne 3, GTA 4 and of course GTA V, Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar also targeted another modder for GTA V, one that was essentially turning GTA V into a VR experience.

And of course we cannot forget the fact that Rockstar Games outright purchased the rights to third-party online services “FiveM” for Grand Theft Auto V and right thereafter they began issuing crackdowns and new policies for custom servers that leverage FiveM to be compliant of intellectual property, essentially real life cars and brands were no longer permitted.

Real life vehicle mods were one of the most common and major types of game mods for Grand Theft Auto have been effectively banned on what once was a third party online solution outside of the cancerous grind fest that is GTA Online.

In all honestly there’s hardly much better companies to target than Rockstar Games, considering their immense popularity and their general, but it’s clear as day that Arion Kurtaj is bound to reoffend if let off lightly, however the nature of his crimes do not dictate the necessity for life imprisonment.

The young adult hacked into Rockstar Games with nothing more than a hotel TV and an Amazon Firestick, all while on probation. He is highly motivated and will continue to hack and ransom large corporations, even if they deserve it.

Well spotted, and technically you would be correct, though I would suggest that you ask the fine people who were conned into walking inside of the capitol building during the so called “insurrection” that occurred on January 6th and ask them personally what the word “indefinite” means.

He is effectively locked up in a minimum security facility for eternity until they miraculously find a cure for autism or some shit. American people have been illegally imprisoned following the Jan 6th “insurrection” under what the authoritarian corrupt American government describes as being an “indefinite detention”.

All things considered rather than getting a lengthy prison sentence, he instead is now subjected to scrutiny in a minimal security facility until “one day” some prissy doctor declares that his autism has subsided. Years inside a prison versus a potential lifetime of being ostracized for “metal health”.

Exactly how long will he be hospitalized for? Who fucking knows, could be a year, ten years, a hundred years, we’d all have long forgotten his effective imprisonment before he has any actual hope in hell of being “rehabilitated” to reentering society.