GTA 5 was a very important social tool for many students during the pandemic. Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6) pre-alpha footage has been fully leaked including the source code. Rockstar Games, the developers of GTA, claims that this will not delay the release of the games, but the only people that know the release date are the high-level investors and the executives. Many Harwood students are excited for the new GTA release. 

When most people think about data breaches, they think of hackers remotely accessing files on any server, from anywhere in the world. Rockstar Games was the victim of phishing. Phishing requires a whole lot more social engineering to get in. Take that faulty file for example, “How do you get it into a server?” You could convince an employee to install the application to get the file in, effectively creating a back door. A phishing attack can happen through emails and phone calls by people pretending to be major organizations or companies but still requires the installation of a malicious file. 

The phishing attack against Rockstar was carried out by a 17 year old British highschool student, not the type of person people would take for a con man. While the leaked dev footage was cool to see, the phisher is alleged to have collected 14 million dollars from prior network intrusions. He is also alleged to have obtained private data from Uber. This has made Harwood students less sympathetic to his actions. 

Otis Neville, Harwood senior, commented, “Oh, he got in via pretending to be a maintenance guy.” When asked if he felt hacking and cheating were an integral part of gaming culture, he answered, “Technically, it’s not a part of good gaming culture, but you know, both the good and bad bits. Yeah.” 

He also recognizes that gaming culture can cause a strain on human relationships and interaction. “The only people that you’ll potentially be hurting is either yourself because you’re not getting as much enjoyment from the pain or bots, which feel no pain.” After using video games as a social tool during Covid, it is hard not to see other players you interact with as humans and not as bots.