Microsoft’s Youngest Employee: Jake, a 14- year- old Hacker

Microsoft’s Youngest Employee: Jake, a 14- year- old Hacker – Microsoft first thought that the hack was part of the same attack on the PlayStation Network that was launched following Sony’s decision to take the young hacker George Hotz to court. Like Anonymous’ decision to bring down the Visa and Mastercard websites in response to the cold shoulder they gave WikiLeaks, The PlayStation hack was the latest in a string of attacks made in retaliation for an action

Microsoft's Youngest Employee: Jake, a 14- year- old Hacker

After discovering that the hack wasn’t related to the Sony problem, Microsoft issued an alert. The news made the rounds on hacking portals and some alternative weeklies, but went largely unnoticed in the mainstream press; it was overshadowed by the PlayStation network outage. Business Insider calls attention to Jake, though, in a new gallery of “young troublemakers” who received job offers after hacking into Facebook, Apple and the websites of other big-name companies.

Jake, it turns out, is now working with Microsoft. “According to the managing director of Microsoft in Ireland, the company is helping the hacker ‘develop his talent for legitimate purposes,'” Hacker News reported. “Paul Rellis delivered his keynote address during Bank of Ireland Business Week,” TekGoblin added. “Rellis revealed that Microsoft planned to work with the Dublin teenager.”

Many hacking websites argued that this is exactly what Sony should have done with George Hotz. Clearly Hotz is a talented programmer — he’s also responsible for first jailbreaking Apple’s iPhone — with considerable skill navigating Sony’s networks. When Hotz broke into Sony’s network so that he could play PlayStation 2 games on the PlayStation 3 console, he was committing a crime, but it wasn’t one that hurt Sony in any significant way. When Sony decided to sue, an army of hackers took down the company’s network. All of that could have been avoided, but should we be rewarding, and even encouraging, hackers?

Microsoft’s Youngest Employee: Jake, a 14- year- old Hacker