A flood of reported privacy incidents from Google confirms, incidentally, that a Nintendo game leak from 2017 happened thanks to a YouTube contractor
Sometimes, game leaks are dramatic, unpleasant things—like the disturbing Insomniac hacks that happened late last year, revealing developer's private information due to a ransomware group. More often than not, however, they occur for simple, hindsight-stupid reasons, as recently-leaked documents from Google reveal.
A recent report by 404Media states that Google—which has owned YouTube since it bought the site in 2006—experienced a dearth of privacy hiccups from «2013 to 2018». The site obtained a copy of an «internal database which tracks six years worth of potential privacy and security issues.» Google's later statement provided to 404Media implies that the database was indeed accurate.
Among «thousands» of other incidents, the report indicates that a «Google employee accessed private videos in Nintendo's YouTube account, and leaked information ahead of Nintendo's planned announcements.» 404Media later linked this entry to a leak posted on the Nintendo subreddit in 2017.
The post itself shares a phone picture of a webpage carrying the «admin» prefix, indicating that the page was accessed on Google's internal systems. The game in question is titled «Yoshi for the Nintendo Switch», later released as Yoshi's Crafted World in 2019.
The original poster, who has since deleted their account, wrote: «My friend works at Google and he sent this photo to me. It's a video that's already on the Nintendo channel and is going to be in public after the reveal.»
Shortly after it debuted, a Google employee flagged the leak, which revealed the game «well ahead of Nintendo's public E3 announcement». 404Media's follow-up also adds that the leaker was a TVC—a «temporary vendor contractor».
This bolsters the idea that many videogame leakers get their info from private YouTube videos—which aren't accessible unless you're in charge of the channel or, naturally, on Google's payroll with certain privileges and loose lips. Someone shares details with a buddy they think they trust, and
Read more on pcgamer.com
