I wanted to talk about the latest "huge" Mass Effect 3 leak for a moment (it's something that was allegedly leaked by a disgruntled ex-employee on 4chan.) :)

The overwhelming consensus is that it's a fake. But, I don't want to discuss the legitimacy of the leak, or the holes in the post, but rather the individual who posted it and potential intent that can come with these kinds of leaks.

So, imagine for a moment that this was real information and it truly was an internal leak.

This is a person who wants to be anonymous, but they revealed all of these details about themselves:

"After speaking with a close friend who is an attorney"
"virtual lightning [sic] technician"
"has been working for BioWare for over 8 years now"
"sole creator of the lighting partitions of all of BioWare's engines and engine plugins"
"I am no longer a part of the companies in question"
"in my career, which spans 19 years"

If this information was real, they practically screamed at their former employer exactly who they were. An individual trying to be anonymous would never post any details like this about themselves so publicly along with a legitimate leak.

However, this demonstrates a perfect example of detecting whether someone is trying to frame a current or past employee.

A current/ex-employee, who doesn't like another current/ex-employee, could easily post a completely legitimate internal leak, but then sprinkle in minor indications of their target's "true" identity. These are almost always personal attacks.. some are made in haste thinking that it might just cause trouble for them, or others do it in an attempt to disgrace or hurt them (e.g. ability to get a new job.)

It's one thing to keep in mind with all of these anonymous leaks. Even if it's real, it's very difficult to guess the identity of the poster. And from the employer's perspective, it doesn't matter what evidence they see on the surface since it doesn't tell them anything at all. Even if all of the clues in the written leak identify a single person ("Oh, that's Bob.. he was our only lighting technician"), it's completely useless to them and cannot be used to determine their identity. It could be a current employee for all they know.

No matter what a person might say, it's something that the employer would still need to fully investigate themselves, with undeniable proof of the leak's origin, and the true identity of the culprit. If they don't have access to any evidence (say that they don't want to waste the time/money to subpoena 4chan for their records), they can't jump to any conclusions about the poster's identity no matter what the leak says or hints at. If, however, the post was (foolishly) made from within their own network, then the evidence identifying the culprit would be quite accurate and staggering.

Anyways, I just thought that it was interesting because as humans tend to jump the gun and we sometimes make false assumptions on different matters (without knowing the full truth). If this was a real leak, I wouldn't be surprised rumors would be circulating around the BioWare offices about "how the leak came from Bob", even if it didn't.

I'll have that other Mass Effect post up as soon as I can (it will be a short one too). I tend to get sidetracked by these interesting things. :)