Microsoft Labels Autistic Boy A Cheater On Xbox Live

piscian18

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Microsoft Labels Autistic Boy A Cheater On Xbox Live


There's a bit of a she-said, they-said situation going on near Seattle, with the mom of an 11-year-old boy saying Microsoft reset his gamerscore unfairly and the company saying it was done because he was cheating. Regardless of the truth, the boy has been branded a cheater on Xbox Live and has to earn whatever achievements he had before all over again.

Jennifer Zdenek told Q13 FOX News that her son Julius Jackson went online recently only to discover that his gamerscore had been reset and his account branded as belonging to a cheater. She contacted the company, only to be told that the boy was cheating – which he denies – and that the reset could not be reversed. That's when she took her story to the media.

Zdenek says her son is autistic and that playing games on Xbox Live is his only social outlet. Because of this, she says, he's been devastated by what's happened.


http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...bels-autistic-boy-a-cheater-on-xbox-live.aspx


I apologize if this has already been posted just want to get spreading this until this kids situation gets fixed.


UPDATE:

So I guess somebody at microsoft is saying they personally looked into it and there were cheated achievements on the account or some such. So somebody hacked his account? Autistic kids a haxor? His Mom's a haxor? I don't get it?

I admit regardless I'm on the kids side. As long as he's not bothering anybody he can hack all he wants, but I could give a fuck about microsoft or xbox live achievements so I'm a bit biased.



http://www.gamingtruth.com.nyud.net:8080/2011/01/26/update-the-kid-was-cheating/
 
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Yeah, something needs to be done about this, I have reported hackers so many times and I doubt they get labeled a cheater.

Ive grown up with peers that were autistic, some of them will blow your mind in what they can do, either it be pulling sports stats from every year documented or just flat out video game prodigies.

This was posted over on Kotaku, they also tried to contact Microsoft but they received the same response as the mother.
 
It very very VERY rare that MS gets these cases wrong. In most cases they research gamertags history (most everything, stats are logged, even if you never see them) and they can easily identify cheaters. Be it in a game or hacking a gamerscore too quickly.

Autistic or not, he was probably cheating. Sad, but rules are rules.
 
There's a large chance he (or someone using his tag) cheated and got caught. Small chance he was misidentified as a cheater.

He wasn't banned because he was autistic. Lame attempt at manipulation.
 
There's a large chance he (or someone using his tag) cheated and got caught. Small chance he was misidentified as a cheater.

He wasn't banned because he was autistic. Lame attempt at manipulation.

Agreed, I think the autism was brought up to build sympathy. MS doesn't know hes autistic, when I created my profile I'm fairly positive there was no "Click here if you are autistic _"
 
The mother should go to the official Live forums. I'm pretty sure the mods will tell you what you were banned for. I remember reading threads on there and the mods giving reasons for the bannings.
 
What does autism have to do with anything?
Maybe he actually cheated. If not, mistakes like this happen to everyone.
 
Im willing to bet rapid-fire hacked controllers, they get you banned the fastest out of anything out there other then mod-chips.
 
Still how many people on Xbox live get there gamerscores reset and then are labeled cheaters? Quite a drastic step.

It wouldn't be the first time Xbox live fucked up and made the wrong judgement call. But the kid could have also cheated , knowing MS they will probably reverse his score since the bad press is building up.

Exactly could he have cheated using a an exploit? I mean games only give a fixed amount of points and unless he hardware modded his system...
 
People cheat/exploit and get gamerscores reset all the time. Why does it matter that this kid is autistic? It doesn't give him free license to cheat or exploit, regardless of what medical condition he may have.

Of course he denies that he cheated, but so do all cheaters.
 
People cheat/exploit and get gamerscores reset all the time. Why does it matter that this kid is autistic? It doesn't give him free license to cheat or exploit, regardless of what medical condition he may have.

Of course he denies that he cheated, but so do all cheaters.

Yeah, where is that thread on [H] where a cheater made a montage and some people eventually dug out the truth he was aimbotting? Cheaters will always deny they are cheating.


Ah, found it.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1561882&highlight=black+ops
 
Yeah, where is that thread on [H] where a cheater made a montage and some people eventually dug out the truth he was aimbotting? Cheaters will always deny they are cheating.


Ah, found it.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1561882&highlight=black+ops
I just read through that thread and LOL!

Some good sleuthing and some poor denying. After practically calling half the people in that thread liars, mobusta1 finally gets cornered and closes his thread. Some people's kids....
 
Hahah we shall never let mobusta1 down for that. So sad just to get some recognition I guess? Lmao.
 
I seriously doubt this mentally disabled kid was cheating. Autistic people can be amazingly talented in a very niche way and are blatantly retarded in everything else. It's funny seeing so many people jumping the gun thinking that he was likely intelligent enough to find cheats and install them on his xbox. If he was actually smart enough to do that, don't you think he would have kept it hidden from his mother instead of crying to her about it thinking he could restore the name on his account? I mean just a few seconds of the video talking to him should tell you he's got some serious intelligence shortcomings. If I were the mom I would record the kid playing on camera and use that to show that he's a real autistic prodigy. I'll be laughing when this backfires on M$ after going viral and he turns out to be perfectly innocent boy with massive skill in whatever game they failed to mention.
 
I just read through that thread and LOL!

Some good sleuthing and some poor denying. After practically calling half the people in that thread liars, mobusta1 finally gets cornered and closes his thread. Some people's kids....

Man thats awesome. A cheater completely caught by his own crumb trail left on the internet ... kinda scary in the same thought that it was so easy to prove hes full of shit.

Cheaters in video games they pay for .... for bragging rights that don't mean jack shit = lawl.
 
I seriously doubt this mentally disabled kid was cheating. Autistic people can be amazingly talented in a very niche way and are blatantly retarded in everything else.
I've worked with a few autistic kids.

Just like non-autistic kids, they may or may not have talents.

But a common quality among all of them is that they get obsessed with whatever it is they like, and will stop at nothing to exploit it fully.

There are some very, VERY talented autistic people out there, but there are very few of them (just like there are very few highly-talented non-autistic people). However, it's much more likely that this kid was so obsessed with the games he was playing that he would stop at nothing in his pursuit of whatever he was after.
 
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Down right now, but I looked at the preview of the page.

LOL, owned. http://twitter.com/Stepto/statuses/30407631260614656#

Update 2: Reader QualityJeverage pointed us to the Twitter of Stephen Toulouse, director of policy and enforcement for Xbox Live, who had this to say about the incident:

We confirmed there were cheated achievements and gave the parent the details. This wasn't a "he played too good" situation at all.
 
Yeah, where is that thread on [H] where a cheater made a montage and some people eventually dug out the truth he was aimbotting? Cheaters will always deny they are cheating.


Ah, found it.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1561882&highlight=black+ops

BWHAHAHAHAHHA, I remember reading that thread, but I never stuck around for the end. Fricking funny how everybody jumped on Cypher's throat for accusing Mobusta of cheating when in the end, he actually was. Cheating is one thing, but to cheat and post a video to show off on the internet, man, this Mobusta dude is pretty damn lame.
 
BWHAHAHAHAHHA, I remember reading that thread, but I never stuck around for the end. Fricking funny how everybody jumped on Cypher's throat for accusing Mobusta of cheating when in the end, he actually was. Cheating is one thing, but to cheat and post a video to show off on the internet, man, this Mobusta dude is pretty damn lame.

I have to say cheating in competitive onlline FPS is pretty damn lame period. Glad he owned up to it at the end though. Enjoyed the thread as well.
 
Yeah, where is that thread on [H] where a cheater made a montage and some people eventually dug out the truth he was aimbotting? Cheaters will always deny they are cheating.


Ah, found it.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1561882&highlight=black+ops

Wow, I remember reading that thread too, and never saw that evidence. I remember thinking that his play was a bit fishy, but it was borderline. I'm sure the thread was closed so I couldn't say this there, and I'm sure this isn't the place to say it either but I feel compelled to. Fuck the people who acted like high and mighty fpsers to anyone who had suspicions. The video was clearly in that grey area where some suspicion was justified. I get annoyed sometimes by people calling hacks on pro CS vids but I understand the suspicion.

Point is, never be 100% sure someone is/isn't hacking unless you're sitting next to them.
 
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I guess none of you really had first hand experience with an Autistic child.
Yes lots of have a talents but most never ever consider cheating. This kid probably does nothing but play games. Its their own social interaction of sort. I seriously doubt he has the mentality to go look up a cheat then go and implement it. Most of these kids can barely dress themselves.

If your saying MS algorithims are perfect and never wrong you are kidding yourself.
Thats like saying Anti-Viruses never ever have false positives. Remember humans make mistakes Humans program these thing so I guarantee there are bugs in their code that make mistakes.

I recently ordered something from MS which is pretty pricy of their special corporate website. I got one license one week and another one two days later. Well I only ordered one but I ended up with two. Woohooo for me I guess MS website algorithims efed up. AM I going to return an extra licence Hell NO, I'll keep a spare and I am not returning it. Just like MS is not willing to take this kids issue into account neither will I care about MS.
Giving a rats ass is a two way street.
 
This was on the local news here in Redmond ... apparently, he was given some free time on XBL by MS to build his gamerscore back up again.
 
I guess none of you really had first hand experience with an Autistic child.
Yes lots of have a talents but most never ever consider cheating. This kid probably does nothing but play games. Its their own social interaction of sort. I seriously doubt he has the mentality to go look up a cheat then go and implement it. Most of these kids can barely dress themselves.

If your saying MS algorithims are perfect and never wrong you are kidding yourself.
Thats like saying Anti-Viruses never ever have false positives. Remember humans make mistakes Humans program these thing so I guarantee there are bugs in their code that make mistakes.

I recently ordered something from MS which is pretty pricy of their special corporate website. I got one license one week and another one two days later. Well I only ordered one but I ended up with two. Woohooo for me I guess MS website algorithims efed up. AM I going to return an extra licence Hell NO, I'll keep a spare and I am not returning it. Just like MS is not willing to take this kids issue into account neither will I care about MS.
Giving a rats ass is a two way street.

Nice opinion. Did you read the followup? Or were you just trying to rationalize what you did? Kid was a cheater. Autism had nothing to do with this. For all YOU know, this kid sucked badly at playing games, autism or not.
 
Funny, I didn't see the post that's quoted above until it was quoted. I wonder why. :D

LOL, his mother is still whining. Props at least for finally admitting that her son's account was used for cheating. Too bad she doesn't accept that it was a valid mark to label it cheater, since it was actually used for cheating. :rolleyes:
 
I see no issue with MS giving the kid free time, its not a lot of money and the kid wasn't ruining gameplay experiences doing it. Most companies give kids in these situations special attention (when they know about it) so it is a fairly nice gesture on their part even though they didn't have to.
 
I guess none of you really had first hand experience with an Autistic child.
Yes lots of have a talents but most never ever consider cheating. This kid probably does nothing but play games. Its their own social interaction of sort. I seriously doubt he has the mentality to go look up a cheat then go and implement it. Most of these kids can barely dress themselves.

If your saying MS algorithims are perfect and never wrong you are kidding yourself.
Thats like saying Anti-Viruses never ever have false positives. Remember humans make mistakes Humans program these thing so I guarantee there are bugs in their code that make mistakes.

I recently ordered something from MS which is pretty pricy of their special corporate website. I got one license one week and another one two days later. Well I only ordered one but I ended up with two. Woohooo for me I guess MS website algorithims efed up. AM I going to return an extra licence Hell NO, I'll keep a spare and I am not returning it. Just like MS is not willing to take this kids issue into account neither will I care about MS.
Giving a rats ass is a two way street.

You dont understand how this works. For cheaters (in games), someone reports a user and then MS investigates that user. Believe it or not, MS logs a shit ton of data embedded in gamertags the user never sees. Most things are tracked, time stamped etc..

In this kids case, his achievements. He was acquiring achievements too fast, at a rate not possible by simply playing games. This is a very, VERY common hack and easy to do if you spend a little time online. It requires downloading save games and using hacks to then load other peoples saves, right before achievements unlock. It would not be difficult to rack up say ... 5000 gamerscore in a matter of minutes or hours. In reality, it would take the die hard fan probably days and days at the earliest to even come close if they were playing round the clock.

In these cases, achievements are simply time stamped and tracked. You can see this yourself on xbox.com for when you/someone got an achievement. MS can run a simple script to simply determine who is acquiring achievements too rapidily and can EASILY deduce who is cheater and who isn't.

In this kids case, he was acquiring achievements too fast, something that can only be done by cheating/hacking. This dates back to the launch of the 360, is nothing new and this kid doesn't get any special treatment because he suffers from a mental illness.
Rules are rules, even if a friend/family member was speed hacking this all for him ... its ultimately his gamertag its affecting and MS doesn't mess these up. There is no mis-step on MS here ... what we have here is a genuine cheater who is only being reported in the news because of his Autism. When you build a close platform unified online infrastructure the glue that binds it IS the rules, the guild lines and the punishment to keep things in order. There are no exceptions to be made in this case and SHAME on his mother for dragging him through this. His Autism is NOT why he was banned.

In the time it took me to write this, 100 other people got banned for the same thing. They won't make headlines... neither should this kid.
 
Wow, I remember reading that thread too, and never saw that evidence. I remember thinking that his play was a bit fishy, but it was borderline. I'm sure the thread was closed so I couldn't say this there, and I'm sure this isn't the place to say it either but I feel compelled to. Fuck the people who acted like high and mighty fpsers to anyone who had suspicions. The video was clearly in that grey area where some suspicion was justified. I get annoyed sometimes by people calling hacks on pro CS vids but I understand the suspicion.

Point is, never be 100% sure someone is/isn't hacking unless you're sitting next to them.

Truth. This is why I try to withhold judgement unless it is 100% obvious. I wish more people would show the same respect.
 
In this kids case, he was acquiring achievements too fast,
It wasn't that. The kid's mother posted the details she received from MS:
Stephen Toulouse said:
The account Zombie Kill67 transferred from the Xbox it is normally seen on, to an Xbox in another city. The account earned several achievements for Halo-3 that can only be done online and in succession. It was clear they were unlocked out of order and offline. Earning successive online achievements out of order and offline is an impossible feat, not due to skill, but due to the technology of the system. It can only be done by modifying the account and faking the achievements.

The kid wanted an upgrade that was only available after achievements were unlocked, so he transferred the account to someone else to do it for him, and that other user cheated on the account to get it. The mother admits that happened too, but is too boneheaded to see that the account was used for cheating, and earned a cheating label.

If there is anything to learn from this, it's that MS can detect if online achievements are earned offline (cheating). :p
 
lol @ shameless manipulation: http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...d=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

That is the kid's account. The mother probably posted it.

No matter how you feel about cheating, if you feel bad for the kid, blame his mother for dragging him through this whole ordeal. She created this circus.

This is too stupid.

First the mom says MS SAID it was because it was too fast.

Then the mom says MS SAID he was too good.

Now we know why and shes probably to blame for all of it. No sympathy from here and its disgusting shes still trying to keep this going... I hope MS doesn't decide to take the tag away.
 
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