Nintendo goes to extreme measures to spy on hackers: Here’s the proof

Nintendo is a company known for making world-class games. Little does anyone know that the company also aces in spying on hackers.

An internal leak has revealed the extreme measures that the company takes while investigating hackers. In a thread on Twitter, Nintendo tipster Eclipse has shared Nintendo’s internal documents that reveal the approach the game-maker took while investigating the hacker Neimod who cracked 3DS back in 2013.

The documents not only include a potential list of questions that the company would ask the hacker but it also includes a step-by-step description of how the hacker should be approached. “Approach Neimod in a friendly, non-threatening, professional and courteous manner. Make introductions. Provide a business card (Nintendo or Local Investigator with local phone number),” the company said in one of the leaked documents.

The same document also shows that the key points that the local investigator is supposed to talk about while interacting with the hacker. The list includes things like acknowledging Neimod’s engineering aptitude, sharing Nintendo’s concerns and coming up with a mutually agreeable conclusion. “Draft complaint may or may not be shown to Neimod at this point (to demonstrate severity and seriousness of the matter) depending on his demeanor, reaction and perceived reaction in engaging in discussion,” the document said.

Furthermore, the leaked documents also contain a flowchart that determines how the discussions with the hacker are to proceed. This flowchart takes into account both the possibilities wherein the hacker cooperates with Nintendo, and when the hacker doesn’t along with a course of action in case of both.

Notably, this is not the first instant when the company has gone to extreme measures while dealing with hackers. Another coder, Hector Martin earlier this month, shared his experience with Nintendo on Twitter. “By the way, remember those trust, communication, and cultural issues that Nintendo clearly had, internally and with their interaction with hackers? Yeah, those happen *all the time* within hacker teams,” he wrote in a Twitter thread.