A 23 year-old Australian man has avoided a prison term over his role in a series of hacks targeting League of Legends and its player database.




The ABC reports that Shane Stephen Duffy, while found not to have been directly involved in the original 2011 hacks themselves (which contradicts earlier claims that he had been), has been found guilty of a range of offences related to them, including:

Operating a business which sold the account details of hacked players (he made 194 transactions which earned him AUD$32,000).



Hacking the Twitter account of Marc Merrill, president of League’s developer Riot Games.



Sending “threatening emails” to Riot Games.



While an Australian court found him guilty and sentenced him to two-and-a-half-years in prison (with a further 18-month suspended sentence), he was immediately allowed out on parole.


Duffy has been diagnosed with autism, and had been been home schooled since the fourth grade (his mother was “fearful of having him medicated”). Because of this, his defence lawyer argued “he was unable to comprehend the consequences of his actions”, and that “he is an offender who has less moral culpability.”