The Story of The 2012 Halo 4 Barn Leak | MVG

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The Halo 4 Barn Leak is the most iconic video game leak ever. Many believe it was fake or that 343i was behind the leaks. In reality the Halo 4 Barn Leak was performed by a group of Xbox 360 Hackers who were able to get the game 6 months before its launch in November 2012. In this episode we take a closer look at the Halo 4 Barn leak and how it all went down.
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#Halo4 #BarnLeak #TomMorello

[@TheWindigomonster]

The part about Microsoft intentionally posting misleading files with references to the towns around where the dude lived is pretty chilling

[@Horendus123]

It’s genius

[@lahma69]

Ya, as a professional security researcher myself, having a past not too dissimilar from these kids associated with the Xbox Underground, I can attest to how scary it is for a young kid to be subjected to mental games very similar to these. I won't go into any details.. No one would believe me anyways but I can only imagine what must have gone through Gabriel's mind that day when he realized that, not only was Microsoft aware of their antics and how they were carrying them out, but that they were aware of exactly where he was located and likely who he was. I suspect that realization took the breath away from him. Probably vowed to change his behaviour too.. for a couple of days anyways.. The keyboard always quickly beckons you back to that feeling of power and exclusivity that comes with having special access to things you shouldn't. For anyone who hasn't already watched the Darknet Diaries episode mentioned in the video, I highly recommend you check it out. Top tier story telling about a truly phenomenal, real life story.

[@ChappyPalladium]

@@lahma69 Don't fret, I believe you. Those were the days 🥲 From my research, I'm realllllllllllly glad I didn't post stuff publicly. I'm getting giddy, thinking about my adventures 😭

[@VenomSnakeMGS]

Reminds me of the hacker who was tracked down by Nintendo. They watched him leave and enter his home, and where we went throughout the day. All the documents for this were leaked back in the big Nintendo leak a few years back.

[@TheWindigomonster]

@@lahma69 thanks for the insight, i can imagine that sort of thing would have an allure in itself

[@CorporalDanLives]

As an old 360 dev, PartnerNet was amazing. We all had access to what other people were making, and it was a total delight. Nowadays, everything is locked off and dev kits essentially brick themselves until you can ping a master server confirming that you are coming from a legitimate registered IP address :(

[@Hansengineering]

It does sound like it was a really great creative environment.

[@Matanumi]

Sounds like..... regression honestly

[@Feark]

Sounds like Gabriel was psrt of making people less trustworthy. However if not him, someone else would have taken his place, and maybe made it worst.

[@sirflimflam]

I was on the Sony side around that point, so I never really had any experience with the 360 but I have to say it's surprising how trusting ParnetNet seemed to be. You essentially trust that anyone using PartnerNet is completely secure and wouldn't leak your data which seems like a big ask to me but that's probably just the years of distrust building up.

[@CorporalDanLives]

@@Feark I'm surprised it took that long, to be honest. Stuff would drop and I'd call people over to my desk to check it out. I was always like, "How is this stuff not leaking on a daily basis? People with waaaay less moral scruples than me have access to these things 😆"

[@FoxInferno13]

I love how the VHS tape is the DS9 episode where Commander Sisko decks Q. "You hit me! Picard never hit me!" "I'm not Picard."

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Well to be fair he never hit Picard ether

[@SiKGambleRR]

Good catch!! Classic ep

[@T0TALLYAWESOMEGUY]

Knew I recognized that tape! DS9 is legendary!

[@CyberKnight1]

Proof of Sisko's awesomeness. The omnipotent Q came back to mess with Picard and Janeway time and again, but he only trifled with Sisko once. Just once. After that, he never messed with Sisko again.

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@CyberKnight1 Or a certain group of "warmhole aliens" had something to do with it...

[@cutter6900]

Stories like this are why I love this channel. Keep up the great work, MVG!

[@CptFitzgerald]

I second that "Tales of the Underground" is my favorite series on this channel.

[@daniel.robynberkefeld6335]

me too

[@Koryn_Arcus]

Agreed! Nice work MVG!

[@ryanawol77]

What a well done documentary. The story is informative, interesting and well paced. A strong way to start the year. Usually on January, KZbinrs would release low quality content (still stuck in holiday mode). But I'm glad that you released this mini documentary. It's a fun watch.

[@Matanumi]

Really? Never even noticed....

[@bigblueassbaby9074]

@@Matanumi KZbinrs usually barely try in January because CPM rates are the worst.

[@ennui4249]

What an awesome story. Love how Microsoft trolled him back with the names of surrounding towns..spooky!

[@T0TALLYAWESOMEGUY]

Yeah that would have me completely shook! Like something out of the Hackers Movie haha!

[@DebuggedRobot]

yeah that part is crazy haha

[@raminatox]

That happens when you don't use Surfshark VPN...

[@shazmosushi]

It's just IP geolocation. With 4 billion IPv4 addresses, there are blocks associated with different regions that can be easily looked up. It's just a coarse-grain geographic region. It's how some internet advertisements can display your location/city even though you didn't give the page access to your location. It's fitting this video was sponsored by a VPN company haha

[@retrovintageaddict2492]

@@raminatox add thyme

[@jeremybray8050]

I hope you never run out of stories like this. They are fascinating and make me feel proud to be both a gamer and a software dev.

[@cyphaborg6598]

How these devkits were able to connect to a network without notice just blows my mind. Especially that many of them.

[@TheChaoticWolf]

Yeah it's kinda crazy. They definitely learned since then.

[@_Devil]

The fact that the kid was hired by the company he exploited shows how great things were back in the day. The 360 truly was the Wild West of gaming.

[@XuryFromCanada]

Maaaaaan I'm so stoked about these security videos making a comeback! I totally understand that telling the world about the stunts pulled off by CommodoreForever and the like is so much more effort than complaining about Nintendon't, but OMG this is gold.

[@rabbitenjoyer6320]

When you said, "ORONO, MAINE" I about DIED. I had no clue this leak video originated from Orono back in the day. For context, Orono is a tiny college town, hours from nowhere, in a state at the fringe of the US. I was in college in Maine at Halo 4's release and hearing that town name brought me back about 10 years lol 😂

[@swordnboard677]

When I did a networks security course, my instructor told us that the easiest way to land a job at a company was to personally show them that they have security issues that you can fix. I guess Gabriel really took that to heart.

[@overlordalfredo]

It's funny how even though MS who was behind the leak and had dossiers for everyone, they never took any direct action against them and instead hired them. It's what you always hear the big companies do, but this time around they actually did it xD

[@HDReMaster]

would be much different today

[@MrMario2011]

The level of petty with the 0 Byte content downloads all being named after towns in Maine is just perfect.

[@GAMIR_SFM]

"Most talked about leak" yet i didn't know about it until now

[@RubyRoks]

Same.

[@Xploder270]

Same.

[@AbcDefg-zt8xy]

Same.

[@ivaks2586]

I just finished listening to Darknet Diaries podcast about Xbox hacking and this comes out a few minutes later, amazing!

[@briansalce2808]

Shoutout to Gabe and MVG for putting together this cool story. This was a fun watch.

[@ギコ]

listened to the whole podcast episode, wasnt gabe the one reporting to the feds??

[@Notpoop906]

one of my proudest brags was telling my friends at school I had already beaten Halo 4 two weeks early thanks to my Jtag 😂The system link games through Xlink were great too. I had more fun with that game before release than I ever did after it came out. I still own the same Jtag system I used too.

[@ErroneousClique]

Now we have multiple pre-release Halo 4 builds - even a couple TAGs builds :D As far as getting builds off of PNet - custom apps were written to basically scrape PNet for content. Fun fact - PNet still exists and can be accessed if you know how to... :>

[@brixter11]

The whole Xbox underground saga is such a fascinating story. This a nice addition to it, I remember halo reach and 4 being leaked back in day. Great video as always.

[@user-73a]

Kiddo i am shocked mamy claim to remember Halo Reach leaked by Tom Morello

[@Rodelero]

MVG, these investigative videos style you make are my favorite of yoyrs. As a complete layman and newb to all the complex concepts you talk about, knowing nothing about coding myself, the way you explain it I can sort of follow along. That is the sign of a good teacher. Super interesting

[@DMONSKULL]

12:56 this would have me shitting bricks. if this is real thats super crazy that they would go as far as uploading useless files with names of surrounding towns near him just to scare him off

[@mysticaxolotl8215]

I'd be halfway across the country if I was him 😅

[@steph4356]

Id be waiting for Master Chief to break my kneecaps wtf

[@SpartanChief2277]

well master chief took over a european town or smal country when halo 4 came out

[@TTV_TOMTISM]

somewhere in all of this, Project Milo is rotting away on some hard drive.

[@oneleapforward903]

I competed in MLG Dallas 2012 it's was from Nov 2-4 and tournament was meant to be on equal grounds because the game wouldn't release for another few days (Nov 6th). Let me me tell you something , MANY teams including ours got the game early. We got to practice a few days with it. Teams were even in other players hotel rooms having Lan partys at night lol

[@JoelAken]

I remember buying Halo 4 in 2012 at its launch at midnight. While I may have liked some of the other Halo games more, it was still an exciting time to be a gamer with an Xbox 360.

[@thefreeden]

Probably the peak of the 360 era. Things went to shit during the Xbox One era, something Xbox still hasn't recovered from to this day.

[@MusicFromAnotherTime]

Wow, never expected to see a DS9 VHS tape to open up an episode. Perfection! In the words of Romulan Senator Vreenak, "ITS A FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE"

[@CyberKnight1]

Gabriel was just a simple tailor....

[@EDUB9X3]

It was absolute madness that year when this leak happened, the GTA 6 leak last year was crazy but very malicious, it will be one to remember.

[@PCandGamerboy]

hello

[@T0TALLYAWESOMEGUY]

GTA6 leak was boring and dry compared to the shaky cam, low res, VHS, insanely loud music barn leak. Kids don't have any creativity these days

[@EDUB9X3]

@@T0TALLYAWESOMEGUY But the malicious scale it was at considering they got straight up hacked it was ruthless for what it was.

[@KennyFrierson]

These Frankenstein Dev Kits are the greatest thing

[@horusreloaded6387]

"Preferred Beta over VHS" I wonder how big their Blu-Ray collection was back in 2012.

[@ronthorn3]

I was testing some Disney Kinect game right next to the halo 4 testers during the development for halo 4. I ended up working on the master chief collection though later on.

[@bigphilly08]

Wired (article) and Darknet Diaries (podcast) did excellent jobs providing information about the Xbox Underground. It's a wild story for those that don't know. Well worth listening to the podcast and reading the article.

[@T0TALLYAWESOMEGUY]

Yeah good call, I'm going deep on this. Somehow this completely got past me back then, think I was stuck inside a PC MMO. First I've heard of all this. So interesting!

[@bigphilly08]

@@T0TALLYAWESOMEGUY I said the same thing when I heard about it. "How did I miss all of this at the time?"

[@ErroneousClique]

The 007 build did NOT originate from PartnetNet. The leaker modified the build (which was taken from a development environment, smuggled out on an XDK) to make it LOOK like it came from a LIVE environment. That 007 GoldenEye was 100% NOT from PNet. Anyone who says it is does not know the full story... The "leaker" went as far as to try to make it look like some sort of scene release in the hopes it wouldnt trace back to them. LMAO!

[@grounder]

1:06 WOW thats my comment from back then

[@declanmcquay3476]

The DarkNet Diaries two parter on this crew was insane, and pretty gut wrenching as well

[@yungbobross6418]

Played the leak on a flashed 360 back then. Was really nice to play through the campaign and be disappointed without having to spend any money. Was the beginning of the end imo. Cool stuff on how it ended up in my hands as a young kid

[@SuperNicktendo]

This is amazing history. I remember when halo 2 was leaked my friends and I played it 2 days before it officially released

[@TravisStamper]

Always enjoy the information. Keep it coming. Thanks for the video MVG.

[@zerof0rce]

After viewing TheActMans leak video, I'm glad I found this vid for some background on the barn leak. Learned a lot about PartnerNet too, awesome video.

[@Minnevan]

This all happened in Orono? That’s insane. Of all the random events to take place in Maine

[@PenguinDynasty]

Excellent video per usual MVG , the crystal clear tone/ demeanor of your videos is imo something that's massively misunderstood across KZbin these days as to what makes great video content. Good work and God Bless

[@tylerc161]

Never heard of this story before. Awesome video man, thank you for sharing.

[@ap3xplayground583]

Damn, never heard about this despite being on GAF for many years. This is absolutely awesome .

[@Hikariinu124]

MVG doesnt miss bro. these stories are awesome. keep up the amazing work!

[@AndrewBoothOfficial]

Hearing the whistle song again takes me back to watching that Halo 3 beta gameplay video on KZbin back in 2007 before the game released

[@XanderRowlet]

Jesus, Microsoft uploading the names of towns near Gabriel just to show that they knew exactly who and where he was. That sent chills down my spine.

[@Pokycraftgamer9]

Halo 4: your address edition

[@T0TALLYAWESOMEGUY]

@@Pokycraftgamer9 🤣

[@silenthill4]

For being the biggest leak ever, not a single person I know had even heard of this Thrill Kill still holds the crown, along with the slow leak of Resident Evil 1.5

[@GabrielTindall]

Good stuff. I love your explanations on the tech behind old games but security stories like this are really fun too, especially when they have a happy ending like that.

[@Nobe_Oddy]

What an AMAZING Story!!! I REALLY hope you CONTINUE to make videos JUST LIKE THIS about the behind-the-scenes story... You're just awesome MVG!! :D

[@karthik11512]

Darknet Diaries did a two part podcast about Xbox underground, covered everything from how they got started, and how they got caught. Highly recommend if you guys are interested in this topic.

[@cyphaborg6598]

yup it has some interesting information.

[@johnsimon8457]

The story about XBOX ONE / Durango and how a dude managed to swipe his stepdad's Microsoft Contractor Keycards and find his way into MS's labs and steal a beta devkit are nuuuuuuts.

[@karthik11512]

@@johnsimon8457 I thought it was his mom boyfriend, nonetheless my jaw dropped when Jack was describing him snooping around the Microsoft campus.

[@xbinxpurp6118]

Who would have known a dope head would steal for a group of hackers. Sonic iso was nothing but a pawn and a cry baby good video mvg. I could well inform you on a even closer story to these hackers and how they still operate, he thinks he’s some kind of a celebrity pahhh

[@johnsimon8457]

@@xbinxpurp6118 People who do silly stunts for E-cred are like the opposite of people with a family, a steady income, a deep skillset built over years, a professional reputation. When you get into the Blackhat hacking world you get allll kinds of folks with Out There personalities.

[@dreamworldtony]

10 seconds in and you hit me with a "x420skidbluntz"

[@tusharjoshi7421]

Please keep up these series. It's really fascinating to know the underground stories of gaming!

[@mantrox]

Nothing will top the Half-life 2 leak for me, but this one was quite amusing

[@dave5265]

Man I remember beating Halo 2 in French 2 months before it came out.... I still haven't played it in English

[@gtafans93]

Halo 4's story was amazingly received for it's emotional impact and take on were the series could go. fans that complained just complained that it was somewhat short and they wanted more. Level design wise it was also very beautiful and well made

[@Palanor]

These types of leak story videos are very interesting. Great video.

[@NikolaNovakovic]

I love this story. I worked in Microsoft at that time and managed to get myself into beta testing program of Halo 4. If I recall correctly I was able to play it 6 months before release (multiplayer), I was so hyped!

[@myleghurts7419]

Tom Morello is a name I haven’t heard in a long time

[@MacGuffin1]

There's a lot more to this story and similar underground ones, Both Bungie and Microsoft ended-up employing a lot of ppl from this scene.... The Halo 4 MP Beta was widely shared but people became too scared to play it due to the bans etc but as I recall many used it to get a head start on cheats/hacks/map editors etc

[@NikHYTWP]

Fascinating that they had full unsecured multiplayer and CDN servers for games in development back then, nowadays everything is secured which is probably for the best but so much less interesting!

[@juiceDpunk983]

This channel is slowly becoming a favourite of mine. Interesting stories like this and also showcasing emulation on the Xbox and neat things like Playstation 2 handhelds.

[@Mana2Burn]

Love your videos and appreciate all of the effort!

[@ChristopherGray00]

can we calm down with these jerking comments i understand you like the video but its like thousands of people flooding the comments saying the same thing

[@WoTaWrEkK]

Those Darknet Diaries episodes are fantastic

[@user-73a]

You kids are too young to remember when Tom Morello shared leaks of Halo Reach. We saw the needle rifle early from him

[@RealTheCrasher8]

a link to the Podcast "Darknet Diaries" - in my head the theme music of the podcast started playing.

[@Kasatome]

Wait, Orono Maine? Holy s**t! That's like 10 Mi away. Freakin' cool!

[@Aesir5]

Great work documenting this

[@ziggythegreat]

I remember a version of this song playing on one of the first halo 3 videos out. Last Resort

[@jopeteus]

Every video on this channel is of highest quality possible

[@primitivepatterns]

Wow loved the intro remix of Twisted Nerve

[@silver1407]

FYI, if surf shark logs user data, it functions a lot less effectively in regards to keeping you anonymous than if it didn't, I would check to see if they keep logged data or delete it before using. If they do keep logs, I hope MVG can get a NordVPN sponsor instead

[@MutleeIsTheAntiGod]

Nord does the same

[@LegalizeTheNuclearBomb]

Nord, Express and Surf Shark all log data. Mullvad and Torguard don't and ironically I don't see them sponsoring any youtubers.

[@NaoPb]

So fascinating how you were able to download dev versions of games to the dev kids. Great video.

[@MKMadness]

Dev kits😆😭

[@uncleho1945]

Z

[@lvl90dru1d]

@@uncleho1945 no politics allowed

[@uncleho1945]

@@lvl90dru1d Z

[@Julaco426]

One of your best videos yet, keep it up MVG!

[@henrik1743]

I had no clue about this leak honestly, in my eyes nothing tops the half life 2 leak back in the days

[@JimboJimbolina]

Legendary leak and, of course, MVG gets another critical interview. The rizz on this man

[@spyczech]

The rizzler

[@CptFitzgerald]

Well done. This was hilarious, it had a happy ending, and it came out right on schedule for DS9's 30th anniversary. This is masterful content and god tier timing correlation.

[@KIWIDOGGIE]

Lmao, I love this. Part of my childhood history

[@PCandGamerboy]

yes

[@DandyDNA]

Another excellent video MVG. But I reckon the Rainbow Serpent leak for Halo 3 was more significant 🤔

[@silver1407]

the podcast in the description is quite interesting, though the execution could've been better

[@lunaraura2828]

Nice video! I forgot to sign out of my main account so when I got halo 4 achievements early my 360 and account banned until year 9999

[@TheChaoticWolf]

Great video. I just find it crazy that PartnerNet had almost no security whatsoever and the fact that you could just easily connect to it and download what's uploaded onto it.

[@HalfpennyTerwilliger]

They probably (wrongly) thought that hardware security, owning a devkit, was enough of a hurdle. They clearly didn't account for devkits appearing in the wild into non dev hands.

[@TheChaoticWolf]

@@HalfpennyTerwilliger Yeah pretty much

[@onlyzaki]

7:03 David P, such a legend

[@dualgame]

Youngkong with the greatest halo leaks music of all time ❤

[@Navani456]

Really liked this one! Would love to see more of these kinds of stories behind massive leaks.

[@greeninspiration7725]

Glad to see you, was worried after your last video

[@HellScream107]

Thank you MVG and Gabriel himself for sharing this legendary story. I'm happy he grew up to become a professional security engineer.

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

the thing where they named fake releases after orono is deeply unsettling. it's striaght up like a creepypasta

[@_DarkestBlue]

the song is pure art

[@davep5698]

"Most talked about leak ever" literally the first I am hearing of it... Cool though.

[@koiofokinawa]

I've played every halo so far, but 4 had the best story imo. Bungie had great moments in their campaigns but they also got in a cycle of repetition and didn't try new things particularly with MCs or Cortanas character

[@carnavs]

Thanks to this video I jumped down the Xbox underground rabbit hole now I’m so glad I know about it!

[@samuraispiritsx]

Super cool video, I was in Japan most of 2012 and was not paying any mind to Halo 4 till I came home to the states at the end of the year and the game was out by that time. Had no idea this was going on.

[@chalupa3002]

This is the game leak that got my XBL account banned over 10 years ago :(.. RIP

[@xBINARYGODx]

I see revisionist history of Halo 4 even reaches this channel.

[@xBINARYGODx]

for those who want to know the actual truth, the campaign was liked and loved, but the MP was crapped on for being too much like CoD. MVG would have you think things thought BY SOME now (or a few then) were the status quo. They were not. Feel how you feel now, but never think that changes how you felt then - both are valid.

[@MichaelBjork]

I had no idea this leak was from so close to my hometown. Went to College in Orono about 10 years prior to the leak. Way to get on the Map 😅

[@keith_5584]

3:22 That clip looks like it is from the Tron Legacy game.

[@thedisappointedgamer4239]

I was worried about the content this channel was going to get after your last video so glad to see this content

[@qasimaliabbas]

Happy to see that you uploaded Sir, i hope your doing well and take care of yourself Sir. You are an inspiration to all of us. Thank you❤️❤️

[@tabrisPL]

Twisted Nerve from H3 multiplayer leak at the beginning was a nice touch. ;)

[@rinaldo7618]

nice to see u back mvg

[@on4word]

What a great video, and thanks for the darknet diaries recommendation!