Familiar Hack

That makes sense, but how would they get their hands on the competition's private stuff to begin with? Use someone as a mule of sorts to buy it, then pick it apart and release it publicly?

It's not exactly hard to determine how they're doing something if you know what you're doing and see it done.
You see someone do it, you test a method to do it yourself, you release it public so it's no longer their private toy.


If you're doing something completely different, and/or in a way that no one else can see, you don't have to worry about them doing the same to you.
It's the visible stuff that is easiest to reverse and release.


Additionally if you flood the world with hundreds of people doing X, it can make it that much harder for anyone else to realize you're doing Y. If everyone is leveling super fast for example and you suddenly do the same, it's easy to assume you did it the same way as everyone else.