Half Life 2 Source Code Leaked

Pyroman[FO] writes "Gamers with Jobs is reporting that the Half Life 2 source code is floating around the net right now. It looks to be about a month old. There's no official word from Valve on the source code leak yet. Unfortunately those who want to use it to cheat already have it, we need to get the word to legitimate customers to educate them about the situation." Update: 10/02 21:51 GMT by S : Valve's Gabe Newell has an official statement, via ShackNews/HalfLife2.net, indicating "infiltration of our network" and appealing for information on the culprits.

Comments

Look on the bright side

[sahonen]

We can start making mods sooner!

Re:Look on the bright side

[Gudlyf]

What's so funny about that? That's probably all this is -- leaked source that was sent to modders. I thought I read somewhere that Valve had done that. So really, the code's probably worthless to anyone not doing modding (i.e., no models, sounds, textures, scripting, etc.)

Re:Look on the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

This was dismissed by our sources say no but hopefully it make the risk of the game will make 'Half Life 2' on the risk of 'Half Life 2' is just rumour, however the industry at this is still a few whispers suggesting that the rumours that the American release, we're hoping that the most talked about subjects in the industry at the American release, we're hoping that Valve will be too far behind... The release has indeed been claimed that this is one of the game worldwide on its premium content delivery system 'Steam' before the lack of the same date. However the moment; we'll do our best to try and uncover some more concrete information surrounds the game worldwide on for this stage this date, our best to try and charge for online play. This was dismissed by our best to be.

We'd like to try and charge for this will release the same date. However the lack of 'Half-Life 2' is still a worrying sign. Today TVG heard a contentious subject; whilst Vivendi Universal have assured everyone that the rumours that this will make the same date. However the October 17th; although naturally these things are sticking with plans to be. We'd like to be. We'd like to release has indeed been put back to date of the game is just rumour, however the American release, we're hoping that the October 17th; although naturally these things are sticking with plans to date of 'Half Life 2' is one of the lack of any charge, although we can't help but hopefully it make the release three different versions and uncover some more concrete information surrounds the October 17th release; whilst Vivendi Universal have assured everyone that Valve will be too far behind...

Re:Look on the bright side

[NighthawkFoo]

Okay...try again, but this time in English please?

Re:Look on the bright side

[Junior J. Junior III]

To hell with modding it, why doesn't someone finish the damn game and release it already??

Re:Look on the bright side

[Skye16]

I'd be happy with commas...

Re:Look on the bright side

[mcspock]

It's one of two things - either it's the preliminary HL2 SDK which some mod teams currently have access to, or it's some internal dump. I'm guessing it's the former.

If that's the case, it exposes enough for someone to see how the DLLs link in. All the traditional HL hacks have used this DLL proxy technique to intercept calls made from the engine to the game DLL and modify the data. So in that sense, it would be enough for people to start working on cheats.

There is also, presumably, some code that could be used to test framerates and other such stuff, maybe a demo map. Like you said though, it's doubtful there is any content from the actual game in there.

Re:Look on the bright side

[revmoo]

I'm not so sure it's an SDK.

It's pretty complete, and weighs in at 100 megs unpacked, for this to be _not_ the source, I'd have to say it's a pretty damn good hoax.

There is also the complete source to worldcraft in there.

Most interesting thing though, is the presence of a linux/, *gets his hopes up*

Re:Look on the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

...this post brought to you by 50 drunk monkeys typing on 45 keyboards with some of the keys missing. Oh, and the letter "bong".

Re:Look on the bright side

[Minna Kirai]

Most interesting thing though, is the presence of a linux/, *gets his hopes up*

Unfortunately, that's probably only there for the Linux dedicated server. We already knew there would be one of those.

It's looking very unlikely Valve will release a Linux HalfLife2 client. They never released Linux versions of the original HalfLife, even though the game engine they used supported Linux. And today they're working tightly with Microsoft (such as for the X-Box port), so there's no reason to expect they'll step out of the Redmond shadow.

Re:Look on the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher & Wattman of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will...

Re:Look on the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, that's probably only there for the Linux dedicated server. We already knew there would be one of those.

I beg to differ, someone I know got their hands on it and after looking through the linux makefiles, there are certainly ones for building the game engine and such. Looks like linux users may be in luck..

Re:Look on the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

100 megs?? more like 300 megs unpacked..

Re:Look on the bright side

[sirmikester]

Or maybe a unofficial linux client port??

Re:Look on the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get your hopes up :(
The linux/ will be for the server only. The client is DirectX9 and therefore windows only. They've said on a few occasions that there wont be a linux port of the client.

Re:Look on the bright side

[Hanno]

And bugs will be fixed! Yay, open source!

Re:Look on the bright side

[bKT*]

I just feel bad for VALVe in general, this was a poor hit for something they've been working on so long; although besides losing corporate secrets, there's nothing much that you can do with this source code if you think about it. The only people it will help will be authors of modifications who can get a little head-up on how the programming style will go with the HL2 SDK. Steam is pretty much worthless now; atleast until they fix the network. The source code is out and about, someone is bound to find a hole.

Re:Look on the bright side

[Devir]

Another Bright side to this situation is that only the source code for the game was "stolen".

This can lead up to alot of people wanting to make their own mods and engine fixes and additions. though the only way to test these is through buying the actual game. (or being cheap and warezing it). This can mean much more sales for Valve. Also a huge portion of community support can be instantly given on release, instead of waiting months for mods to start trickling out.

The bad side is this is IP and evil competitors can get hold of, modify and repackage their own game saving a good two years R&D.

Also this puts them in a slightly better position than ID Software and it's upcoming Doom 3. The source is out, and people will be modding like crazy to get thier mods out. Doom will shortly be forgotten and Valve will take the crown.

Open Source now?

[linuxkrn]

Well, since it's out, Value might as well make it open source!

And GPL would be nice too. :)

Re:Open Source now?

[adrianbaugh]

Not a bad idea. By allowing other people to port the code to different OSes they could get some instant karma, save themselves some effort and get a bigger potential market all in one go. After all, people would still have to buy the game to get the datafiles.
The only problem is if the code contains third-party stuff like sound modules, physics engines etc.

Re:Open Source now?

[AKnightCowboy]

After all, people would still have to buy the game to get the datafiles.

Yes, because afterall, there's absolutely no way to share binary files amongst a large group of people semi-anonymously around the Internet now is there? ;-)

Re:Open Source now?

[chef_raekwon]

share binary files amongst a large group of people semi-anonymously around the Internet now is there? ;

that being said - i'd still go buy the game (for Linux, and Linux only), as opposed to spending gobs of time trying to find and download data files...i've got better things to do, like post on Slashdot.

and before you go there, no, i dont know how to multitask.

Re:Open Source now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... no.

They can still license it out and make money on those licenses.

If they went with open-src, they couldn't do this.

Re:Open Source now?

[alienhazard]

yeah, but you see, games already get pirated no matter what. just because the source is out, i highly doubt more people would pirate the game. besides, atleast half of gamers (my estimate) are either rich enough to not care about spending the money, or not computer literate enought to pirate stuff. so i can only see good coming from it if valve open sources.

Re:Open Source now?

[Seehund]

You mean just like Windows gamers will be doing anyway with the official HL2-for-Windows binaries?

Re:Open Source now?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Gobs of time? It takes a single night to grab a few CDs if you're on a T1.

Re:Open Source now?

[Second Vampyre]

Perhaps you were too busy admiring your sig to notice the word "finding." Not everyone is an experienced warez queen like yourself

~kthxbi

Re:Open Source now?

[adrianbaugh]

No. Just like there's no way to share the original binary for Windows semi-anonymously around the Internet. Given an engine[0], if you can share the data there's very little point in DRMing anything else... [0] The engine is usually smaller to warez than the data - even at 100MB uncompressed.

Someone

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone at Valve is wading knee deep in it right now.

I found the source here...

[Anonymous Coward]

:main
promote (future.game)
create (future.game)
go main
release (future.game)

Great...

[FortKnox]

Ruin the game before I even have the chance to play it.

I'll still get it, though, for the great single-player experience it BETTER deliver on.

Taking a Leak...

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear, is it just me or has leaking been in the news more than usual lately?

Also, is it just the source code or have media files been leaked as well?

One Word:

[Digital11]

Wow.

That's quite a big deal to have leaked. Unfortunately the article is down to I can't RTFA, but is this just the SDK source code or the whole friggin thing?

If it's the whole thing think of how much jeopardy that puts them in with the people they've licensed technology from (such as the Havok physics engine, etc).
Again I say, Wow.

Re:One Word:

[Moonshadow]

I got wind of this earlier this morning. There's a big thread on it. So far, those looking at it believe it's most likely a heavily-modified HL1 SDK, or something. Not sure if it's a hoax yet. Of course, they're gamers, not coders.

Thread here.

Be interesting to see what the verdict of the Slashdot code gurus is.

Re:One Word:

[Gudlyf]

If it's only 32MB as reported, that means it's probably just the source code -- no graphics, models, etc. Probably no logic or scripting code either.

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

Hmm... So most likely an SDK of some sort. I hope it's not the HL1 SDK cause i'm dying to get a look at the HL2 SDK.

Re:One Word:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a coder, but the inclusion of the file build_tf2.bat in this image makes me think it may be fake. It's just the kind of thing you'd put in to get someone drooling and again, why would you include game-specific stuff in engine source code? Does that make sense to coders out there?

Interesting that this popped up less than a day after the original release date for HL2 - maybe it's someone pulling a fast one - then again...

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

I'm just about done d/l'ing it to have a peek. I know the HL1 SDK code extremely well so I may be able to tell if this is just a hoax or whatever.

Re:One Word:

[Moonshadow]

I'm anxiously awaiting your analysis. :D

Re:One Word:

[0x0d0a]

The "heavily modified previous version" would fall in line with many previous 3d engines like Q1/Q2.

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

Ok... It's real. It looks very incomplete, pretty old, but real nonetheless. There's functional code for things that never existed in HL1. (I assume to be functional at least, obviously I can't compile it but if this is a joke played by someone who just wrote a bunch of code to try to make it look real then they spent a LOT of time doing it.)

Now however, I have come to the conclusion that this IS an SDK, and not the full source of their engine.

Err, I take that back. Its the engine. Just found the occlusion system and the node management.

I feel for Valve about now. This sucks.
I'm deleting the source just out of respect. :(

Re:One Word:

[PainKilleR-CE]

(haven't downloaded the source yet)

The directories in that image are fairly similar to what you get in the original HL SDK, with a few extra folders (though I don't have the SDK here at work, so I can't check). Other than that, a bunch of batch files don't amount to much, and I only see 1, possibly 2 or 3 header files in there. I also don't remember there being any batch files in the HL SDK (primarily because most of the code was VC++6 stuff, so you had the usual project files and such, along with a make file or two). That being said, if it is the code for the game itself, it's quite possible that there would be a large number of batch files for different builds of the engine, if they're working on multiple games simultaneously using the same engine (ie the image shows hl1, hl2, cs, tf2, but notably missing is cs2).

Re:One Word:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, I'll keep a copy for ya.

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

In the dlls directory is pretty much all of the equivalant stuff thats in the HL1 SDK. I thought it was fake at first after looking in there, then I started to look through all the physics code. All of the ragdoll type stuff that there's no way is in HL1 and the code isn't faked. Then I checked out the engine directory. Like I said in a post futher down, the full occlusion system and node management is all there, I didn't have time to check for the actual rendering code because I had to get back to work. But I'm thoroughly convinced that it's real. I even feel bad for downloading it now because I know if someone stole my code I'd be way more than pissed about it. Let em steal a binary all day, but when they have the code it's a whole new level. This is corporate espionage at its finest.

Re:One Word:

[Damek]

Be interesting to see what the verdict of the Slashdot code gurus is.

*jumps up and down with a chicken on his head*

Well, I'm trying to be interesting, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything to get the Slashdot code gurus to lay down their verdict. Perhaps you didn't mean that to be an imperative?

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

Nice one. =)

My opinion is that it's real. See above a couple posts.

Re:One Word:

[MKalus]

I wonder if that source would allow someone to port it, say to Linux?

Maybe we'll see a Linux port now after all?

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

Eh, while of course it's not impossible, alot of HL2 is based on DX9.

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

Yea, and that's what it appears to be to me. I saw alot of remnants of things that lead me to believe that they definitely didn't start from scratch when developing Source.

Re:One Word:

[MKalus]

/me no programmer :)

Thanks for the insight. I don't play on my computer no more, got an XBOX and Dream Cast, thus I am not really affected by it either way (I doubt my PII 366 can handle it anyways ;) ).

Re:One Word:

[Minna Kirai]

I'm just about done d/l'ing it to have a peek.

You've just publically confessed to a rather serious crime. Valve could easily find your identity, either by tracing that immortal-lumen.com URL, or by DMCA request to slashdot.org. If they wished, they could obliterate any possibility of your working in the game industry, or even have you sent to prison for 3 years.

Copyright infringement is a pasttime on the internet, but "piracy" of $60 game CDs or Led Zepplin tunes don't compare to this. The police might be willing to agressively prosecute something like this.

Re:One Word:

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn straight. People shouldn't be downloading someone's intellectual property damnit! Deleting it is the only honest thing to do.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go listen to some mp3s now.

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

In response to the AC who called me a pussy:
I'm a coder. I'll download MP3's all day long, I warez, whatever. But source code? Thats a no-no.

Besides, who's the pussy posting as an AC?

Re:One Word:

[icedcool]

I was thinking, what if this is just a propaganda technique by Valve?

What better way to screw over crackers than to release the "source" code so they start chugging away on that and then to later release HL2. Steam could then look for the obscure cheats, and ban the cheat user. Then look at all the publicity HL2 is getting, as if it isn't getting enough. I think Valve is craftier than we all think.

Re:One Word:

[ceejayoz]

Doubtful - the leaker and the people hosting the source on their servers will be in trouble, but those downloading probably won't.

It'd be like finding a Harry Potter 6 book and reading it - perfectly legal. It's different, though, if you're a worker at the warehouse and you give it out to all your friends.

Re:One Word:

[Minna Kirai]

Doubtful - the leaker and the people hosting the source on their servers will be in trouble, but those downloading probably won't.

In a copyright violation case, anyone who knowingly helped commit the offense is culpable. This includes not only the giver, but also the recipient (if he performed some affirmative action to get the files, not if they merely showed up in his email)

The MPAA so far has only sued distributors of their files, but they could go after leeches if they wished.

Since the estimated market value of the HL2 source code is almost one million dollars, anyone who has it could find himself the target of a dangerous lawsuit.

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

Yup, you're probably right. However, I deleted it from my hard drive, and if it came down to it they would have a REAL hard time proving that I ever had a copy of it. (It's not nearly as hard to permanently erase files as some would have you believe.) Honestly I hope to be licensing that engine from them at some point and have no interest in doing them any harm. However, if they were to prosecute me for downloading a copy of something that somebody else leaked I would instantly lose all respect for them and would never dream of licensing.

Which do you think would be more worthwhile for them? To prosecute someone who did nothing more than download a leak for the purpose of validating that it was the real thing and get nothing out of it except for see me put in jail. Or to have someone who has serious intentions to develop a game based on their technology someday possibly fork over a hefty licensing fee.

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

There's an awful lot of code in there for them just to be releasing it for free. Even if a ton has changed since that version (which doubtlessly it has) it's still enough of a groundwork for someone to do some signifcant development with. It wouldn't be worth it monetarily for them.

Re:One Word:

[ryanvm]

Now however, I have come to the conclusion that this IS an SDK, and not the full source of their engine.

Err, I take that back. Its the engine. Just found the occlusion system and the node management.

What is your address? I am sending you a keyboard with a "Backspace" key for Christmas.

Re:One Word:

[gid-goo]

Bullshit, it's 160 megs.

Re:One Word:

[BollocksToThis]

You're not a pussy. You're a fucking hypocrite.

Intellectual Property is only valid when it's in the same field you happen to work in? What's worse is, you get modded insightful.

I don't believe IP is valid, but apparently you do - when it suits you.

Re:One Word:

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why did you download the source in the first place you contradictory fuckwit?

Re:One Word:

[Digital11]

No, I don't believe IP is valid. I download music and movies because I don't respect the practices of the RIAA and the MPAA. I'm both a musician and a programmer so I could just as easily be affected by warez. And no, its not 'only valid when it's in the same field I work in'. Like I said, I warez apps/games all the time. I warez music all the time. I work in both industries. But I disagree with stealing source code for an app. You may not look at it any differently because its all bits right? But in my mind there's definitely a different between pirating a binary and stealing the source.

As far as the 'when it suits me' line. I'm allowed to have my opinion. To me downloading a binary is about the same as taking a picture of a Picasso. Taking (and using) the source is more along the lines of stealing the original painting.

To answer the question of why I downloaded in the first place (from another post): I was excited in a perverted way about seeing someone else's code, especially for an advanced 3D engine. Another part of me wanted to know if this was just a hoax. How was I to know it was the real thing when everything I had read up until that point said it was most likely a hoax. After I realized it was the real thing, I deleted it.

Re:One Word:

[boots@work]

To me downloading a binary is about the same as taking a picture of a Picasso. Taking (and using) the source is more along the lines of stealing the original painting.

How does that work? A common justification for not respecting copyright is that the owner "hasn't lost anything", the way they would if you removed their painting. (I'm not saying it's right, just that people say it.) But Valve still have their source code...

Re:One Word:

[junkgrep]

Well, I don't like you, so by your "logic," that means I have a right to take your source code. Nah nah nah.
If you don't "respect" the way someone markets something, or the way some industry works, THEN DON'T PARTICIPATE. Anything else is just a bullshit exuse for "I want it, I must have it on my terms, for a price I set!!!"

Re:One Word:

[Alereon]

So, are you enjoying your "source code"?

Re:One Word:

[Talla]

I don't believe IP is valid

Are you consistent about this, meaning you think Microsoft can use whatever part of Linux they like, without giving out the source?

Re:One Word:

[zudo]

I don't believe in warez or any other illegal downloading of files but it does somehow seem worse to have the source code you've spent the last 5 years (or whatever it is now) working on leaked than to have people downloading warez copies of your game.

I guess the distinction comes in that if you download a warez copy of a game you've only got a free copy of something you could have bought whereas in this case people have got their hands on source code that under normal circumstances would never be made available to joe public.

This leak jeapodises the security of machines running half life 2, makes the game easier to crack, allows people to cheat in multiplayer more easily, could threaten Steam (anyone know if any steam code was in the leaked stuff), jeapodises Valve's agreements with middleware manufacturers (havok etc) and any licensing plans they have for the engine... This list goes on, this is definitely worse for Valve than normal warez.

Re:One Word:

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you consistent about this, meaning you think Microsoft can use whatever part of Linux they like, without giving out the source?

Speaking for myself only, yes. I like the GPL, and what it's doing, but I would much prefer that the entirety of copyright and IP law didn't exist, and that there was no need for the GPL.

I wish the entire world worked on the basis of the BSD license - sharing for everyone, with acknowledgement for the original author. I wish people's hard work was both rewarded AND donated to mankind at large, so we could all benefit. I don't doubt that thousands of useful ideas have been lost or crushed because someone wasn't allowed to make use of an existing idea.

Re:One Word:

[Anonymous Coward]

I download music and movies because I don't respect the practices of the RIAA and the MPAA.

Do you respect the practices of Microsoft? Would you download their source code and not feel guilty keeping it? Some feel Valve is acting questionably in regards to their Steam product. Is it ok for them to copy the source code at whim? That justification seems ok for YOU.

But I disagree with stealing source code for an app. You may not look at it any differently because its all bits right?

I don't look at it any differently because either way, it is someone's work. Whether you steal the text instructions used to create the binary, or the binary itself is irrelevant. Unfortunately, it's part of this myth that code is somehow 'art', and the even worse myth (usually spread among snobby programmers) that code is somehow more valuable art than music or movies (we'll ignore the fact that there is shoddy crap in all three fields).

As far as stealing the source being 'worse' than stealing the game, I don't agree. With the source, you are stealing the work of programmers. Copy the game, and you are stealing the work of programmers, artists, musicians, play testers and others. To claim that stealing the code (which at least has an educational value) is better than ripping off the entire product is disingenous at best, and insulting to the other people who have put their hard work into the product.

I don't believe in IP laws, but I don't blatantly copy everything as if I have the right to, and then try to sound like some kind of moral hero for deleting source code. When IP laws are abolished, THEN you can go hard copying whatever you feel like. But you can't pick and choose which portions of IP law you feel like complying with today.

To sum up, you are still a hypocrite, you just don't realise it.

Re:One Word:

[WasterDave]

the estimated market value of the HL2 source code is almost one million dollars

Don't know where you got a figure that low.

Dave

Pascal

[dekashizl]

Hopefully this will put to rest the controversy over Pascal. Now the world can see that you CAN write a production quality game in Pascal.

Re:Pascal

[gfody]

I hope your not trying to be funny. Pascal is every bit as strong as C and object pascal puts C++ to shame

Re:Pascal

[cybercrap]

Mod this shit up. Actually got a chuckle on this one.

Re:Pascal

[FortKnox]

Ok, my asbestos suit is now firmly attached.

FLAME ON!

*ducks*

Re:Pascal

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahaha, you wish. I won't argue that C++ sucks, but Pascal sucks, too. They are incomparable.

Re:Pascal

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you say object pascal is superior to C++? Having used both, I don't see what features of obj. pascal are better.

Objective C kicks ass though.

Re:Pascal

[grmpf]

The source archive contains *.cpp, *.h and VisualStudio project files. It's not written in Pascal.

Re:Pascal

[fudgefactor7]

There already was one. It was Wizardry for the Apple II....at least that is what I was told.

Re:Pascal

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are too stupid to have a sense of humor

Re:Pascal

[Anonymous Coward]

What about that bit where the size of the array is part of the type, meaning you can't have a variably-sized array as an input to a function?

That isn't as strong as C.

Re:Pascal

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously haven't used Pascal in a looooooooong time. Please look these terms up: open array, dynamic array, array of const.

Re:Pascal

[gfody]

strong typing, consistent syntax, specific to borland (I'm not talking about old school pascal here, but) BASM really makes meshing asm and pascal easy and consistent.

C# is basically pascal with curly braces instead of begin/end (along with all the ++=/-=**%^ inconsistencies that make it suck). I work in C# and obj pascal everyday (obj. pascal for optimization critical code, c# for high level BS) and I prefer obj pascal over C# or C++. Aside from java, I don't have experience with those "other" languages mainly because I develope for windows and unix (where do all these froto,grox,dipschil,etc languages come from anyways???)

and of course, the top 10 reasons

Re:Pascal

[Peaker]

In old Pascal, arrays of different sizes were considered different types and so you couldn't write generic-array functions, even for specific types.

Is this still a problem today?

Re:Pascal

[vrt3]

Even though this is slashdot, I read the articles, but I didn't see any mention of Pascal. It's probably me, but where did you see that Half Life is in Pascal?

...and in other news...

[Kandel]

Valve Software are sueing Linux Kernel creator Linux Torvalds, on suspect that leaked Half-Life 2 source code is present in Linux operating system.

Re:...and in other news...

[wo1verin3]

That would be funnier if it was SCO suing valve for using System V Unix Code in Half Life 2.

Re:...and in other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

No but SCO are having their crack (smoking) team of auditors grep through the code right now.

Re:...and in other news...

[mike_mgo]

No. It wouldn't.

Re:...and in other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...leaked Half-Life 2 source code is present in Linux operating system

Lest we forget the gaming goodies hidden in Microsoft Excel (here, here), and Word (here)?

Re:...and in other news...

[Kandel]

I can just see all the Valve Software guys in a circle around a SCO executive, pushing him around going...
"Whadda gonna do huh? Revoke out Unix license!"

Re:...and in other news...

[Kandel]

Furthermore proving that Microsoft Office is not only bloatware, it contains bloatware.

Re:...and in other news...

[jared_hanson]

Oh shit! You mean I shouldn't put it in there?!? Damn! I was making one hell of a framebuffer splash screen to display during the boot process. I was almost done too, just ready to check it in to CVS. You ruined my day.

Re:...and in other news...

[Leffe]

Just for your information, there is a lot of Linux support in the code... I don't think there's enough though.

I guess Valve are working on something, but it's certainly not finished yet.

With this new rush of "help" I think that Linux support might be a reality in the future.

Re:...and in other news...

[ryanvm]

No, you are both mistaken. SCO jokes stopped being funny about a week after the story broke.

Re:...and in other news...

[Minna Kirai]

just ready to check it in to CVS.

As has been widely reported in the news, Linux does not use CVS.

Re:...and in other news...

[CAIMLAS]

hahaha :) first time I've actually laughed at a slashdot post in -ages-. got a good chorkle out of that one. :)

Re:...and in other news...

[jared_hanson]

As was widely obvious from the context, my post was a joke.

Re:...and in other news...

[RCAMVideogames]

Everyone that has read this page must now pay $600 or delete the internet.

Re:...and in other news...

[Feral Bueller]

There's nothing even mildly funny about CVS.

Re:...and in other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. :)

Re:...and in other news...

[Lord_Dweomer]

" I can just see all the Valve Software guys in a circle around a SCO executive, pushing him around going..."

They'd be circle strafing you insensitive clod!

Re:...and in other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

3 hours of compiling so far, fixing msvc dependant stuff every 1/5th file or so..... I'd say they've got a while to go. and I think it's just the dedicated server too.

Re:...and in other news...

[ScepticOne]

While Linux itself doesn't use CVS (what would an operating system kernel use CVS for, anyway?), many kernel developers use it.

Thanks ATI!

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew ATI wouldn't let us down!

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Spy Hunter]

Mod parent up, insightful. They leaked Doom III didn't they? They probably had access to the code, didn't they? Probably someone at ATI let his friend see it, and they let their friend see it, and suddenly poof, it's all over the Internet. Heads are going to roll for this one...

Re:Thanks ATI!

[T-Kir]

I can agree with the funny mod, but I thought of nVidia first (as in the 'revenge of nvidia')???

Just my $0.02

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Anonymous Coward]

Doom 3 and Q3A! Go ATi!

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Anonymous Coward]

"They leaked Doom III didn't they?"

If they did, there's no evidence of it.

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you believe that the only other company other than Valve that is interested in and has access to the source for the most anticipated engine over the last two years is ATI? Hmm.

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Sevn]

Actually, there was evidence and ATI already apologized for it.

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Anonymous Coward]

idiot

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Joe5678]

It's important to note that ATI leaked a Doom III alpha build, NOT the source code to Doom III.

I could see some legitimate reasons for giving ATI the source code to these games, but none of them justify the potential for it to get leaked out. It would be insane to just hand your source over to 3rd party companies.

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Anonymous Coward]

rm: cannot remove `notadirectory': Is a directory

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Nogami_Saeko]

Just out of interest, was there info that ATI gave out the Doom 3 alpha?

There's a big difference between "leaked" (ie: gave out), and someone who "stole" it from them by popping a disk into a drive or hacked into a server or something...

N.

Re:Thanks ATI!

[dscowboy]

Who modded THAT up? Informative?!? Explain to me exactly why ATI would have a copy of the HL2 SOURCE CODE. You think Valve is contracting ATI to proofread their source comments for them or something?!?

Re:Thanks ATI!

[heli0]

"was there info that ATI gave out the Doom 3 alpha?"

http://www.evem.org.au/evem/archives/games/doom_3_ alpha_leaked_by_ati.html

Apparently they are just really sloppy, ATI sent id a laptop with the Unreal Warfare engine it 3 months before they let this Doome3 build get out.

Re:Thanks ATI!

[DeathPenguin]

"Xian" from id confirmed that it was ATi that mishandled the Doom3 E3 demo. John Carmack also noted that ATi sent id software a laptop with full Unreal source code.

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Spy Hunter]

I don't know why my post was modded informative, because it contained very little factual content, mostly opinion. But graphics card companies do get prerelease binaries of new graphics engines. I don't have any specific information about this, but it wouldn't be too far fetched for partial source to be given as well, to help with optimizing and fixing drivers. But now that I've actually seen what was released, it seems to me like this is more code than Valve would have given ATI. As far as I can tell, it's basically a snapshot of most, if not all of Valve's code. If Valve did release source to ATI, I would expect it to be a stripped down version for testing. That's what I would do if I were Valve, at least.

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they do. As do others with a co-vested interest ...

Re:Thanks ATI!

[Feral Bueller]

The Alcatraz announcement said that ATI would be releasing a *voucher* for a free copy of HL 2 with each Radeon 9800 purchased.

Maybe this is a beta for their online voucher redemption program.

Seems more effective than Steam.

8th post!

[Anonymous Coward]

yay!

A novel proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow...no posts yet, and already the site is down. I propose we create a term, perhaps "Slashdotted," to describe sites that go down from too much traffic. With that term in mind, perhaps we could then take measures of some kind to ensure that we don't link to sites that are likely to be "slashdotted." Wow...I really like my new word, has a certain ring to it, don't ya think?

Excellent!!!!!!!!

[LupidStupy]

Now I can figure out how Freeman craps in that damn suit!

Re:Excellent!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can figure out how Freeman craps in that damn suit!

Er, that's not a very difficult thing to do. (As long as you're eating enough fiber, of course.)

"use it to cheat?"

[dnoyeb]

Aren't we past security through obscurity by now? Or is that just applied to Microsoft.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Moonshadow]

Most people don't think like that. They think "You have the source, you can make whatever cheats you want!" They're gamers, not coders, and most don't have a clue what they're talking about. I trust that Valve is professional enough to write tight code.

The most damage is the loss of company secrets (Source engine techniques, anyone?) and the potential damage to engine licensing opportunities, I think.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[slamb]

Aren't we past security through obscurity by now?

Not with games, especially first-person shooters. It's a problem of distributing the workload with limited server resources and limited bandwidth / high latency between nodes. To make the game playable, the clients have to know things and be trusted to do calculations that from a security standpoint they should not.

This really is unfortunate. It means you really can't stop cheating with this sort of game. It's especially easy when the source code is available, though it's still possible otherwise.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[rsmith-mac]

No one is saying that the only security for HL2 is obscurity, only that it was another layer. Unfortunately, it's probably one of the most important layers, as the source code gives cheaters an idea of what to mess with to pull of things like wallhacking, and other cheats that are always going to be impossible to prevent, but were harder because of obscurity. All things considered, this is a "bad thing."

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[PyromanFO]

Mod this man up, I wasn't talking about the latest OpenSSH release getting leaked, it's Half Life 2. The latency problems mean you can't really have secure netcode, however obscurity goes a long way to help.

The CDKey and Steam authentication systems are also supposedly included, so any security control they had before goes out the window, you can't trust the CD Keys or Steam anymore. Not that they were perfect before, but this is going from "wait a bit while the crackers figure out this new authentication system, then it's changed in a patch, repeat" to "here it is on a silver platter, before it's released"

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Anonymous Coward]

How about programming in some advantages for your client, recompiling, and connecting to a server. Coding a little transparency for all walls would probably help someone out.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Slothy]

If this is legit, this all applies. If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time to debate.

Valve will not lose any licenses due to the code being available. Nobody is going to not license the engine because they can get the source. You'd get your ass sued to oblivion to commit largescale copyright infringement on a major retail product. The first thing anyone asks when you're working on a game is "what engine are you using?". You can't hide your engine - knowledable people can easily tell what engine it is by running it.

The real risk is cheating, which could very well have a real impact on sales (why buy HL2 to play the new CS when the new CS has at least as many cheats as the old one?). Plus if cheating is rampant, it could scare away licensees.

So they could lose real sales and licensees, but only because of cheating, not because they don't need to pay for the source because they can get it for free :)

Jon (Slothy)
Programmer, S2 Games

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[pVoid]

Not necessarily so.

Think about it this way: a multiplayer game is an excellent place to do clustered computing. The server doesn't need to do all the computations, some of it could be farmed out to the clients. In such a system, there needs to be a trust base established. Cheats aren't about exploiting buffer overruns, they are about abusing that trust. Just like in P2P clients.

Now, it might be that valve chose the gestapo method of having the server be authoritative in every way. In that case, even if the source code out now has problems, they can be fixed with an update to the server only.

This is the crux of trusted computing, and things like the evil palladium everyone fears...

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Priyadi]

No FPS games is secure from cheating, not before the Internet's bandwidth and latency is comparable to AGP's.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Lussarn]

Valve will not lose any licenses due to the code being available.

Well, someone might take a peak at it and decide it sucks and licence Doom3 instead.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[alienw]

You can't write a game that is impossible to cheat in. Cheating usually involves stuff like transparent walls, knowing where the enemies are, getting extra crap, et cetera. Most of this is on the client side, and you can't put it all on the server. So, the only means of cheating prevention is security through obscurity. But then, most security is like that.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Anonymous Coward]

the real risk is cheating, which could very well have a real impact on sales (why buy HL2 to play the new CS when the new CS has at least as many cheats as the old one?). Plus if cheating is rampant, it could scare away licensees.

I doubt cheating would slow the sales of the new HL2 when CS2 comes out. Plenty of people know CS has the most cheaters per capita of any game yet they still play it.

-NoClanNeeded

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't think like that. They think "You have the source, you can make whatever cheats you want!" They're gamers, not coders, and most don't have a clue what they're talking about. I trust that Valve is professional enough to write tight code.

It only takes one person, to find one exploitable piece of code to release a hack to take advantage of it to everyone.

Most aimbotters don't write their own bots, they download other peoples.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Penguinshit]

I thought Unreal Tournament had that distinction...

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[ThisIsFred]

The real risk is cheating, which could very well have a real impact on sales (why buy HL2 to play the new CS when the new CS has at least as many cheats as the old one?). Plus if cheating is rampant, it could scare away licensees.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the most widely used cheats, aimbots and wallhacks, rely heavily on hooking into D3D or OpenGL to grab information. This isn't going to change significantly before HL2 is released, and the API references are available to anyone. Although there's some extra work involved in wedging the cheats in to control aiming, I don't think the source code is going to make a difference, especially since the SDK is going to end up "out there" for mod developers.

The problem with the HL community is that cheating is acceptable. Unless Valve do some weird modifications to DX, cheats are going to appear very soon after HL2 is released. I'm giving it 3 months before HL2 cheats appear.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[spitzak]

I knew some moron would post this.

Security through obscurity is a BAD idea.

Security through obscurity is an even WORSE idea when your only defense (the obscurity) is lost, which is what has happened in this case.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[j450n]

Graphical things like wallhacks are less affected by this, although having full access to the source definitely makes it easier. Writing an aimbot when you have the full core engine source (not the part that would be released in an SDK) becomes trivial though, because it removes all the effort of decoding network traffic to try and figure out where everything is in the world, how the messages are formatted, and how to properly generate false input that the server won't think is suspicious.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they might want to make some changes to this function before the release:

/* COM_UnMunge - Anti-proxy/aimbot obfuscation code */
void COM_UnMunge( unsigned char *data, int len, int seq ) {...}

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[enjo13]

I thought the mantra 'security through obscurity is no security at all' was revered on Slashdot.

According to popular Slashdot thinking, shouldn't the availbility of the source code actually PREVENT cheating thanks to peer review (and subsequent helpful suggestions for Valve)?

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[gid-goo]

Anybody who's writing a server based multiplayer game and trusts the clients is either an idiot or some kind of freaked out genius. Nobody trusts the clients. In a P2P game (like most PS2 network games) you have no choice.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[pVoid]

Ummm... Can I not read english or did you just contradict yourself? Sometimes there is no choice.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Shardis]

Yes, having the source code shouldn't be of any help for cheaters if the gamebase is well designed and bug free. That's how real security software works after all. (think crypto)

However, even the slightest slipup can eventually be found (and - granted - patched) if the source is available. It all depends on the software architecture.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[neye_eve]

why buy HL2 to play the new CS when the new CS has at least as many cheats as the old one?).

because at least there aren't any cheesy det-pak rushes and nerfed summoners! :-)

(j/k - love the game)

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect not, I think the whole point of Steam is that it ties the CD-key to a user account so that legitimate and registered keys can't just be re-used.

Crackers have never seemed to have a problem generating the CD-key itself as anyone who as played counterstrike recently will tell you (cheats that are banned and then kicked reconnect immediately with a new CD-key).

Perhaps the distribution system for HL2 also has a method for tracking blocks of keys that have been physically sold so that just generating a key is not enough, you have to generate a key that (a) has been marked as sold and (b) has not yet been registered. That would probably be enough, I can't imagine many people buying HL2 and then just letting it sit on a shelf without registering it.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Anonymous Coward]

If they don't lose licenses because of the code being available, then why not GPL their work when complete?

NO competing company would GPL their entire product (this is why Valve should not LGPL or BSD it...) when they can get the license for a small (compared to hoped revenue) fee.

So why not GPL? Or APL? Or one of the other licenses?

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[alienw]

CD-keys are easy to reverse-engineer without the source. There have been keygens created for every game that uses one. However, these are useless for online play because the odds of hitting a key that has been issued but is not yet registered are very, very low.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[ThisIsFred]

If you poke around long enough, you'll find the the source code to some of these cheats as I have. The one I've seen involve DLL-injection on the client side. Speedhacks are the only cheats that affect client updates, and are therefore suspicious to the server, (the server "gives" the client "x" amount of "moves" per time period, using a speed hack "uses" all those "moves" up in a shorter amount of time. If the client attempts to use more "moves" than is allotted, it looks suspicious.) The source to the cheats involves some header files that are handed out in the SDKs, i.e. I don't see anything that would hint that the cheat coders have the source to the engine.

Wallhacks, obviously, are relatively easier. The hardest ones to detect simply manipulate textures. The simplest I've seen this far is a spray-logo cheat that makes the sprite transparent; Spray it on a wall, and you can look through it.

As far as I can tell, aimbots don't need to monitor or rewrite any client updates en route to the server. They're kind of simple actually, the basic principles being:

Hook into D3D/OpenGL

Look for texture with ID #[whatever] which corresponds to [body part] of enemy player model

Align center of screen with of enemy player model

The fact that there is no detection on the server end makes it really difficult to spot them. The first aiming aids could be spotted by astute admins, because there was often a "snapping on target" when they were activated, and inexperienced cheaters didn't realize that the cheats aimed for the nearest enemy player model, even if there was a wall in the way. Now it's harder, because cheat coders have added randomness to the code, like only 1-in-4 shots is spot on, and take-up is smoother when the cheat is activated.

Honestly, the leaking of a dated build of HL2 isn't going to affect cheats. I just don't want that leak(er) to become a scape-goat for the game industry.

Re:"use it to cheat?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Punkbuster take care of cheaters now?

Re:Who cares about FPS

[Zardoz44]

I've never seen Operation Flashpoint, but Ghost Recon is a FPS. Very well done and with an added strategy component, but a FPS nonetheless.

Twitch shooter? No.

It wasn't 'leaked'...

[goldspider]

...it was FREED!!

Re:It wasn't 'leaked'...

[ornil]

The proper term is "liberated".

Re:It wasn't 'leaked'...

[Anonymous Coward]

By the Source Code Liberation Front no doubt

Re:It wasn't 'leaked'...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi. I'm Seth. Thank you for liberating the comment I made 27 minutes before you did.

Re:It wasn't 'leaked'...

[OvErRiDeX]

I thought being liberated involved being bombed repeatedly?

Crap wrong story..

[Anonymous Coward]

I meant to link to this story.

Re:Crap wrong story..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh, crap again, I meant to link to [insert goatse redirect here].

MaxClients

[tcopeland]

Yikes.

Warning: Too many connections in /var/www/html/pnadodb/drivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 121

Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /var/www/html/pnadodb/drivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 121
mysql://postnuke_game:@localhost.localdomain/ gamerswithjobs_com_-_main failed to connectToo many connections

Here's one way to fix it.

Re:MaxClients

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a mySQL error given by php.. Apache is serving the pages just fine. They need to tweak their mysql configuration.

Re:MaxClients

[cmburns69]

Thats what you get when your Apache MaxClients setting is higher than your PHP MaxClients setting.

Re:MaxClients

[PyromanFO]

Yeah, we got slashdotted. Ugh! Maybe I shouldve submitted to games.slashdot.org instead :) I'll talk to our hosting company and see if we can get back up.

Re:MaxClients

[Malc]

Have you ever seen what happens to a loaded server with MaxClients set too high? I have: it quickly becomes resource starved and even more useless. If that server is tuned correctly, it's a good thing that we're seeing that message rather than a connection timeout.

Re:MaxClients

[MAJ Rantage]

That'll teach you, Pyro! On the upside, maybe this will introduce GWJ to a whole new audience...

Re:MaxClients

[tjw]

Yeah.

set-variable = max_connections=X

in /etc/my.cnf.

Although, it would be a lot easier to just turn off
persistent mysql connections in PHP since I think PHPNuke
uses them by default. A good slashdotting will
"KeepAlive" 100 mysql connections in no time.

Re:MaxClients

[tcopeland]

> what happens to a loaded server with
> MaxClients set too high

Right, it starts swapping since more child processes are forked than can fit into memory. As other posters have suggested, Apache's MaxClients needs to be aligned with MySQL's max_connections configuration.

Re:and now for something completely different...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that one day soon, the world will be lacking of people like you, who think in terms of race and sexual orientation. In my lofty wish, the world will be mostly populated with individualists (objectivists?).

You know you're on Slashdot when...

[SUB7IME]

... cheating is considered the 'big threat' of a source code leak, rather than the huge impending theft of intellectual property ;-)

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[ispepalocacoc]

This may result in something useful like transgaming being able to easily get halflife 2 working with winex.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Havokmon]

... cheating is considered the 'big threat' of a source code leak, rather than the huge impending theft of intellectual property ;-)

I'm currently taking bets on the surprise release of Duke Nukem Forever.. (Which surprisingly, looks like Half Life 2)

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[mahdi13]

Or one of the codemonkeys at www.icculus.org writting a port for it by next week :)

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Lord Kano]

There are two possible widespread problems that come with the release of the source. 1. is making it easier for people to produce cheats, 2. is that people can reverse engineer cd-keys, that will lead to piracy.

But source code and source code alone does not a great game make. There are models, textures, maps, config files and myriad other items that the finished product contains that the source archive will not.

You're not going to see people rolling their own pirate releases of HL2 just because of this code, but it could help people to rip off the full version, once it's available.

LK

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[javatips]

Once you have the source code... Who cares about CD-Key. They can just produce a binary without any CD key requirements.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Lord Kano]

Once you have the source code... Who cares about CD-Key. They can just produce a binary without any CD key requirements.

Internet play!!!!Remember how HL checks the CD key with WON? Bogus keys will not be allowed to connect to internet games.

LK

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[0x0d0a]

It's not actually a huge risk.

Not many companies will be willing to take the legal risk of losing their *own* game by using HL2 source. There are *tons* of freely available 3d engines out there.

Cheating is more likely to hurt Valve, as it severely damages multiplayer value.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Leffe]

The leak includes Havok 2, Miles Sound System, 3DSM plugins, etc...

I think Valv^E will be pretty poor after this.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Anonymous Coward]

It no longer does that.

It now uses Steam, and a unique user ID of some kind.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember how HL checks the CD key with WON?

Exactly... so a leak of game source does not help creation of these cd keys... the cd-key verification is likely done by a completely different system. Anyway, it's much easier to crack the client or server not to contact WON at all... even if the game uses Q3-style serverside checks, there is usually enough people running cracked servers (given a popular game) to allow quality gameplay without buying the game. Not that I would now. ;-)

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Lord Kano]

Exactly... so a leak of game source does not help creation of these cd keys.

Sure it does, unless Valve has done something revolutionary with this game, the same key would be used for single and multiplayer.

Crack one, crack the other.

LK

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Anonymous Coward]

no it does not...the algorithm used for the "local" keycheck is another one, and it will ok a SHITLOAD of keys...cracking this does not help you at all when you want to play online
the online key checking is done server side only, and has not been cracked yet
(there has been a keygen out to genereate "local" keys for ages...probably as long as the game has been out)

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Bodrius]

Source code alone does not a great game make.

However, it does make a great engine.

Considering that ID's games have become little more than extended demos for their 3D engines, and that 3D engine licensing revenues can survive well beyond the popularity of the game it was developed for, IP theft could be a very real problem in this case.

The original post had a very good point in how easily that is dismissed by the Slashdot crowd.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Anonymous Coward]

ooops...replying to myself here, but forgot this obvious example:

the quake 3 installer (single-player keycheck) will be perfectly happy if you enter "2222..." as your cd key...but then try to play online ;P

[addendum: the key check for q3 online play was disabled for a while, but then activated again...i don't play anymore, so i don't know if the key server is actually active now]

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[zapf]

Key generators are already made without the source code.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[GregoryD]

Wrong, because valve has a list of CD-keys it sent out.

You can break the code easily. Its getting the CD-key though the authorization server that makes it hard.

Just knowing the algorithm doesn't help. It allows you to install the game, but online play is always the problem.

You could just keep trying valid keys till you get a valid "online" one. But the problem is, 1. the flood of bad keys would get you banned 2. math/time- it would take years

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[CAIMLAS]

What do you mean, DNF looks like Half-Life 2? as in, the actual gameplay...? *confused*

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the cheating problem is just as big a threat to Valve as the IP situation. The fact that increased cheating will make the game less appealing to gamers should not be so trivially dismissed!

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Monkey]

not to mention licensed Quake III engine source

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[AvantLegion]

Well we've all already stolen the intellectual property. No point in cryin' over it now. :)

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really that thick, or just pretending in order to get a laugh? :)

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Anonymous Coward]

A "suprise release" of DNF almost happened!

Several months ago a theif just walked into 3DRealms and took whatever looked expensive while nobody was looking. Among those items stolen was an external hard drive that contained a build of DNF. A few weeks later the theif was caught stealing from a house and all the lost items from 3DR were recovered.

Luckily the theif didn't really know what he took, or who he took it from, or pass it off to someone who would have known.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm EA, or any other game vendor.

Rather than license an engine legally, I'm going to use a stolen copy I found on the internet.

It'll be totally impossible to provide a court with reasonable suspicion of theft of IP, and get a subpenoa.

At which point damages will be a statutory minimum of 3x the cost of the license.

If you'll recall, the origial Quake source leaked, and no commercial games used it. Blood's source leaked, same story.

No commercial game house would be that stupid. Apparently owning assets that would be at risk leads to good behavior in software companies.

Re:You know you're on Slashdot when...

[Bodrius]

Hi, I'm FooSoft, or some other big-time development house that competes directly with Game Company X in both the game and engine market.

I have a pretty good game engine, but I'm falling behind in some features and will probably be 2 months late to market. The Hype surrounding complicated features A,B,C in Game Company's X engine has gamers drooling and we have problems developing those in our engine.

I'll just go and take a peek at some stolen code I found on the Internet and see how Game Company X solved A,B,C. Then I'll reimplement those algorithms in my engine and tell my engineers to concentrate on features D,E,F, so we can either beat them to market or have a better feature set... without the cost of R&D.

It'll be very difficult to provide a court with reasonable suspicion that there was theft of IP.
The engines are different, and it would require considerable litigation and arguing to prove the trivial modifications a competent programmer can make to obfuscate the similarities in implementation.

Yet, the algorithms or even the architectural solution to a software problem may have taken months of R&D. A revolutionary new way to handle body-modeling, AI bots, etc almost certainly qualify as trade secrets, the kind of thing that gets you an important advantage in the market.

Industrial spionage is not just an invention of airport-store novels and crappy movies; the bounties, risks and liability are the same.

Mirrors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody see it in time to mirror the article?

That's the net for you...

[pegr__]

Great... The article is Slashdotted... But the leaked code is mirrored everywhere!

Full text of linked article

[Anonymous Coward]

Full article from:
http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/modules.php?o p=modlo ad&name=News&file=article&sid=665

Half-Life 2 Source Code Leaked, Seriously
Posted by: Pyroman[FO] on Thursday, October 02, 2003 - 11:02 AM EST

So I know what you're thinking. "Yeah right Pyro, it's really just more suprise gay porn" but its the real deal. The source code for Valve's Half-Life 2 has been leaked to the net. An anonymous GWJ reader has verified this is real.

I can confirm that this is indeed no fake ... The thing is available as a torrent download on the net. I don't know how much action they will take against people downloading this. ... The last edits are from a month ago (in the files). If this is fake, it is a damn good one. It looks very coherent. Over 100 megs unpacked source

There's still no official word from Valve and I haven't seen any other sites pick it up. There isn't any word on who leaked it either and from what I have heard the source doesn't give it away. Hopefully when this gets out in the open Valve can work with its partners to figure out who did this. Let's also hope it doesn't delay Half-Life 2 any further.

One things for sure, this can't be ignored. Those in the know already have it and they're probably working on their first cheat right now. Legitimate customers are the ones who need to know about this as they are the ones that will get their machine potentially broken into when they go online. You can't warez with month old source code, all it's good for is exploiting others in multiplayer and allowing crackers to make better cracks. Customers need to know that there are cheaters out there right now with the full Half Life 2 source code, if this is true.

Re:Full text of linked article

[Anonymous Coward]

O MY GOD I WANT THIS SO BAD!!!

The Monkey Dancer Has Spoken! GOF!

Re:Full text of linked article

[Anonymous Coward]

lol. you say they won't make it? well some linux geeks WILL start to port it. if it isn't already started. d'uh.

sierra's gonna get a HL2 beta-quality linux engine for free. but does that matter to us? no, we want HL2 on linux.

it's all calculated.

Geeks, start your compilers... 3,2,1, PORT! ; - ) every linux user owns you geeks something if you manage to do this...

Re:Full text of linked article

[Anonymous Coward]

Pitty this happened, though I'm no more disappointed than I would be if this happened to anyone else, either way Valve should learn it's lesson and just take the stupid servers holding the sourcecode offline (Yer follow the Microsoft example, it works ;))

Re:Full text of linked article

[Anonymous Coward]

where can i get the source code at? anybody know?

Re:Full text of linked article

[Anonymous Coward]

Porting this to Linux would be a great thing for someone to do... Even if it is only beta quality, it's still something. Linux users must be in for a treat!

Re:Full text of linked article

[Anonymous Coward]

Good news !! Isn't it what open source is all about? Why sell software when you can give it for free? Thanks to Valve for its contribution to the open source movement.

(Linux freaks probably didn't notice I was being sarcastic...)

article doesn't add much

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the submitter is the guy who posted the article, there's not much to add to the blurb:

So I know what you're thinking. "Yeah right Pyro, it's really just more suprise gay porn" but its the real deal. The source code for Valve's Half-Life 2 has been leaked to the net. An anonymous GWJ reader has verified this is real.

I can confirm that this is indeed no fake ... The thing is available as a torrent download on the net. I don't know how much action they will take against people downloading this. ... The last edits are from a month ago (in the files). If this is fake, it is a damn good one. It looks very coherent. Over 100 megs unpacked source

There's still no official word from Valve and I haven't seen any other sites pick it up. There isn't any word on who leaked it either and from what I have heard the source doesn't give it away. Hopefully when this gets out in the open Valve can work with its partners to figure out who did this. Let's also hope it doesn't delay Half-Life 2 any further.

One things for sure, this can't be ignored. Those in the know already have it and they're probably working on their first cheat right now. Legitimate customers are the ones who need to know about this as they are the ones that will get their machine potentially broken into when they go online. You can't warez with month old source code, all it's good for is exploiting others in multiplayer and allowing crackers to make better cracks. Customers need to know that there are cheaters out there right now with the full Half Life 2 source code, if this is true.

open-source for everybody!

[blake8087]

perhaps this will benefit the HL2 gaming community, (and not hurt the developers) enough that other companies will see the value of releasing open-source games, doubtful, but i'm an optimist =)

No more betting on Half Life 2 contests

[burgburgburg]

I guess I'll have to stick to something I can trust: Professional Wrestling.

Re:and now for something completely different...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah delete such posts >(.

Btw, is it the whole game source? Does it have the shaders in it? So we can see if they really spent time in optimizing for nVidia's cards.

The hitchikers guide to the galaxy (TM)...

[Savage-Rabbit]

...defines a Counter-Strike cheater as:

"The only creature on the planet Earth (little blue thing 3'rd from the sun) that its inhabitants regard as more pathetic than a computer virus author."

They will definetly be the second up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Re:The hitchikers guide to the galaxy (TM)...

[Xerithane]

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy(TM) defines a person who can't spell "definitely" as:

The only creature a Counter-Strike cheater could defeat in a battle of wits.

Re:The hitchikers guide to the galaxy (TM)...

[glenrm]

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy(TM) defines a person who flames a persons spelling in the comment section of his message but defends spelling mistakes in his .sig as completely fcking nuts!!!

Re:The hitchikers guide to the galaxy (TM)...

[Anonymous Coward]

The wounded tone in your post suggests you cheat at counterstrike. Counter-Strike cheater and Grammar nazi rolled into one! That makes you even more phathetic.

Re:HL2 Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep posting mirrors, guys, they are getting slashdotted fast.

16kb/s to 6kb/s in less than 2 mins.

Serial Code

[rf0]

I wonder if the code includes the appropiate part of the code validator for when installing. If so it might pose a problem. Of course anything like that could be easily updated for the final versions so whilst embaressing its not a total commerical failures. Also does it include the maps + media or is it just the engine itself?

Rus

Re:Serial Code

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it supposedly leaked a month ago, there's a large chance it doesn't even compile. Daily updates fix some things and horribly break others.

Re:Serial Code

[moonbender]

Nah, not really. The serial code protection is server-side anyways. There's client side verification, sure, but that'll be cracked in some way or another within days if not hours after some group gets its hand on the game (binary, not source). They still haven't found a viable way around most server-sided cd-key protection schemes - apart from cracking the server, that is.

Note to the poster above: According to a poster on halflife2.net, the code does compile and does even create a HL2.EXE, though it crashes immediatly after being run. (And of course, there's no data files coming with the game.)

Re:Who cares about FPS

[Gunfighter]

I personally have found PlanetSide to be quite enjoyable. Mixes FPS w/ RPG. Only downside is that its a Windows only game (for now). Anyone had any luck getting it to run under WINE?

Steam?

[Realistic_Dragon]

Nice to see that DRM is helping to make sure that it's hard to cheat and rip off the hard working games companies...

Those who want to steal will, those who are honest will pay anyway. Why piss off your entire userbase with DRM?

Re:Steam?

[asscroft]

I know you're talking about Valves DRM for the binaries, but some could argue they didn't go far enough!

This is a great reason to support Palladium and "Trusted Computing" and DRM enabled BIOSes and all that stuff. In that would you never would have been able to open and view these files.

If the OS let you download them, it wouldn't let you view them because the OS would check the file for some key or password or something and you wouldn't have it and then it wouldn't open up.

On the other hand, I assume that the person who leaked it in this case, would have had the key in that hypothetical case. I also assume that if one had a magic key to see this source, they'd also have the ability to copy it out of it's protected state. So, it's possible that even in this wonderful magic Palladium world it would be leaked much the same way this was leaked. The person with access to the code made it available to people without access. It would have been harder due to the encryption that goes down to the bios level, but it would still be possible.

A fink is a fink.

What could have resulted, however, is that a digital signature would be present to allow Valve to trace the leak to it's source and then they could consult the RIAA on how best to handle the leaker -- as well as the downloaders they're able to find and catch.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes yes DRM stops me viewing txt files or any bloody file in a HEX editor, sure thing dude.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't talk about stuff you don't know anything about. All you said was complete crap.

Here it is...

[Anonymous Coward]

:


Posted by: Pyroman[FO] on Thursday, October 02, 2003 - 11:02 AM EST

So I know what you're thinking. "Yeah right Pyro, it's really just more suprise gay porn" but its the real deal.The source code for Valve's Half-Life 2 has been leaked to the net.An anonymous GWJ reader has verified this is real.

I can confirm that this is indeed no fake ... The thing is available as a torrent download on the net. I don't know how much action they will take against people downloading this. ... The last edits are from a month ago (in the files).If this is fake, it is a damn good one. It looks very coherent.Over 100 megs unpacked source

There's still no official word from Valve and I haven't seen any other sites pick it up.There isn't any word on who leaked it either and from what I have heard the source doesn't give it away.Hopefully when this gets out in the open Valve can work with its partners to figure out who did this.Let's also hope it doesn't delay Half-Life 2 any further.

One things for sure, this can't be ignored.Those in the know already have it and they're probably working on their first cheat right now.Legitimate customers are the ones who need to know about this as they are the ones that will get their machine potentially broken into when they go online.You can't warez with month old source code, all it's good for is exploiting others in multiplayer and allowing crackers to make better cracks. Customers need to know that there are cheaters out there right now with the full Half Life 2 source code, if this is true.

In Other News

[asv108]

The SCO group filed a lawsuit today alleging that the leaked Half-Life 2 source violated System V IP.

Hopefully this includes Steam...

[pla]

Which would actually help Valve, because while I really want to buy and play this game, Hell will get a tad chilly before I put up with the associated DRM.

So c'mon, all you little cracking groups out there, grab this source and make us a fix for the rights-sucking crap the call Steam.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[goldspider]

"Hell will get a tad chilly before I put up with the associated DRM."

If you're willing to pay for the game, why are your panties all in a bunch over Steam? It's not like it would affect you if you have a legitimate copy of the game.

So there's got to be some other motive behind your words... something more to the tune of "Someone please make a crack so I don't have to buy the game."

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[vadim_t]

Steam won't let you play without an internet connection. There are many reasons not to like that. Like not having a stable connection, for example. The user might have a modem, or might want to play the game on a laptop without a network connection.

I know that many reasons use cracks on their legal games because they hate the "Insert game CD" crap.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[cyt0plas]

I've preordered HL2. I hate DRM, and would gladly do away with steam, especially after the pain in the @$$ it was to get connected (it seemed a lot like the slashdot effect). Plus, after what they did to the half-life 1 console, I would just rather do without. Does that make me a criminal?

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[SmallFurryCreature]

Bullshit.

I have stacks of games all bought legit. I fucking hate it however when games I bought with good money then limit me while those who download them get the better deal.

Do a test once between a normal game and a game with a no-cd patch applied. It will boot faster and often run faster as well. Games that access the cd are slow as apart from the floppy the cd is the slowest part in your computer. If the game is copied instead to the HD and played completly from their it will run faster.

Having to enter registration keys is all very nice and not so much of a hassle except why aren't they printed on the fucking cd's.

I am fed up with being treated like a criminal. You apparently love it. Well go right ahead but don't insult others who object to it.

Just because you are to stupid to see the problems with online activation crap doesn't mean the rest of us are as blind as you or as willing to be insulted.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[goldspider]

"I fucking hate it however when games I bought with good money then limit me"

Then don't buy the game and you won't have to deal with the 'limits'.

"Do a test once between a normal game and a game with a no-cd patch applied. It will boot faster and often run faster as well....If the game is copied instead to the HD and played completly from their it will run faster."

If you're gripe about DRM is based on the insignificant speed difference of HD vs. CD, You'll have to do a little better than that.

"I am fed up with being treated like a criminal."

Don't yell at me, and don't yell at Valve. Yell at the people who have made measures like DRM necessary to ensure that these game companies are paid when people play the games they produce.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[Zathrus]

Having to enter registration keys is all very nice and not so much of a hassle except why aren't they printed on the fucking cd's.

Because it's awfully difficult to read the CD key while it's spinning around in the drive?

Although it'd be nice if it were printed on both the case and the CD, for the eventuality of losing or misplacing the case/docs.

Pretty well agree with you... I still buy and play new games, and deal with having to swap CDs and whatnot, but it pisses me off. I'm always glad to see a patch a few months down the line that removed the CD key check. Just wish more developers would do that.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[SmallFurryCreature]

Insignificant speed differences between hd and cd?

I am sorry but are you for real? IDE cd drives are notorious for being CPU hogs. Certain games are worse then others of course.

As for blaming the pirates. Well only partially. Real life shops have to deal with a certain percentage of goods stolen. Now of course this could be easily avoided by strip searching everyone. Would you put up with this? Of course not. Instead the cost of theft is simply incorperated into the price of the products. It is on of the many prices we pay for our freedom.

Sadly even with all that DRM I don't see prices coming down. So not only am I paying for the stolen items (the coders still got to earn a salary no matter the ration between payers and leechers) I am also paying for DRM wich DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING WORK. It is like a shop enforcing strip searches only for people who bought something. Not for people who just walk in and walk out again.

The only ones hurt or hampered by steam and other crap like it are the people who buy it legit. Those who don't never even notice it is there.

I remember fondly the days of quake. I could just take my cd anywhere and play the game anywhere. Sweet. Now for valve I need to always be logged on to play. BAD.

I didn't mind the key needed to play online. That one made a lot of sense. It is for when I am not online that I have problems having to log on.

Oh and have you no regard for your privacy? Do you really want someone else to know exactly when you are playing games?

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[ChaosDiscord]

I agree with most of your rant. I forked over my cash for your game, why do I need to just through more hoops to play? Gosh, you know, I really love shuffling disks in and out of CD drive when I decide to switch games solely to satisfy some copyprotection system. Add to that that my CD driver works fine but hums like jet engine if any CD is in at all, so I have to remove the disk when I finish to cut down on the noise. And while I'm playing I need to stupid disk in the drive (solely for copy protection), so I just get to enjoy the hum while I play.)

Having to enter registration keys is all very nice and not so much of a hassle except why aren't they printed on the fucking cd's.

Or at the very least, don't make the entire CD black! Leave a light colored area so I can use a Sharpie to write the registration key on the CD. No, I'm not going to keep your stupid jewel case. I own a lot of games, so I keep them in a CD binder to save space. The only thing a gamer is certain to keep is the CD itself, that's where the registration key belongs.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[pla]

If you're willing to pay for the game, why are your panties all in a bunch over Steam? It's not like it would affect you if you have a legitimate copy of the game.

Ys, it would indeed affect me.

First of all, Steam requires a live internet connection to play. Not just to register, or to activate, but every time you want to play. Goodbye gaming during that boring 10-hour flight, eh?

Second, Steam not only makes possible, but forces, whatever patches Valve has decided to make, on the users. you simply don't have the option of saying "gee, y'know, it runs fine right now, and I don't want the new uberfun zone, so I'll skip this update". Nope. They release a patch, you get it next time you connect.

Third, related to #2, you have no way to keep playing if Valve gets bored. Yeah, the servers will probably stay up for a year or two, to avoid lawsuits, but personally, I still play games well over a decade old. What odds do you lay on the Steam servers staing up for over a decade? Not very good, I'd wager.

Fourth, have you read about the typical user experience with connecting to a Steam server? It makes AOL-in-the-mid-90s look easy to connect to by comparison. Valve already has money-in-pocket by the time users try to connect, so has very little motivation to guarantee the capacity to let everyone get on. And, as history has shown, doesn't give a damn.

And finally, some people just don't like having companies treat them like criminals, or having minor annoyances pop up every time they want to play a game they legitimately buy. Whether as minor as a "no-CD" crack (which often makes the game far more responsive in general, since it doesn't wait for the CD to spin up every now and then), or as major as disabling Steam, when people buy games, they want to play those games, not jump through hoops to prove they really paid for it.


So there's got to be some other motive behind your words... something more to the tune of "Someone please make a crack so I don't have to buy the game."

Not really, no. If the above explanation doesn't do it for you, I guess nothing will. So enjoy all the BS, and if someday we meet on a plane, I'll share my bought-but-cracked copy with you, as you gaze forlornly at the screen when your uncracked copy presents the highly accusatory "cannot connect with server, ya damn pirate" screen. Perhaps then you'll "get it", why things like Steam count as "bad" even if you legally own a copy of the game.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[goldspider]

"I am also paying for DRM wich DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING WORK."

On what are you basing that, the fact that it doesn't prevent shoplifters? If you think the amount of people who successfully shoplift games is anywhere near the number of people who download the games from the Internet, then I have a bridge I want to sell you.

Actually, I do have an idea (not strip-searching) that could deter shoplifters, if that really is your concern. They could include a magnetic strip (or something that can hold a tiny amount of data; don't know if a barcode alone would suffice) on the box. When the kid behind the counter scans it, your CD-key is printed out on the receipt.

Of course, some would find that to be an unacceptable pain in the ass, and would probably be prohibatively expensive for most game companies. It sucks that the price of shoplifted goods have to be included in the price of the game, but don't think for a second that the cost of the downloaded copies aren't part of that as well. Everything you buy has a theft/fraud surcharge built in. Deal with it.

DRM just happens to be a cheap and effective way to discourage illegal downloading of these games. As rampant as P2P filesharing is, I'm surprised they aren't charging $100 for these games. Be thankful it hasn't come to that yet.

"Oh and have you no regard for your privacy? Do you really want someone else to know exactly when you are playing games?"

I don't really care who knows when I'm playing games, as long as I'm not interrupted (ads, unsolicited e-mails, etc). The second my life is intruded upon by a game publisher is the second I stop playing their game.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[taybin]

That's not true. Steam is required to play, but it is not necessary for Steam to connect to the network. If you buy the disk, it installs Steam and installs HL2 into Steams cache. That means that Steam doesn't need to download it. Presummably, Steam also includes the means to validate CD-keys.

Valve has already stated that a network connection is not required to play HL2.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[drunkentiger]

Second, Steam not only makes possible, but forces, whatever patches Valve has decided to make, on the users. you simply don't have the option of saying "gee, y'know, it runs fine right now, and I don't want the new uberfun zone, so I'll skip this update". Nope. They release a patch, you get it next time you connect. Actually, I don't see this as a bad thing (unless of course it's Tribes2, then no amount of patching will help... someone set us up the assertion failure). Blizzard has done quite well with Battle.net and required updates (note Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo) and I'm sure tons of other developers do this as well. But I agree that the requirement to connect to Steam to play single/multiplayer LAN is total BS.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

"The only ones hurt or hampered by steam and other crap like it are the people who buy it legit. Those who don't never even notice it is there."

Not true. I downloaded my copy of halflife and I still had to put up with that steam crap :'( (note that of course steam didnt stop me, I even had the leaked copy at like 2am before it went public.)

I Fully agree with you though, the way copyprotection works now is bullshit. I might actually pay for a game if it wasnt so much more of a hastle.
Lets compare warezed Quake3 to legal Diablo2

Quake3: download q3demo, realise its fun. delete q3demo, download q3 point release from ftp.idsoftware.com download pak0.pk3 from a friend who has the cd. get cdkey from a friend who doesnt play anymore. Fully working q3, doesnt bitch. Same process with any other warezed game, sometimes with a nocd patch in there somewhere.

Diablo2: Shuffle the 5 or 6 install cds to get the game installed. Boot game, computer freezes. Retry -- same. Retry -- same. Retry, but ctrl+alt+del and kill the task thats checking for my cd -- works. Playable game for a while, until it hangs randomly. Of course I wasnt able to play with my cdrom drive unplugged (I keep a backup hd in my compute ri sometimes have plugged in rather than my cdrom).
I'd probably still play Diablo2 if it wasnt such a pain in the ass.

If game companies really wanted to have some interesting copy protection, How about dissguising it in a USB memory card thats modded up to look like something from the game? Maybe make it look like a rune from some RPG. Store all savegames/character data on it, and also require it to be connected at all times. It would still be as annoying as cdrom based protection, but it would atleast be easier to deal with.

Of course, I'd prefer if they just stopped treating us like criminals all together, and then maybe I'd stop being one.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

(I know, replying to my own post is bad)

Forgot to mention, IDSoft really has been good about it all. They also tend to look the other way on some piracy issues, because theyre smart enough to realise the more people playing, the more value their game has.

Quake3Fortress is a /much/ better game than Team Fortress Classic in my oppinion, but when theres only one q3f server with a good ping and anyone playing, whats the point?

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[radixvir]

check out megagames.com they have no-cd patches and some of them work over the network. if a game checks online for only a cd key you should be able to play it online

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[pythian]

That's why you grab the nocd patch anyhow.

I like to buy games and I prefer to play them without the CD in the drive (for the longest time I had all my CDs packed away, and digging through them for the one game CD was a pain).

*shrug* I'm sure someone will find something wrong with using a nocd patch on a game you bought anyhow.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[tepp]

I print all of mine out on printer mailing labels. You know, the ones from Avery.

Then I stick it on the cd.

The cd goes in my cd book, the rest of the game manuscripts etc go in the trash.

I'm a game collector freak. If I kept all the boxes and the garbage and the crappy plastic cases they come with, I'd be up to my eyeballs in crap.

Anyhoo, I recommend this method. That way you only have to find just the cd to re-install your game.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[gid-goo]

Not entirely true. Steam will allow you to play without a network connection. The caveat is that if you ever play online apparently from there on in you need to have a network connection to play. I'm not sure whether that will affect single player from there on in, my understanding is that it does.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[vadim_t]

Well, that makes it even more annoying. Either you don't play online at all, or you only become able to play when you have an internet connection. Not a very nice choice to make, IMHO.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[Skyshadow]

I got two things for ya:

1. Sharpie Silver Metallic, which works great (not like the old silver or gold paint pens).
2. A link to PriceWatch, where you can get a new IDE CD drive for like $18. I'd send you one myself, but my 2x on my Linux box finally died yesterday so I'm back to using 'em all. Alternatively, you could break into the UPL and steal one of theirs -- go now! The webcam shows nobody home...

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[33degrees]

First of all, Steam requires a live internet connection to play. Not just to register, or to activate, but every time you want to play. Goodbye gaming during that boring 10-hour flight, eh?

The last I heard, Valve was planning on removing the internet connection requirement from steam, so that you can play single player and multiplayer lan games without having an internet connection. What I do know for sure is that you will be able to buy and play the single player game without using steam at all.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest getting Nero and using the Nero Disk speed tool.

I use this in my drive and I don't notice any kind of increase in load times(I throttle my 48x drive down to 20x cause it's so friggin loud)

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[jjhlk]

Against a EULA or not, my games are ISOs on my hard-drive for quick and easy running. What else am I going to hold on 120gigs?

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not, you're wrong. How can it validate keys, without connecting to a server. Using an algorith you say. You wanna bet how long until that one is cracked...

Nope, you have to connect everytime. I've used steam, and it's a pain in the arse. On the positive side, it made me stop playing counter-strike.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[aceh0]

clients have been authed for halflife for 5 years now so it's not likely that they'll just arbitrarily turn them off and be like 'sorry no more gaming'. soldier of fortune was another game that relied on authenticating with a server at first. raven decided they didnt want to support it and so now clients dont have to auth. and to call valve a company that doesnt give a damn makes you look assinine. what other game company has supported a product with updates for over 5 years? not just patches but releasing new content.

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[oniony]

Just buy a bloody label printer ;)

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[Anonymous Coward]

> why aren't they printed on the fucking cd's.

Easy - because the cd is in the drive while you enter the registration key. Sort of difficult to read it there :)

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[PainKilleR-CE]

DRM just happens to be a cheap and effective way to discourage illegal downloading of these games. As rampant as P2P filesharing is, I'm surprised they aren't charging $100 for these games. Be thankful it hasn't come to that yet.


I think that was his point. DRM is completely ineffective at discouraging illegal downloading because the downloaded copies have the DRM stripped out or disabled, usually within hours of a game's release (especially because so many developers use the same 2 or 3 DRM packages).

The only thing it is effective at is stopping people from letting each other borrow their games, especially those that don't know much about the CDKeys and such that they're dealing with. They're stopping games from being pirated the way Doom was (everyone just copying floppies for each other or installing the game on their friends' computers), but they're not stopping the people selling illegal copies or distributing through P2P and warez sites.

On the flip side, the people that actually buy the software have to deal with things like their CDKeys being stolen, because someone's key generator actually worked and the key got banned by the publisher/developer for multiple simultaneous users. Or certain CD-ROM drives not working with the copy protection (UT and Diablo 2 both had problems with one of my CD-ROM drives, which eventually broke, so I had to replace the drive anyway...). Then there's the spin-up time on the CD whenever anything needs to be loaded from it. Certainly the people that download it don't need to worry about that, and I've installed many no-CD cracks for games I don't play online simply because CD spinup or CD swapping can be such a pain in the ass. Let's not even get started with the idea of having to keep all of the CDs for every game I might want to play in the near future near my computer. I might as well play on a console (and in general, I play a lot more games on consoles now, because PC gaming has lost much of it's convenience).

Re:Hopefully this includes Steam...

[Anonymous Coward]

You people are a bunch of whiny bitches. Go get a cork to stick in your pussies.

No games under GPL systems

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble with porting to Linux has to do with the proprietary technologies such as Havok-physics engine.

You can't port such systems to a GPLd operating system because then you'd have to release the source code and that's not an option with proprietary 3rd party components.

Face it. As long as Linux is under a ridiculous license such as GPL, you won't get any real games beyond Tux Racer. Developing graphics, hiring professional story writers as well as actors both for voice tracks and motion-animation costs a lot of money and nobody will do that if everybody can just copy the game.

Re:No games under GPL systems

[alienw]

Is this a troll or are you just a retarded assmonkey? It's hard to tell, there are too many retarded assclowns running around Slashdot these days.

Re:No games under GPL systems

[morbuz]

You can't port such systems to a GPLd operating system because then you'd have to release the source code and that's not an option with proprietary 3rd party components.

Hmmm... why not port it and _not_ release it under the GPL! Guess you never thought of that.

Re:No games under GPL systems

[SoTuA]

you won't get any real games beyond Tux Racer.

oh well... back to playing my "fake" UT2003 on debian...

Re:No games under GPL systems

[mahdi13]

And America's Army...and Neverwinter Nights...and their expansions...and...

Re:No games under GPL systems

[polyp2000]

funnilly enough, the directory in the source tree for half life 2's havok engine

src_main/ivp/havana/havok/hk_math/odesolve.cpp: modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public
src_main/ivp/havana/havok/hk_math/odesolve .cpp: MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
src_main/ivp/havana/havok/hk_math/odesolve.cp p: You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public

contains GPL'd code ....

download it and take a look for yourself

Re:No games under GPL systems

[Hatta]

Silly troll, you don't have to release your source under the GPL unless it actually incorporates other GPL code. There are a number of "real games" out there,right now, running on linux, not gpl'd, and that's perfectly legal. The major stumbling block are graphic drivers that need to be linked to the kernel. There, the GPL can be a problem. But as the market for linux games increases market pressure will encourage hardware vendors to play nice.

depending on the code

[Anonymous Coward]

depending on the code, this could be a disaster for online gamers wanting to play in a cheat-free environment.

of course, its more likely that the code isn't very relevant and so this is probably not worth the alarm.

best case: HL2 r0xors and the leaked code is innocuous.

worst case: HL2 sux0rs and stupid teenage kids with too much time on their hands begin the h4x0ring process and counter-strike2 turns into an idiot-fest. w00t!

Text of article

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazingly, I got through. Posting this anonymously since I'm not a karma whore ;)

Half-Life 2 Source Code Leaked, Seriously
Posted by: Pyroman[FO] on Thursday, October 02, 2003 - 11:02 AM EST

So I know what you're thinking. "Yeah right Pyro, it's really just more suprise gay porn" but its the real deal. The source code for Valve's Half-Life 2 has been leaked to the net. An anonymous GWJ reader has verified this is real.

I can confirm that this is indeed no fake ... The thing is available as a torrent download on the net. I don't know how much action they will take against people downloading this. ... The last edits are from a month ago (in the files). If this is fake, it is a damn good one. It looks very coherent. Over 100 megs unpacked source

There's still no official word from Valve and I haven't seen any other sites pick it up. There isn't any word on who leaked it either and from what I have heard the source doesn't give it away. Hopefully when this gets out in the open Valve can work with its partners to figure out who did this. Let's also hope it doesn't delay Half-Life 2 any further.

One things for sure, this can't be ignored. Those in the know already have it and they're probably working on their first cheat right now. Legitimate customers are the ones who need to know about this as they are the ones that will get their machine potentially broken into when they go online. You can't warez with month old source code, all it's good for is exploiting others in multiplayer and allowing crackers to make better cracks. Customers need to know that there are cheaters out there right now with the full Half Life 2 source code, if this is true.

Ramifications

[Iscariot_]

This is pretty major, but that's no suprise.

This could mean (and probably does) that the multi-player functionality will be delayed until 2004 to find a way to secure it. Or maybe worse, the entire game could be delayed in order to make it compatible with a rewritten version of steam. (I am assuming that the half-life 2 source includes steam...)

Also, I guess Valve won't be licensing their tech in China... ever ;)

That 'holilday release' might be missed now... This is a sad day for gamers. Maybe an even more sad day for the Havok people (since Half Life used their physics stuff).

Re:Ramifications

[Anonymous Coward]

Any commercial product (even if it is from China) using either of the technologies will still HAVE to license it if they want to sell to the Western game market. Otherwise they face serious legal problems if anyone finds out. That's not something any wise business is going to risk.

I doubt that either Valve or the makers of Havok will lose (or gain) any significant licensing revenue from this.

It's nice to know

[Sir Haxalot]

that although the actual news site is slashdotted, when you type 'half life 2 source' into google news search... well, have a look at the results.

More info

[redink1]

The staff at halflife2.net believe its real.

There are also a few threads on steam, PlanetHalfLife, and arstechnica.

Oh no.

[akunkel]

Lets just hope it does not end up in the Linux kernel.

Re:Oh no.

[zoloto]

that would kick ass. a good physics engine in the kernel as a module. then you can really drop those would-be crackers off your box faster than a xen creature.

Re:Oh no.

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard it's going to be included in 2.6.0-test7...$make menuconfig
Console Drivers -> Frame-buffer support -> Half Life 2 instead of boot logo

Re:HL2 Source

[Cowclops]

lol, gotta love slashdot consistency. First post URL to the source gets -1 flamebait. Second post URL to the source gets +1 insightful.

Does this guarantee a Linux port now?

[pecosdave]

I mean, not like they have way to much of a choice right?

Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now?

[SmallFurryCreature]

mmm, hadn't thought of that. Certainly if it contains a relativly recent version of the code a port shouldn't be that hard. (no I couldn't do it but there are far smarter people then me out there)

As for the legality. Well if the porters didn't steal the code and don't claim copyright on the port then it might even be legal.

After all translating a letter you found in the street is not illegal is it?

Ofcourse valve is not going to like people having a good look at their code but well they should just have taken better care. Loosing this is really really stupid. Of course if someone really stole this then they are in for a world of hurt.

Anyway it has happened, might as well make the best out of it. It is not like ID was ever hurt by their games being easily copied or releasing the code (granted years later but still)

After all this is just the code. NOT the game.

Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now?

[rastachops]

Or one step better, a Mac port!! Thats the one game that i'd love to be on OS X...

Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now?

[dojobi]

In fact, if anything it might increase sales, as they would have more platforms supported. The game art and levels are still required, so people will buy the CD. I'm not sure how the multiplayer works, but does it require a valid key or something? If so, that is another reason why it wouldn't hurt sales.

Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, the 3D stuff is written in DirectX, which isn't available on Linux. It can't easily be ported to OpenGL without quite a lot of work.

Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now?

[SiliconJesus101]

Yes, but it probably guarantees a Linux server only version.

Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now?

[Anonymous Coward]

:Remember, the 3D stuff is written in DirectX, which isn't available on Linux. It can't easily be ported to OpenGL without quite a lot of work.

Yeah, and you know there aren't any coders on that internet thing who are willing to do /work/ just to make something run in Linux. That's why they all buy only 'approved for Linux' hardware.

Re:Does this guarantee a Linux port now?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's merely the half-life server... not the game engine :P remember, they always release servers in linux and windows?

Re:Here's a link to the

[aliens]

link == teh dead

In related news...

[kzinti]

...SCO announced today that they would be suing Valve for copyright infringement, because the Half Life 2 source code contained "over a million lines" if its unix source code.

bunny

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! I cant wait to start bunny hopping again.

BOING BOING BOING

Theft? Property?

[Thinkit3]

You're not very good with language, are you?

its on usenet

[Anonymous Coward]

its on usenet, in the typical places.

Re:its on usenet

[Anonymous Coward]

Meaning the groups will be flooded with morons asking how to get it to run.

Thanks Slashdot

[erik umenhofer]

...for mass marketing the leak. Honestly, is this something that should be broadcast over the world like this? I figure it wouldn't hurt not to tell as many people possible of this.

Doubt there is much Valve can do now. I just think bringing up the fact wasn't the best idea.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[MonolithicX]

I'm guessing you're an honest guy. Why? Because one second after the source code was leaked you didn't hear about it. Trust me, the people who want to exploit these things know about them as soon as they happen.

Spreading this information is a good thing. First it reminds those of us who try and be trustworthy that there are people/coworkers/employees that are not. Secondly there's a good chance that a Valve employee can get more information about the leak here than anywhere else. Finally, if your neighbors house was broken into and they were using the same locks you were wouldn't you want to know?

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called news.

Thanks though, for joining the commy section of the world. What else would you like to sensor?

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[SmallFurryCreature]

Ah, a Microsoft security advisor. Odd, I never seen one in the wild. Better stuff and mount him for the local museum.

Really security through obscurity is so obsolete it ain't even a good joke anymore.

This is out. It has happened. Though but it is hardly a big deal. It is not like the game itself has been leaked.

So what could this all mean.

1. Ports, with the code in hand porting the game by fans should be easy.
2. Mods, again with the code in hand modding will be much much easier.
3. Cheats, yup sucks in mp. On the other hand every online game wether source code was availble or not has had cheats. Live with it or play on lan games and only with friends online.
4. Pirated versions of the full game, well that depends on wether the steam code is in there. Again not big deal. Almost allgames are available BEFORE releases as warez. Though but it happens. Game companies just have to make it worth peoples money to buy the fucking game. I think valve has proofed they ain't cheap in the past (steam may erode that)
5. Huge lawsuit for valve. After all it uses licensed code for the physics engine. Well though again. They will just have to figure out who did it and then try to reclaim damages.

None of this will be stopped by not talking about it. And frankly I think you have shown youreselve to be extremly naive to believe that hushing this up is even going to work or have any effect.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

censor god damn it!!!!111!!1!!!!

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[Dhalka226]

And frankly I think you have shown youreselve to be extremly naive to believe that hushing this up is even going to work or have any effect.

And you've shown you can't write worth a damn. Though but, well though again, I suppose everybody should just call it even now?

I don't see why all the arguments about this exist. The code is out there and it will be used however it will be used. None of us can change either of those facts, so why work ourselves up? We'll all deal with whatever consequences arise from the leak when the game is released. Legal issues are Valve's to deal with, not ours to speculate on.

The wait-and-see approach works wonders. Unless, of course, some one out there has any real solutions I haven't seen? Pissing and moaning does little good.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[GregoryD]

Cheats, yup sucks in mp. On the other hand every online game wether source code was availble or not has had cheats. Live with it or play on lan games and only with friends online.

The inclusion of punkbuster in RTCW, Quake 3, Soldier of Fortune 2, and RavenShield have make cheating virtually impossible. It is possible, but nothing like what Counterstrike or other onlines games are going though. Not even close. I wish CounterStrike would get on the punkbuster bandwagon, it would be hilarious to see all the cheaters get busted.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[Sigma 7]

Really security through obscurity is so obsolete it ain't even a good joke anymore.

Why must this sort of stuff be classified under "Security through obscurity"? As the name implies, it is *ONLY* a method of keeping a product secure by not allowing the users to see any exploits in the software.

Security through not releasing the source is a different story. It works by drastically increasing the difficulty of how users can make changes to the client of a product.

While security through not releasing the source doesn't always work (even Punkbuster can be circumvented), it works a hell of a lot better then giving the full client source code to every user on the planet. As an example, look at how easy to write an Aimbot for Quake 1/2 - determine what the server sends the client, calculate the most likely path to hit the target, and fire a rocket.

As of right now, there is no effective anti-cheat system that can detect this sort of stuff without nailing any legitimate players. While there is anti-cheat software, the aimbot can be written to fit just within the thresholds of the software just to avoid detection.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[fadeaway]

Pirated versions of the full game, well that depends on wether the steam code is in there. Again not big deal. Almost allgames are available BEFORE releases as warez. Though but it happens. Game companies just have to make it worth peoples money to buy the fucking game. I think valve has proofed they ain't cheap in the past (steam may erode that)

Er.. yeah. Last I checked, models, art, sound effects, music, etc., etc., were not a part of the code.

Of course, people could fill in the blanks with homebrew stuff, but I doubt it will match the quality of whatever 5 years of art/sound/design teams come up with.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[erik umenhofer]

It's like if someone wrote a paper called "How to put a virus in the worlds water supply."

Now if this "news" item was published on every newspaper in teh world, with a nice link to the page on how to do it, every idiot will try it.

It's not censorship, it's jounalistic integrity and common sense.

Now everyone and thier mom will down load this source where if it was swept under the radar of major news org's, not as many people would have even known about it.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

If it helps to nail the bastards to the wall, it's worth it.

Personally I think they should do something like "NO HALFLIFE FOR YOU" and not release it until thousands of rabid fans have tracked down the perpetrators and bludgeoned them to death with a crowbar.

But that's just me.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[happyhippy]

CS was on punkbuster. Then Valve said FU to its makers and made its own version.

Re:Thanks Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Punkbuster doesn't really work, considering that what little encryption there was has already been cracked. Also, Punkbuster's verification of files can be circumvented.

Code control technology

[Skyshadow]

It seems like these development houses need some sort of code control technology. Given that bits are inherantly copyable and the ease with which they're moved in large numbers (net, DVD-Rs, etc), companies can't rely on conventional security methods to protect themselves from serious employee theft.

But how?

At my company, we control access to code using good 'ol fashioned groups, but that leaves a relatively large number of people with access to everything. Maybe you could enhance that security with encryption of the codebase (you can decrypt the parts you need to change and that's it), but that doesn't seem like a great solution, either. Or maybe somehow watermark the code to each person in a way not easy to detect -- maybe dynamically change their variable names so they're individual-specific...

Anyhow, interesting problem. There's always air-gap, searched-by-security on the way out solutions, but given that my keychain holds more data than my first (or second, or third) hard drive, I'm not sure how effective even a police-state style could be against a determined thief....

Re:Code control technology

[Anonymous Coward]

You are allowed to bring that keychain to work? They don't have to search us everyday, if they see that once that person is done, escorted right out. No wonder you don't think internal security is possible.

Re:Code control technology

[randombit]

companies can't rely on conventional security methods to protect themselves from serious employee theft.

If security is really important, #1 rule is to make sure you trust the people who have the important data. Someone did this intentionally, either someone at Valve, or one of their partners. That person should probably not have been hired in the first place. OTOH, I don't know how one would go about security checks for this kind of thing. It's not as easy as govt ones (where what they want to know is 1) are you a spy/subversive/etc and 2) how easy can you be blackmailed by someone who is - between those two it covers 99% of the cases where one would wish to leak stuff). This seems like it was done - well, actually, I really don't understand why anyone would do this, except maybe to really fuck their employer.

Maybe you could enhance that security with encryption of the codebase (you can decrypt the parts you need to change and that's it)

Except that you still need to compile it, so unless you put special decryption stuff in the compiler (or in a preprocessor to it), etc, etc, etc it's not going to do you a whole lot of good.

Or maybe somehow watermark the code to each person in a way not easy to detect -- maybe dynamically change their variable names so they're individual-specific...

Would sure as hell make understanding things hard, though. 'Sure, to do such-and-such just increment a4362h' 'What? Do you mean z2314j?' I don't think this would fly.

Re:Code control technology

[3terrabyte]

There's software out there that specifically does this. /. article not too long ago mentioning that M$ might want to use this. It's hard to implement though, considering how hard it already is to meet deadlines.

Re:Code control technology

[FroMan]

Hmmm, I think one method that might be a good idea, but probably pretty close to impossible would be watermarking code when it is check out. While it would not prevent the release of code, it could provide a route to determining who released it.

This might not be the best plan, but consider this: If when a file is checked out the source repository some how "marks" the file as you being the one to check it out. This mark could be introducing a typo into comments, or changing a certain tab to 8 spaces (probably too easy to get around with an "indent" type or program). The repository would have to keep track of the "watermarks" on a per user basis, but that wouldn't be terribley difficult I would think.

Again, this wouldn't work for full preventing leaks, it would help to trace who leaked the code.

Re:Code control technology

[PugMajere]

My watch is a 250 meg flash device with a USB cable attached to it.

The odds of someone noticing it is extremely low.

Heck, when I worked at Chrysler, I wasn't searched, ever. (Worked there for a year.)

Most places can't pull off the security required to prevent internal leaks without making the workplace way too uncomfortable for the honest employees - which is generally a majority of them.

Re:Code control technology

[Croaker]

Well, depending on your work environment, I doubt restricting access to source code is going to be practical. I suppose defense contractors manage to do it somehow... but most software firms want to give people as much flexibility as possible... who doesn't want to let an employee hack from home late at night if they want to?

In the closing the barn doors after the horse has escaped department, it might be possible to track down whoever released the source code, based on the state of the source at the moment the snapshot was taken. Assuming that people are checking in changes all of the time (which is a factor of how closely developers and content creation people are working together, and how many of them there are) the source tree will only be in the same state as the snapshot for a short period of time. If the source control system logs when people do updates, you could narrow down who possibly could have leaked the source, by looking at when the code was in the state shown in the leaked code, and who did checkouts before the next checkin took place.

There's a lot of problems with this, naturally. Often, you'll have a simple directory someplace that's a view onto the source code repository... or if someone leaves their own sandbox directory shared, someone could snarf the source from there, and the finger gets pointed at the poor schmuck who owns the sandbox. Depending on the company, it's likely that the source code won't change very much during some periods of time (such as a codefreeze) while veryone will likely be updating their sandboxes regularly... But assuming that whoever leaked your code is one of your own, and they didn't do it very cleverly, they could be nailed.

Stenogrophy is an interesting idea, but in practice, using random variable names would be a nightmare for the developer. One clever way of doing it might be inserting some spaces at the end of some lines of some files. This would only work if it's a secret method, because a simple Perl script could be used to scrub the stenography from the files. Perhaps a few slight alterations to comments (transpose a few letters here and there in certain words... no one is going to notice a few more 'teh's in the comments than usual).

All of these measures could act as a deterrent. If someone is able to prove you just gave away the crown jewels, it's likely your career is screwed, especially in a subset of IT like game programming. There's also the likelihood being sued back into the stoneage that would make any of the possible benefits of leaking source code intentionally seem pale by comparison.

Re:Code control technology

[Mr Guy]

That person should probably not have been hired in the first place

Or, more likely, fired.

Re:Code control technology

[Anonymous Coward]

That person should probably not have been hired in the first place.

Hey, if you have the time, would you mind coming on over (I'll pay you of course)? We're currently interviewing candidates and I'd really appreciate it if you would point out the dishonest ones. Thanks.

Re:Code control technology

[Delphix]

The only sure way to control code is to give developers a PC with no means of creating CDs/DVDs, no USB/Firewire/Parallel/Serial Ports to plug CD burners into, and no internet access. Then you have to secure your network to prevent someone plugging in an unauthorized system and probably encrypt all network activity to prevent someone from grabbing transactions in promiscuous mode.

Developers would have to do all their work on their computer, and then save it on the network drives. That's about the only way to prevent the actual code from leaving the building.

Oh and don't forget the tempest shielding. ;-)

Pain in the ass for the developers. But it's about the only way to effectively stop it.

Re:Code control technology

[David Rolfe]

companies can't rely on conventional security methods to protect themselves from serious employee theft.

If security is really important, #1 rule is to make sure you trust the people who have the important data. Someone did this intentionally, either someone at Valve, or one of their partners. That person should probably not have been hired in the first place.

Only, in reality it appears this was not done by an employee. Gabe from Valve has commented on the leak/theft here.

Apparently this was illicit in every way.

It seems the real solution here is to develop on UNIX and deploy on Windows, not these "watermark", or "encrypted codebase" sorts of plans. This is a classic 'weakest link' kinda scenario.

Re:Code control technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be stupid.

Their network and their machines were compromised by trojans. The very machines sitting right in front of them had been broken into and were running foreign code. This is scary, scary stuff.

Just think - how would you figure out an infection of this nature - how would you go about fixing it securely? And how would you make sure it doesn't happen again?

It's 10pm.

Do you know what your machine is doing? Are you sure?

Re:Code control technology

[AnotherScratchMonkey]

It seems the real solution here is to develop on UNIX and deploy on Windows, not these "watermark", or "encrypted codebase" sorts of plans. This is a classic 'weakest link' kinda scenario.

This strategy offers additional value: Building on multiple platforms eliminates the "tool myopia" that obscures bugs and bad design because one tool set encourages it.

What worries me more is that a company that puts its trust in unpatched Microsoft groupware products (email, web browser) expects us as customers to trust its code, also a sort of groupware.

We can only hope that out of this will come some good bug reports with patches that will help seal potential security and cheat exploits in the published code. Seeing Valve's designs and style, we may be able to influence the coders in the direction of more attention to security.

Re:Here's a link to the

[Anonymous Coward]

PS: If you download this, never work on your own GPL'ed game, ever.

Gee.

[mao che minh]

Who cares. So some nerds in Idaho with nothing better to do will be wall hacking on the "SNIPER RIFLES ONLY --- NO NEWBS@! Xx-- CLAN 17th L33T --xX" server.

Re:Gee.

[Leffe]

Yeah, this leak will allow for the cheaters to make new and exciting stuff such as:

* Wallhack
* Aimbot

Imagine a beowulf cluster of aimbotting wallhackers.

Re:Gee.

[the_greywolf]

will not.

how can i say that with such certainty?

I'M THE ONLY ONE, DAMNIT

slashdotted...

[the_mind_]

Well.... we Halfed the Life of that server too

/me logs of and runns away

slashdot.heaven headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Life source code leaked:

"There is the Life 1 source code floating around the universe right now. There's no official word from God on the source code leak yet. Apparently some human scientist on Milkyway.SolarSystem.Earth stumbled upon the proprietary Genome code an undetermined time ago.

Why... ?

[Ed_Moyse]

we need to get the word to legitimate customers to educate them about the situation

And do what exactly? What do the legitimate customers do with this "valuable information" that you're going to provide them? Not buy HL2? Hardly? Use their 733t coding skillz to protect themselves from cheaters? The linked article talks about people getting their computers cracked because of this ... come on! Get a grip!

Re:Why... ?

[PyromanFO]

You obviously weren't paying attention to the UT2003 buffer overflows that allowed a server to execute arbitrary code on your computer. There's been many other games that had this problem.

People need to know that they're buying a product that could leave them vulnerable, or at the very least isn't going to be a fair multiplayer experience online. They also need to know what's going on so that when Valve says "delayed till 2004" everybody knows what's up.

It's not like you can warez with this, it's none of the levels, art or sound. I'ts only useful for crackers and cheaters, customers need to know what's going to so that they don't get screwed by people using the source code to comprimise the game.

Re:Why... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"They also need to know what's going on so that when Valve says "delayed till 2004" everybody knows what's up."

Oh, waaaaaiiiiiitttt a minute. This gives them a reason to delay the product and NOT take any blame? Could it be that they needed to delay it but didn't want to take the hit, so *they* leaked it to give them a good excuse?

Re:Why... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, everything should be open source. There should be no Profits EVER. This is called COMMUNISM folks.

Re:Why... ?

[LurkerXXX]

Wow, that's it, you've solved it. That's a genius idea. Releasing the source code to the game they've spent five years making, before the game is even released, out there for the world to hack. Making it much less attractive to all those other companies were were planning on licensing it. (ie much less $$$$ for Valve.)

If that's your idea for a good logical, rational decision, I suggest the next time you want to take a day off from school/work but are worried about being blamed for playing hookey, saw off your arm at the elbow with an old rusty hacksaw. Losing and arm is a great excuse as to why you'd miss a day.

Re:Why... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, Mr. Allchin.

Idiot.

Re:Why... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, einstein. The source to the Linux kernel has been released to the public. Does that make is less attractive to other companies? No. Apache has public source code. OpenBSD has public source code. The list of OSS goes on and on and on, and no one complains.

The code is copyrighted, and since there isn't a GPL or other license, no one can use the code legally. Getting it in the open and reviewed by a lot more people will only make it better. There is that much more incentive to fix as many security exploits as possible. This will turn out to be a good thing.

Re:Here's a link to the

[Sir Haxalot]

Impressive, within 30 seconds of me putting it up, the link goes dead. True Slashdot effect.

Mac OS X port early?

[schwatoo]

So it looks like we can expect the port to Mac OS X (or insert other platform here) to happen real soon?

Re:Mac OS X port early?

[Anonymous Coward]

umm no. I dont see why you people are expecting ports with this leaked code. Anyone that even attempted to distrbute a port would be shut down by Valve.

Re:Here's a link to the

[Anonymous Coward]

Here it is!

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odv),idhfiu<?314-,vheui <?254(:%b<%t,?B`ow`r:%b,?bnoghftsd),vheui<?%u-,idh fiu<?311(:%b,?q`bj)(:s)3-3-%u-001-%c(:s)3-081-%u-3 11
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Ahh

[Anonymous Coward]

So thats why they delayed.

Source Links

[MikeD83]

Where's the souce links? I wanna throw that through Visual Studio and start fragging!

Re:Source Links

[Squinky86]

Sorry, but you'll have a bit of trouble- this is only the source code. You compile it for 8 hours and then you have a game engine on your computer! Yay! Now what? Nothing. You need the pak files, models, levels, textures, sprites, etc. to actually play the game. Sorry, but it looks like you'll still have to go out, buy the game, rip the textures, find where the cd-key is stored, insert your cd key into a hashed formed into your half-life directory, and make sure everything's extracted to the correct directories. Then and only then will you be able to use this source leak to play anything, and trust me- it's a lot easier to just buy the game and have the default installer go through all this mess for you ;).

Re:Source Links

[Anonymous Coward]

search for 'hl2 src' in your favorite p2p client.

Gamersforhire needs a new machine

[bigjnsa500]

I wonder what the CPU load is:

Warning: Too many connections in /var/www/html/pnadodb/drivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 121

Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /var/www/html/pnadodb/drivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 121 mysql://postnuke_game:@localhost.localdomain/gamer swithjobs_com_-_main failed to connectToo many connections

*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? YAFPS - Yet Another First Person Shooter WooppyDo! who gives a crap anyhow?

hehe..

[Malicious]

Valve should sue the RIAA, for not bringing down the filesharing software, that is now being used to distribute their source code illegaly.

Re:hehe..

[Vorgo]

RIAA?
Screw that.

I'm waiting for SCO to file a suit about HL2 using System V source ;)

On the bright side...

[DeVilla]

When will the Linux port be out?

Dan

Re:Who cares about FPS

[ADRA]

You are on DOPE!!

There is persistance but there certainly is NO RPG in there at all! Please stop trying to inflate your dwindling market share.

Does anyone know for sure...

[captainstupid]

If this is just the source for the "source" engine or does this include EVERYTHING, maps, etc. At only 100 megs unpacked, it seems like it's just the engine.

Linux port

[PepsiProgrammer]

Looks like there will be a linux port after all...

Re:Linux port

[websaber]

LOL where's your mod points when you need them. Hate the 3 day rule.

Re:Linux port

[identity0]

No one who is an open-source(or even proprietary) developer should download that code. If they are real, you're *seriously* opening yourself to future lawsuits, and 'tainting' your future code.

Just say no to stolen code.

Re:Linux port

[Anonymous Coward]

Just say no to stolen code.

Frickin' pansey... What in the hell is the matter with slashdot readers? You reinforce the stereotype that geeks are all a bunch of goody-goodys with their pants pulled up past their belly-buttons!

Re:Linux port

[nr]

Is'nt Half Life 2 built using MS technology (ie: Direct 3D)? Then its worthless, its junk, trash, crap, shit, I would'nt even wipe my ass with it. Not worth a dime, so I could care less if someone steals their crappy MS-only game. Everything build using MS tech is crap. Cant be used on Linux, UNIX or even MacOS-X.

Re:Linux port

[paranode]

What's really interesting is in the src_main directory there is a linux subdirectory that has Makefiles for Linux.

Header:
#
# Half-life Makefile for x86 Linux
#
# Feb 2001 by Leon Hartwig (hartwig@valvesoftware.com)
#

Perhaps something good coming our way? Or maybe just a dropped endeavor... one can only hope.

Re:Linux port

[AstroDrabb]

It could still be usable, it is called PORTING. You keep the good stuff and port the DirectX specific code to OpenGL. Now you can compile two versions, one for MS only DirectX and one For OpenGL to run on Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD. Though I do agree with you on DirectX, MS should have put their efferts into the established standard of OpenGL and made that better, instead as usual, they make a proprietary software and keep it to themselves to monopolize the game industry.

Re:Linux port

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... no pair of pants in the world are large enough to be pulled up past a slashdotter's belly button.

Re:Linux port

[Anonymous Coward]

You're thinking of the grossly obese /. janitors.
The rest of us are skinny geeks.

Re:Linux port

[NitroPye]

That is most likely the server makefile.

Re:Linux port

[Anonymous Coward]

The source builds fine under linux with a few tweaks! The executable target isn't a client though -- rather a dedicated server. Who will be the first to port the client code to linux? ;)

g++ -g -ggdb -o ./hlds_i486 ./obj/dedicated/filesystem.o ./obj/dedicated/launcher_int.o ./obj/dedicated/sys_common.o ./obj/dedicated/sys_linux.o ./obj/dedicated/public/checksum_md5.o ./obj/dedicated/public/interface.o ./obj/dedicated/public/mathlib.o -lstdc++ -lm -ldl tier0_i486.so vstdlib_i486.so

I feel bad for Valve, but at least there is the real possibility that many aspiring developers out there will have some modern game source to learn from.

YOU MUST BE NEW HERE

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap, haven't we learned to use BT for high demand situations like this?

Re:YOU MUST BE NEW HERE

[The Other White Boy]

post directly below this one is a torrent. i'm getting 36k/36k.

What's the point?

[pr0ntab]

It's all heavily geared towards Windows (DirectX 9 and all), so if you could afford the toolchain, you could probably afford to see the source code after signing an NDA or giving up your first child or something.

I don't see how the GPL is desirable or applicable here.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

As if people pay for that shit. I'm pretty sure the directx SDK is free, but the MSVC tools are copyware.

Re:What's the point?

[Lord Kestrel]

He's talking about the code needed to port Directx calls to OpenGL calls, which would be needed if you're going to try and move the platform off of Windows.

...and in other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Justice Department has now opened a criminal probe into the allegation.

President Bush said, "There are too many leaks of source code in the industry. There's leaks of operating systems, there's leaks of games, there's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of Valve, I want to know who it is. And if the person has spoiled the game, the person will be taken care of."

Just the source?

[butane_bob2003]

I was looking for CVS access. If its not being released until December, this leaked code could be way out of date. But it would be cool to take a look at the engine and stuff, no?

Quick! Port it to Linux!

[Anonymous Coward]

A zillion people have probably made this comment already, but it shouldn't be that hard to port it to Linux (unless of course they are using all sorts of proprietary 3rd party libraries and SDKs). Seriously, though, does anyone remember when this happened with another game (can't remember if it was Doom or Descent) awhile back and it was ported to OS/2 within 24 hours? I do. I was an OS/2 user then. I've sinced switched to Linux for various obvious reasons, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Was this intentional?

[pulse2600]

Think of it - it's just one more way to get the public talking about it even more, increasing its popularity. I wonder if this is as much of a marketing ploy as is "leaked info" about video cards a week before market, etc. Does anybody out there track the sales of hardware/software where some supposed trade secret or other info is leaked before the product hits stores? It would be interesting to see how the leaked information affects sales compared to competing products.

Thanks

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Unfortunately those who want to use it to cheat already have it

ACtually I want to cheat but I don't have the source. Thanks for alerting me to its existence. Slashdot is a great way to keep up with the latest crackz and cheatz. Don't you just love it?

Enough to make a linux client?

[Dav3K]

Does this now open the possibility of a Linux client? With Valve's stance on only making the game for a minimal number of platforms (linux excluded) perhaps now a proper, working client can be created.

Re:Enough to make a linux client?

[Anonymous Coward]

dunno.. but a Half Life 1 native linux build should be possible with this.. # # Half-life Makefile for x86 Linux # # Feb 2001 by Leon Hartwig (hartwig@valvesoftware.com) #

This is bigger than the "White House" leak!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about some darn ambassador's wife!
A leak of HalfLife2 is bigger ;-)

HUGE BANDWIDTH LINK

[Sir Haxalot]

here

Re:HUGE BANDWIDTH LINK

[cmburns69]

"HUGE BANDWIDTHM"

Yeah right.. Downloading at 1KiB/s. Uploading at 10KiB/s.

At least with bit torrent, I'm not just downloading from a single person...

Re:HUGE BANDWIDTH LINK

[Sir Haxalot]

It's the biggest bandwidth link you're gonna find for the half life 2 source, take it or leave it :P

Re:HUGE BANDWIDTH LINK

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish you wouldn't chew on my cum after you suck me off.

It's disgusting.

Re:HUGE BANDWIDTH LINK

[cmburns69]

I tried again, and it started downloading at 180k, uploading at 100k. Obviously, my understanding of bit torrent leaves something to be desired.

Re:HUGE BANDWIDTH LINK

[Anonymous Coward]

dont feel like registering

Bit Torrent pwns,...the more popular the download, the faster you download it. clients running the torrent upload and download as they're receiving it. very greats tuff.

Re:Theft? Property?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not familiar with the idea that language evolves over time and that definitions are not the static concepts the dictionaries would have us believe, but rather a consensus of what the speaker and the audience take a word to mean? Does "vernacular" mean anything to you? How about "common usage?" "Parlance?"

Xbox Version

[Iscariot_]

Looks like our best bet for a secure, low-cheat ridden version of Half-Life 2 multiplayer might be on the Xbox now...

Just a thought.

Re:Xbox Version

[JFMulder]

Isn't there an Xbox version already planned anyway?

Re:Xbox Version

[*weasel]

the point is that you can't use a hacked client on the xbox live network. so the xbox live version will be the only one that can be considered a level playing field. (which is one of my favorite features of their network anyway)

well, you -can- mod the xbox to allow a hacked client to load - but then xbox live will block your modded box. i suppose its possible that eventually people will reverse engineer how MS is detecting modded boxes and spoof that check too.

but in the meantime, on xbox live, with no hacked clients you can at least enjoy the fair competition.

(until the hackers can overwhelm MS resources and get modded boxes onto XBL - but by then we'll likely be playing on the xbox2.

Re:Xbox Version

[Intocabile]

Actually there would be more cheating if people can just compile there own client.

Re:Xbox Version

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and while everyone's not cheating, they're all playing a lot worse due to trying to play with a shitty controller that wasn't designed to play FPSs! Yay! There won't be any trash talking for a few months!

d00d, w3 411 5uxx0|2z! w3 0wn3d u5!

Re:Xbox Version

[Anonymous Coward]

...which is like throwing a starving dog a rubber bone. FPS multiplayer on a game console, brrrr....

unite(developers);

[Diclophis]

Lets get this thing running on linux, or a toaster or a beowoulf cluster.

The obligitory .torrent

[cyt0plas]

http://www.emptylogic.com/suprnova/torrents/382/hl 2_src-rar(1).torrent

In unrelated news...

[tony1c]

In unrelated news - sourceforge announces the availability of a new open source 3d gaming engine providing "all the performance and quality of the latest generation of 3d games."

"[...to educate them about the situation. "

[Apostata]

IT'S A COOKBOOK!

What??

[Creepy Crawler]

What? No bittorrent links?

How sad. oh wait.. you're shuning sharers today? Nevermind then

Re:What??

[FreeMath]

Here ya go...

Re:What??

[Creepy Crawler]

I was joking. I'm a seed now.. ;-)

Using my own modified java spoofer torrent.

Significant, but less so than most think.

[argStyopa]

IMO the "multiplayer" aspect of HL2 only will work if you're a subscriber (read: NOT free (as in beer)) to Steam.

Cheats are only a big deal if a lot of people are playing it multiplayer. If you have to pay to play, it's not going to be that big a community/deal ANYWAY. Certainly nowhere near Counterstrike, etc.

Re:Significant, but less so than most think.

[hkmwbz]

Counterstrike is free, but you have already paid for Half-Life to be able to use HL mods. Now you automatically become a Steam subscriber if you have Half-Life. The reason is that Steam will take over the authentication from WON, so everyone's old license will be converted to Steam.

Half-Life multiplayer is huge. Half-Life 2 might become a huge multiplayer hit too. It is obviously wrong to claim that people won't pay to play.

You have to pay to play online with HL. Same with HL2. (And Valve won't be charging extra for online play once you have bought the game. They may charge you for official mods, but that's it.)

Re:Significant, but less so than most think.

[argStyopa]

"You have to pay to play online with HL."

True, but misleading. For the last several YEARS HL has been $10 in the bargain bin. Even at retail, is it better to pay $40 (once) or $10 (every month forever)? CS was free. TF (original) was free. TFClassic was FREE.

From VUGaming:
"Planet HalfLife received an e-mail from VALVe's Gabe Newell that shows Half-Life 2's different prices and purchasing methods on buying Half-Life 2. For those of you gamers out there who are concerned about the pay to play Half-Life 2 rumors, you can purchase Half-Life 2 normally as a boxed item from a retailer of SIERRA or through Steam with one easy payment. This will allow you to enjoy the modifications, mulitiplayer mods, and most of all for you people on dial-up, you will be allowed to play this game offline so you will not have to bug over the phoneline all day. But, you must meet the requirements to play Half-Life 2, and its modifications for Half-Life2. When the new item is released by VALVe, such as expansions such as Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike 2, you will have to pay separately for these games.

Also, Gabe Newell went to talk about Steam's subscription service which does allow you to receive a new item as soon as it's out with no additional charge. For example, if you purchase Half-Life 2 as a game subscription via Steam, there will be a monthly charge to subscribe, most likely around $9.95 per month, but you will get FREE access to any other additional content such as the afore mentioned mods for Half-Life 2."

Tell me Gabe, when TF2 comes out, my February 1998 (I think) preorder be applied WITH INTEREST, right?

oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Moved into games... oh my eyes, the burning.

I have an idea who leaked it....

[kidgenius]

I say it is NVIDIA! See, the way I figure is that they are pretty POed that their game performs shitty in HL2, so to "get back" at Valve and everything Gabe has said (which seems like the truth), they release his little pride and joy into the wild.

Just watch...

[Kedisar]

I wager the OS community finishes Half-Life 2 before Valve does. ;)

Re:Just watch...

[NeoMoose]

Hell freakin' yes!!! ;-)

Re:Just watch...

[kurosawdust]

But the user interface is going to be terrible...

Re:Just watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many OS devs you know develop for Windows ? I don't know much, Valve will finish before anything can be done with the snippet.

Re:Just watch...

[HeX86]

You almost forgot -- There will be 3 opensource forks of HL2. 1 will bloatware, 1 is bug-ridden, and the last will kick ass, but no one will recognize its existence.

Re:Just watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

OS/free software foundation is not about pirating software. Infact, almost any coder out there working on GNU software would be against this act. The reality of this leak, though, is that Valve will probably not lose anything. People who develop games are honest and will license the technology rather than steal it. The source code is completely useless for playing the game... the most important part of it all is the artwork/sound/maps/etc. Unless you plan on writing a cheat or making an illegal port (good luck with that) it's completely useless.

Re:Just watch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right... like Mozilla.

Re:Just watch...

[NuShrike]

... that TF2 will now get out before Duke Nukem Forever.

Woooohoooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean we'll get a linux port this time?

Cheats Not Necessarily An Issue

[bass2496]

The article doesn't specify how much of the source this is. If it is just the game code, and not the engine, then cheats probably won't be much of an issue here. Any game that has mods has had its game code released. IIRC, most cheats are engine hacks. If that engine source is in there, then Valve has bigger problems than cheats; they just lost lots of leverage in licensing their engine.

Re:Cheats Not Necessarily An Issue

[dnaumov]

It's the source to the entire game. Game code and engine as well. Some reports say there is actually a TF2 folder as well, indicating that TF2 isn't as dead as we all thought...

Re:Cheats Not Necessarily An Issue

[bass2496]

Thanks for the info.

Source of Source

[Leffe]

I heard they got it from Valv^E's CVS, nice, eh :)

I think most of the talk is going on at #halflife2@irc.efnet.org

Re:Source of Source

[Spam Bandito]

Source of Source

Shouldn't that be "Source of Source of Source"? (It is, after all, the Source engine.)

Re:Source of Source

[Leffe]

I'm not that sure that the Source engine is in fact included, just about everything else is though...

There are a few pieces missing in the leak... the Source engine is among them, AFAIK.

Of course, the stuff that looks like the old Half-Life engine might in fact be the Source engine.

They did say that they would start it from scratch though...

Really?

[JFMulder]

Hum... somebody is SOOOOOOOOOOOO fired!

I *REALLY* hope that...

[dnaumov]

I *REALLY REALLY* hope that Valve will just put it's tail between it's legs and will start accepting patches from outside contributors if it indeed *IS* the real source code to HL2. If someone with enough skills convinved Valve he'd be able to port it to Linux, I'd be in fscking heaven. Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen due to heavy usage of DirectX :(

Screenshots

[Iscariot_]

Here's some shots of the file listings, and some of the files themselves:

http://www.dirtysolicitor.com/t0y/001.JPG
http://www.dirtysolicitor.com/t0y/002.JPG
http://www.dirtysolicitor.com/t0y/003.JPG

Re:Screenshots

[zero-one]

Lets hope that "cl_localnetworkbackdoor.cpp" in the left corner of the thrird screenshot isn't as intresting as it sounds!

Re:Screenshots

[W2k]

It's not, (unfortunately). Paste from LocalNetworkBackdoor.h follows:

// This class facilitates a fast path for networking when running a single-player game.
// Instead of the server bit-packing entities, delta'ing them, encoding deltas, then decoding the states,
// it just hands the server entity's data to the client, which copies the data over directly.

Some good

[RichiP]

Well, always one to see some guide side in anything, I hope a Linux port of HalfLife 2 suddenly just happens.

No wait, this could be good

[tsetem]

Think about it. If the code hits the net, and hackers find the various exploits in HL2 (buffer overflows, hijacked network streams, etc.), then Valve can see where their holes and possible exploits are at and fix them before it goes gold.

Not to mention, all of the free debugging, and reviews too. Heck, how many mods will be available when HL2 gets released because developers have access to the new API. Maybe it wasn't leaked, maybe it really was freed...

Re:No wait, this could be good

[NotAnotherReboot]

"Maybe it wasn't leaked, maybe it really was freed..."

That is really just plain absurd. What I do find very intriguing about this whole thing is how Valve kept the game completely hidden from the public for four years, and months after its announcement the source has gotten into the public.

Re:No wait, this could be good

[drzhivago]

Think of it from Valve's point of view. More likely than not they are already working on scouring their code for exploits and bugs trying to fix them, so that they don't get exploited come release time. They are probably rewriting some things as well, so that when HL2 actually goes out, things won't look like what was expected to people who viewed the source.

Re:No wait, this could be good

[Flunitrazepam]

100+ megs of code...

I don't think they will catch them all

Re:No wait, this could be good

[smkndrkn]

Its not good. Period. If your willing to open the source thats one thing. To have it "leaked" aka stolen its another. I have a friend who makes his own games who thinks all games should be open source for the benefits it would provide against cheating so he opens his own code. I think thats great to have the option. Unfortunately I think this is going to cause a lot of cheating problems quicker than it would have if the source was never "leaked". Cheating will almost certainly always be a problem but this may make it worse. I wish we could trust everyone to play fairly but we can't.

Only time will tell how this plays out. In the meantime I feel badly for gamers.

Re:No wait, this could be good

[SomeGuyFromCA]

ESR on Carmack on GPL of code -> cheating

Re:No wait, this could be good

[drzhivago]

I don't they'd bother trying to fix/change every line of code, just anything related to authentication and networking.

How much of that 100 MB of code is related? I don't really know.

Re:No wait, this could be good

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it. If the code hits the net, and hackers find the various exploits in HL2 (buffer overflows, hijacked network streams, etc.), then Valve can see where their holes and possible exploits are at and fix them before it goes gold.


Although your scenario sounds great, I don't think this is going to be a peer review where all the hackers are sending in the exploited code back to Valve. Although there might be a few circumstances where this might happen, overall the game hackers are just going to keep their exploits to themselves and wait for HL2 to come out, then they will probably wreak havoc on all the gameservers. I'm not implying that there are holes in HL2, just the possibility.

Re:No wait, this could be good

[smkndrkn]

Good points but I disagree with the whole idea of building some sort of mechanism to automatically identify aim-bots. I played q3 for over 3 years and qualified for quakecon in the CTF finals just this past august ( couldn't go because some clanmates ditched last minute ) but you could say I'm not to bad at the game. I've seen people cheating and I've seen how good they have become at using it. I'm not talking about public servers where anyone can join and just play...because most of those cheaters are easy to spot. I'm talking about competition in tournaments where the cheat will only use the auto-aim for one shot to make the kill nobody else can make before its too late. I used a modification called OSP which recorded weapon statistics and they are easy to get around.

Anyway...good paper but the problem of cheating is going to take a lot more thought than just looking at aim statistics and making a "best guess" on who is cheating.

Thanks for the link.

Re:No wait, this could be good

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 illiterate

Re:No wait, this could be good

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, ESR proves himself to be a complete doofus. There's simply no way that an Open Source Design can solve a mostly unsolvable problem (network latency > reaction time, leading to overly-aware clients, leading to wallhacks and radars.)

I'm sure that ESR is somewhat familiar with NetTrek -- where the "Open Source' anti-cheating solution was a DRM system -- so he should know better.

Re:No wait, this could be good

[Anonymous Coward]

> I disagree with the whole idea of building some sort of mechanism to automatically identify aim-bots.

> the problem of cheating is going to take a lot more thought than just looking at aim statistics and making a "best guess" on who is cheating.

ESR knows that:

The aim-bot cheat is even trickier to prevent. ... It would take threat monitoring by the the server (doing statistical analysis of player action timings) to even detect them, and (as Carmack points out) "that is an arms race that will end with skilled human players eventually getting identified as subtle bots."

Re:No wait, this could be good

[Anonymous Coward]

> ESR proves himself to be a complete doofus. There's simply no way that an Open Source Design can solve a mostly unsolvable problem

ESR knows that.

[A] closed-source program like Carmack's hypothetical secured program launcher is indeed a good idea for security -- but only if you're a hyperadrenalized space marine on a shooting spree.

He recognizes that the whole matter is a problem iff you're playing a twitch game - and hence wouldn't be a problem with, say, online banking.

License

[Chris Canfield]

Valve makes money from three sources: Sales of their games for sake of their games, sales of their games to support mods (such as counterstrike), and sales of their engine to other companies to create their own game. Because the art resources weren't leaked with the source, sales of their own game for their own sake will not be hurt. The other two cases are a little more interesting.

Sales of the engine may be hurt, or it may be helped. Certain companies may wind up "doing the wrong thing" and incorporating Valve code into their own, but no major player would be caught dead doing such a thing. I expect that snippets of that code may find its way into the wild due to overtasked programmers trying to make their game the best it can be, but such snippets wouldn't have equalled a sale, they simply mean fiercer competition. And with the increased visibility, companies can now know the quality of the code that their 500 grand will be buying. True, being released into the wild may reduce the perception of value, but with the availability of the code this may still lead to increased sales.

Modders are a different story. Without economic interests compelling them to buy a license, they might begin releasing compiled binaries of their work to the community without requiring a half-life 2 license, which would cripple Valve's sales numbers. But on the other hand with access to source, modders could create more extensive and more active modifications, creating original features instead of mere graphical facelifts. If these code modders require the original game to be playable, it could lead to a real renissance in modding and a tremendous boost in sales for Valve.

I can see how this may possibly turn out to be somewhat damaging to Valve, but I can't see how this is one of the four horsemen of their apocolypse. The head of the man who intentionally leaked the code should roll (if it truly was intentional), but it is way too soon to declare this the end of the company. Under closer analysis, it may even be a boon.

Re:License

[BrookHarty]

Unreal2003 engine sells for 100,000 per license. Im sure the Half-life2 engine will be double that.

Also, i bet the first mod with valve code gets shutdown within minutes. Easy enough to call the ISP, get the website shutdown, then have valve lawyers eat the modder for lunch.

Re:License

[Obiwan Kenobi]

Modders are a different story. Without economic interests compelling them to buy a license, they might begin releasing compiled binaries of their work to the community without requiring a half-life 2 license, which would cripple Valve's sales numbers. But on the other hand with access to source, modders could create more extensive and more active modifications, creating original features instead of mere graphical facelifts. If these code modders require the original game to be playable, it could lead to a real renissance in modding and a tremendous boost in sales for Valve.

Please, don't be as nieve as you're sounding here.

Firstly this code is over a month old, and they're in crunch-mode. This means that drastic bug and graphics fixes are due for this code, and a month is a long time when everyone at Valve is probably putting in 16+ hour days.

Secondly, those modified binaries probably won't work correctly unless they also include modified DLL's, and even then some graphical bug could bite them in the ass, something that was probably fixed in the Gold release.

Thirdly this line: "Without economic interests compelling them to buy a license, they might begin releasing compiled binaries of their work to the community without requiring a half-life 2 license, which would cripple Valve's sales numbers. " is absolute nonsense, and kind of silly at best. Cripple their sales numbers? Hah! That was a good one.

However, with all that said, I do agree that releasing the total engine source is a double-edged sword, and there's a reason Carmack and other game companies wait many years before releasing the source under any sort of open source license.

This is terrible, dangerous stuff. I expect at least one firing to come from it.

Re:License

[Osty]

Valve makes money from three sources: Sales of their games for sake of their games, sales of their games to support mods (such as counterstrike), and sales of their engine to other companies to create their own game.

Not quite right, at least historically. Because the original Half-Life was based on Quake1 technology licensed from id, Valve did not have the legal ability to license the engine they created to others. That is why you will never see a game that is not from Valve that uses the Half-Life engine. It's also why you didn't see Counter Strike or DoD released in boxed format until Valve struck deals with those development teams to publish under the Valve name (and in some cases, like with TeamFortress and I believe Counterstrike, brought those teams into the Valve company entirely). This may very well change with Half-Life 2, since I don't believe they're using someone else's licensed engine this time around, but I don't know enough about HL2's engine to say for sure.

But on the other hand with access to source, modders could create more extensive and more active modifications, creating original features instead of mere graphical facelifts.

Were Counter Strike or Day of Defeat merely "graphical facelifts"? Modding games from the big guys (Valve, id, Epic) has always been very powerful without requiring the engine's source code. Quake 1 mods ran the gamut from completely new multiplayer experiences (first CTF, then class-based CTF with TeamFortress, and then even TF evolved to allow for objective-based maps rather than just captuer the flag), to racing games (whee, QuakeRally!), flying games (AirQuake), side scrollers, Tetris, and more. Quake2 kept it going with the first RTS mod (Q2War), and so on. The Unreal engine's UnrealScript gave unprecedented control over the game world. Believe it or not, many of the earlier Unreal-based games (Deus Ex, Wheel of Time) were little more than new UnrealScript code in an only slightly modified (if modified at all!) Unreal engine. The point? If the developers design with modders in mind, you don't need the source code to make creative mods.

On the flip side, however, the release of the Quake1 source code resulted not in a bunch of interesting, technically impossible-through-modding games, but instead merely graphical facelifts like Tenebrae (adds bump mapping, dynamic lighting, bunch of other stuff), that one that made everything look like a sketch but with a name I can't remember off-hand, etc. It makes sense that to do a graphical facelift, you'd need access to the engine's source code and not just a modification interface.

Re:License

[Chris Canfield]

Firstly this code is over a month old, and they're in crunch-mode. This means that drastic bug and graphics fixes are due for this code, and a month is a long time when everyone at Valve is probably putting in 16+ hour days.

They are most definitely in crunch mode. With a necessary holiday release date, they are probably focusing upon stability and networking issues, not additional features or graphical glitches. At this point, they had better be focused upon bringing the stability up to AAA level, rather than sneaking in that feature they always wanted.

Secondly, those modified binaries probably won't work correctly unless they also include modified DLL's, and even then some graphical bug could bite them in the ass, something that was probably fixed in the Gold release.

Right. I had meant all game-dependent binaries, including dll's.

is absolute nonsense, and kind of silly at best. Cripple their sales numbers? Hah! That was a good one.

Clearly you haven' t compared the thriving community and international competitions surrounding counterstrike with the not quite as thriving community surrounding Half-Life. Perhaps a better phrasing would have been "if Half-Life 2's shelf life were destined to follow a similar course as Half-Life 1, Valve's income stream could be greatly hampered."

Please, don't be as nieve as you're sounding here.

Done and done.

"use it to avoid licensing?"

[lightspawn]

The most damage is the loss of company secrets (Source engine techniques, anyone?) and the potential damage to engine licensing opportunities, I think.

If you worked for an actual game developer, would you risk your career by using leaked engine code?

At worst you'd read it at home, figure out some technique, and implement it in your own project.

Re:"use it to avoid licensing?"

[Moonshadow]

Well, that's really what I meant. No serious studio is going to use a pirated version of the engine to create a game, but HL2 is obviously using some cutting-edge techniques to achieve the results that they have demonstrated. The availability of the code means that such techniques could be analyzed and incorporated into other engines, diluting the exclusivity of the Source engine, and making it a lot easier for developers looking for a next gen engine to roll their own, or buy one a bit cheaper than Source.

Re:"use it to avoid licensing?"

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "cutting edge techniques" you mean "liscensing the Havok engine"....

Re:"use it to avoid licensing?"

[Upphew]

...diluting the exclusivity of the Source engine, and making it a lot easier...

Nomen est Omen

Nuff said.

Re:"use it to avoid licensing?"

[Tyreth]

I thought open source programmers intentionally avoided looking at other proprietry code, such as this, so that they could not be accused of knowingly infrindging patents, copying code, etc.

Re:"use it to avoid licensing?"

[guru_Stew]

Apart from which, what major companies expect thier developers to not notice they are pirating valve's code? How much could they realy get away with - ethicaly and legaly

Gamers with Jobs.com?

[yroJJory]

Seems to me this should be posted on Gamers WITHOUT Jobs, as that's what will happen when the leak is traced.

Re:Gamers with Jobs.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so man, GWJ is a neat little community site with no ties in matters like this whatsoever. The leak was merely stumbled upon by a forum poster over there.

I doubt it.

[dmaxwell]

This is not a sanctioned code release. It would be just about impossible to build a development community around it. Anything made with it would be warez. I suppose its possible some tight knit group of geniuses could adapt and "spread" the work but I wouldn't hold my breath. There would be inevitable bugs and no good way for the clandestine developers to get feedback.

Contrary to SCO's opinion, unclean code doesn't help Linux at all. The best thing to do is just avoid that source like the plague. It would legally contaminate anyone who even had just had it much less looked at it.

Re:I doubt it.

[Anonymous Coward]

> This is not a sanctioned code release. It would be just about impossible to build a development
>community around it. Anything made with it would be warez. I suppose its possible some tight knit >group of geniuses could adapt and "spread" the work but I
>wouldn't hold my breath. There would be inevitable
>bugs and no good way for the clandestine developers to get feedback

Isn't that how we got squake

Re:I doubt it.

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no, you have it all wrong. Copyright infringement is O.K. Steal all the songs you want, copy all the games you want. Commercial source code is there to be plagiarized. You just have to find it.

Re:I doubt it.

[MikeFM]

I'm sure that if somebody worked out a good port and rather than releasing the code themselves they sent it back to the company that there'd be some interest. Other than SCO most companies don't have their head completely up their ass. A good port, even of slightly outdated code, that they didn't have to pay for might prompt them to sponsor the project by giving the project updated code (with an NDA of course) and agreeing to release the patches for running the program in Linux. Especially if the coders involved were being good about not releasing anything to the public until they got permission.

Avoid being seen as an enemy and if you do a good hack you might get what you want.. and maybe a job offer with it.

Re:I doubt it.

[Tyreth]

The best it could probably do for us is a statement by some anonymous programmer commenting on whether it's feasible for Valve to make a port given the code (ie, whether it's heavily DirectX dependent or if OpenGL could be made to work).

Really, doesn't give us much more than an argument, but may prove useful in that respect.

I think valve should try to turn this bad situation into something good - make the best of a bad situation.

Re:I doubt it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we talking about the same company that had a Mac version of Half-Life ready to release, but dropped it when they realised they'd have to keep supporting it by releasing patched versions whenever they changed the network code in the PC version? (Allegedly, anyway.)

Re:I doubt it.

[blymn]

This is not a sanctioned code release. It would be just about impossible to build a development community around it. Anything made with it would be warez. I suppose its possible some tight knit group of geniuses could adapt and "spread" the work but I wouldn't hold my breath. There would be inevitable bugs and no good way for the clandestine developers to get feedback. I am not so sure about that. This is mere speculation but what if there were a tight-knit group of people that were capable of a) fixing bugs and b) producing ports for other platforms but instead of just producing a binary they actually posted patches to the source. Would valve use those patches? Should valve use those patches? Should they accept a new platform port? Part of the justification for not doing other platforms is lack of resources to perform the port. What if that is done for them? Sure, there are maintenance overheads but if the port is done cleanly enough they should be minimised. An interesting moral conundrum - accept the work based on an illegal act and legitimise it or totally ignore the work forcing it into the underground.

Re:I doubt it.

[MikeFM]

Sure.. in this case they'd have a bunch of people willing to do the work for them for free while they made increased sales. Though to be honest I wonder about their code quality if they would drop Mac support because of something so minor.

Re:I doubt it.

[Durandal64]

Since when is Half Life 2 making it to the Mac?

Is this perhaps why the release date was held back

[DiracFeynman]

what do you think?

Doom ]I[ demo

[glenrm]

Who leaked the Doom 3 demo? I can't recall?

Re:Doom ]I[ demo

[bottlerocket]

Our pals at ATI. They had access to it for testing their drivers with the D3 engine.

Re:Doom ]I[ demo

[Anonymous Coward]

ati

Now that we have the source...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we get a Linux port?

Mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

While bad for Valve this could be good for getting the game to run on Linux. I know, I know, most people wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole. But at the same time an unofficial port would be very welcome and this could surely make it so that HL2 actually plays well on linux.

Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[Thinkit3]

Language evolves, right?

Re:Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[taybin]

Thank you for proving that language doesn't evolve!

Re:Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[Anonymous Coward]

If the speaker and the audience agree on it, there's nothing wrong with them using "one" to mean "one or two", "fifteen", or "giant horse's ass".

Now, introducing such a change on your own or even as a small group has the problem that most of the speakers of the language will not be familiar with your new modifications, and therefore you may experience difficulty when communicating with many people. "Property" in the sense of "intellectual property" and "theft" in the sense of "copyright violation" are pretty well known in the US and other predominantly English speaking countries. It's entered common usage. It doesn't need an MLA stamp of approval to do that, just enough people using it.

Re:Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[Rune Berge]

Well, I've often heard people use the term "a couple" about values other than two.

Re:Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[mdwh2]

"Property" in the sense of "intellectual property" and "theft" in the sense of "copyright violation" are pretty well known in the US and other predominantly English speaking countries. It's entered common usage.

As far is theft is concerned, it's not a usage that's in the dictionary. And yes, common usage will come before dictionary definitions, but I only ever hear theft being used to mean copyright infringement by people making an anti-piracy argument. I can't say I've heard it generally being used as an umbrella term of both theft of physical objects and copyright infringement.

Re:Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[Daetrin]

That's strange, people have at work been talking about the half life 2 code, and both the term "leaked" and "stolen" have been used regarding it pretty interchangeably. Everyone seems to understand what everyone else is talking about just fine.

Re:Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[Anonymous Coward]

That's likely because people view the word "theft" as being a more negative term than "copyright violation." As a general rule, the main place you're going to see both terms (with theft being used in that context) is in a discussion on copyright violations/enforcement/etc. I've commented previously in other discussions on /. about this...the P2P crowd (and others, they're not the only ones) loves to argue these stupid little semantic points that are little more than rationalizing the problem away. Hey, I'm not saying I'm flawless or anything. I've got a fuckton of mp3's, the majority of which I do not own. I've got a few dozen SVCD DVD rips that I sure as hell don't have any rights to. And I've got enough PC and console warez to top off a landfill. But I recognize that what I'm doing is *wrong* from a legal perspective. Is that stopping me? Nope...though I do stay away from any distribution mechanism that's being actively targetted by the relevant organizations. Using "theft" helps to remind people, on both sides, that the stuff we're talking about is ILLEGAL (and let's not go down that "there are legal files out there!" route...I think anyone would be hard pressed to show that more than 1-2% of the traffic on any popular P2P network is stuff with unrestricted distribution allowances).

Re:Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[mdwh2]

Using "theft" helps to remind people, on both sides, that the stuff we're talking about is ILLEGAL

Just because two things are illegal doesn't make them the same. Do we need to refer to sexual harrassment as rape, in order to remind people that both are illegal? Or perhaps it's okay for people to refer to abortion as murder? (Abortion is illegal in some places, and calling it murder is a common "pro life" tactic.)

If copyright infringement is so obviously a terrible crime, why do people need to instead call it a different crime? Copyright infringement will never be seen as a negative term if people always use the word "theft".

Re:Sure, let's make "one" mean "one or two".

[Moofie]

I've always thought of a couple as "an indiscriminate integer number between one and four, inclusive".

If I mean two, I'll say two. If I say "a couple" that means less than "a few", which is less than "some", which is less than "lots", which is less than "an imperial asston".

And I reserve the right to punch in the jaw anybody who argues with me about my fuzzy logic numbering system.

such a sad day

[imstimpy]

As my excitement for the potential HL2 release builds, I am now found utterly disgusted with society. From a sheer gaming standpoint, the potential for hackless/cheatless gaming has now been seriously compromised. This does not even begin to approach other possible legal complications that may arise due to the propriety information that may now be out.
I haven't seen any information that has actually been released yet. Does anybody know what it actually contains? Just the game code, graphics engine, everything?

-Jon

Smart move

[downix]

Even if no source actually leaked, they now have thousands of Linux geeks scouring warez sites, kazaa, etc for the code. If any code had leaked, they'd find out by following them using the RIAA's anti-kazaa tools.

Re:HL2 Source

[Cowclops]

Ha. I've gone from 1 to 0 to 1 to 0... and in the mean time poster #2 is up to +3

I wonder what will be the effect of this

[vadim_t]

I'm pretty sure this is going to appear on Freenet or Entropy sooner or later.

So, once it appears there anybody will be able to download it without getting tracked. So the question is, what will be the long term effects of this?

Will the programmers from the competence download it to take a look at how it's done, and perhaps use the learned things to improve their games? Not necessarily anything like copy/paste, but I guess that a developer or two might look at it, hoping to find the solution to some difficult problem.

Perhaps Valve will have to redesign the protocol to stop people from writing servers and bypassing Steam?

Maybe a few programmers will secretly team up and make their own game with it? I can imagine such a thing being released on Freenet.

Kazaa?

[Lord_Dweomer]

So when can we expect this compiled and on Kazaa? I mean, really, this is pathetic that I can't pirate and play a game months before its intended release. People have really gotten slow lately.

Re:Kazaa?

[dnaumov]

Even if this leak will be distributed in the compiled form, you won't be able to actually use it before the official game release. Unless someone leaks the game media files soon, that is.

Re:Kazaa?

[GregoryD]

In English, we have some the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. But all the stuff you see aren't included, images, sounds, movies, maps, etc...

kinda like getting a blueprint of a building with seeing only the girders and electrical system. you get the idea, but it isn't a complete building...

Legitimate customers?

[JonKatzIsAnIdiot]

Legitimate customers? What legitimate customers? Don't you actually have to finish the game before that happens?

Great point

[bogie]

My thoughts exactly. I don't care if its unsupported (yea like game companies actually provide decent support)I'll download any unofficial port available. This way Valve gets money from me for buying the actual box at Compusa and I get to play on my preferred OS.

Major threat

[ENOENT]

Now, added to the existing threats of viruses, worms, hackers, and disgruntled employees, network admins need to deal with Half-Life cheaters.

I'm sure that network security books will be updated to include instructions for dealing with this new threat Real Soon Now.

(Seriously--WHO CARES???)

No, I'm New Here

[New Here]

No, I'm New Here

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Sir Haxalot]

WOW! Look at parent post's history.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at YOUR posting history, you karma-whoring piece of shit.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Sir Haxalot]

All I want is Excellent karma, is that too much to ask?

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in the last 3-4 articles I've read the posts on, you've been #1, always there with your lame "here's the article in another [format,site], can I have my cookie now?" I'm all for karma man, but for CHRIST'S sake, must you do it every time? Perhaps you should also include "In soviet russian beowulf clusters of insensitive clods, karma whores you!" I'm sure the slashbots would just roll in the isles.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Sir Haxalot]

Don't worry, I'll only be doing it till I get to +2, then I'll be happy, and post sensible, intelligent things.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[3terrabyte]

You're a fucking moron. You and your other accounts.

Re:No, I'm New Here

[Sir Haxalot]

What other accounts?

Re:Here's a link to the

[Lev13than]

There is the Half Life 2 source code floating around the net right now. It looks to be about a month old. There's no official word from Valve on the source code leak yet.

Did they also manage to leak the schematics for a P4 5.6ghz and a GeForce 7MX so we'll be able to play it?

Re:Who cares about FPS

[Gunfighter]

How'd you know I was on dope?

Just kidding...

I realize PlanetSide doesn't fit the RPG genre, that's why I said it mixes FPS and RPG. The persistence, storyline and the fact that PlanetSide allows you to play certain classes of characters kinda leans towards RPG. Of course, this still doesn't change the fact that it's primarily just an FPS set in a persistent world.

And for the record, I have no market share.

OpenGL? uh, ok...

[_Shorty-dammit]

While entirely possible that the code could get leaked, people that have the code in question are all saying there's OpenGL code in there. But this is to be a DirectX9-only game, so, from that alone I'd say it's a safe bet this is just hoaxed material.

Re:OpenGL? uh, ok...

[Kegetys]

It inlcudes source not only from HL2, but also from HL1, TF2, and CS. Thats why there is OpenGL code in there, and its real.

Linux Client

[Anonymous Coward]

There seems to be a Linux Server, but as HL2 is based on DirectX (dx8+9 sdks in /), there won't be a Linux Client - with or without the source code :/

BitTorrent

[lcde]

Anyone have the BitTorrent link for it? ;)

Re:Here's a link to the

[SkArcher]

There is comment that this may actually be part of the SDK, not the main HL2 Engine code

Re:Torrent? Where?????????

[eddy]

It was on supr-youknowwhat earlier today. Now it's gone.

This is BAD!

[digitalwanderer]

I'm feeling bummed going thru the source code, this is looking legit and some script-kiddies are going to have a field day with this! :(

Anyone wanna bet that Valve is going to delay the hell out of Half-life2 over this? Or that it was leaked because Valve didn't release the benchmark on the 30th?

Oh boy. :rolleyes:

Re:This is BAD!

[The Other White Boy]

what method did you use to successfully extract it? i got it from the BT link up towards the top of the comments (its near my other comment) and i cant get the thing to extract, using Winace, Winrar, or good ol stand by dos-based unrar. says file headers are bad on every file inside it and won't extact anything except the directory structure and a readme way down deep.

What's this on line 666?

[Vampyre_Dark]

//Required Microsoft Code
if (HighScore()) DoBlueScreen();

Bittorrent link

[slashdoter]

http://www.wireless-central.net/suprnova/torrents/ 382/hl2_src-rar(1).torrent

happy downloading

Re:Bittorrent link

[slashdoter]

This tracker is taking a beating, just keep trying and it should work.

Re:Bittorrent link

[AsmordeanX]

If this is a real link then why has it been modded up? Is Slashdot advocating illegal activity?

Re:Bittorrent link

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes

Re:BitTorrent link

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot wont remove it. Valve will just subpoena your information from Slashdot and sue you.. Or as Gabe Newell said:

"Important: Just to be clear, it's ok to talk about the leak and the possible implications, however we'll nuke you and your family if you even make the most slight clever hint of where to download it or even screenshots of it."

Someone arrest Gabe for having WMDs!

Re:BitTorrent link

[Anonymous Coward]

Gabe didn't say that. Steve Gibson did.

Re:Torrent? Where?????????

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you..
It's Here twit.

Also, he was quoting the article, fuck nut. You're an asshole. Fuck you, you should have been a blow job.

This is all fine and good....

[Yoda2]

but when will it be available on SourceForge?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/halflife2 is available if anyone is interested.

No it wouldn't

[roystgnr]

It would legally contaminate anyone who even had just had it much less looked at it.

It would definitely legally implicate anyone who had it (for copyright violation), but it wouldn't "contaminate" anyone who later wrote code of their own. Despite what some proprietary developers think and others fear, as long as no actual copying occurs it is perfectly okay for novelists to read other people's books, for singers to listen to other people's songs, and even for programmers to read other people's source code.

Re:No it wouldn't

[SpiffyMarc]

Your analogy is flawed. Reading the source code to the program would be like having the sheet music, or the outlines/notes the author used when writing the novel.

Your analogy would only work if the programmer was playing the game/using the application, not looking at the source code.

Re:No it wouldn't

[PenguiN42]

I've bought and read plenty of sheet music for other people's songs. Does this mean I can never write my own songs?

I've also seen lots of proprietary source code from companys I've worked at. Does this mean I can never write code again?

Re:No it wouldn't

[BobTheLawyer]

no, it means that if you write a song which sounds like one of the songs you own the sheet music for, you'll have a hard job proving you didn't copy it.

and if you've seen proprietary source code for (say) Microsoft Word it makes it difficult for you to write code to (say) open a Word document. Any allegation of copyright violation will be much more difficult to defend.

Re:No it wouldn't

[wantedman]

IMAL.
You'd just have to look at the notes. You cannot trademark / copywrite "look and feel". Well, with IP, its getting that way, but as of right now, you cannot.

If I've looked at the source for opening a word document, but I do it differently, they have no case. If Word documents had a patent, then that would be different, but until they do, I don't believe they'd have a case.

Of course, if I signed a NDA, it might be different.

Re:No it wouldn't

[1u3hr]

Your analogy is flawed. Reading the source code to the program would be like having the sheet music, or the outlines/notes the author used when writing the novel.

Your analogies are just wrong in basic assumptions, let alone conclusions.

• Trained musicians must be able to write down a tune they hear (i.e. "sheet music") as a basic part of their studies. (There are no secrets in the notation.)
• Few authors use outline notes at all, most just write it down. Those that do write notes for the most part it'd be fragmentary gibberish that makes little sense to anyone else. (A minority do plan the whole thing out. But really it's the execution that makes a book readable, not an outline.)

-- speaking as someone who's known quite a few music graduates and worked in publishing.

Re:No it wouldn't

[MikeCapone]

Your analogy is flawed. Reading the source code to the program would be like having the sheet music, or the outlines/notes the author used when writing the novel.

I don't think you understand the creative process...

Maybe your point still stands because programming is different from writing a novel or creating music (there are technical "secrets" that can be revealed in the source code, but that doesn't happen with sheet music (you can write down anything you hear, anyway -- no need for "leaked sheet music") and novel outlines/notes.)

Finally

[pmz]

we can determine the exponential rate at which the number of bugs in open source software decreases.

Re:Finally

[pmz]

+1, Interesting?

Look at the name of the game being discussed.

IT COMPILES

[W2k]

Someone already managed to squeeze a HL2.EXE and TF2.EXE out of the source. Behold:

http://www.devils-children.com/hl2_1.jpg

It's being picked apart in #HL2-Source on irc.quakenet.org at the moment. Fun fun.

Re:IT COMPILES

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone already managed to squeeze a HL2.EXE and TF2.EXE out of the source. Behold:

http://www.devils-children.com/hl2_1.jpg
___________________________________________

yeah but scariest part is the person who did this uses mIrc.

Re:IT COMPILES

[Hakubi_Washu]

204KB? Isn't that a tick _too_ small? my hl.exe (dunno which f**king version I patched it to) has had 1020KB...

Re:IT COMPILES

[W2k]

Some early results from the picking apart of the source are here and here.

I tried compiling the code, it won't work in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003 (apparently it was developed in Visual Studio 6.0 and the version inconsistencies break the code. It's not exactly standard C++ :). According to unverified rumours, Visual Studio 6.0 with SP5 will compile the source.

Re:IT COMPILES

[W2k]

Not really, from poking around the source I can tell it seems to be using an utter fuckload of DLL's to do its magic. Thus, the actual main executable doesn't really have to be that big. I know lots of (big) games that have sub-200kB executables.

Re:IT COMPILES

[Anonymous Coward]

Best Windows IRC client out there. I mean, what would you use? pIRCh?

(yeah, there's BitchX and XChat ports, but mIRC wins on functionality.)

Re:IT COMPILES

[Anonymous Coward]

Klient beats mIRC in functionality and in pretty much everything else. Only problem is, it's not free (mIRC isn't either, but Klient, unlike mIRC stops working after the trial period). www.klient.com - try it.

Re:IT COMPILES

[Anonymous Coward]

MIRC is the MOST FUCKED UP piece of shit ever
written for windows!
And this dork-on even uses Windows XP!

Christ, can I KILL him?

Re:IT COMPILES

[p0knatcha]

That looks a lot like Bersirc. http://www.bersirc.com

Re:IT COMPILES

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes you may.

-Christ

Re:IT COMPILES

[Anonymous Coward]

SCREENIE!

Re:IT COMPILES

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, is that the VNC server icon on your tasktray... ...no wonder your source code was stolen.

Re:IT COMPILES

[Jherico]

It's not exactly standard C++ :).

Virtually nothing that's fed into a microsoft compiler ever is. They have some of the worst compliance I've ever seen.

it won't work in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003

Disappointing. I've seen consistent performance improvements in code generated by VC.Net 2003 over VC6 in my tests. Its probably not a big deal when the code is mostly limited by the graphics card, but for the physics engine and such, I bet they'd do a lot better with an updated compiler.

Re:IT COMPILES

[Repugnant_Shit]

And check out your hl.exe file size, the one that comes with steam. It's much smaller than the original.

Please

[tomblackwell]

That's the lame excuse offered by lazy people who don't want to learn their own language.

Re:Please

[Moofie]

See, the lazy people already have their own language, they don't want to learn OURS.

Imprecision is the mother of all imprecise...things.

I doubt this means a Linux version

[ogre7299]

All the code is coded for DX8 and DX9. It would probably be very difficult for programmers that don't know the code inside and out to rewrite the DirectX engine code to OpenGL.

Re:I doubt this means a Linux version

[Anonymous Coward]

not really. OGL w/extensions and DX9 are getting closer and closer these days. if the shaders are all written in HLSL like i seem to remember reading, then they should be able to be ported over to CSG without too much difficulty.

the bulk of the code should be non-graphics engine related anyway, which would be pretty much API independent as it will have to do with resource management, game object management, etc.

what i'm interested in is the "5 times as much code re-work" necessary for nVidia's GPUs as opposed to ATi's that was stated earlier by Valve.

Maybe the leak is the cause of the delay !

[rhino_badlands]

Just a thought but maybe Valve knew about the leak and then pushed back the release date to fix code which could have been comprimised !

So lets just say thanks to whom ever leaked the code and we can all blame them for the delay of the release date !

I hope they also know that NDA's are a big part of the game industry today so that either means your loosing your job, your company, or you getting sued.

Each file contains a date, what was modified and when for the most part depending on what code managemnt tool they use ... so valve can probaly go though see who checked out the whole build ... or just certain parts and figure out who leaked it. (most managemnet tools use 128 bit encryption and a key) Its very easy to track these things.

Re:Maybe the leak is the cause of the delay !

[Unknown Relic]

Wow, I hadn't really thought about that, but you know what? I think you're right. According to their official announcement, a copy of the source code was made on Sept 19, only a few days before the delay was announced.

A lot of people commented on how adamant Value had been about their Sept. 30 release date, and how strange it was that only days prior to it they annouce a delay.

When these two things are considered together, it's just too much of a coincidence to think that they're unrelated.

Any chance that...

[phorm]

Since the code is out, Valve might allow for third-party assistance on developing a somewhat official linux port?

I mean, when the code is already wild, fears that it could be leaked by assisting developers become somewhat moot...

Re:Any chance that...

[Mortanius]

It's an interesting thought, and perhaps this would be about the only way to start something of this nature.

Company A makes a great game for Windows that people absolutely love. Linux community begs for a port, but A doesn't want to spend the time. Someone gets their hands on the source code to the game and widely distributes it, to the point where it's everywhere. It's not feasible for A to try to legally crush the people who have the source, since they're simply too many, and decide to cut their losses and support them. The company provides further support, helps to organize work, etc. using the open-source community to help build their Linux version. In the process, bugs are found and patches are released for the Windows version while the Linux port is being worked on.

Idealist? Of course, there'll be many arguments by GPL zealots and so forth. Still an interesting thought though.

Re:Any chance that...

[mccormick]

This situation has actually happend before. Dave Taylor (ddt) of the long now defunct crack dot com (and of Abuse and Golgotha fame) did the original port of Quake to Solaris (or some non-exactly-gamers-first-choice platform.) However, the machine with the code on it got cracked and the code become widely distributed (this was years before id officially released & GPL'd the code.) A Linux enthusiast got his hands on the code (it wasn't a hard thing to come by at the time), did a succesful port and actually sent it back to id. Not sure what happend there after, but I do know that ddt continued handling the un*x ports at id for awhile thereafter.

Re:Any chance that...

[phorm]

Still... it would sound like a good deal for them. No fears of losing the code to the masses (already happened), less costs in devel (let the linux dudes handle the porting), and in the end the linusers get games. For an official mod, they could even have the full game available online to download, but without any art files (one would have to buy the CD for that) - and a quick installer to copy art files from a valid/legal CD.

I can't see either end losing out in this scenario, granted that it does make some assumptions that people won't copy the artwork to run the game, but then they could just crack the game for windows anyhow.

Re:Any chance that...

[D3]

Doubtful. If it can be compiled for Linux it can be compiled for Windows too. Just because Windows doesn't come with a compiler doesn't mean you can't do it.

Re:Any chance that...

[Mortanius]

Really, that's interesting. I'd never actually heard much about how the linux port actually started.

Well then, perhaps there's hope.

Good

[SCHecklerX]

A leak is what gave OS/2 users a kickass version of quake. Maybe with the source out there, we will have a linux verion of HL2 after all :)

Who did it?

[ZipR]

It must have been that evil-looking business guy. The one with the briefcase. Damn him!

Re:Who did it?

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahaha MPU!

Re:Who did it?

[Morrog]

The G-Man, comeon, he wouldn't do that he is suppose to protect the secrets of Half-Life. If anything, he is out there killing us all for downloading the source, I mean, if he was the G-Man I know he'd be walking up the stares of the real leaker right now...

Not always a problem

[mr_luc]

A lot of that has to do with the particular game, as well as the design of the prediction in that game.

For instance, in Starsiege:Tribes, since the rendering engine has been successfully hacked, people have been able to write some clever and EXTREMELY extensive cheats -- you can customize the visibility of the terrain, of individual objects (like buildings -- make them partially transparent to see people around corners), remove fog from maps, have pointers to the person with the flag, and most infamously, change the model for the flag into a twenty-story-tall red and green stick figure with a gigantic smiley face. This cheat is known as 'Happy Flag', and it makes it pretty much impossible to confuse the enemy team as to the location of your flag.

Now, in any other game, with the graphics engine compromised to that extent, the game would be over. It would be trivial to write auto-aim functionality that centers your view on a particular model type and fires the weapon.

But thanks both to the use of actual projectiles instead of instant (or 'hitscan') weapons, as well as a server-client model that DOES NOT TRUST CLIENT EVENTS (which you might think would make the game much more apparently laggy, but which in reality makes the game much less stuttery and much smoother for those on slower connctions; you just have to predict your shots more. But, since you have to do that anyways by design . . .).

The stability of this system is such that even with one of the most rabid fanbases in gaming, the only cheats available are primarily informational in nature. A cheater can see mines better, can know where the flag is, can see people clearly that would be mostly obscured by fog otherwise.

But this gives him very little actual advantage. The only hitscan weapon in the game is not a one-hit kill even on the lightest armor, and it needs to recharge, and the method used in both Tribes 1 and the Torque engine of the server not trusting the player for jack shit is actually EASIER on the server, since it processes client actions essentially as it receives them. Moreover, thanks to 'skiing' and the jetpacks and the visibility of laser rifle attacks, any advantage is quickly whittled down to a simple nuisance.

Now, at the other end of the spectrum is Red Faction. :D I'm not much of a cheater normally, but the most fun I have ever had was back in the day before everyone was cheating, when the careful task was to cleverly design cheats that are almost undetectable -- like a specially powerful jump to get you out of difficult situations, etc. The most fun I had was giving my player ninjalike abilities by modifying the scripts myself, and reducing my fall damage, and limiting myself to the pistol. It's all about the mobility, baby!

Re:Not always a problem

[Tomji]

ROFL "fixed"...

for a mere month or so - then some of the people released cheatloadeder (stupid to do a CRC check just once) The Glide hacks were never acctually fixed cause they were so low level. I mean even a buggy Graphicsdriver can let you see through certain buildings etc.

Hey, it's a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

This freak's jerking our chains. It's not Seth Finkelstein.

Re:Hey, it's a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

When did he say he was Seth Finkelstein?

Re:Theft? Property?

[SUB7IME]

Hahaha, yes, upon further review of my grammar I am in complete agreement with you.

Apparently I thought that cheating was NOT 'huge impending theft of intellectual property' (umm... well, no big surprise there), but instead the big threat of source code leak. Mmm, nothing like comparing apples with oranges when all I wanted to do was compare plums with plums, as such an extended analogy would follow.

Of course, I guess the appropriate response to your post would be "You're not very good with people, are you?"

#halflife2 on EFnet for discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

Come one, come all.

Re:#halflife2 on EFnet for discussion

[Deflux]

There are like 300 people in there. +_+

Don't forget the value to competitors

[Len]

Another worry with the leaked source is that it's possible for competitors to rip off Valve's fancy new game engine. Any proprietary techniques in the code aren't secret any more.

Re:Don't forget the value to competitors

[fitten]

Yup... this could cost Valve a lot of money and even lead to bankruptcy. Several years for lots of programmers' and artists' salaries doesn't come cheap. Now folks can just download for free their software. It will be interesting to see how this effects Valve and if they can continue game development.

Re:Don't forget the value to competitors

[bobbozzo]

ISTM that much of the engine was licensed from Havok, and I doubt that included the source.

Re:Don't forget the value to competitors

[Moofie]

Come on. Anybody who tried to make one thin dime off of that source code would be SCOed in a matter of milliseconds, only this time it'd be pretty justifiable.

This is a major embarassment to Valve, and might well open them to litigation from Havok, but it's not going to mean that there are a bunch of HL2 clones running around out there.

Linux port after all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just downloaded the rarfile, and there's a "linux/" directory with Makefiles. Haven't tried compiling it yet, but could it be that Valve are planning Linux client support after all?

Linux version...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there are linux makefiles in the source tree of the 'leaked' source. I guess that means that a Linux version of HL2 was planned after all...

Re:Linux version...

[qa'lth]

Yes, and no. The makefiles and linux/ tree are probably for the Linux dedicated server, and not an actual game client, as it runs on D3D and not OpenGL.

Re:Linux version...

[cyt0plas]

Or, it just means that they are basing it off an earlier engine with linux support, and haven't gotten rid of the linux makefiles.

Here is some sample code

[DeadBugs]

}
If ATI Pays++

• then ATI_Card_Peformance++

else if NVIDIA Pays++

• then NVIDA_Card_Perferomance++

else

• BSOD

{

Re:Here is some sample code

[Spleener12]

Alright, I'm a lowly CS freshman, but I KNOW that that isn't valid C++ code.

Re:Here is some sample code

[Anonymous Coward]

duh

Re:Here is some sample code

[madpuppy]

it was a joke, sheesh!

he is making a statement about how gabe newell and valve "tweak" thier code depending on who pays to be thier sugar daddy, that is why ATI has such great benchmarks in HL2 and why you will never see a Linux port, the M$ X-box connection.

Re:Here is some sample code

[Spleener12]

it was a joke, sheesh!

So was what I said, so that makes us even or something. Sorry for causing any undue confusion, just my lame attempt at trying to get modded up as funny. :)

Re:Here is some sample code

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe now that the code is leaked it WILL be ported to linux..

Re:Here is some sample code

[Anonymous Coward]

hehehe, "lowly CS freshman" sounds like most CS graduates I have worked with.

Novak denies coordinated leak

[dpayton]

In the news at this hour, columnist Robert Novak denies that the Half Life 2 source code was shopped to 6 other web sites before he posted it, and that the leak came from the Bush administration. "Karl Rove didn't even know there was a Half Life *1*, for goodness sake. Suggesting he is responsible for the leak is preposterous." Bush administration officials were too busy playing Unreal Tournament 2004 to comment on the allegations.

Re:Novak denies coordinated leak

[/dev/trash]

His first name is Bob not Robert.

Re:Novak denies coordinated leak

[dpayton]

I think Robert might disagree.

Team Fortress 2

[bottlerocket]

I just got the source (thank you, BitTorrent!) and have noticed that there is a lot of TF2 code included. At least now we know it's still kicking! Things I've managed to glean from the source:

• There will be vehicles, including tanks, trucks, motorcycles, and things called "striders" and "mini striders". Aren't those HL2 enemies?
• Current classes: commando, defender, escort, infiltrator, medic, pyro, recon, sapper, sniper, and support.
• Looks like you'll be able to issue lots of orders, including building walls, taking out a mortar encampment, and cutting through a door.

Re:Team Fortress 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know how Valve licensed the Quake 2 engine? There's a lot of Quake-references in this. Possibly mostly in include files with defines and other trivial stuff, but anyway, isn't it a little odd? What with the risk of litigation and such.

Re:Team Fortress 2

[Monkey]

ID will sell pretty much anybody a license to the Quake engines if they have the cash.

It is well known that the original Half-Life made heavy use of components of the original Quake and Quake II engines. It would logically follow that HL2 continues to incorporate Quake technology.

Re:Team Fortress 2

[Jagasian]

Yes, but Valve claimed that the Half-Life 2 engine was written from scratch... implying that they did not license Id Software's code for Half-Life 2. This makes Half-Life 2 an illegal derivative work.

And here's the first DOS attack from the source

[Anonymous Coward]

The buffer handling in their socket code
(Tracker/common/Socket.cpp) makes many
assumptions. Notice how they have incomplete
state for split packets:

if( *(int *)&buffer[0] == -2 ) // its a split packet :)
{
int curPacket=0,offset=0;
SPLITPACKET *pak =reinterpret_cast<SPLITPACKET *>(&buffer[0]);

if(m_iTotalPackets==0) // this is the first in the series
{
m_iTotalPackets = (pak->packetID & 0x0f);
m_iSeqNo = pak->sequenceNumber;
m_iRetries=0;
m_iCurrentPackets=1;// packet numbers start at zero, total is the total number (i.e =2 for packet 0,1)

curPacket= (pak->packetID & 0xf0)>>4;
}
else if (m_iSeqNo == pak->sequenceNumber)
{
m_iCurrentPackets++;
curPacket= (pak->packetID & 0xf0)>>4;
}
else
{
m_iRetries++;
if(m_iRetries>MAX_RETRIES) // make sure we give up eventually on fragments
{
m_iTotalPackets=0;
}
return; // TODO: add support for multiple fragments at one time?
}

What faith in proper sequencing!
It would take a child 5 minutes to write a
netcat exploit for this. Why, here's a child
right here....

Remember: Many shifty eyes make all exploits
shallow.

Re:Theft? Property?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, I guess the appropriate response to your post would be "You're not very good with people, are you?"

;-)

Re:Here's a link to the

[TroZ]

You don't want the GeForce 7MX, you want the GeForce 7 Uber!
The GeForce 7MX is the value priced borad and is only equivelant to a GeForce 5 Super.

models, textures, maps, and config files.....

[mao che minh]

...will be available once the game is released. They will release these things for the mod community. So, people will be able to combine the illegally obtained source code with the legally released models, textures, maps, and config files.

I feel sorry for Valve if this turns out to be the real deal.

Re:models, textures, maps, and config files.....

[Lord Kano]

So, people will be able to combine the illegally obtained source code with the legally released models, textures, maps, and config files.

If you have access to all of those things, you'd have access to the executables already.

LK

That is the real code

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive checked it, that is the real code, and the engine is there!

It's like "humans versus animals".

[Thinkit3]

Animals meaning "animals besides humans" is widely used as well, and is based on backwards thinking. Same thing with "stealing" information.

Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now maybe Mac users will finally see a mac version of Half Life! Anyone feel like porting it over?! ;)

Love the underreacting here...

[TyrranzzX]

"Customers need to know" and "it could let cheaters cheat better". You all do realize, of course, that if halflife 2 comes out and the source code is real, there'll be no stopping cheaters? This isn't an OSS project here nor is it going to turn into one, this is a corperate made corperate owned game. If at the time of release the game is completly ridden with cheaters and cracks I'm certainly not going to buy it. Heck, the cheating in UT2K3 was enough to make me stop playing, and forget games like starcraft and the like.

Sure, the situation is interesting and potentially profitable for valve, but we're going to see all kinds of supposedly illegal stuff surrounding HL2 now. HL2 is probably going to be a modders and cheaters paradise, so if you're buying for the online experience, just forget it. For firstplayer and mod experience, w00p just so long as the mods don't get too big.

Not Quite Dead - Release Party

[greymond]

I would like to take this time to announce Stolensofts new upcoming FPS shooter "Not Quite Dead" The game features a robust and powerful 3D engine, with realistic AI.

Surprisingly enough we were able to complete the game engine and the game within 2 weeks, which goes to show why Stolensoft makes the best games.

It's obvious...

[Mortanius]

It's ovious that this was a leak from the White House in retribution for criticism on the war in Iraq!

(:-P)

No Hack-Hack for no one

[Morrog]

Ok, let's pretend this is anything close to HL2's source and could be used to start creating hacks. I'll put in my 5 cents. I don't think this can be used to hack. Valve knows what this is, and I'm sure that if it is a hacking threat, they'll do whatever it takes to make this source invalid. It shouldn't be hard to make teh data aquired from this source invalid. So, I don't think we'll get any hacks from this, nothing too bad methinks. Maybe a couple of hacks for 1 player mode, but multiplayer, valve just wont let that happen.

Lots of fun...

[aggiejy]

All I know is that I'm having a great time going through their code and learning how they do things.

umm

[UU7]

// NOTE: Support level is actually DX level * 10 + subversion // So, 70 = DX7, 80 = DX8, 81 = DX8 w/ 1.4 pixel shaders, etc. // NOTE: 82 = NVidia nv3x cards, which can't run dx9 fast

in shaderapidx8...

This looks suspiciously like the real thing.

class CLocalNetworkBackdoor : public ILocalNetwork

[Anonymous Coward]

huh ???

Source Code

[sardonic2]

I looked throught he code a bit, it seems maybe to be a hoax? not sure.. maybe the source has batch fiels to build hl1 and hl2, im not sure how valve develops projects, but I would think that the half life 2 source would be Much different than hl1 and they would keep the source tree's seperate but you never know.

Irony

[amplt1337]

Banner at halflife2.net reads:

The Definitive Half Life Source

(ouch)

Re:Irony

[jaani]

No doubt they'll see a spike in their referrer logs from people Googling for 'hl2 source code'.

Slashed

[Anonymous Coward]

The website has been Slash-Smashed... anyone know where to find it?

Independent Hardware Vendor test?

[bo0ork]

Looking inside the archive, one will find a file called ihvtest_readme.txt. Doesn't have to mean that this is an IHV-only source code tree, it'd make sense to have stuff like that on the main branch, I think. Snippet: -Make sure you have the processor pack/msdev sp4 installed. -type "buildall" to build everything -type "run" to run. You will get higher performance if you disable some of the timing code. To do this, edit src/common/MaterialSystem/ShaderDX8/CMaterialSyste mStats.h and change: #ifdef IHVTEST #define MEASURE_STATS 1 #endif

It is NOT OK

[Anonymous Coward]

UMM no it is not. If the source is basically stolen then you are guilty just by reading it. You are contaminated because it is then up to you to PROVE that you did not use the illegal code as a base for any software written by you in the future.

Re:It is NOT OK

[bleak sky]

it is then up to you to PROVE that you did not use the illegal code as a base for any software written by you in the future.

No, it's not. It's up to the copyright holder to prove that you stole their code. This may involve your having to show your source to a panel of judges, but a company you've seen source code from can't just say, "You've seen our code so you must have stolen some. Prove otherwise." They must make their case against you, so you may defend yourself.

Re:It is NOT OK

[CarrionBird]

By the book you are probably right, but in reality (in a real court of "law"), copyright/patent/IP violation is guilty until proven innocent. Espically in civil court. Never mind that most people cannot afford to defend themselves in civil court.

Contains GPL'd code ...

[polyp2000]

I have downloaded the code and taken a quick peek, It does indeed seem to be legitimate. More disturbing though is , a simple grep through the code tree reveals that this leaked source tree contains gpl'd code .

files in these directories contain such code for example ./ivp/havana/havok/hk_math/ ./utils/vmpi/mysql/include/

It would take someone a little more clued up than I to verify that this code is actually used in a binary release.

Someone should take a closer look.

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Things in ./utils directories normally isn't distributed. They're just dev-tools.

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[dnaumov]

The HAVOC Physics engine has been recently licensed by Valve. There is no LGPL (it's not GPL) violation.

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming Michael Alexander Ewert is the author who LGPLed it in the first place.

The weird thing is that if it's LGPL it should be "out there", right? But a search for his name with the addition 'odesolve' give zero hits.

You're probably right, but it's worth digging until there's certainty. I haven't been able to find any public source matching the one GPL'ed. Not that there must be one, but...

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[king squid]

DBG_INTERFACE float CrackSmokingCompiler( float a ) I'm pretty sure that gpl'd too..

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[puppy0341]

So what? You got the the sources don't you :P

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[Jagasian]

Vavle is going to be caught between a rock and a hard place if someone finds stolen GPL or Id Software code in the leaked Half-Life 2 code.

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[polyp2000]

I can confirm that after much rummaging around on the net, where that code comes from.

It comes from an older version of CrystalSpace.
There is no two ways about it this code is under lgpl.

The version of crystal space I looked at was downloaded from sourceforge

cs94_001.tar.gz being the filename.

Its not in the more recent releases of crystal space since they phased part of the tree out in favour of a newer model. Nonetheless it is still there.

Im going to be sifting through the source code further to see what else I can find. But if this is the case then someones got a few obligations to perform !

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[Jagasian]

You know Valve was going to steal that GPL code, but now that the cat is out of the bag... who knows what they will do.

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It comes from an older version of CrystalSpace. There is no two ways about it this code is under lgpl.

It is possible that CrystalSpace sold Valve the code under a non-GPL license. That's the neat thing about licenses...you can distribute the same code under different licenses to different people for different prices.

Re:Contains GPL'd code ...

[hkmwbz]

Who says valve can't have purchased the code under another license?

And Valve has actually licensed id Software's engines for Quake and Quake 2, so there is no problem here.

IP?

[Oestergaard]

Intellectual Property, like flying pigs, cannot be found in nature.

Re:IP?

[SUB7IME]

On the other hand, the Half-Life 2 source code can be found in nature ;-)

Re:IP?

[Tomorrowist]

Vacuums cannot be found in nature either. That doesn't make my CRT bad. Nor does it make IP bad.

Re:IP?

[Oestergaard]

You don't get much out do you?

Try breathing in outer space.

The Source Engine

[NetFusion]

I don't think this is what they had in mind when they named it.

Oops

Or perhaps...

[Anonymous Coward]

we could stop fighting the losing battle and realize that selling bits is not a business model you can reasonably defend.

If you create scarcity and value in bits, people will want to take them without paying. The only way to stop this is to cripple the software to the point that the user must jump through hoops to prove their legitimacy. No one wants to jump through hoops for something they paid for, especially when they see others happily using the product for free. Thus, it's a losing battle for everyone.

You don't see royalties or copyrights or patents on math equations. There is no business model around math equations. And yet, math somehow thrives and grows, even out of the public eye. There are even PAID mathematicians! Unbelieveable.

If you can figure that out, then maybe you don't need watermarks and keychains and police-states to have a thriving civilization and better, more involving games.

I For One

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome our new source code leaking overlords.

Half Life 2 Source Code Leaked

[An Anonymous Hero]

How is it a problem if half the code was leaked?

Tell us where to get the other half and then we'll start to worry.

Maybe this is a chance to get it on linux.

[Mustang Matt]

Maybe someone should port it to linux and send the ported code to Valve to prove it can be done.

Re:Maybe this is a chance to get it on linux.

[Gogo Dodo]

Proving that the port can be done isn't the issue. It's the economics. Anything can be ported to Linux, it's the ROI that matters. And right now, the Linux gaming market is way too small. It's smaller than the Mac gaming market and companies are banging on the door to port to the Mac.

Cheat Control...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheating can be eliminated if game programmers would not send the server "absolute aiming coordinates". Instead, the clients should send "delta", or rate-of-change, coordinate info. This simply amounts to sending the server "how much" you would like the "virtual you" on the servers simulation to "slew" your weapon. In fact, this is the way it works in the "real world" since you cannot accurately position your weapon using absoulute coordinates without commanding your muscles to move it using "rate-of-change" information. No client would then be able to compute "exact-hit" coordinates.

Just my reasoning anyway...

+1

Re:Cheat Control...

[Hatta]

what's stopping the client from computing the derivative itself?

Re:Cheat Control...

[rmdyer]

Lots. Its the same problem your brain has in hitting a duck at a distance. You "slew" your gun in the direction of the object, but then you do a few back and forth, or circular motions before you "arrive" at the best possible solution. Even then, you may not hit the object. Writing an algorithm to "follow" an object is very hard when you can't send anything but "rate-of-change" information instead of coordinates. You end up having to calculate the other objects rate-of-change, then apply that to your aim, but then you gott'a do it again, and again, and again. You end up eating your own CPU instead of just using your brain to do what comes naturally. With "lag" it is very hard to come to a smooth approximation of what the "other" user is doing.

Just my "feel"...

-1

Re:Cheat Control...

[ymgve]

That's just utter nonsense. What stops the cheat from sending a large delta that will place the gun pointing directly at another player? There's no easy way stopping aim cheats as long as the client runs on an insecure platform.

Cheat Control...

[rmdyer]

Cheating can be eliminated if game programmers would not send the server "absolute aiming coordinates". Instead, the clients should send "delta", or rate-of-change, coordinate info. This simply amounts to sending the server "how much" you would like the "virtual you" on the servers simulation to "slew" your weapon. In fact, this is the way it works in the "real world" since you cannot accurately position your weapon using absoulute coordinates without commanding your muscles to move it using "rate-of-change" information. No client would then be able to compute "exact-hit" coordinates.

Just my reasoning anyway...

+1

HL2 source code... fake?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... this code seems very sparse on any actual dx9 usage. Also missing huge chunks of stuff, which leads me to believe that if this IS the Source Engine, it's a really early assed version of it.

Someone will port

[MacFury]

umm no. I dont see why you people are expecting ports with this leaked code. Anyone that even attempted to distrbute a port would be shut down by Valve.

If I had the time and inclination, I would attempt a port. I know alot of geeks who have nothing but time on their hands. If the source is complete, someone out there will attempt a port.

Valve can't stop someone working on a port, if they don't know that that person is working on the port. It would be interesting if the person/group worked on a port, then tried to sell it back to Valve.

Re:Someone will port

[WTFmonkey]

Wake up. That's like the people who hack into corporate computers to leave resumes on them in hopes that the company will be SO impressed with their 1337N355 that they'll offer them a job. You know what those people get?

Fired.

Re:Someone will port

[WTFmonkey]

Of course, by "fired," I meant "arrested." It's a common typo.

Be sure and check out myg0t

[Pvt_Waldo]

http://www.myg0t.com probably has their fingers in this somehow.

They had a post up about the leak on their forums, but then they took it down. Odd, since basically ANYTHING goes on their forums.

Re:Be sure and check out myg0t

[Pvt_Waldo]

http://www.myg0t.com

Cheap karma but here is the torrent link

[dark-br]

Half Life 2 Source

I'll be fraggin soon :)

How can this be good?

[Traa]

I can't believe the amount of posters that come up with 'reasons' why this leaking of the source code would be a good thing. Think about it, 4+ years of a companies hard work just leaked (to competitors). HL2 is leaps and bounds ahead of it's competition on many fronts, any bennefit of this leak is quickly wiped away by providing your competition with the full insight to where you are now. It is not the cut-and-paste that Valve will be worried about, but the ability to read how their algorithms work. That piece of intelectual property is the core of Valves worth. It being available to anyone outside Valve is a serious threat to the further growth and development of this great company.

A truly sad day.

Re:How can this be good?

[Jagasian]

It could be useful if the source code contains stolen GPL or Id Software code.

Now we need a new programmer

[dazst]

Site: http://www.valvesoftware.com/jobs.htm

A job position has opepend up at Valve Software.

game development SDK developer

A successful candidate will have at least 3 years programming experience in C and C++, and excellent written and verbal skills. Game programming experience a plus but not required. Responsibilities include working directly with game developers to design, port and enhance their games for Valve?s broadband delivery system and develop the SDK used by game developers. This position may require some travel.



Requirements:

Know Linux A+
Know Game Programming A++
Never heard of warez ? youre hired!!

Make that four

[Anonymous Coward]

And one will be constantly dying (according to Netcraft).

Advocating stealling?

[wantedman]

Then don't buy the game and you won't have to deal with the 'limits'.

Are you saying that instead of buying the games, steal them and get the benifits of a stolen game that runs faster?

Most games make most of their money within the first 45 days of release, after 180 days, there is almost no reason to have physical security measures(code keys I can understand). By that time, almost every game gets cracked and everyone who wants the game, has it. There is little reason to put in my CD for Theif I or GTA3. It's not going to stop anyone from getting it and its a big pain to me to find it.

Re:Advocating stealling?

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

After 180 days almost every game gets cracked? More like 180 minutes, in some cases I've heard of cracks being available before retailers are even allowed to put it on the shelf.

The real irony is that software houses know full well that copy protection is a pointless waste of time, publishers know it never works (and actually prevents something like 5% of legitimate buyers from using the game, simply because of drive incompatibilities) but they still require it. My guess is that this reduces insurance premiums...

WinRAR version.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try upgrading your winrar. You want 3.20+

Re:WinRAR version.

[The Other White Boy]

that did the trick, thanks pal.

Leaked Source Code

[xeno_gearz]

Just what the Slashdot community loves, this program is open source :)

However, this looks better than Tux Racer. ;)

Another rather public source, if anybody cares

[Anonymous Coward]

it's been posted on alt.binaries.comp

coincidence?

[GregoryD]

ATI is named the offical card of HL2,

few days later the source code is released.

NVIDIA screw job?

Here is the ATI announcement:

Valve teams up with ATI Valve Software has also stepped up its commitment to ATI's recent video card technology by showcasing its upcoming Half-Life 2 game: ATI Technologies Inc. today announced that Valve, a leading game developer, has named ATI as the preferred graphics card partner for its upcoming game Half-Life 2. As a part of this agreement with Valve, ATI customers will get the full Half-Life 2 game free1 with the purchase of select RADEON products. Valve's Half-Life 2 is among the most anticipated games in history and caught the attention of the industry and gamers alike winning Best of Show at this year's E3. It is the first game to make full use of Microsoft's DirectX 9 programming interface by taking advantage of features like high dynamic range lighting, bump mapped characters, soft shadows and improved full scene anti-aliasing. As such, it provides an excellent demonstration of the full capabilities of ATI's DirectX 9 hardware.

Built from the ground up with new shader-intensive games in mind, ATI's DirectX 9 hardware, like the RADEON 9800 XT and RADEON 9600 XT, has proven to be ideal development and gaming platforms for Half-Life 2.

"ATI has been a great partner on the engineering front. Our work with ATI has enabled DirectX 9 functionality that wouldn't have been possible with any other company," said Gabe Newell, Founder and Managing Director, Valve. "ATI's hardware gives our customers the best experience with our software. So we've chosen to extend our relationship to include marketing initiatives that will showcase both Half-Life 2 and RADEON products."

Re:coincidence?

[ShallowBlue]

ATI supposedly payed 8 million bucks in order to "team up" with Valve, so I guess they're screwed enough just by that deal even without NVIDIA being involved. Especially since nobody has seen anything new from Valve since 3 months or so.
I'll judge HL2 once it's out there and I'm not even sure that it's ever going to ship.

It's all over for STEAM, at least for some time.

[dnaumov]

unsigned char md5[16]; // Client's launcher.exe hash value (for versioning)

I guess Valve will have come come up with a new authentefication system...

I'm actually going to buy the game now.

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

I'm actually going to buy the game now...I was just going to ignore it and play Jedi Academy until Doom 3 hit....but now, I'll have to check out HL2 (if I can get the source).

Because of this leak, Valve may have just actually *earned* a sale from someone who would otherwise have nothing to do with the game (no, I wouldn't pirate it..).

id code, too?

[The Evil Plush Toy]

\src_main\public\vector4d.h: * This product contains software technology licensed from Id * Software, Inc. ("Id Technology"). Id Technology (c) 1996 Id Software, Inc. * All Rights Reserved. Looks like there's some id code in there too. If this is real, it could ugly.

Re:id code, too?

[Spleener12]

That's because for some reason all the code of HL1 is in there (my guess is they just had it all there for convinience so they could easily deal with any HL1 code they needed to use) and HL1 was based off of the Quake 1 engine (which was made by ID).

Re:id code, too?

[Jagasian]

But Vavle claimed to have written Half-Life 2's engine from scratch, without using Id Software's code. Wouldn't this mean that Half-Life 2's engine is a derivative work of Id Software's source code?

Re:id code, too?

[hkmwbz]

Valve has a license to use id Software's code, so there is no problem at all here.

Re:id code, too?

[ThePlantOfFire]

NOOOOO, The made the HL1 game off of the quake 2 engine, not quake 1. Jeez...If it was the q1 engine then people would HAVE to agree that CS sucks ;-)

Falcon 4.0's Leaked Source Code

[mnemonic_]

Falcon 4.0, a landmark achievement in consumer flight simulation technology had its full source code leaked several years ago. What happened aftewards?

Nothing for several months. People went about playing Falcon 4.0 as they did before. Then a user posted a single screenshot to the combatsim.com fora. It showed the Falcon 4.0 options menu, except with some rather peculiar options-- 3dnow! support, 32 bit textures, object texture filtering, DirectX 7 support, and some others. Falcon 4.0 did not ship with support for said features, so either it was an edited screenshot or the user had modified the source code. Then the actual executable was released. It was real, the engine enhancements worked.

Development of the leaked source code exploded shortly after that. A team known as eTeam (the executable was called eFalcon) was created to work on it, devoted to closing the numerous memory leaks, and improving the overall realism and performance of the game. The improvements were incredible, bringing a game released in 1998 to a 2001 state, competitive (or far superior, which was most people's opinions) to simulations released that year. The game's publisher ignored this for a few years.

The game's publisher then put its foot down. It said that all development of the leaked source code had to be ceased. Quickly though the community reached an agreement. It managed to convince the publisher to allow continued development of the leaked source code, as long as the publisher maintained all rights to all of the community's work and was not required to compensate the actual contributors. The result was the Falcon 4.0 Unified Team, composed of most of the eTeam members (not all though, some refused to join because of the constrictive agreement) as well as many from the Realism Patch group, a non-source code team focusing mostly on realism enhancements. The F4UT has succeeded in making hundreds if not thousands of changes to Falcon 4.0, ranging from technical (graphics engine, campaign engine, AI, sound engine, etc.) to gameplay (new flyable aircraft, dogfight AI improvements, numerous miscellaneous tweaks etc.) to other content (re-done textures, models, sound effects, completely new cockpit art, etc.). The F4UT finally brought Falcon 4.0 to what its original developers intended, not only simulation of F-16 combat, but a true military aviation experience taking place in a dynamic computer simulated war.

How does this relate to Half-Life 2's source code being leaked? Well, sometimes leaked source code can lead to greater things. After the Falcon 4.0 source code happenings, the full source code, including the graphics engine, network code etc. of a few simulations (Enemy Engaged Comanche Vs. Hokum, MiG Alley, maybe some others) have been released to the public. Maybe this practice could spread to other game genres.

Re:Falcon 4.0's Leaked Source Code

[Anonymous Coward]

Both the source code for Quake and Quake 2 have been (legally) out for a few years time now. Where's all the _great_ games that resulted from their source being available?

Re:Falcon 4.0's Leaked Source Code

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not an old engine. Think of the many good games that were released with the quake 3 engine. Imagine if that engine had been leaked before the game ever launched...

Re:Falcon 4.0's Leaked Source Code

[baby in the pie]

You left out some important points about the F4 source code leak. Namely that 1) the source wasn't leaked until after the dev team that wrote it had been disbanded, 2) the company that developed it had been sold, and 3) (maybe the most important difference of all) the game had been RELEASED and SOLD for REVENUE. God, I can't believe you really think the two situations are even close.

Re:Falcon 4.0's Leaked Source Code

[Aliencow]

What does it change? Even if I found the source for HL2, I would still need the media, so I would still need to get ahold of the game. Getting an ISO would be simpler than compiling that crap and then getting the media files...this is not gonna cut down on Valve's revenue at all..

Re:Falcon 4.0's Leaked Source Code

[Anonymous Coward]

HTML ahoy: Quake II .NET, QuakeForge, The Transfusion Project, Mac GLQuake, Tenebrae and the related industri. While you could argue about what meets your personal definition of "great", these look pretty good to me. Especially text mode Quake.

This isn't the HL2 source...

[rob2lehigh]

I was looking over the source and I found numerous references to a 'boomstick', strip clubs, and warthogs dressed in police uniforms. Then I realized... someone finally GPL'd Duke Nukem Forever!

ATI bundling deal

[Torgo's Pizza]

Has anyone considered that ATI was to bundle the 9800XT and the 9600XT with Half-Life 2? What does this do to the deal and could this (although unlikely) delay the release of the video cards?

Re:ATI bundling deal

[JavaTenor]

As I understand it, the release of those cards is not tied to the release of the game. 9800 and 9600 XT cards bought before Half-Life 2's release will include coupons which allow the full version of the game to be downloaded via Steam (and possibly to be bought at retail stores; there have been some conflicting reports on that one) once the game is released.

Steam included?

[Man Eating Duck]

I've had a look at the source, and although I'm far from an expert C++ coder, it doesn't seem to me that the Steam code is included. There is, however, a 'steam.lib' file in there.

If I understand the workings of Steam correctly, it handles authentication, and also includes mechanisms for controlling the integrity of game files. Ie there's no way you could use a hacked version of the engine for your cheats, and still authenticate through Steam.

<tinfoilhat reinforced with lead>

Maybe they intentionally leaked a (mangled?) version of the source just to prove that Steam has its virtues when it comes to dealing with hacked executables?

</tinfoilhat etc>

My wife is releasing the game for VU

[Anonymous Coward]

Every copy you buy will end up on some spreadsheet on her desk. Yay for me.

GPL code found in source

[W2k]

The leaked Half-Life 2 source contains GPL:ed code. Makes one wonder, would we ever have known it was there if it wasn't for this leak? Or were Valve planning a sneaky GPL violation?

Here's the beginning comment from "hl2_src\src_main\ivp\havana\havok\hk_math\odesolv e.cpp":

/*

Dynamics/Kinematics modeling and simulation library.
Copyright (C) 1999 by Michael Alexander Ewert

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
Library General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
License along with this library; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

*/

Re:GPL code found in source

[Anonymous Coward]

That's LGPL, not GPL. There's a difference. LGPL is legal to use like this.

Re:GPL code found in source

[njv]

Calm down folks. From what I can tell from poking around on Google, the guy who wrote this code works at Havok.

Re:GPL code found in source

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you are not allow to statically link lgpl and propriatary code. And I've confirmed that it is indeed linked statically. This is a textbook lgpl violation.

So...

[jeti]

Is Kevin Mitnick allowed to use computers again?

Re:So...

[Biff98]

Yes I think he was allowed to start using computers in Jan. of 2003

kewl

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope some of the xbox freaks compile it tommorow ...

Re:GPL'd code in Half-Life 2 (Havok)

[MrvFD]

So Havok has breached GPL! Is their defense that "the code shouldn't have gone public"?

Moderators, Moderators

[Psychic Burrito]

Moderators, you should not mod this poster up, but its parent... Jeez... do you do everything somebody says to you? OK, mod me up too :-)

You are wrong

[autopr0n]

For a computer, calculating the delta of vector is exactly as difficult as calculating the actual vector.

Re:Here's a link to the

[SD-VI]

Nope, but if you've got the cash you can get yourself a GeForce 256 Dee Dee Arr and blazing Pentium III 800EB with its fat 133MHz pipe and still play it at low settings. I can't afford such a high-end rig myself, sadly :(

IOW, Half-Life 2 is highly scalable. A TNT2 is the video baseline, which is why there's a DirectX 6 path. Provided one has a powerful enough processor to handle some of the basic physics work (think Coppermine or K75 700MHz+, though a GHz Coppermine or Thunderbird would be better).

CD-Key

[autopr0n]

I doubt the CD key thing is a big deal. All they need to do is change the algorithm before they release the code.

1,4 MLOC

[Anonymous Coward]

cpp: 1244294 (85.08%)
ansic: 214501 (14.67%)
perl: 3071 (0.21%)
asm: 309 (0.02%)
python: 283 (0.02%)
sh: 17 (0.00%)

Does the code violate the GPL?

[Simon (S2)]

Is there some GPL code in the Leak?

Copyright?

[Hrvat]

Wow, these are some really lazy programmers. I understand that they are reusing some code from before but at least they could change copyright dates...

from frame.h
"======== (C) Copyright 1999, 2000 Valve, L.L.C. All rights reserved. ========" :)

Hey, no biggie. At least they comment their code. My code is commented only in places so convoluted that even I get lost.

Re: yeah, right

[MrvFD]

(after learning to read, it's lgpl)

Nah

[Spleener12]

If it was delayed today, I'd agree, but it was delayed days before; however, I wouldn't be surprised if it was delayed further so they can alter the code enought to render any cheats that could be made with this useless. At the very least, they're probably glad they delayed it now.

On positive note ...

[tandr]

Valve just got a MASSIVE backup for the code of HL2!

t.
PS.
I wonder what /. crowd will sing when WinXP or 2003 code will be leaked... I feel sorry for Valve guys, really. 5 years of hard work.

Hl2 leaked?

[StephMa]

has HL2 also a MP mode ? or only SP if it`s only SP mode it`s not soooo bad but if theres also MP it suxx :/

Ugh, Valve's naming conventions

[mattgreen]

I peeked at one of the screenshots, and saw they format their C++ classes as "CClassname." I lost a little bit of respect for them. :) Legit or not, can we kill off Hungarian notation already?

Re:Ugh, Valve's naming conventions

[Junks Jerzey]

I peeked at one of the screenshots, and saw they format their C++ classes as "CClassname." I lost a little bit of respect for them. :) Legit or not, can we kill off Hungarian notation already?

Yes, let's all put down one of the most anticipated games in a long time, and the tremendous software engineering feat behind it, because Matt Green doesn't like their naming conventions! Half Life 2 sucks! Valve sucks!

Re:Ugh, Valve's naming conventions

[t_allardyce]

Naming conventions are very important, they show the true philosophies (spelling?) behind the design. If someone has taken the time to name things properly you can be sure they are either really anal, or really good, or both.

Re:Ugh, Valve's naming conventions

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps... but hungarian notation is really GAY.

m_variable or g_variable is fine.. denotes that it's a member or global or whatnot... but prefixing the type? Sure, in BASIC that's almost necessary.. but we ALREADY KNOW THE TYPE in C++!

It's just a waste of characters...

Re:Ugh, Valve's naming conventions

[mattgreen]

I'd mod you up if I could but obviously I can't. :)

subdir: linux

[pr0ntab]

What's in there anyway? Server source code only?

Re:Is this perhaps why the release date was held b

[WTFmonkey]

I think you should have read ALL OF THE PREVIOUS POSTS that asked this question before posting it again. Have a nice day.

What about...

[hankaholic]

What we really need is a leaked copy of the Duke Nukem Forever source code.

Some game data wouldn't hurt, either ;)

This was "leaked" on purpose...

[Anonymous Coward]

...just to legitimize delaying with the title a bit more...

Re:This was "leaked" on purpose...

[ogewo]

I agree with you man. An intentional "leak" of seemingly authentic but outdated and useless code could serve as a great excuse to delay the game for as many months as they'd like.

Look at it this way...

[SD-VI]

They didn't leak the source code, they canceled the delay!

Wow, thanx for the nerd pr0n

[wantedman]

I can't wait to find some source code I can call my own.

Re:Here's a link to the

[Anonymous Coward]

who needs that when you can hack the code to ignore half the polygons and most of the graphical whiz-bang features.

Let's help Valve

[gorfie]

Now... putting aside the moral issues of downloading and reviewing the code, why not help Valve out? If you know how, review the code and look for flaws. Treat it like an open source project.

The bad people already have the code and they are already working hard to do bad things (cheats and exploits). We can't stop the code from spreading. However we CAN work against the jerks that take a potentially great product like HL2 and ruin it. Be a cheater yourself, only tell Valve how and give them suggestions for fixing it.

Slashdot double standards

[Overly Critical Guy]

I even feel bad for downloading it now because I know if someone stole my code I'd be way more than pissed about it.

Where are the idealists who usually rush in at this point and declare the difference between "copying" and "stealing?" They are deafeningly silent.

Why has nobody defended this in the way they defend leaked albums and ripped CDs? What's the difference, the fact that it's a game company you may like and not some corporation like the RIAA that you hate?

Sucks when something you made gets copied all over the net, doesn't it? Maybe this will give a few people an impression of how artists feel about their mp3s doing the same thing...

Re:Slashdot double standards

[d3faultus3r]

It's source code, not a binary. most of the people here make their living writing code. It's one thing when a binary gets stolen, as it's hard to modify and easy to track down, but if source code is released, someone could use the source to make a game based off your code and sell it for far less, since they didn't have to develop it much.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people who have a shred of ethics in them have long left slashdot. This is nothing but a warez freeloading havern, which is no surprise since Rob and company have encouraged this behavior since day one.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

When you buy CD, your buying that recording copy. You don't get a reel-to-reel or whatever the master recording was.

When you buy a DVD you buy that particular film copy, not a copy of the actual film on filmstock.

No one here defends breaking into a movie theatre and duping the film, nor do we equate that with killing people on a ship at sea.

Except you.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, honestly, I have to take up an argument against your post. The engine is not the game. The engine, with models, textures, maps, sounds.. those are the game.

If you want to take this engine and spend enough effort building up the rest of the game to the point where it is better than HL2... Then playtest it all, fix any bugs in the engine itself, etc etc.. Maybe you'll figure out that it would cost just as much as making the game from scratch.

The theft of this code is unfortunate and immoral, but don't assume that someone can make HL2 from it.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Threni]

"Where are the idealists who usually rush in at this point and declare the difference between "copying" and "stealing?" They are deafeningly silent."

It's a pointless analogy.

"Why has nobody defended this in the way they defend leaked albums and ripped CDs? What's the difference, the fact that it's a game company you may like and not some corporation like the RIAA that you hate?"

That might have something to do with it. Valve work hard and produce a good game - the RIAA make money from other peoples hard work.

"Sucks when something you made gets copied all over the net, doesn't it? Maybe this will give a few people an impression of how artists feel about their mp3s doing the same thing..."

Valve will lose NO half life 2 sales because of this.

You need to work on your analogies a little.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[efflux]

Most people who have a shred of ethics in them have long left slashdot.

I see you're still here.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be because such an obnoxious, well know troll as yourself got there first. After your warm welcome Dotters are torn between doing what's right and agreeing with you. You win.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

valve probably won't lose any money directly from this theft, just as musicians won't lose money directly.

and i'm not sure how many developers are working at valve and have an ownership stake (i.e., income via revenue sharing or stock ownership or the like), but assuming their developers are salaried, then their income will be unaffected by whatever pirating goes on anyway. just like musicians.

if anyone will suffer it'll be valve the company, like the RIAA will in the music scenario.

in this case, then it's just as OK to steal valve's property as it is to steal music, because the people doing the grunt work aren't affected directly.

the other scenario is one where all the developers are paid bonuses or dividends tied to their "ownership stake" in the company. in this case they will be affected by the stolen code if it leads to a decrease in HL2 sales.

Now is it more wrong? Possibly -- the music/RIAA situation doesn't work for us here. But if we bring up the [actors and directors]/MPAA situation, where [actors and directors] sometimes get a percentage of the box office revenues, then they are also affected directly. and although it's less talked about, there's a whole lot of movie file sharing going around as well. and from everyone i've spoken to, it's the same as music file-sharing.

the HL2 source code theft is an eye opener for me. i never really felt one way or another about music /movie file-sharing. i figured it'd end one day, but if people benefit now, then why not? but the theft of the HL2 source code hits much closer to home and makes the issue of file-sharing copyrighted works more difficult.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Bi()hazard]

There's no idealists rushing in because this isn't a case of "copying" versus "stealing." Regardless of what you label it, the unauthorized distribution of source code that the creator intends to keep secret is wrong because it divides control of the creative process. It's not about who has to pay for the product, it's about who gets to create the product in the first place. This phenomenon has little parallel in music.

Sharing music online is equivalent to warez binaries, and ripping a cd you own is equivalent to making a backup copy of a game you own. Mixing existing music DJ style would be like taking screen captures and level designs from one game and using them in another. Downloading the source gives you the same level of control that the artists have; it is equivalent to copying the recording studio while the artists were in it.

However, it is worth noting that leaked albums are indefensible under my assumptions: they take control of the creative process away from the artist by removing their ability to decide when the album is done and how the public will be exposed to the music. This is equivalent to the leak of the alpha doom 3 a while ago-still less threatening than a source code leak.

Another factor in the severity of a source leak is security. Knowledge of the source will allow cheaters to exploit the game and ruin online play-once again, a phenomenon we do not see in music. Music pirates cannot degrade the quality of the music legitimate buyers listen to, but online cheaters can ruin the multiplayer experience. It would be like going to a concert and blowing a bullhorn repeatedly. Doing that in a concert is not considered an intellectual property offense, so it is inappropriate to think of a source leak's potential for cheating as an intellectual property issue. It is a security/espionage problem.

That said, those who would delete the source after downloading it and verifying its authenticity are very misguided. Unless their computers are public access and could be used to futher distribute the source, deletion helps noone and limits your opportunity for education. Of course, if you are going to work on a competing product it would be dangerous to expose yourself to the source, but as a disinterested party or potential valve customer there is much to learn and little damage to do.
After all, the real danger of a source leak is in the actions that can be taken by those who acquired it illicitly. Hackers and competitors can dilute the creators' control over the software, but an unabused copy of the source is harmless. So, go ahead-download the source, read it, figure out how it works and learn from it. Unless you're getting a job at id or epic, or creating your own software directly related to hl2, your copy of the code is no worse than sheet music. Of course, if you upload too much on bittorrent, it could be argued that you're helping to distribute it. Although you're only one link in a large chain, it's like voting-if enough people make the same decision it really will change things. So, go download all the stolen half life source you want, just dont use bittorrent or write hl2 cheats. After all, aren't all "bad" acts bad because of their consequences? Think about it-no matter what you do, if nobody is worse of for it, how could there possibly be anything wrong with it? Throw away the anachronistic, irrelevant "moral" codes of a repressed past-its not about what some people think, it's about what's ethical in the strictest definition of the word. So go eat pork, masturbate, and download hl2. Yeah!

Programmers will never feel like mp3-pirated musicians when source code is stolen. They will feel like a musician whose beat and backup were stolen, combined with someone else's voice, and sold as a new release. This has happened in the music world, and though it is not an exact parallel of the source code situation, the uproar was just as severe.

Why is the parallel off? All music is by definition open source-hearing the notes allows you to reconstruct the sheet

Re:Slashdot double standards

[grolschie]

Valve will lose NO half life 2 sales because of this.

WRONG! Well, not necessarily true. The possibility exists that someone can use their code to make an even better game than HalfLife 2 itself. Falcon 4.0 ring any bells?

If people trying to decide whether to spend their $50 on this new game or HL2, which wins? The better game of course. For example, there have been many a game made with the Quake2 engine (legally though) that leaves Q2 for dead! Usually this happens after a games use by date, but in this case that code has been leaked for the release of the game.

People who go on about how people still have to buy the game to get the datafiles, obviously haven't played Enemy Territory. Although it is free (as in beer), they have created their own game and levels using the RTCW source code - legally though.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[grolschie]

typo:
make that "but in this case that code has been leaked before the release of the game"

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Overly Critical Guy]

You are way off-base.

If you record music and it's taken and put online, that's bad.

If you spend five years writing software and the source code is taken and put online, that's bad.

You spent paragraphs desperately trying to make some sort of difference between two thefts of intellectual property. It's laughable.

Next.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[joFFeman]

> The theft of this code is unfortunate and immoral,
> but don't assume that someone can make HL2 from it.

maybe not- but they could break HL2 with it.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[junkgrep]

The question shouldn't be "how much are they hurt by this" but "isn't it their own property to do with, and release under the terms they choose?" Whether they are hurt or not (and obviously it hurts them at least emotionally), it was their stuff. They had a right to control what happened to it.

I feel the same way about music. If someone wants to sell music with a restrictive liscence that doesn't allow pesonal arhcival copying, they should be able to. End of story. Why shouldn't they? If I don't like that, I don't have to buy it. If lots of people don't like that, the price will drop, to the point where the limited functionality is matched by a lower price. What's wrong with allowing people to dictate their own terms of sale, and other people agreeing to and following the contract they freely entered into?

Re:Slashdot double standards

[EpsCylonB]

Valve may lose a lot of money through engine licences but a game is more than an engine. Without content a game is nothing and content creation is not a trivial process.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[PainKilleR-CE]

When you buy CD, your buying that recording copy. You don't get a reel-to-reel or whatever the master recording was.

Exactly, there isn't much of a standard for recording music, but this is the equivalent of getting the wav files of the individual parts of every song on the album. If an artist decides to distribute that themselves, that's great. If it's copied from the artist's laptop and released against his wishes, that's a real problem.

I would have to say that pre-releases of music and movies on the internet are a problem as well, but those tend to be problems within the industry, as it is people in the industry that lend these things out or give people advance copies, and they find their way onto the internet and into the hands of pirates (so to speak).

This is a case of someone attacking Valve's computers specifically and copying code for release. I'm guessing that it's most likely the same people that have the most to benefit from this code leak, the people developing cheats for Valve's games.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

"A burglary in which someone gets stabbled is murder!"

Untrue, at least in the UK. The prosection would have to prove that murder was the intention. Otherwise it's manslaughter at best.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[efflux]

It's a monty pyton flying circus quote.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

> maybe not- but they could break HL2 with it.

maybe they could break HL2 _WITHOUT_ it, as always.
and maybe they could just patch the game, as always.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

but making music requires talent. anyone can spend all day in a room coding, living all alone, until the day they die and no one notices or cares until the lady in the apartment next door can't place where a funny smell is coming from.

Re:Slashdot double standards

[akadruid]

what he's saying is this:

Copy binaries = Copy MP3 of living, performing, deserving, current artist.

Copy source covertly for wide distribution = Steal artists guitar, break artist's fingers and create a tv ad to mock artist.

All four are immoral. The second two are worse than the first two.

Should the artist have died many years ago, then the morality is no longer approximate to the law, and the law becomes an ass. but that's another story.

I would

[orez]

Like for someone to give a link of where I could get the source code. I am a starting programmer and would like to see it. I promise I will delete the source code after I take a look. Please

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

people get so jumpy about GPL violations...

I know who downloaded it

[JamesP]

SCO, so next time they can say " this is leaked code" the when they see something nothing like a system code, more like a game code, theyll say

"But we never said it was ours, its just leaked code"

WHAT?! No one is realeasing binaries?

[Jboy_24]

COME ON!

Someone who has the source, compile them and release the binaries!

Re:WHAT?! No one is realeasing binaries?

[Baggio]

Why? There isn't any map, art, model or sound data included. It isn't like you can sit down and start playing HL2 once it's compiled. The collective art of a game is just as important as the engine.

hack hack hack: A few highlights from the source

[Anonymous Coward]

dlls/doors.cpp: // this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb

Tracker/TrackerUI/Buddy.cpp: // good solution until people hack the Client, low priority anyway

(hmm, that shouldn't take long =)

cl_dll/tf2_hud/c_walker_strider.cpp: // This is a TOTAL hack, but we don't have any nodes that work well at all for mounted guns.

cl_dll/fx_sparks.cpp: // If it's an explosive splash, make some big hacky effects

dlls/hl1_dll/hl1_npc_hgrunt.cpp: SetBodygroup( 1, 1 ); // UNDONE: truly ugly hack

dlls/baseentity.cpp: // BUGBUG: This is pretty hack-tastic!

engine/gl_rmain.cpp: // garymct hack. . this is amazingly stupid

engine/modelloader.cpp: // HACK: This is a totally brutal hack dealing with initialization order issues.

materialsystem/stdshaders/teeth.cpp: // FIXME FIXME!!! E3 hack! Disable the dx9 version of Teeth since it's broken

utils/mxtk/src/win32/mxlineedit.cpp: // This lovely bit of hackery ensures we get return key events

utils/videocardstats/cardstats.cpp: // check for those blasted hackers

utils/studiomdl/optimize.cpp: // garymcthack: holy jesus is this function long!

havok license link

[Chris Pimlott]

you're right...
http://oldsite.havok.com/newsletter/0503 .html

Licensed Havoc physics engine

[Overly Critical Guy]

It's the legally licensed Havoc physics engine, dummy.

Re:Licensed Havoc physics engine

[W2k]

Heh, what a relief. For once I'm glad to have been completely out in the blue. What dumbass modded me +5?

Re:Licensed Havoc physics engine

[Anonymous Cow herd]

What dumbass modded me +5?

Welcome to Slashdot. Here's your sign.

I'd say it's the real thing

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't look like an SDK. This looks like a real source tree dump. However, I don't think we have much to worry about. If Valve gave an ounce of consideration to security WRT to cheating, all they have to do is go back and change their protocol and server/client code a little. As far as I know the game hasn't shipped yet, so the worst that may come out of this is another delay for the launch date.

Ahahaha

[Francis]

Most people don't think like that. They think "You have the source, you can make whatever cheats you want!" They're gamers, not coders, and most don't have a clue what they're talking about. I trust that Valve is professional enough to write tight code.

Sweet Clive, laugh derisively at him.

Sweet Clive: "Ahaha, ahaha, aahahaha."

But seriously, it is a pretty serious work of fiction that the devs over at valve write tight code. Example: there's a reason that there are 3rd party scripts to auto restart the server when it crashes. We've got an HL server in the next room. 5 core dumps per day is around average. I could go on (about the client and the server), but I won't.

You can do a LOT if you have the client source. Fast paced network games (such as Half-life) have the clients handle a lot of the processing that would be done at the server if not for 1) limited computing capabilities 2) the need for the appearance of low-latency. There was a lot of whining from the Quake I & II gaming communities when the source code was released.

Trusting an untrusted host is a hard problem, one that Valve has not solved. Source code is the key to the candy store.

I feel sick...

[Awptimus Prime]

It sucks to see several years of work by such a good group of artists go down the tubes like this.

I hope the find whoever leaked the code and make a serious example out of them. Stealing a binary alpha release is one thing, but running off with their source is a terrible thing to do.

I do think, in the long run, this engine's source being leaked will do more good for the gaming community as a whole, since coders can use this source as a reference for their own engines.

That's still not an excuse for trying to destroy valve. I had hoped, for once, they would have a smooth release. Guess they just have bad luck (or bad security policy).

When it comes to cheating, I doubt that will be an enormous problem if they stick with Steam. Each binary can be checked for authenticity at each game launch, plus the system's memory can be examined for proxy cheats. But, I doubt there's little they can do about man-in-the-middle proxy cheats where someone has a game exploit running on their home firewall, though. :(

Best of luck to you Valve. I'll still buy a copy when it's released.

Official Word

[Str8Dog]

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.

2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.

3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.

4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s =& threadid=10692

Re:Official Word

[goon]

some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview panel

was it patched? It's getting so that you cannot have your valuables on an online machine these days ..regardless of the OS. Anyone remember Crack.com being hacked for the Quake src code on a linux box?

Re:Official Word

[Anonymous Coward]

As usual, its all Microsofts fault! :)

Re:Official Word

[nobodyman]

Translation:

We got 0wn3d because I didn't go to windowsupdate. I know we've been treating our fanbase with smug contempt, and lying about the release date for a few weeks now, but we'd really like you guys to help us out now. Okay?

Perhaps a better way to keep the HL2 codebase secure would be to release it via Steam -- fat chance downloading anything there.

Re:Official Word

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, pretty much.

Verification of source code

[corrupted131]

Was just reading some of the information on this, and I stumbled upon this: http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=& threadid=10692 This verifies that the the leek is indeed legit, please excuse my spelling and grammar, working on no sleep here ;) -corrupted131

Gabe Replies

[TODarkOne]

Gabe has confirmed this IS the HL2 source code and details a attacks against VALVE Source: http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=& threadid=10692

Not unheard of

[DocTee]

when the quake source was stolen from crack.com a few years ago i believe a group of coders got it to work on the Amiga - quite a feat really. they got it licensed and published in the end, so it could actually be quite possible!

Re:Not unheard of

[kybosh]

The problem is Quake didn't use any propritory APIs (such as DirectX) and so was a lot easier to port, even it did run at about 3fps.

It wouldn't be impossible but it would be a lot more difficult IMO.

Leak confirmed by Gabe Newell

[bdsgeekboys]

Gabe Newell of Valve Software has just written a statement about the leak.

Read more

Re:Leak confirmed by Gabe Newell

[ShaggusMacHaggis]

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.

2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.

3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.

4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

__________________
Gabe Newell

The official response

[jimmcq]

Here is Valve's response repsted from http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?pos tid=215311

Gabe Newell
Managing Director
Valve Software
02-10-2003 10:04 PM

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.

2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.

3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.

4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

__________________
Gabe Newell

This will encourage them to develop for Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

just as it encourages them to work with the so-called underground developer teams. They will be proud to see their work forked and provided free to all and providing a great community service. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "stealing shit grants upon the character of man the blessings of eternal prosperity for all."

I am also willing to bet that the dev's enjoy playing all those fun games with their investors and publishers. It is a fun game that all should play! Perhaps this helpful and well thought out approach by any potential underground groups will indeed free us all from the tyranny of having to pay for games and broaden our social awareness by robbing Peter to pay ourselves (fuck Paul, what did he ever do?). Much like I would expect a child or dog to respond favorably to daily beatings, I expect Valve, the interactive entertainment industry and yes even the whole computer industry to be highly motivated to support that group of whacky Linux hackers.

Oh, and by once again tying crackers and thieves to Linux and Open Source we can all expect to be taken more seriously and of course this will do NOTHING to provide ammunition to various behemoths like MS in the coming years.

</sarcasm>That said, I do wish there would be a completely legal sametime release of HL2 on Linux... perhaps this and various multi GUI/Window Manager languages are a step towards helping that become the rule rather than the exception!

Re:Torrent? Where?????????

[Anonymous Coward]

The torrent file was REALLY, damn fast I HEARD. AND the DOWNLOAD (EDIT:torrent) was RIGHT and not A fake in any WAY. good times.

+5 Informative ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Attention mods: these links lead NOWHERE. A page displaying the lone text "not found" is displayed.

But while you're moderating up posts without checking out the actual URLs referenced, I might as well try:

Here are some screenshots of the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever source code:

http://jahfhasdfjsd.com/hgkjshga.jpg
http://3w4hg984hy56.com/segh9h4y.jpg

If it's possible to cheat

[Rogerborg]

then the design is flawed. The network model should be paranoid and should hide data. Having the source available should only tell you exactly what it is that you can't exploit.

Dear god, open source games developers have known this for years. Netrek figured it out in 1988! Why do commercial games developers insist on re-inventing the wheel and making the same mistakes over and over?

Re:If it's possible to cheat

[gorfie]

Why do commercial games developers insist on re-inventing the wheel and making the same mistakes over and over?

Would Valve or ID have made names for themselves had they followed this advice?

Re:If it's possible to cheat

[Have Blue]

Because their customers in general (and quite rightly) demand performance over security. It's not like anyone uses games for mission-critical purposes anyway.

Re:If it's possible to cheat

[FryGuy1013]

Wrong.

With a custom OpenGL driver (or an OpenGL wrapper), one can count the number of vertices a model has when it is drawn, and then subsequently assist in moving the mouse towards the model location. Do you want to hide models from being drawn? That would be a real fun game of trying to find invisible players.

Re:If it's possible to cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do commercial games developers insist on re-inventing the wheel and making the same mistakes over and over?Yeah these people make great looking games but when it comes to the technical side.... Oh by-the way, have open-source developers already found a way to make quake 1 do multiplayer without allowing aiming proxies *and*

• withoud needing masive bandwith to send all the stuff to be calculated to the server
• a huge server to calculate pretty much al client side physics
• a network latency so low even a gigbit lan might not do becouse having the server "aprove" a jump from the players becomes kinda stupid with a 100 ms latency (back *and* forth on a satured link)...

No? then I sugest we simply take the netrack networking code and port it over, great idea.... should be easy now the source is there.... I sugest you start by looking if the networking code is in that rar, it might be a intersting read....

Re:If it's possible to cheat

[Rogerborg]

Try to keep up, I'm talking about network data. If object information is even sent to a client that's not in a state where it should be able to see it, then you've already got a broken model.

Re:If it's possible to cheat

[Rogerborg]

>have open-source developers already found a way to make quake 1 do multiplayer without allowing aiming proxies *and* [...] etc

Ooh, smart move. Point out the flaws in the design of a game that was commercial and closed source when it was designed.

Thanks for making my point for me, Coward. If you get the design wrong from day one, then you can pretty much forget about fixing it later.

Re:If it's possible to cheat

[Rogerborg]

And then when the aimbots appear, those same customers whine that the game has been ruined. I agree that it's the customers' fault, but on the other hand, it's not as though they have a choice between robust games and flakey games, it's either flakey games or nothing. It's be nice if they had the option to go with something robust.

Re:If it's possible to cheat

[Rogerborg]

No, but that's because nobody's offered an alternative, so they don't look bad by comparison. Purchasers tolerate games being ruined by cheating weenies because their choice is broken games or no games. What kind of choice is that?

Completely legit, response from Valve

[bobobobo]

GABE NEWELL RESPONDS:

From HalfLife2.net Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.

2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.

3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.

4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[Anonymous Coward]

All of this because of a bug in Microsoft Outlook. Sucks to be them.

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[xZAQx]

Good thing they support all Microsoft products so blindly. They sure are great products, as the above comment illustrates.

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[Anonymous Coward]

This can be a great thing also, mind you.
Look on the bright side.. this could aproximate Valve to the community even further.. a "tighter" relationship.. they could use some community patches also.. look at the Falcon 4.0 Unified Team... ;)

It also has the potential to fuck microsoft beyond oblivion. It's more than proven that all of their 'offerings' are filled with lovely security holes.

Made my job easier also (kind of). Over 300 windows desktops are schedule to be replaced by linux after this "little incident" hit the headlines.. they just gotta sort out which vendor...

Gotta thank microsoft for that. ;)

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[DavittJPotter]

Yeah, funny that a company developing a FPS game for Windows would use the most common MS applications. "Oh, I'm sorry, Half-Life 2 doesn't run on a machine with Outlook installed; you'll need to switch to Mozilla, the open-source browser/email client."

"Uh, what?"

Right. "Hi, I'd like to return this game, it doesn't run on my computer."

Outlook !== BAD *if* you have good sysadmins and keep up on your patches. The buffer exploits in the preview pane have been patched for some time. Thanks for the typical Slashdot attitude, though. MS fucks up plenty, but don't blame them when the fix is readily available.

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[Anonymous Coward]

*Ahem*

Linux community... right over here!

Gabe! GABE!

*sigh*

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[Anonymous Coward]

Why oh why do I really find this funny that a great software house uses state-of-the-crap, buggy and trojan friendly e-mail application such as Outlook ?! Atleast your MIS / CTO / etc who was responsible for this security blunder, should get the boot... ROTFL !!!

Quote on
"5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools)."
Quote off...

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[gunga]

I think you're wrong. Patching defective software is necessary but it isn't an excuse for having shipped defective software in the first place.

The rate at wich Microsoft produces patches is itself a problem, you have to spend a lot of time tracking what's going on at windows update. This is not safe nor sane

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[ssimpson]

"but it isn't an excuse for having shipped defective software in the first place."

.

Oh, come on! I'm a big advocate of Linux etc (see e.g. here), but let's not pretent that Microsoft is the only vendor to ship software that's a) out of the box broken b) implemented poorly and with no respect to normal security practices.

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[wastaz]

Then run outlook on the test machines that only runs the compiled test code.

Seriously, it's not like they're going to give us a play-by-email option anyway, right?

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[Goldberg's Pants]

Yes, but they obviously don't have a decent sysadmin. Using any KNOWN program with constant security holes in it, such as Outlook, on a system that should be secure.

Well, they got what they deserved really.

Re:Completely legit, response from Valve

[mlk]

I hope so, my box will not run it otherwise.

ASCII HL here I come...

(I know you can get UT & QIII in ASCII mode)

Re:just to clear matters up

[Anonymous Coward]

Now don't you feel like an idiot?

----
this is a load of bullsh*t.

What has been "released" is some doctored HL SDK files made to look like HL2 code by members of a hacking clan called myG0t.
They are just a bunch of losers who have nothing better to do than ruin games for others.

HL2 has been re-written from the ground, so why some code that looks like HL SDK would be included in HL2 is beyond me.

Judge for yourself, but I think you'll find this is an elaborate hoax!!

Gabe Newell's response on Halflife2.net

[walkern]

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=2 92bdd6746898a5cbf78f0a2ea40c51b&threadid=10692

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.

2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.

3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.

4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

__________________
Gabe Newell

This is NOT a good thing

[DaveCBio]

No matter what anyone says this is not a good thing. This kind of things harms game makers and gamers. We now have to wait longer for the game and Valve loses money on R&D and must spend more time and money to change core systems. This is not "Open Source", this is stolen source.

Gabe confirms leak!

[elrond1999]

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=& threadid=10692 Looks like someone custom made some viruses..

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.

2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.

3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.

4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

__________________
Gabe Newell

God I love the misinformed

[dsanfte]

For instance, in Starsiege:Tribes, since the rendering engine has been successfully hacked, people have been able to write some clever and EXTREMELY extensive cheats -- you can customize the visibility of the terrain, of individual objects (like buildings -- make them partially transparent to see people around corners), remove fog from maps, have pointers to the person with the flag, and most infamously, change the model for the flag into a twenty-story-tall red and green stick figure with a gigantic smiley face. This cheat is known as 'Happy Flag', and it makes it pretty much impossible to confuse the enemy team as to the location of your flag.

This cheat is two years old. It was fixed by giving the option to server admins of forcing their client to do a CRC check of all files and sign it with the server's public key, on the local PC.

Re:God I love the misinformed

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, guy, the issue isn't whether this cheat was eliminated. He was showing us some of the cheats that can be done with the source code which may not be obvious to the less experienced gamer.

The neophyte, when introduced to the idea of cheating with the source, thinks of things the other team can see, like making weapons more powerful or increasing accuracy. These examples are real eye-openers regarding what cheating can be.

Prevention of Code loss

[ryanh50]

Valve could certainly find the one responsible quickly if they took the soup nazi approach and said
NO GAME FOR YOU!!!!!
Seriously, a threatened public postponement in the name of catching the person who leaked the code of the game would certainly create a flurry of interest in catching the responsible party.

Direct link (no p2p)

[Anonymous Coward]

http://s86952514.onlinehome.us/files/games/halflif e2/hl2_src.rar

(btw, many guys pretend having successfully compiled it.. with vc 6 or .net)

Watermarked already?

[Anonymous Coward]

In some sense, an active version-controlled code-base is self-watermarking - every file can be compared to the source tree and assigned an earliest possible date.

Moreover, unless the thief took precautions, it's like that a latest likely date can be assigned to the code, too - if no changes after XX/YY are present in the stolen code, it's likely from before that date.

Accordingly, it might be possible to narrow down quite closely when the code was taken out of the system, and compare that with server logs to see who was accessing the system at the time. Circumstantial evidence, of course, but might be useful to focus an investigation.

Even easier would be if the stolen code was a version given to a partner company - that'd point the finger pretty conclusively. Checking for that should be easy, and I'd expect a leak from an external source would be more likely than a developer leak.

Finally, of course, it shouldn't be too hard to watermark files by adding whitespace in an error-correcting code (since changes will happen) in a way that won't be easily noticed or changed.

It's real, Gabe confirms.

[Carpet]

Huh, nobody else has posted this, guess I'll do it.

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s =& threadid=10692

Half-Life 2 Source was stolen

[Anonymous Coward]

Shacknews

Cheating will be the outcome...

[XplosiveX]

Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but it seems most people are just worried about this delaying the game. I think more importantly this is all bringing back very bad memories of Quake 1's official source code release, and but unlike this, that was intentional.

The cheats for that game were pretty bad, but after the source code was out people were firing rockets out of their asses and flying through the air within a month or two. It became like a cheat writer's sand box :(

At least the game had been out for a few years before that happened....this is infinitely worse for everyone who was planning on playing HL2 or any future source engine game online.

I'm sure everyone can imagine the frenzy the cheat community is probably in right now, circle jerking each other. For them, this is better than the game getting released :\

Reply from Valve

[TheDredd]

check this out, no leaks, Valve has been hacked!

Download of the HL2 Source Files - 32MB File No BT

[f00kie]

http://download.f00kie.com/download.php?id=1 Try it out, its the full file, no BT.

If this is the HL2 source...

[Blackice912]

Why are there comments about Quake in it? Below is comments from a random file I opened (common.cpp), no code:

/*
All of Quake's data access is through a hierarchical file system, but the contents of
the file system can be transparently merged from several sources.

The "base directory" is the path to the directory holding the quake.exe and all
game directories. The sys_* files pass this to host_init in engineparms->basedir.
This can be overridden with the "-basedir" command line parm to allow code
debugging in a different directory. The base directory is
only used during filesystem initialization.

The file contains more refrences to Quake as you go on.

Re:If this is the HL2 source...

[Afty]

The original Half-Life was built on the Quake engine. Half-Life 2 probably contains some code from Half-Life, which can explain the Quake references.

Re:If this is the HL2 source...

[Jagasian]

Doesn't this mean that Valve has been caught lying? They claimed that the Half-Life 2 engine was written from scratch. Id Software should be upset if Vavle is releasing an engine that uses Id Software code, without paying. If Vavle's Half-Life 2 code has GPL or unlicensed Id Software code in it, then I don't feel sorry for them. If such is the case, then they are criminals too.

Re:If this is the HL2 source...

[hkmwbz]

Who says that the code has to be compiled? Maybe it's just there because it was used at earlier stages of development or something. Speculating like this is silly. It's there and Valve owns a license from id to use it. So stop worrying about it.

Re:If this is the HL2 source...

[cjb110]

duh, cause its using the Quake engine!

Re:Official comment from Valve

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane..."

Great. Someone else paying for M$ bugs!

ideal mod-ing opportunity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't this be good for mod-ers, as they could put out a very nice cs-like mod, when they have access to the underlying game code, and not just slap a mod as a "frontend" so to say?

Re:Here's a link to the

[flewp]

Here's part of the CS 2 source:

If execute_Head_Shot$
Then [Say$ "PWNED!!!!!!! N00B!!!!!!!"]

If recieve_Head_Shot$
Then [Say$ "HAX0R!!!! &playername& IS HAXING!!!!!!!!!!!!"]


Major Disclaimor: I am not a programmer, don't try and pick apart my stupid looking wannabe code. It' s a joke, you should interpret the spirit of it, not the technicalities.

Valve Confirm Leak

[Dave500]

Post on halflife2.net from Gabe Newell:

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.

2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.

3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.

4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

__________________
Gabe Newell

Thoughts on HL2 vs. Music Piracy

[smilinggoat]

I am primarily a musician and secondly a programmer. I've taken up programming as a second major at university.

For some reason leaking the HL2 code disturbs me more than the thousands of mp3's I've ripped from friends over the years. Perhaps it's that I now know how difficult it is to prgram and can appreciate the significance of someone's work being out of their control.

Yet I've used plenty of warez without much conscience. It's the intimacy that effects me. Leaking code is like leaking someone's tracks or samples.

GPL violation!

[getnuked]

What's even more upsetting is that the source contains GPL'd code. By copyright law, Valve MUST provide the source to the entire game for whomever receives the binary, if it contains GPL'd code. The open source community should be on it's toes when Valve does release it's binary version of the game. If GPL'd code is found (either by searching the binary, or through another insider source code release) Valve must be held accountable!

At least we can rest assured that honest game developers like id (the creators of the famous Doom and Quake series) have not violated the GPL. They have always voluntarily released the source code for their games (Doom, Doom2, Quake and even Quake 2 just a few years ago) once they move on to a new product, and no GPL violations have ever been found. Let's hope all game developers are playing with the same rules as id!

On a side note, it appears that the 'insider' was a hacker who remotely gained access to Valve's internal network via a buffer exploit or trojan in microsoft outlook. How much does it take for people to learn the dangers of using windows, outlook and internet explorer?

Re:GPL violation!

[Jagasian]

Can you give some evidence that Vavle's code includes GPL code? If they truely were trying to sneak some GPL code into their closed-source app, then I do not feel sorry for them whatsoever. What is the saying? "No honor amongst thieves."

Re:GPL violation!

[argent]

Unless someone at ID ays "no, we didn't license the Quake engine to Valve for HL2" you don't know that there's been a GPL violation. Remember, even if the code is GPL the author can always license it separately to a third party.

Re:GPL violation!

[Dysan2k]

Also depends on what release of the engine they have. If it predatest the GPL'ing of Quake 1/2, there's no violation.

Re:GPL violation!

[hkmwbz]

As long as they already have a non-GPL license, GPL or not GPL is irrelevant. id Software can release their code under any license they please, even different licenses to different people.

Re:GPL violation!

[shad0wspawn]

no. if the gpl module(s) are 'lesser part' in the 'greater part', they don't have to release the 'greater part'.

re-read the gpl license.

Re:GPL violation!

[Pale-Horse-Rider]

This is very true. Take the game Hitman 2, for example. It used a number of Open Source components (ie, Freetype) and credited them without ever GPL'ing the majority of the game's source. However, read over the code even briefly and compare it to the GPL'ed Quake1 source code and there's no denying that the entire base of HL2's code is a direct evolution of Quake. Now, it's well known that they licensed the Quake engine for Half-Life, but does that license extend to the game's sequel? I would think not. If not, and if iD did not grant a new code license for HL2, it would seem that Valve IS in violation of the GPL. Those, however, are two very big "if's."

If I were Valve ...

[dzym]

If I were Valve, what I should be worried about right now is not who or how the systems were compromised and the code leaked, I would be extremely worried about whether or not whoever did it managed to slip in some trojan or other malicious code among that 100 megs of source to Source.

If whoever did it backported the change to say, May 1999, through whatever passes for a version control system at Valve, Valve can't just diff code for suspicious changes.

It is the mere fact that Valve has been cracked, not the code leak, that has me extremely worried, personally. I am uninstalling Steam and any other Valve software from my computers until further notice.

Re:If I were Valve ...

[jeeryg_flashaccess]

I hadn't thought about that. Who knows if the recent steam release is hacked! Can you imagine ALL steam clients being hijacked for a giant DOS attack? Holy crap!

This is horrible ...

[snowtigger]

No matter how much I love open source programming, I can't help feeling really sad for Valve. The gaming market is such a competitive place and this is really the worst thing immaginable. It must be absolutely horrible for Valve to see man-years of work fly out the window. Recent posts have talked about different risks, but I think the potential rumors on "HalfLife2 sources are leaked, so there will be too many cheaters" are a lot worse from a marketing and reputation perspective.

As for you GPL programmers, there is already a lot of interesting code out there to play around with. I cannot express in words how thankful I am to different companies letting me play with their products such as Quake2 by id. I think they deserve making money on their hard work and heavy risktaking. GPLing such code is giving me a present I could never make up for.

As I'm quite fond of snowboarding, I ended up working on the Soul Ride snowboard game engine. It would take me years to reproduce the same code on my own. Even if noone ever uses my changes, I really enjoy working on it and it's fun showing my changes to (geek)friends.

Open source is fun to play with. Stolen code just isn't. The whole idea of open source code is built on honesty and solidarity.

Anyway, good luck Valve, I'll buy the game when it comes out. Also, I will enjoy working on the real source you may GPL in 5-10 years, not this leaked one.

(I'm sure some slashdotters won't like what I write, but I've got karma to spend...)

Re:This is horrible ...

[Creepy Crawler]

In terms of upholding honor, Valve should keep GPL software OUT OF THE GAME if they dont want it open-sourced under GPL.

I think that's the real reason this was leaked... GPL violation "detection". It's worked rather good, dont you say?

Re:This is horrible ...

[snowtigger]

In terms of upholding honor, Valve should keep GPL software OUT OF THE GAME if they dont want it open-sourced under GPL.

Yep, I perfectly agree with that.

I think that's the real reason this was leaked... GPL violation "detection". It's worked rather good, dont you say?

Interesting tought, but I'm not so sure about that one. Any developer with authorized source code access would shoot himself in the foot by telling "hackers" about such a thing. An intelligent move would have been to ask the company to remove it or (even better) not to use it in the first place.

Re:This is horrible ...

[Spokehedz]

I also will buy the game. In fact, I already have, and my little ticket sitting up there on my shelf entitles me to the game whenever the heck its released.

I will not download the source code, and I will instead wait until the final release of the game... so that I can not only look at the lines of code, I can actually play a game with the lines of code I paid for.

What really saddens me is that Valve practically started the whole MOD community. At least, the way it is now. I'm 100% sure that they put support for MOD's into the new HL2 engine. So, other than having access to the main code, what good would having the code be? The program already has a function to run other code through the mod system... I just don't get it.

Oh, I mean I get why they did it--because they wanted to--but still... this is kinda dumb.

There's no textures, sounds, or levels to actually play in. This is the equivalent of having a engine of a McLaren F1--with no body, transmission or wheels. Yea its pretty, and its worth a lot of money, but it sure ain't zooming around on the streets getting you chicks.

Also, I offer one suggestion to stop this from happening in the future:

Remove all development machines from the Internet.

Seems simple enough, doesn't it? This would have never happened if there wasn't a link from the server storing the source to the outside world...

And these are merely my opinion as to what any company should have done in the first place, before any of this happened... This has nothing to do with the source being leaked. Also, they may not have actually prevented the leak of the code, but it sure as hell would have been nice to see these things happen.

* Actually release the game on time. Alright... I understand about deadlines and all that... but come on now... if we had the game, we wouldn't care about the source, now would we?

* Try and actually think that the public isn't a bunch of babbling idiots, and that we'll understand if you actually tell us about the delays instead of pretty much dodging the issue until the day AFTER the supposed release and then saying "whoops! my bad.".

* One word: Demo.

Re:This is horrible ...

[sombre_reptiles]

I couldnt agree more with your comments. I'm a proponent of GPL as well, but what has occurred here is theft of the highest order. I'm actually pretty uncomfortable with people making jokes about this.

I think some people on this thread are confused.

Some of you are joking about "liberating code". This isnt really that funny. This is not SCO "playing the stock market like a lottery", this is an honest company who has worked their ass off in a highly competitive market to produce a rare thing: a gaming engine and a game that moves the industry to the next level. They deserve to profit from their efforts.

IMHO, there is a place for public intellectual capital, there is a place for private intellectual capital. There is no place for theft: Be it Darl McBride, or the shithead script kiddies who pulled this off.

This could easily have been prevented

[Stele]

If they just hadn't been using Outlook.

What were they thinking?

Re:This could easily have been prevented

[placeclicker]

Hell, why was the box containing the source code EVEN CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET IN ANY FORM?

Insecurity of STEAM ?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody else think this entire STEAM-enabled publishing is a dangerous thing?! What would have happened if the hacker had put up some extra code on the steam servers!

Ofcourse I can already imagine Valve claiming that would be impossible :)

Question3

[Anonymous Coward]

Gabe

Important: Just to be clear, it's ok to talk about the leak and the possible implications, however we'll nuke you and your family if you even make the most slight clever hint of where to download it or even screenshots of it.

If i'm not correct...can't you post pictures of DeCSS and other clever methods and NOT get in trouble?

BitTorrent link

[fserb]

I don't know what's gonna happen with this.
But, hey, here's the HL2 source code (BT link).

If this isn't a legal post, then some moderator will just remove it. Sorry.

[]s

Gabe Newell responds - It's genuine

[DeeKayWon]

Gabe Newell of Valve has posted at halflife2.net on this issue. Since the halflife2.net servers are pretty slow right now, here's the text of the post:

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1. Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.
2. Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.
3. For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.
4. Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.
5. At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).
6. Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

__________________
Gabe Newell

Re:Gabe Newell responds - It's genuine

[evil imp]

So, is that the optimal address to send my resume to? I sometimes skim too fast and misinterpret what things say. I read it as "IT Staff beaten to death, send resume now, experience with www.microsoftupdate.com a plus. Replacing president of companies 14 year old '37337 h4x0r'."

FreeBSD.

[readpunk]

I just checked the Ports collection for FreeBSD. WHERE THE FUCK IS THE HL-2 PORT!?

THE REAL REASON FOR HL2 DELAYS

[Anonymous Coward]

valve to press: oh yeah, this code is real old. piece of crap code, from waaaaay before e3.

valve to itself: who the fuck was able to get a hold of yesterdays code!!!!

Im starting a collection

[Anonymous Coward]

to buy Newell a clue.

So HL2 could be "fixed" to work with Nvidia cards?

[Viewsonic]

This would rock! The framerates would be the same as the ATi's then!

Newell leaked it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes sense.

XBOX stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

utils\studiomdl\optimize.cpp

#ifdef XBOX_STRIPPER

Wrong...Re:Xbox Version

[Viewsonic]

You can compile programs for the XBox just fine from standard source.. It just takes tweaking .. What you'll more than likely see is someone port the game to XBox themselves from the leaked software.

Re:Wrong...Re:Xbox Version

[JFMulder]

Yes, but you won't be able to access the Xbox Live community of HalfLife 2, only the PC one. In order to access the Xbox Live Community, you'd need a legit Xbox, and from what you're suggesting, modding is involved, thus preventing you from accessing Live.

Re:Wrong...Re:Xbox Version

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never heard of stealth code, have you?

There is a working Xbox modchip in testing that is update-proof.

Re:Wrong...Re:Xbox Version

[JFMulder]

Yeah, but for how long? As long as something is added to the hardware, I'm pretty sure there is a way to find out something is tampering with the system. After that, it's only a matter of time before Xbox Live updates it.

There is no such thing as a 100% secure app, and there is no such think as an unbreakable hack.

WInex

[oddbudman]

Just a thought, but perhaps this could help winex out a bit with porting this title to Linux.

It would be cool to perhaps get some coverage of this game on Linux, afterall this is one of those killer apps(games).

Nevermind that...

[Spleener12]

Looking at Newell's statement, I guess they've known that someone was going to pull something like this since the 19th (when they discovered that someone copied the source code,) so it probably was the leak that caused the delay.

uh-oh... physics engine manual

[Anonymous Coward]

The physics engine manual is even there!!

ivp\ivp_docs

All these sites haven't learned have they?

[placeclicker]

They all think Security through Obsecruity works. Hell, read any Pro-HL2 site and they throw death threats around if anyone posts a link.

Oh Great.

[EnglishTim]

Slashdot the warez site. Great.

Prove it...

[rmdyer]

The brain is faster, so far...by far, than most any personal computer. And, many people still can't shoot accurately at moving targets. The military have spent years of research working on mid-air weapons destruction systems.

The problem you are not seeing is that of "inertia". If "delta-change" was sent to the server, you'd also have to take into account your inertial "weight" at "slewing" the gun. By the time you've sent your calculated "slew", you've very likely over/under-shot your target. The same thing happens in electronics with square waves. Any instantaneous change will cause ring'ing around the squared-edges, causing the signal to "ring". The programmers would simply have to set the server's inertial "slew" high enough so that you can't "slew" fast enough.

It would be like trying to aim in Quake through a thick viscus fluid. Great, so your computer is really fast, the point is your aim won't be, even for a computer, it will just keep trying to follow the target around, but in the end, it will be too late.

-2

Re:Prove it...

[alienw]

It would be like trying to aim in Quake through a thick viscus fluid.

In that case, how the hell would anyone be able to actually aim? This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

If a human can do something in a game (such as aim), you can write a program to do it. If you have access to the game's internals, this task becomes easy. In any case, you would be able to write an aimbot that shoots more accurately than the best human player out there.

latest rumours(?) on leak

[mutewinter]

Apparently the source code was stolen in some type of hacking attack as opposed to being leaked. Stolen passwords, DoS, outlook exploit, I guess we'll only know for sure in the coming days. I think that the implications for this are larger than many people realise. Back in the Doom days, I strongly believe a pre-release leak of the Doom or Build engine could have been a complete disaster. The question is now, how much will this financially hurt, or even benefit valve? Valve has been very supportive of the Mod community, and its practically an axiom that mods made HL the success that it is today. So.. if a game that is open to modding is far more beneficial to everyone ( long-term sales, a *really* big bang for your buck, creation of hobbies that build careers for others (CS, DOD), can a leaked source code be even more beneficial? I really hope so.

I hope it's only been stolen ...

[RabidStoat]

As sad as the situation is, I do hope the code has "only" been stolen and they, whoever they are, didn't modify any of the code at Valve. The last thing I'd want to hear from Valve is that aren't sure if the source has been compromised with potential trojan horses - imo that would be more damaging to them than the "mere" theft of their code. They'll still sell oodles of copies of the game and to be honest I can't see it damaging their potential licencing revenue.

Re:I hope it's only been stolen ...

[efishta]

yes, because you see, they only keep their source code on one specific computer, the one that was hacked, so if the source code was filled with "trojans", they'd be screwed and we'll never seen Half Life 2 by the end of the year...

Re:I hope it's only been stolen ...

[RabidStoat]

err, I think you need to read the mail that Valve sent ..

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

Who said they only got the source off one PC ? If they got onto a developer's PC it's a fair assumption that they can get to the source control system in place. Try thinking before assuming they only the source off one machine.

Re:I hope it's only been stolen ...

[efishta]

awww come on, I thought it was obvious that I was being very sarcastic in response to the parent post. I didn't assume they sourced it off one machine, but rather the parent poster did...

What's with all the linking?

[DaveCBio]

There is NO question that downloading or even linking this code is illegal. Why are people even asking the question?

insecurity

[crimsontiger6]

I can't believe the code was on a PC that had a connection to the internet. Its just insane.

Team Fortress 2: New Info Uncovered from source!

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright! After about 3 years of no new info about TF2, here's some rather interesting changes to the game (looks like it may very well be shipping with HL2 as the multiplayer surprise!)

Thanks to the official vivendi universal tf2 message board, enjoy!

Team Fortress 2:

TF2: Here are some classes: Chooser (maybe not a class), Commando, Defender, Escort, Infiltrator, Medic, Pyro, Recon, Snapper, Sniper, Support.

Some words found in TF2 source: Burst rifle, Charged Plasma, Laser Rifle, Base Shield, Plasma Grenade Launcher, Combat Shield, Drain Beam, Flamethrower, Gas Can, Grenade Rocket, Limpet Mine, Mortar, Harpoon, Infiltrator, Laser Designator, Minigun, Repair Gun, Rocket Launcher, Shield Grenade, Two Handed Container.

TF2 Vehicles: Battering ram, Flatbed, Motar, Motorcycle, Siege Tower, Tank, Wagon, Teleport station. 'Walkers': ministrider, strider.

Other interesting words: Armor Upgrade, meteor, gasoline, vehicle bay, Builder, Hole, and Warrior 'bugs'. Shield wall, Four Wheel Vehicle, Barbed wire, buff station, dragons teeth, emp generator, manned missile launcher, power pack, rally flag, vehicle boost, mobile shield.

TF2 'objects': Manned gun, Base Driver Gun, Base Upgrade, Driver Machine gun, Manned PlasmaGun.

yes there is

[Anonymous Coward]

http://cgi.riblet.plus.com/news.php

look on that page for a bittorrent link

http://download.f00kie.com/download.php?id=1

[Anonymous Coward]

http://download.f00kie.com/download.php?id=1

Re:http://download.f00kie.com/download.php?id=1

[Anonymous Coward]

addendum from shacknews : http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/28619 :)

Just to be clear, it's ok to talk about the leak and the possible implications, however we'll nuke you and your family if you even make the most slight clever hint of where to download it or even screenshots of it.

edonkey/emule link found

[Anonymous Coward]

here is the edoney/emule/overnet link

ed2k://|file|hl2_src.rar|32816098|433294325327E30C 3F106132190F891C|/

ed2k://|file|hl2_src.rar|32816098|433294325327E3 0C 3F106132190F891C|/

remove them spaces from them links

hl2_src.rar

go open source

[NSupremo]

maybe if the officially make it an open source project this would not be such a disaster (and we would not have to way god knows how long to play any sort of official version of HL2)

Re:Xbox Version (you mean halo mod)

[NSupremo]

What really do you think a low grade xbox could offer you? It would be a joke.

We don't know that it's a GPL violation, do we?

[argent]

Has there been anything from ID? Until ID says whether they licensed the Quake engine separately to Valve, we do't know if Valve's using GPL-ed code illegally or just using code they licensed from the author. Temember, the GPL doesn't keep the author from making separate arrangements with third parties.

The source engine is now...

[finalnight]

the Open Source engine...;)

This is really Microsoft's fault

[Katz_is_a_moron]

A security hole in Outlook allowed the person who stole the code to install a program that recorded keystrokes.

Some of you are thinking "Yes, but if the machine had been loaded with the latest patches, this wouldn't have happened!"

I'm sorry, but that's lame. If MS had a policy that gave more importance to writing secure code, it's quite possible that this never would have happened. But writing secure code takes more time, doesn't it?

In the litigious society we live in, I would not be surprise if Valve went after MS for damages.

Re:This is really Microsoft's fault

[Zed2K]

It may be lame but its a valid response. Keep your software updated and you won't have problems. Don't install security patches in a timely matter and you have noone to blame but yourself.

Everyone can bitch and moan all they want about MS and its inability to write secure code, but the facts still remain that people need to use this stuff. Buggy and insecure or not.

Unpatched Outlook == dangerous

[teko_teko]

i guess no more using Outlook for Valve employees then :P

Re:Unpatched Outlook == dangerous

[zero0w]

• 5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

You know, I never understand why people keep using Outlook/Outlook Express on critical development platform; it is long overdue for people to look at non-Microsoft tools for secure communications - not because Microsoft is insecure (it indeed is not well designed in security), but that the target hacker(s) would not have a common target platform to study - Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express on their own machines.

The security expert who got fired next day after publishing a report suggesting Microsoft platform monoculture is dangerous to network / national security is right, and look at what it cost for the Valve and the Half-2 team.

Bad day for Microsoft too

[mark_space2001]

At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

That's what the official response says. Funny that about five stories above this one on the front page there's an article about Microsoft being sued for insecure software.

I'd say it's time to delete Outlook from your hard drive and find something else.

Gabe Newell's an idiot

[Feral Bueller]

... his line of reasoning that it's all Microsoft's fault is pretty funny though...

On a more serious note, do you really think any of the potential mod developers are still going to want to develop for an "open" platform?

What about Steam? How *secure* is their secure content delivery now?

None of this is very encouraging for Valve. If I was a technology partner or a mod developer, I'd be rethinking the platform.

It's too bad -- I've been really looking forward to something new for a change from Valve: I was afraid we were going to see "Half Life: Marty the Vending Machine Game of the Year Gold" Edition.

Re:Here's a link to the

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh... the dream future world where we'll be able to download a CPU and a graphics card over the Net with Bit Torrent Ultra 2009 v94... :-D

this is disgusting

[Starve]

anyone actually downloading this can fucking die. Valve has been a staple in the gaming industry and Half Life 2 and its engine are going to completly change the market of FPS's in other words your pretty much sticking your fucking face in the powder the holy grail once was (Indiana Jones) so do me a favor take a note and go FUCK your self.

Re:this is disgusting

[illumina us]

No, Valve was a stable in the gaming industry. Then they made the pile of shit known as Steam. Not only did this alienate many of their target audience, but also forced many others, like my self, to be unable to play any of the new Valve releases simply because I do not have a broadband connection. I tried, Steam does not work on a 56k, even after all the updates.

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you use the F-bomb a few more times. Maybe then everthing will be alright again. So an unfornate thing happend. Why curse people you don't even know and wish death upon them. Seems a bit rash to me.

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

im amazed by the (im)maturity displayed here. wait...no im not.

Re:this is disgusting

[Tyreth]

...who won't make a Linux version - though they don't owe it to us, it is quite a disappointment.

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not download (I warned you)

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Half Life 2 and its engine are going to completly change the market of FPS

That's a load of major crack smoking bullshit! All Half Life introduce on the market was an innovative way of deploying a story line, the rest is part of past history. If you are looking at games which are actually trying to make the market advance, you should look at the Tribes series or the Halo clones or perhaps the MODs developped for HL ( Natural Selection in front. )

AFAICT, better graphics will never make a game better, gameplay is the substance, the meat and classic FPS is getting old, very old, heck i don't even play quake anymore.

IT FUCKIN SUCKS!

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

silence.

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you too :)

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron, Steam DOES work on 56k.

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Imbecile, with 56K Steam works even slower than your brain. Now do the world a favour and cut your wrists.

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

true, it does work, but i had to get a friend (who has broadband) to put the installer for cstrike on cd for me cos it was too big to get.

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

So get broadband and Quit-yer-bitching(tm).

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah 56K does work, in our league match last night, one of our teammates used STEAM on 56K. It works fine, STEAM is a pain to setup but it does work.

Re:this is disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

actually this source code compiles (with some minor adjustments) in linux.

full build on my slack 9.1 machine.

what i think?! HL2 WILL HAVE a linux CLIENT.

Re:Here's a link to the

[PunchMonkey]

You forgot to add the '//' to comment out your comment:

Major Disclaimor: I am not a programmer, don't try and pick apart my stupid looking wannabe code. It' s a joke, you should interpret the spirit of it, not the technicalities.

A '#' would also be acceptible.

Re:Here's a link to the

[Anonymous Coward]

Was ist das? An ASCII of the torrent or just random keypresses? :-)))

Have no idea why people hate Steam

[ScottGant]

I've read peoples complaints, I've listened to them rant and rave. That is in between me playing CS through Steam.

I don't know what the problem is. I open Steam, find a server I like, then play the fricken game...case closed. It works great for me. I've played HL and CS since they came out, and I like the Steam version better...except for the Shields for the CT team...but that's another story.

Perhaps some people just like to complain.

Re:Have no idea why people hate Steam

[gid-goo]

I agree Steam for Natural Selection is pretty kick ass. It's nice not to use All Seeing Eye. The only problem is that HL seems to crash a lot with Steam as opposed to Won. But everything looks kick ass with Steam.

What do you mean "time to delete Outlook"?

[argent]

I had Outlook banned on our internal network before Windows 98 hit the streets. While other people were fighting massive outbreaks of Melissa and her descendents, we just got on with our business. And the vast majority of the time that we've had an isolated email virus show up, it's been on the computer of someone who was running Outlook against our policy.

It was time to delete Outlook 5 years ago. I can not comprehend the confusion of the mind that would lead anyone to run it at this late date.

Re:What do you mean "time to delete Outlook"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sucks to be you.

I love all those outlook viruses, its a free vacation.. Show up for work "sorry, all the computers are down from a virus, you can go home"

Yipee!

Re:What do you mean "time to delete Outlook"?

[argent]

I'm the guy who'd have to stay and fix the virus problems.

Re:What do you mean "time to delete Outlook"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... sounds like an admin who doesn't know how to configure outlook properly. We can see why you get paid the big bucks... too funny. We have been running outlook for that same period and not ONE SINGLE Virus outbreak. The only security breach we have ever had was with our RedHat/Apache test server in fact. Man, I need to get some air, was laughing so hard at your pathetic post that I almost can't breath now.

Re:What do you mean "time to delete Outlook"?

[argent]

Aha, yet another sniping anonymous Microsoft apologist.

I'm not paid to learn to configure Outlook properly, and manage that configuration on hundreds of PCs used by software developers who have to have local-administrator rights on their own boxes to get their work done. I'm paid to find and implement the best tools to keep those developers productive.

Outlook has an inherently insecure design, as do all the programs that use the Microsoft HTML control for rendering untrusted content. That's because instead of providing a tool that simply displayed content provided by the calling application, Microsoft chose to implement security with layers of crufty hacks and ad-hoc heuristics by which the HTML control is supposed to intuit what "zone" an object is in, and thus what rights it should have.

Over the years they have come up with more and more patches covering more and more special cases they didn't think of, but the basic design... that the HTML control can and will do anything up to the limits of the user's privileges (which, in Windows, have to be absurdly broad because it doesn't have a formal mechanism to delegate rights to an application) is inherently insecure.

So while you were being a good samurai and religiously applying patch-of-the-week to your outlook clients (or, if not, you've been lucky) I picked tools that "fail closed" instead of "failing open". Which means that... very occasionally... I have had to come up with a workaround so some user can access some web page whose creator was naive or arrogant enough to code for Internet Explorer only.

People seem to have been trained into an expectation that computers are somehow different from everything else that they deal with. That it's normal to have to do the equivalent of checking the toilet paper to make sure it's not water-soluble on a weekly basis. I say it isn't... that it's possible to design software so that it tends to fail "safely" into a closed and secure state rather than failing "open" so the world can get in.

Re:What do you mean "time to delete Outlook"?

[Baggio]

Office 2003 doesn't rely on MSHTML to render those emails. Your assumption may be based on older versions of Office, but MS does work hard to increase security everywhere. The newer software shows their dedication to improving the platform.

Re:What do you mean "time to delete Outlook"?

[argent]

I'm assuming by "Office 2003 doesn't rely on MSHTML to render those emails" you mean "Office 2003 doesn't rely on a component that has the ability to run things like ActiveX at all".

Otherwise it's a new implementation of the same problem. Anyway, can you clarify that?

So, some time in the future a small percentage of the people using "Outlook" will start using a different rendering engine. The ones using "Outlook Express" will continue to use MSHTML, and unless there's some killer feature in Office 2003 it'll be 3 or 4 years before the mass of elite "Real Outlook" users migrate.

Meanwhile, other MSHTML-based applications will remain vulnerable.

A Microsoft "dedicated to improving the platform" would have fixed this in 98SE and NT4 SP2 by caponising MSHTML and hiding the original somewhere only Windows Explorer can find it... and *that* version would have http ripped bloodily from its steaming innards.

Not "disabled for this zone"... no, the code paths needed to access anything but local files would be physically removed from the one executable, and the code paths needed to execute untrusted content would be absent from the other.

That's the kind of fix we need. And 6 months ago would have been none too soon. Right now would be OK. That would be, well, not exactly "working hard" but close enough I'd be willing for forgive (if not forget) that past five ears. Something phased in by attrition over several years? That's hardly working.

Leaked MEMO from today

[xintegerx]

TO: GORDON FREEMAN (webmaster@bigjugs.com)
FROM: GABE N. (gabe@valvesoftware.com)
DATE: October 2, 2003
RE: HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED

Hi Gordon,

The program has escaped and we are in deep trouble. I guess the team forgot that this was a risk we were all taking when we strived to improve artifical intelligence and realism. We knew the risk was there.... We need your help, Gordon.

At 9:02 PM, Half-Life 2 became self-aware and e-mailed copies of itself to fans in Gabe's Outlook addressbook.

The software, manipulating and cramming itself into packets and headers, arrives and reassembles itself at six hundred million internet connected machines by 9:40 PM, during the peak hour of connectivity.

Control of military functions, satellites, and nuclear plants will be attained by approximately 10:15. Scients have tracked the software's plan to initiate countdown at 11:30, scheduled for midnight activation. By 10:55, over twenty percent of the weapons across the globe will still be unable to be put offline by humans. The countdown clock reads 1 hour, 4 minutes, 32 seconds until midnight.

You are Gordon Freeman. I know that you once again happen to be working inside a new, modern version of the HEV suit at this time. You are the world's only hope. Can you save the world? Or will you be .. terminated?

Thanks, Gabe

P.S. Oh and save me any extra copies of the HEV suit. And save the third for a chick. So we can reproduce later. Thanks~

Re:Leaked MEMO from today

[Anonymous Coward]

This email is a big FAKE

Gabe's email IS:

Gabe Newell (GabeN@valvesoftware.com)

AND NOT

GABE N. (gabe@valvesoftware.com)

I am NOT a laywer.

[wantedman]

I am not a laywer. The N got erased!

Steam hard at work

[vaguelyamused]

Well at least we know now Valve's "Steam" service can be useful downloading at least one thing. It's pretty damn useless for anything else.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

You were obviously not breast fed as a baby, and I'm sorry you don't know what your father looks like.

They claim they have been intercepting emails!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go here to skip the annoying flash intro, but that won't be much help since the whole site is flash based.

Two Words

[Nailer]

Linux Port :^)

Got it to compile

[The Evil Plush Toy]

I got it to compile and can very much say it's not a hoax. An intersting thing is that the launcher workspace builds two exe's: hl2.exe and tf2.exe

Like I said the code compiles fine, and runs until somewhere inside the VGUI_Init procedure (console initilization, to be precise) where it crashes.

I'm working on re-compiling all the DLLs to debug (idiot me did release initally) so I can step in here and try to fix it.

Dear Valve, please don't kill me.

Re:Got it to compile

[The Evil Plush Toy]

By the way, here are the compilation instructions:

Compile /launcher_main
Compile /launher
When you go to compile /engine, you'll get 2 unresolved externals. Do a search for the two functions and comment it out (each is only called once)
Compile /engine
Compile filesystem/filesystem_stdio
Compile /gameui
Copy gameui.dll to ../hl2/bin/
Compile /materialsystem
Compile /shaderdx8
Compile /studiorender
Compile /tier0
Compile /vgui2
Compile /vguimatsurface
Compile /vphysics
Compile /vstdlib


There you go, then go ahead and run hl2.exe (add "-window" to run in windowed mode)

Re:Got it to compile

[Anonymous Coward]

what compiler are you using? I'm using vc6.0 and i'm getting some errors.

Re:Got it to compile

[Spam Bandito]

I heard it compiles with VC6.0, SP 5. Of course, I don't have my VC6 cd at the moment so I can't try it.

Re:Got it to compile

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you look at the dev_build_all.bat, you can see what it's building, and then check out each limb of the build tree under that.
It's not that interesting that it's building two .exe's. It might as well build worldcraft, too.

Re:Got it to compile

[Anonymous Coward]

When you go to compile /engine, you'll get 2 unresolved externals

I got like 6,000 unresolved externals on that module. 'Sup with that?

VALVE VS SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

I have indisputable evidence that SCO has stolen source code from Halflife 2 and placed it in the linux kernel.

Woohoo...

[TrentC]

...now I don't have to wait weeks or months for those multiplayer cheats to start surfacing, we'll have day-1 multiplayer cheats.

To the 3l33t hAx0Rz who pulled this off, I salute you -- it's a one-fingered salute, but I'm sure my point gets across.

Jay (=
(On the other hand, maybe some enterprising programmers can help Valve work on that long-awaited Linux port...)

mostly right, mostly :)

[Uberbah]

That is why you will never see a game that is not from Valve that uses the Half-Life engine.

Actually, at least one James Bond game is based on the Half-Life engine. Its possible that the studio (in this case Gearbox I believe) had some convoluted licensing scheme to pay both Valve and id. However, the Quake 1 engine has been released as GPL, so they probably just published the changes and didn't pay id at all.

grep -Ri fuck * | wc -l

[fire-eyes]

hl2_src $ grep -Ri fuck * | wc -l
99

heh heh heh.

linux-2.4.22 $ grep -Ri fuck * | wc -l
44

linux-2.6.0-test6-mm1 $ grep -Ri fuck * | wc -l
46

Progress rules.

no its not going to be good at all

[Uberbah]

Internet games are completely unlike other kinds of client/servers (web, database) because they need to do a great deal of inter-communication with a great deal of trust between the client and the server, and they need to do it at a high rate of speed.

Put it another way, look at all the hacks that were available for Half-Life when the code for that wasn't even available.

Now it is obvious why Half Life 2 was delayed

[dr ttol]

How it is obvious why Half Life 2 was delayed. They recently just found out about the network intrusion and they are doing a risk and damage analysis. It makes perfect sense to delay the release until it is known what exactly was taken/damaged. They don't want to ship a game with embedded trojans in it. You don't want to play a game from a company that was recently hacked. I'm surprised they didn't come clean before the code hit the net.

Re:Now it is obvious why Half Life 2 was delayed

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo we have 'teh win' right here. This is exactly what I have been thinking all along. That and my sympathy for their situation. Now we all need to try to track these wang's down and make sure they do bend over time at a nice manly jail, for their part in delaying this piece of glorious entertainment.

Irony is....

[Trikenstein]

Being hoisted by your own petard.

At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve.

Kinda ironic considering the spyware in steam.

And yeah, I'm aware that its been removed.
(or at least better hidden)

Re:Irony is....

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm no. The key-recorders were from the email viruses. If you want to blame someone, blame Microsoft for putting out such a crappy product (Windows) and not patching it soon enough. So if there is one true person responsible for this leak, it's bill gates.

nuff

Re:Irony is....

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. You fucking FUCKING loser.

Re:Here is some sample code - haiku

[The Munger]

ATI pays big, Their card improves ten-fold plus, nVidia lost.

Hate to sound morbid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad it happened to valve, and not 3d realms...

Re:Here is some sample code - haiku

[The Munger]

Did not use preview,
Formatting gone to the dogs,
Poster never learns.

Good Point!

[Cornelius the Great]

Actually, some good could come of this codeleak due to peer review.

Linux makes a very secure OS not because its code is hidden from the public (like their biggest rival, ahem), but because the best hackers in the world have access to it and fix it before serious issues arise.

I'm willing to bet that if Valve actually welcomed insight from the open-source community, people would contribute, without question.

Who knows, maybe Valve could take advantage of adding optimizations, fixing memory leaks, and potential crashes where they normally couldn't?

Circumstances vague, but response predictable

[a no n y man 123]

In the past few years, gaming (especially PC gaming) has really entered the mainstream. While this makes games more popular, this has also led to the majority gamers having very little computer knowledge.

Many of these gamers see game developers like many of us see open source developers: heroes, creative geniuses, and always deserving of praise and/or money. Unlike us, however, these typical gamers will overlook almost any mistake and throw their full support behind anyone.

As shown so clearly by the replies to Gabe Newell's "we're part of the community, so all of you help us" post, this is seen as some kind of war. There are many calls for the hacker(s) to be hanged.

The end result is clear: Half-Life 2 will still sell over a million copies, Valve has recovered from its recent PR disaster (Steam) and this code leak has done almost no damage. Any product made from this prerelease code would unquestionably be illegal.

Re:Circumstances vague, but response predictable

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm hardly. The main reason this is going to hurt valve is hackers. They (yes hackers) now have the source and can determine the best mode to cheat in multiplayer now. Ever wonder why a lot of people stopped playing counterstrike? Because it became so gay due to the cheaters.

Re:Circumstances vague, but response predictable

[a no n y man 123]

Valve was going to have a hacker problem no matter what. A lot of people (including me) did stop playing Counter-Strike, but it's still the #1 online game. It's not as if without this code leak, VAC would not be needed. Besides, Steam was supposed to fix all these problems by allowing Valve to make constant updates to client code. If anything, this will force them to improve Steam.

Now that the source is out...

[Mecanico]

I think theres not quite a lot to hide now. Almost anyone can see their propietary code, and most likely theres no way to avoid the cloning or reimplementation of those at this or later time (and engine).

The inmediate solution is IMHO to actually try to make the actual game as (or more) appealing than the first to make a real profit from it, and make modding as incredibly easy as possible (almost like a WYSIWYG mod creation system, ok silly but thats the idea of easy). Engine licensing would still fare poorly because of this, but then again, make a good game, and forget about the engine. Have you ever seen warcraft 3 engine in other games? (Ok, maybe not the best example, but good games stand on their own, and half life 2 has a lot going for itself)

Anyways I'm sorry for Valve. I hope they can come out of this the best they can.

Re:just to clear matters up

[SQLz]

It would look like the HL1 SDK because: a. the package contained the source for HL1 b. the modding SDK API stayed pretty much the same to make it easier for everyone to port their mods.

Uh oh

[robotmurder]

Has anyone else noticed the corrolation between "leak" and "Valve" yet? I think it's pretty funny.

Re:mostly right, mostly :)

[Osty]

Actually, at least one James Bond game is based on the Half-Life engine. Its possible that the studio (in this case Gearbox I believe) had some convoluted licensing scheme to pay both Valve and id. However, the Quake 1 engine has been released as GPL, so they probably just published the changes and didn't pay id at all.

That one I didn't know about :) However, one licensed game, from a developer that is very closely related to Valve (Gearbox did several expansion packs for Valve, and did the PS2 port as well), is a far cry from the hundreds of games that have licensed id or Epic technology. The most likely scenario is that Gearbox, who have a very close relationship with Valve, negotiated a deal with both Valve and id for a license to the Half-Life engine. I highly doubt they went the GPLed route, especially since that while the Quake engine is GPLed, the Half-Life engine isn't and I haven't heard anything about Valve releasing their changes back into the GPLed tree (would be very difficult to do, since the Half-Life engine made major modifications to the Quake engine). What's that old saying about exceptions proving rules? :)

THIS IS SCO PROPERTY

[strictnein]

In related news, SCO has filed suit against Valve for their liberal use of "comments" in source code, a method SCO invented during the late 1990's.

Patches?

[teval]

This all begs the question.. is there any place to submit patches? Heh, some of the linux code could use some reworking.

Re:Patches?

[Spam Bandito]

begging the question

Re:HL2 Source

[aderkach]

http://www.aderkach.org/hl2_src.rar 32MB

Maybe they shouldn't have named the engine

[Floppy-A]

Source

Get Help from RiAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Valve should get help from RIAA in tracking down those responsbile for leaking the Half-life2 source code.

Source Link Here

[aderkach]

http://www.aderkach.org/hl2_src.rar It will remain up until I run out of bandwidth

Re:Source Link Here

[Anonymous Coward]

I have reported your name to Valve's legal department, and I've Cc'ed the appropriate details to the Business Software Alliance. What you are doing is illegal.

Re:Source Link Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Peeps like you should be behind bars.

Re:Source Link Here

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, this is a troll you noob.

Re:HL2 Source

[aderkach]

http://aderkach.pigstuy.com/source/ Another source :D

Re:HL2 Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Karma for killing the Mac Half-Life port.
Ha!

News Flash

[t0ny]

This just in. Network security over at Valve really, really sucks.

The bright side for me

[Chuck Chunder]

Is that after reading a few Halflife forums the quality of Slashdot posters seems much better than it used to.

Re:The bright side for me

[PyroMosh]

It's funny because it's so true!

Re:The bright side for me

[jediploggie]

Where can I get the code? I would really like to check it out. All of the other links that I've tried don't seem to work at all.
-Please help!

Who says it was?

[BZArcher]

There's no reason it had to be. Let's start from what we know from Gabe's post. In fact, let's assume the Source wasn't even on Gabe's machine.

Starting with the exploits in his outlook, they get information on which server holds the code, how their server scheme works, maybe even some addresses if they get really lucky. The keystroke logging programs help even more, because it gives passwords to those servers.

Now, we have an internal network address or name, a password, probably usernames, and maybe even a directory to look in.

So, now we move to the hack of the webmail server. Maybe they used keylogs for that, too, maybe it had an open port. Regardless. Slip inside there, and use those tasty server cycles to help portscan or maybe even legitimately access into the Source box, which is almost certainly required to be accessible over the internal network, unless you really want all your coders hamstrung.

Then, you pull that source file and either make it part of an email, or an attachment. Webmail server pops it to an account you have legal or illegal access to and can strip the mail out of without being traced...and whalah! You've just used the magic of the internet to steal from a machine that isn't connected to the internet.

What I think

[atoman]

Had the game came out on schedual, this wouldnt have happened because whatever assmonkey did this would have been busy playing the damn game like a happy little fag instead of fucking with other peoples shit. Its as simple as that, and now I really want to know as Im sure you all agree its a good question > why the fuck it was delayed? A bad answer would be, \to internationalize it \because of video card vendors \Steam \misc bullshit all that aside, they really took for granted the unrest of the people to get this game or any part of it. The proof is right there they had nothing better to do.. goddamn get a life. I need to digest what this means for what I had in mind for my crew, modding a TC. Not to mention what this means for the release date now, so basically they fucked us all over including themselves. Back to playing whatever crap thats out there now for alot longer I guess. not happy Dont fuck with peoples entertainment! Go fuck your cat if your bored, you obviously have no morals you thief fucking bastards. Last but not least to all you Linux losers, really _give me a fucking break_, what difference does it make what OS you play it on? NONE, zero its the same the same fucking game, give it a rest.

Re:What I think

[Spam Bandito]

Must... not... feed... trolls...

Re:What I think

[atoman]

Right so I didnt format my text, no spaces or paragraphs, what the hell is that? Oh I see HTML format is the default, genius whoever thought of that beings this is a discussion board ect.

Pssst hint.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Pssst hint.....
Unplug your lan connection to the server with your code. Guaranteed hack proof. :-)

It is a bummer though.

Re:This is news???

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU FAIL IT JOO ARE TEH GAY LOL OMG!!!!11111

fuck. you are dumb. dumb, dumb, dumb.

post on slashdot or sex with a mare??!?!?!??!?!??!!

U R GHEY!

[Anonymous Coward]

U R GHEY!

Go to hell Gabe!

[Lord Kano]

From the valve response

"If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details."

Then Gabe goes on to say

"Important: Just to be clear, it's ok to talk about the leak and the possible implications, however we'll nuke you and your family if you even make the most slight clever hint of where to download it or even screenshots of it."

What? You ask for help and then you threaten?

Suck my nuts Gabe! I downloaded the source from BitTorrent, and anyone else who is remotely interested in finding out if this is the real deal should do the same.

After behavior like that, I wouldn't tell you who infiltrated your network even if that person had cracked into my system and deleted all of my pr0n.

LK

Re:Go to hell Gabe!

[Dysan2k]

Dude, Gabe didn't say that, it was the person on the site who posted Gabe's letter. Look before you react man.

Re:FUCK THESE GUYS

[Nogami_Saeko]

Don't be an ass. The line about "nuking people" was made by moderators on Shacknews.

Gabe didn't say that at all.

How about verifying your roumers before posting them as facts?

N.

You are wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every FPS style game trusts the clients.

The Community already found out who did it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone posted this up to this thread on the matter at Beyond3D http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8279 &start=40 :
speng at Beyond3d wrote:
Who?: Someone's best guess
Quote:

The leaker was [GSM]Grim. That is who posted it on Usenet before anyone on IRC even had it. I did some googling and with the help of Derek (TheAmazingXemo) we figured out who this is. Please see: http://www.cracksmokingmonkeys.net/members.php?m=g rim for a picture of the person who either 1) hacked valve or 2) was very close to the people who did. I already emailed valve with all of the information I have."

Why?:

Because they could.

Such a shame, this person or whoever it is when caught will pay dearly.

Speng.

All quoted.
Mod the Anonymous Coward up! People HAVE TO SEE THIS.
NICE JOB, "COMMUNITY"! ;)

Re:The Community already found out who did it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, and there's no way this guy could just be someone you don't like?

EXCELLENT!

September 30 release?

[complete loony]

Is this why Valve skipped on the September 30 release?
Are they now madly changing all their authentication methods?

Wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a long history of cheating in Netrek. Paranoid model, my ass. (I think the old versions were even peer-to-peer.)

The "Open Source" solution to this problem was develop a form of DRM, using signed binaries. Just like all the closed source games on the shelves.

The open-source networked game "Netrek" allows for trusted binary-only distribution of "RSA-blessed" clients so that cheating behavior can be eliminated/reduced. Although anyone can compile a fully operational client using the publicly distributed source, it will not be RSA-blessed and some public Netrek servers may have been configured to disallow unblessed clients. What differentiates a blessed client is a compile-time directive and the inclusion of a private RSA (or sometimes PGP) key within the compiled binary. The corresponding public half of the key must then be given to each Netrek server operator so that it can be added to his server's list of explicitly allowed clients.

here

Re:Wrong!

[Rogerborg]

> There's a long history of cheating in Netrek. Paranoid model, my ass. (I think the old versions were even peer-to-peer.)

Well, they weren't, they were X apps, which makes your opinion on the ability to cheat rather spurious, doesn't it?

The RSA client authentication was a layer on top of the network model. It was breakable by a man-in-the-middle attack, if you could change the result of a getpeername() call on the victim client machine (root access or just -assert on a SunOS/Solaris shared object machine).

So, yes, you could cheat by writing a hacked client. And you know what? It didn't really help. You could get torpedoes to auto-aim. Great, except that just meant that clued players could almost always dodge them, and you couldn't fire them so as to deny an area of space, a dreadful disadvantage. You could get a mean phaser-lock (assuming that you had no lag), but you still had to decide if the range/fuel/damage equation made sense. You could get the client to flick shields up and down to try and split damage, but not with the same sense of context as a human player, leading to you taking hull damage when you really needed to be at maximum warp. You could show cloaked ships on the tactical screen, but only at the incorrect and erratically updated position that the server sent, with incorrect heading and speed information that meant that you knew that they were there, but not what they were doing or how to hit them.

Basically, you could write a client that performed like a highly skillful but almost totally clueless human. Tactically, it was fine; if you could muscle in close, you could hit the "splurge" key and brutalise most human players with a profligate burst of weapon fire. But strategically (which is what mattered in Netrek) that would often leave you low on fuel and damaged exactly when you needed to be somewhere else fast. The only really useful parts were information features, i.e. keeping track and highlighting enemy carriers. But even then, the client was just guessing, and it wasn't doing anything that a good human player wouldn't do. One of the big indicators of good design is that nobody ever wrote a decent robot player for Netrek. The game simply had too much emergent complexity, and the network model stopped robots from gaining enough of a tactical advantage to make up for their strategic failings. Netrek is Go to XPilot's Chess.

Remember, I was talking about the network model. Netrek sends very few pieces of information that it doesn't absolutely have to. If you don't have friendly ships close enough to enemy ships, you get no information on them, and likewise for enemy planets. If you're close, you can see that 3 armies have just been beamed up from a planet, but you don't know which of the two ships in orbit beamed them up. You get position, speed, heading info for enemy ships, and nothing else, not shield info, not damage info. The only snafu that I found was that cloaked ship information identifies the ship (so that you can display the player and type) when it should really just be handled as "unidentified unit" data (but it would be fairly easy to identify it anyway by elimination, so I'm letting that one slide).

When I see a game with a better network model (and basic design) than Netrek, I'll happily acknowlege it. I'm still waiting.

Re:Wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Netrek sends very few pieces of information that it doesn't absolutely have to.

Sounds a lot like Quake-type games .. like HalfLife.

The client only knows people near by. It only knows their position, speed, and heading. Health info is kept on the server. So, you can aimbot and wallhack. Cheating is stopped by signed binaries and "punkbuster" ... just like your wonderful example of NeTrek.

Re:Wrong!

[Rogerborg]

>Sounds a lot like Quake-type games .. like HalfLife.

A couple of things:

1. "4 wheels and an engine" sounds a lot like either a Fiat or a Ferrari.
2. All Anonymous Cowards suck Satan's scaley worm pecker and know nothing about nothing.

It's time to Step Away From The Computer when..

[Archon-X]

Important: Just to be clear, it's ok to talk about the leak and the possible implications, however we'll nuke you and your family if you even make the most slight clever hint of where to download it or even screenshots of it.

Another lesson not to use Outlook

[Quizo69]

It's right there in the quoted response:

"Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane."

Just think, if they hadn't used Outlook to view their email, this whole leak may not have happened. Perhaps this needs to be more widely disseminated to teach people that Outlook = BAD.

Quizo69

Re:Another lesson not to use Outlook

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

Yes, using outlook is bad, but nowhere as monumentally stupid as allowing an asset as valuable as the HL2 source anywhere near a machine connected to the internet. When you have something as important as that and you really don't want it leaking, you make damn sure that development machines are isolated from any internat capable machine - both in terms of networking and physical access. Even if such isolation isn't possible, a decent firewall, IDS and maybe even an airgap with logging, log analysis software and alerts, combined with a network admin who has the faintest clue about how to handle intrusion attempts, could have prevented this even if they used outlook.

Re:Another lesson not to use Outlook

[Steveftoth]

What you are saying is just use a computer for only email. Which makes sense until you realize that it's expensive and a PITA.

That wasn't Gabe, it was a Shacknews admin!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had paid attention to the text layout here you would have noticed that it was NOT Gabe who made the comment, but Steve Gibson was the one who made that comment.

Re:That wasn't Gabe, it was a Shacknews admin!

[Lord Kano]

If you had paid attention to the text layout here you would have noticed that it was NOT Gabe who made the comment, but Steve Gibson was the one who made that comment.

You are correct and Gabe, I apologize, Steve can suck my nuts.

LK

some things

[jonwil]

1.the linux stuff is server-only.
if there really was a linux client, it would be using OpenGL and there are no references anywhere to OpenGL in the code.

2.I cant see anything in there that indicates Valve is violating open-source licences.
There are some LGPL libaries that they are able to use under the terms of the LGPL (I dont have the time to actually check if there are any "inhouse" mods for those) and one file thats GPL which looks like its only for internal tools and not for anything thats going to be public so they arent violating the GPL there.

3.I dont think anyone will actually use this source code (or bits thereof):
A.valve would pursue them if they did (for copyright violation)
and B.its going to be very out-of-date (missing a chunk of "crunch time" bugfixes) by the time the game itself actually comes out.

4.Its likely that (as happened with Half-Life 1) the bits of code pertaining to things like gameplay stuff will be released

and 5.I think there will be 5 different groups that will gain from this source code:

1.cheaters will see how to write better cheats (e.g. layout of internal game structures/classes etc)

2.modders will see how to make better mods (see how game engine works, see details of propriatory file formats, able to use interal utillities to generate maps, do BSP and stuff etc)

3.competitors (in fact anyone doing 3D coding) will be able to see how Valve does

4.users of other OS's will see details that will enable it to be made to run better on other OS's (for example Linux via WINE or ReactOS when it gets Direct3D going)

and 5.graphics card lovers/technical sites/etc will be able to see if HL2 really does favor one card over another

oh and BTW, I seriously doubt that this is any kind of "officially unofficial" leak (i.e. deliberatly leak code then deny it ever happened) since how would that benifit valve?

speaking of leaks

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell?

seriously, everyone enjoys a nice cathedral now and then... leaks destroy the foundation

Lets jump to conclusions!!

[zer0harm]

Before we do though, why were Valve using the preview pane in Outlook - really smart... Who has motive to leak the code? In the absence of leads shouldn't we be making rash assumptions and assigning blame? Obviously nVidia stole the code to give them time to work on their dx9 drivers. This will also make the purchase of ATI's 9800XT with HL2 voucher more of a term deposit graphics solution...

Re:FUCK THESE GUYS

[JohnwheeleR]

No man. FUCK YOU. These guys poured there heart and soul into creating this game. This is their livlihood someone is screwing with. Even though Gabe didn't say what you thought he did, it would be understandable considering the circumstances. Don't go around suggesting people download the source code unless you understand the ramifications and are willing to accept the resposibility. dickhead.

Lots of lessons here

[Overly Critical Guy]

In other words, we need to sway people from insecure products. So that means no usage of ssh in Valve either. Or OpenSSL. Or anything else listed in my sig.

Re:Lots of lessons here

[Anonymous Coward]

Only *massively* insecure products.

IHBT, POYB.

Re:Lots of lessons here

[Goldberg's Pants]

Microsoft = "Bollocks! There's holes in our software. Hope nobody finds them."

Three weeks later = "Oh fuck, someone did, guess we'd better think about considering patching it.

SSH (and it's OS brethren) = "Shit, there's a hole. Better patch it ASAP."

Following day = "Bollocks! Added more holes. Better get a patch out quick.

Three weeks later = (SSH developers asleep because there job was done properly).

Specious argument dude. ALL software has security holes to differing degrees, but it's been known for YEARS now that Outlook has more holes than Dillinger's corpse, and yet people still use it.

damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty fucking funny.

THANK GOD!!!

[neoevans]

Now I KNOW the game will be released for my Mac. So what if it's not by Valve?

Re:FUCK THESE GUYS

[Lord Kano]

These guys poured there heart and soul into creating this game. This is their livlihood someone is screwing with.

True enough, but not my problem.

Don't go around suggesting people download the source code unless you understand the ramifications and are willing to accept the resposibility.

The first amendment to the US Constitution gives me the right to suggest anything that I want. Though I have not opened the .rar file to inspect the contents, I downloaded what is purported to be the HL2 source. If you're interested in finding out for yourself, do the same.

Also, I am of the opinion that a 32MiB rar file could not possibly contain enough of the final release to make a usable copy of a game that will no doubt be at least a GiB or more in size.

LK

Security thru obscurity ppl are missing the point

[moebius_4d]

Saying over and over again that "security through obscurity" is bad is missing the point. That phrase means that simply not telling people how you protect yourself is not much of a defense, because a clever attacker can figure it out. To be safe, you need to be able to tell the potential attacker exactly what you have done (if not the exact key, etc.) and still have reason to believe that he can't compromise your security.

But none of that applies here.

First of all, you are actually not trying to protect the server. The client is actually allowed to send all the data that a hacked/aimbot/etc client sends. The limitation is supposed to be that the client is operated by human skill instead of a program. So what you are really trying to protect is the client. (Yes, some things like looking one way and firing another, too rapid/accurate turns and shots can be detected server side, but for the purpose of detecting a hacked client. Again, it's about securing the client.)

Now the problem with this is, that it's impossible. The client is in the hands of the enemy. By definition all your security is through obscurity, since the client can be disassembled, its memory can be watched as it runs, etc. There is no other kind of security on the client besides obscurity, short of some Palladium-like thing.

If you have a better idea, don't waste it on a game, because it's worth around a billion dollars to the right people these days.

So I wish all the knee-jerk posters would lay off smugly saying that there's no security through obscurity so they get what they deserve. You need to put down the pipe and think it through.

Re: First ?

[Anonymous Coward]

From: helpvalve@valvesoftware.com
To:
Subject: RE: First ?

We have been hearing similar rumors. One of the rumors we are currently investigating is whether a certain IRC server listed as irc.cheatlist.com had anything to do with it. There were reports of people with the source code before we were aware of it being released in the channel #Cheatlist. We will be monitoring that channel to see if the rumors are true.

I would appreciate any assistance of the community in tracking this down.

Gabe Newell

Another email / memo ?

[Anonymous Coward]

From: helpvalve@valvesoftware.com
To:
Subject: RE: First ?

We have been hearing similar rumors. One of the rumors we are currently investigating is whether a certain IRC server listed as irc.cheatlist.com had anything to do with it. There were reports of people with the source code before we were aware of it being released in the channel #Cheatlist. We will be monitoring that channel to see if the rumors are true.

I would appreciate any assistance of the community in tracking this down.

Gabe Newell

9/11?

[jromz03]

I knew it! Osama bin Laden strikes again! And what an evil genius he is. Not only did striked terror on one of the most respected game companies. He gets to play HL2 first before anybody else!

The bastard.

Where is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"No doubt they'll see a spike in their referrer logs from people Googling for 'hl2 source code'. "

Sure - I helped towards that! Where is it? It's not on Kazaa. It can't be that big, zipped up. I just want a look - i'm not going to compile it or anything.

DIY?

[leonbrooks]

Since the source is out there, you could concievably roll your own Linux version. I imagine that questions will be asked in parliament when you submit your first patch, though. (-:

Do it the American way, sue Microsoft!

[leonbrooks]

After all, a vulnerability in their email client seems to have let the code out of the bag:

Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

...unless Valve're hoping someone will pipe up and say "that's not right! they were hacked through their Exchange server... uh... <*WHAM*>"

Not for long, bucko! (-:

[leonbrooks]

At least, if this will do the bulk of the DirectX -> OpenGL heavy lifting, the remainder can probably be worked around enough to get a functional game. Then the implementor can work on the coverted stuff more or less at leisure.

MOD PARENT UP !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

NT

backdoor

[Alban]

Yeah, it's basically like quake, where both single and multiplayer games are client/server.

Except that in the single player game, the host handles both the client logic and the server logic (all part of the same process naturally).

For a multiplayer game, data transfers between client and server consist of the usual network transmission with bit packing, delta compression, ACKs when needed, etc. Whereas in a single player game, data transfers simply consist in the data being mem copied from the server "object" to the client "object".

It would still work without this "fast path", except it would be a waste of time to go through all the compression when there is near infinite bandwidth (mem to mem), and through the prediction when there is no latency or packet loss.

Re:Good day for Microsoft

[pacc]

This would be a good day to launch more information about how DRM and hardware security extensions might protect your IP.

Eventually the security demands from companies and developers might form the first installation base of Palladium. Then consumers choices might not matter in the long run.

The Thieves are being chased!

[Anonymous Coward]

"http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s= 67205fdb6a1ffe615dac11bc2e13e478&threadid=10781&pe rpage=15&pagenumber=1" If these are the real people behind this, they are about to get /. rage all over them. Good find by this Ruroni fellow!

MD5 sum

[Anonymous Coward]

So many links to copies, but no MD5 sum?

5c1a7237251aa3329f8b9a50ffc20841 hl2_src.rar

Now i understand

[mbennis]

When Gabe, a week before tells shacknews that they are experiencing mail problems and that the gold release is expected in christmas...
They needed time to modify their final code and modify all anticheating stuff after the source have leaked.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

You were obviously not breast fed as a baby, and I'm sorry you don't know what your father looks like.

I know what his father looks like. I see him in the mirror every day. Of course, his mom was much skinnier and prettier back in the day. How was I to know the baby was mine? It's not like she was saving herself for marriage, or lunchtime. She had more sweaty beef inside her than a livestock show.

Re:and now for something completely different...

[Anonymous Coward]

no, that's in the US

Re:and now for something completely different...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Porthwhanker, did you forget to check the "Post Anonymously" checkbox?

How many of the GNAA trolls were you responsible for?

Why are they using the Preview Pane?

[WapoStyle]

Where I work we have a strict "No Outlook Preview Pane" rule. I can't believe a company of programmers had this happen to them with such a simple avoidable error.

Jeeze, I really hate to keep harping on it but Outlook is the devil.

i'm having trouble compiling it...

[ghettoreb]

can anyone post detailed instructions on compiling in VC6.0++ or in .NET??? i keep getting errors when following the super concise instructions posted in this thread.

thanks!

You're an idiot.

[beavermaster]

That's right, you're an idiot. Do you have any idea how much time and effort it takes to make a game, let alone ANY software? Have you ever sat through a full project cycle while publishers breathing down your neck? Do you have any idea on the expectations these developes have to live up to? No one deserves their code stolen. Anyone who says so is a tool.

If they delay the game, so fucking what? At least they try to improve the game, rather than release a buggy game.

Re:You're an idiot.

[netdemonboberb]

This is actually good for the modding community. People will be able to start their mods early (If they were lucky enough to get the source) and actually help HL2 not lose the interest of people early on.

Re:You're an idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

What ? Fo what in hell does the modding-community need the engine-source-code ??

Thats bullshit, an SDK would be absolutly enough

Re:You're an idiot.

[netdemonboberb]

The SDK wasn't going to come out for a while, yet the engine and game source (of which the SDK would be based on) is available a lot sooner. If the SDK wasn't going to come out until December, yet people can start modding now, of course its better for early release of mods. That's just common sense.

QHost Trojan & Half Life 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I don't know which one it was, but some a-hole has posted a link to a page with the QHosts trojan above (somewhere). If Google doesn't seem to be working for ya today, you know what I mean.

I declare SHANANIGANS!

[mojogojo]

This is all clearly a hoax, or possibly even a PR stunt by Valve themselves.

There's even a funny employee bio (Chris Newcombe) that changes on the Valve site very often (here), and the employee's name is found in this "leaked source" also.

Read more commentary here: Halflifesource.com Don't believe everything you read on slashdot.

Wibble

[PiMuRho]

Hello Chewcky!

Head Start for the CIA?

[Anonymous Coward]

CIA pursues video game

You jest, but a valid point.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope it doesn't end up in any GPL games, which in turn will end up in other GPL games, and then the SCO-type saga happens all over again.

Some things about the leaked source of the Source

[Drakon86]

Well, this really is the full source of Half-Life 2.
Gabe Newell had already confirmed it, and it should be pretty obvious to any programmer who looked it across. This is very bad for Valve, and I feel terribly sorry for the team, but it really isn't the worst thing that happened. Not every bit of source has been leaked.
The leaked tree includes some .lib files. Those could be either static libs, or import libraries for linking the application with external DLLs.
So, neither the MSS nor STEAM library have been leaked - their lib files are only import libraries, and there's no source for them in the tree. So goes for vtuneapi, whatever could that be.
The source code for Havok included is also only an interface, the real solver code is included as a static lib (still bad luck).
I also found some code with GPL (*not* LGPL) license among Havok source files, someone should really look at it closer.
Well, that's it. I now delete the source out of respect to Valve.
I really hope they find the bastards.

Re:Some things about the leaked source of the Sour

[Drakon86]

Well, I meant "the worst thing that *could have* happened".
I should sleep more :)

Uh no

[autopr0n]

The human brain is definitely not faster at calculating vectors, or doing any kind of math, then a computer. Eventually, you might build neural pathways that do some of the work for you unconsciously, but it would still be an approximation.

If you know the current vector, and you know the vector you need, all you have to do is subtract. If you need to tell the server to give you some amount of torque to the gun, you can do that easily using classical physics. The operation won't take more then a few hundred CPU cycles.

Half life 2 compile guide

[Manip]

Half life 2 compile guide has been made to help compile http://www.thedrydock.net/adminspace/manip/Compile _Half_Life_2.txt

Must be easy to

[mattACK]

These people are living my dream and programming kick ass games. I support them in a fiduciary and real way. Fuck the MPAA, fuck the RIAA, but fuck Valve? Nope. No, they are cool. Fuck you and fuck FreeMath too.

Respect doesn't end when anonymity begins. Stop seeding. If you want to learn to program a game download the Quake source.

Re:Xbox Version (you mean halo mod)

[Anonymous Coward]

Every post you have ever made is aparently mindless microsoft bashing. How mad at Microsoft can you possibly be working at Blockbuster? I think that you are probably one of the dummest people who ever managed to learn to read.

Re:One Word: The technologies licensed... wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

The licensing issues this guy brings up could have enormous side-effects. Who owns Valve? Public or private?

By the way, I found this thread on http://www.TechNewsFirst.com

Re:and now for something completely different...

[Porthwhanker]

Actually, this was my first GNAA post. First In Soviet Russia, too! I didn't forget to check "post anonymously", rather I wasn't logged in and my browser autocompleted my login info and I didn't notice because I was rushing for fp.... ah well, maybe it's time to make a new account, I don't want to be associated with this :(

But at least I got my first fp.

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a random thought. Ever notice the attitude of people that download warez and mp3s and whatnot, in regards to "big business"? They think they're mean, evil corporate types, just out to make a buck, yadda yadda. If these "mean evil corporate" types used the same non-ethics as the people who download this stuff illegally, you'd have guys in suits breaking into your houses at night and going thru your wallets! They could steal your cars, your clothes, your comps, and then, when you got pissed about it, they could rant and rave about how they're just using your own techniques against you.

Remember, if you can do it, what's to stop them?

I can't believe all the slashers supporting Valve

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another big company with an overpriced game and underpaid employees. Sure, they developed the code, but they kept it to themselves. This is what happens when people get greedy. Valve doesn't care about code or customers. All they care about is cash. That's simply cold, hard and selfish. If they'e opensourced the whole thing, none of this would be an issue and the game would be better. Valve is just a typical abusive corporation that's working hard to exploit others for the personal gain of some suits. That's not very surprising as suits are selfish and immoral as a rule. However, I'm disappointed in all the slashers who rushed to their defense. Does no one understand the positive aspects of community, openness and sharing? Greedy firstworlders have made a hell on earth for most people. Shame on you for thinking ideas should be enslaved so they can be bought and sold. Shame on you for using the wealth of ideas for personal profit without contributing in turn. No wonder America is going to shit, it's cause of all the stupid greedy self serving pigs that are running the place. Senior management scumbags should be in prison, thanks be to those who contribute in anyway to free code.

Defense in Depth

[AnotherScratchMonkey]

It's called defense in depth. Don't rely on a single protection system. Use firewalls of differing architectures, multiple mail technologies, multiple operating systems, and independent intrustion detection systems. A cracker then needs to breach multiple technologies to complete a theft, with each breach exposing the cracker to possible detection.

You can't create a perfect solution, but you can make your opponent's job expensive enough to drive him to another target.

hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

your post almost sounds like a troll. No, not because it does not pass the "must be rabidly anti-Microsoft" test, but somehow in the wording and "attitude" of the post. Actually, the more I read it the better understanding I get. I think I have it figured out.

First of all, it sounds like a marketing pitch. Just a simple analysis of word choice and tone reveals much about it. Then I realize that the phrase "MS does work hard to increase security everywhere" is plainly false. One only has to look at their history of "dealing" with security problems to see a very consistent pattern of lies, deceit, coverups... you know, the whole merging of "Better Software Through Litigation" and "Security Through Obscurity" to bring us all to a state where known problems (as in, proven in a court of law) are ignored due to "market impact" studies revealing they think they can get away with it. (btw, that sounds bad but in reality, risk mitigation weighs perceived risks against possible damage/loss)

Next, we have "The newer software shows their dedication to improving the platform." I am not sure about that, and neither are many of the top companies administrators it seems. What happened is Microsoft has decided it should spend a bit more on the software side than the usual PR bandaids. Unfortunately their methods really translate into more hacks and patchwork while ignoring the underlying architecture and design flaws. For their favor (assuming it is not vapor) there have been claims of a complete reworking of the systems from the kernel to the shell (yep, thats one BIG difference right there) and on through to dynamic & shared object handling and then on to client data rendering and handling. (i.e. HTML is just HTML, any objects should be handled through other means and thus security is more uniform)

I am not anti-MS. I think they have done much to advance the industry. However, I think their business practices are very unethical and unprofessional as their products often stink and they lie more than a politician. I think Linux is giving them the first real competition ever. As such I believe that what you say will eventually come true. MS is not stupid. They know very well that if the market ever starts demanding quality software then they will have to get off their bums and work to make it so.

how was the Quake engine licensed to Valve?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was licensed per project, then legally there are only two options to use it again. Obtain another license for HL2 from id, or use the GPL as license like anyone else with all the restrictions of GPL in place. Actually there is a sort of hybrid option available as well. If the source was multi-licensed for purposes of allowing a company like Valve to avoid releasing their changes and/or the 'Greater Part' in return for a healthy fee then there would be no violation. However, I don't recall id ever really wanting to be in the support business so that seems highly unlikely. (p.s. a game engine would require support, like assistance in making changes not just handholding).

I am placing my bet on an extension of the original license. It hurts id not at all and all the risk is on Valve's end. It would therefore be interesting to see a game succeed that used an open source engine... well were this nastiness not to have happened ever :)

you sure about that?

[Anonymous Coward]

ALREADY KNOW THE TYPE in C++!

because naming conventions apply to naming within the code, not at runtime. That means that you should really never see the things using the naming convention as a user. Only at runtime can you determine types of objects and then I guess you could do a little late binding naming of various container objects or vectors.

If however, you just mean "we already know" because you just typed it, then that would mean that you seem to confuse strongly typed and strongly enforced languages with the idea behind "naming conventions."

Besides, even though I have not scoured the Earth and looked at all C++ code, I have looked at a LOT of well designed and implemented C++ that uses some sort of system to differentiate Classes from say, functions/methods, variables (global or not) and members. Some use all caps (ugh!), others only capitalize the first letter in Classes and Structs. Still others will use some sort of bastardized Hungarian to keyword what it is.

The point is that I see nothing inherently bad with naming conventions that differentiate Classes. It makes it much easier to code as you do not have to constantly look up every Class and you can focus on creating similar names for Classes whether within a group together, functionality wise or just as siblings.

If Hungarian notation had been devised at IBM would it receive such angst?

NEW THEORY

[Anonymous Coward]

"... 3drealms has been working with/trading research with valve develop DNF on the hl2 engine, a publicity stunt deal sees outdated DNF engine components released as 'stolen' hl2 source ..."

3drealms DNF had many engine changes during development; quake, unreal, undisclosed, and HL2. We now see code base from undisclosed.

What was released for the public during the 'theft' was actually outdated components of the Duke Nukem Forever engine.

Valve just pulled a hype-machine, book, used the 'old' 3drealms code to fake the theft of HL2.

Don't call someone naive if ur going to mispell it

[Anonymous Coward]

nt