Slashdot Mirror
FBI Conducts Raids Over Half-Life 2 Source Theft
TheXerox writes "According to a recent weblog post, a San Francisco native had his house raided by the FBI last week, and 'lost upwards of 9 machines, and lots of misc equipment besides' in a seizure related to the theft of the Half-Life 2 source code from Valve Software." The scanned-in search warrant posted on the site indicates the FBI were looking for "...any IP addresses related to any of the Valve internal or external networks... Valve passwords and/or usernames... any and all items... related to Valve Software, Half-Life, Half-Life 2", and the Hungry Programmers page mentions that "...several Hungries were raided on January 14th by the FBI and Secret Service, and their computers seized."
how else are they supposed to train their agents with the latest technology if it continues to be held past the release date!
lost upwards of 9 machines
Um - how many machines did he lose? 1? 5? 8.5?
Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
Agent 1: Hey Look! 192.168.1.100! I remember seeing an IP address like that at Valve!
Agent 2: Looks like we have our man!
...the raid on the Hungry Programmers was the result of a miscommunication between Valve and the FBI -- Valve had actually traced the breakin back to an ip address in Hungary.
(collective groan)
Thanks, thank you, I'll be here all week.
he's really regretting downloading all of that German shizer porn.
One of those 'internal' ip addresses was '127.0.0.1' and the culprits had an active connection to that computer when the FBI raided.
for great justice
never if they found any illegal items such as warez, drug referances, or suspected underage porn. anything remotely considered 'suspect' would allow them to keep the equipment.
I think it's wronge they took his xbox or anything else that could be used to store data.
I mean why take the entire machine? they can just pop the hdd and run off with it.. sounds like this is how they get 'free' upgrades for the field offices.
Oh, the irony...
Maybe its just Sierra in FBI jackets.
The evil has spread.
=)
Haven't you seen Hackers? The Secret Service does everything!
because what hunting rifle has a bayonet lug
But the Secret Service should be raiding whoever came up with this color scheme!
192.168.1.1 we have a warrant for your arrest. Come out with your bits up!
I can just imagine some clueless FBI agent rifling through the poor guy's Rolodex and demanding that he tell them where his IP addresses are. "Sir, where do you keep your IP addresses sir?! This isn't a joke, son! You think this is funny?! Keep it up punk! You can laugh at the judge when we tell him that you wouldn't tell us where your IP addresses were!"
Will Half-Life have a special "FBI Raid" level when it is released? =)
when do they arrest the people who wrote nautilus?
root@loot:~# cd stolen_stuff/u ff# scp half_life2.tar.gz dood@hackr.kr:
root@loot:~/stolen_stuff# ls
windowssrc.tar.gz half_life2.tar.gz eletronic_votinghck.tar.gz
root@loot:~/stolen_st
dood@hackr.kr's password:
half_life2.tar.gz 100% 00:00
root@loot:~/stolen_stuff# rm -f half_life2.tar.gz
root@loot:~/stolen_stuff# ^D
logout
- no sig.
I want to know why they seized his xbox controllers? How the fuck is that evidense?
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
As Khan would say, "Let them meet static!".
This is my sig.
"Hi, Valve? Yeah, this is Chris Toshok. Yeah, I got no computers to play your next game on, you know? Not your problem you say? Just a sec... I'm adding a couple new obfuscated filters to Evolution..."
Anyone notice they took down his XP CD-KEY for his Dell laptop? That key is toast now!
Aren't you supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in San Francisco?
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
I thought it was protecting the fake president and currency, myself...
"Can I at least keep the beer?" -Negative, we have to question it.
Anyone know what the halflife of a search warrant is?
Been modded interesting, insightful and funny. Why does real life have to be so different?
Bomb the US!!! raid me!
I will shoot the president!!
RAID ME!
Psh... that's amateur stuff. What you need is some thermite. ;)
> If Valve tries to make the claim in court that HL2 was postponed until April because of the source code theft, that will become fraud on their part.
Wrong. Charging Valve with fraud would require that they were somehow illegaly profiting from delaying the release date. Since the product isn't for sale, pray tell how this can be considered fraud under any aspect of law!
Golly I completely forgot about the 1987 Digital Entertainment act that required game makers to hold to tentative release dates! Bastards!
>Until now it was just harmless marketing lies.
What's this? Oh no! A company that markets their product! Where is the justice!
> Someday I would like to see a game company create a game in an open way. They should have all their engine code out in the open so anybody could follow the progress and even contribute if they felt like it.
And some day I would like to see all commercial ventures opened up under the watchful eye of a high council of elves, leprechauns, and magical wood faries! Using their arcane magics for the betterment of mankind, we will transform the world into an utopian paridise, where every jack-ninny can voice their opinion equally, even in private commercial and private forums! Lo, in this brave new future disease will be cured, everyone will earn $50K USD annual salary because knowledge is intrinsically designed to be free and open to everyone!
Viva la revolution!
Haven't you seen Hackers?
Ah yes, the best nerd-are-cool fantasy ever.
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?
American Weblog in London
You can't be too careful when you're raiding the homes of suspected hackers. You know they all play those shooting games, like Earthquake and Counter Strike, so they're pretty much trained killers.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
hopefully i'm not using the same IPs as the ones they are looking for.
192.168.69.0/24
10.69.69.0/24
anyone on the inside know if i should start changing these addresses? i would find it rather annoying if i get raided simply because i'm a programmer and have networks "on" the same network addresses.
Shave your armpits you hippy!
Just store everyone on your C=64! Once they yank the power it's gone!
(Yes, I know about recovering data from RAM, It's a joke.)
Clearly this person was only in it for the programming -- if they were a real gamer, they could've TOTALLY strifed out of the way of the feds.
"Ain't I a stinka..." - Bugs
Doubleplusironic...
Only requirement for good karma: be pedantic as much and as often as possible.
doubleplusdoesntknowthemeaningofthewordironic...
God is an iron.
I believe the machines had references to IP addresses in the 10.x.x.x range, valve's internal subnet. Looks like this guy is guilty
I use a
"What, like the back of a volkswagen?"
- obligatory Mallrats reference:
http://jesus.everdense.com/
...is why they are called the "Secret Service" when they aren't, well, secret...
=]
bork bork bork!
On my way back down the hall I looked into my room and saw 3 FBI agents rifling through my belongings. One [was] looking at the mPlayer & mySQL source code ... in my nightstand.
Fixed. I don't know how that slipped by the editors...
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
"Well, officer, the usb key *was* plugged into the computer when you confuscated it, so I guess you must have it somewhere. What? No, sorry, that was the only copy..."
do not read this line twice.
hrm...1997...Pentium II was released then...
quite the hacker you were with your 1989 486.
Perhaps you should ssh into 127.0.0.1 and restart your humour daemon.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
By the time HL2 comes out, you'll have to upgrade your toaster to play.
Well... all I've got to say is that they shouldn't have left Half-Life 2 Source lying around on the Gibson. I mean, that was just asking for trouble, wasn't it?
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Actually, most of those terms are redundant.