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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.
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
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
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? =)
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.
"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!
I thought it was protecting the fake president and currency, myself...
> 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!
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!
Doubleplusironic...
Only requirement for good karma: be pedantic as much and as often as possible.
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
"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.