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Valve Announces Half-Life 2 Code Theft Arrests
Ant writes "GameSpot and other sources report arrests were made:
Developer of the much-anticipated and delayed shooter sequel reveals an international wave of arrests has been made.
The Half-Life 2 code theft saga entered a new chapter today when Valve Software announced a series of arrests had been made in the case. According to Valve, suspects in several countries had been taken into custody in relation to charges stemming from the theft of the Half-Life 2 code, distribution of the code, and breaking into Valve's network..."
He comes and goes... he comes and goooooeeess...
The Half-Life 2 code theft saga entered a new chapter today when Valve Software announced a series of arrests had been made in the case. According to Valve, suspects in several countries had been taken into custody in relation to charges stemming from the theft of the Half-Life 2 code, distribution of the code, and breaking into Valve's network.
Valve CEO Gabe Newell credited gamers with providing the information that led to the arrests. "It was extraordinary to watch how quickly and how cleverly gamers were able to unravel what are traditionally unsolvable problems for law enforcement related to this kind of cyber-crime," he said in a statement. "Everyone here at Valve is once again reminded of how much we owe to the gaming community."
However, while Valve announced the arrests today, it was unclear when they actually occurred. Valve's statement on the matter--e-mailed to the press today--quoted Newell as saying, "within a few days of the announcement of the break-in, the online gaming community had tracked down those involved."
The FBI's Northwest Cyber Crime Task Force, the law-enforcement agency overseeing the code theft investigation, also divulged little information. When asked by GameSpot if it had made any arrests, media contact at the task force's Seattle, WA, headquarters said simply, "we did." However, when pressed for more information on the case--i.e. how many people in the US were arrested, where were they apprehended--the agent declined to say anything other than arrests had been made. "Beyond that we can not comment," he said.
News of the Half-Life 2 arrests comes after months of rumors about law-enforcement activity on the case. In January, a number of computer experts in the San Francisco area reported having their hardware seized by FBI agents on the grounds they were involved in the theft. Several weeks ago, unconfirmed reports from Germany said the author of the Phatbot Trojan worm was also involved in the theft. In both instances, neither Valve nor the authorities offered any comment.
GameSpot will have more details on this developing story as they become available.
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Remembered as the crew who created LessTiff, the Hungry Progammers were raided by the FBI in order to obtain evidence in the Half-Life 2 case. Details of the raid are a real eye-opener.
Here's a BBC story about a raid in SF... and here's a blog post about a geek in SF getting raided and having his gear taken by the FBI...
I could understand if the game was written completely in DirectX, but it supports OpenGL which is fairly portable from one OS to another.
Er... HL2 is written in DirectX. To my knowledge (I never looked at the source leak) it does not support OpenGL whatsoever.
You must be thinking of HL1, which was based on a heavily modified Quake1 engine. That did support OpenGL.
The blog link is not referring to the Half Life raid. If I remember correctly, this blog post was made for a /. story posted a couple months ago about a different matter.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
Sure, copyright infringement is wrong, but that still doesn't make it theft! That's like saying rape and murder are the same thing, because they're both immoral too. Or like saying that Black Panthers and Neo-Nazis are the same because they're both militant racists. Or like saying apples and oranges are the same because they're both fruits! Or.... [continue ad nauseum]
They're both wrong. They're both perhaps equally wrong.
BUT THEY'RE STILL NOT THE SAME THING!!!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Steam has nothing to do with the graphics engine, and everything to do with networking. It's Valve's content distribution and matchmaking framework. Click me.
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One point worth clearing up is that the break-in and release of the source code is NOT why we didn't make the original September 30, 2003 release date, nor is it responsible for the fact that we haven't shipped yet. There were some significant costs associated with the break-in (not the least of which was the fact that everybody here was completely freaked-out and bummed), but the main reason we haven't shipped yet is that we have more work to do than we thought and it has taken longer to do than we thought. Gabe gaben@valvesoftware.com
About the leak: some german guy (the same guy who created phatbot, let's call him Hans) hacked into Valve computers. Hans then proceeded to brag about it and give some information about it to some friend of his (let's call him randomdude) over an IRC server operated by some members from a group I will call Entity. Members of entity intercepted the conversation and used the info in it to plant their own trojans on valve's computers, they then proceeded to leak the source and maybe some other stuff. Hans decided that he wouldn't let them have the credit for this and proceeded to release other stuff. Fast forward a few months. Hand emails Gabe and explains that he never meant to leak anything, that he just wanted to take a look at how a game was developped and that he was an amateur game developper himself as well as an expert on network security. He's a big fan of valve, blah blah blah. He explains how he broke into valve's computers and implies that he would like to get a job at valve as a network security asministrator. Follows a long exchange of emails in which he tells them about vulnerabilities still existing in their network and reveals he is german. He then agrees to a phone interview as Valve's people bait him into thinking they are considering hiring him and ends up arrested. I read most of the emails he exchanged with Valve before the arrest and Hans pretty much threw prudence and common sense out the window when dealing with valve. He must be kicking himself now.
The leaked source compiles and runs. There are no maps, models or content, but the engine works. It wasn't finished, and there are bugs. That's why it wasn't released yet, right?
All people needed to do to create a working HL2 mod was create the custom models and maps.