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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..."
Not a bloody chance. It's pretty clear that they just capitalized on the source code leak as an excuse to slip the release date. There's really no way they could sit on a game for nine months reworking the code to break compatibility with potential cracks for the leaked code. It's neither that long of a project, nor an justifiable use of man-hours.
The game is just way behind schedule.
Please, editors, don't use words like 'theft' in the same way that the RIAA etc. use them. No-one was deprived of code in this incident and so it wasn't theft.
I hope that Valve did not put all their efforts into just catching the people who did it. I admit that those people did break the law and need to be caught but Valve is a company that relies on it's products.
Seeing as this game has been delayed since before this incident I wonder exactly as to the calibur of the game. If they shifted too much focus off development they might have shot themselves in the foot when they release a sub-par game.
So if anyone from Valve is reading this or you know someone who works there just give them a gentle nudge and remind them that we care about the quality of their games and the promptness in which they are delivered. Not that Half Life 2 is vaporware or anything but people are losing interest just because of the delay.
Push harder towards Open Media/Content
They aren't saying anything more than "Yup we got somebody"
They aren't saying for sure it was the people that stole it.
They aren't saying how they got them.
They are't saying what they took from them.
They are only saying they got SOMEBODY but who knows if it's really the guys or someone that downloaded a copy of the game from some warez IRC site and just redistributed it.
Besides, until we get full details that the game is released/on schedule/delayed it really won't matter too much.
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
I wonder what this means for the people who got arrested. It sounds like these guys come from all around the world, is this a chance for the pirate community to unite? By publically chasing these guys, there will be someone who tries to support them, or try to top them. As an open source supporter, I can see some pirates trying to make themselves martyrs by saying they were pushing open source, but even as the supporter of open source that I am, I see reasons for games to be closed source, and sold. Are these guys going to be made poster children for punishing pirates? It seems like a really good time to get some PR in the "If you pirate, you get your ass kicked" department. I'll be interrested to see what happens.
--untwisted
Notice that M$ hasn't made similar announcements about their recent source code theft problems? Probably cause they realize that for every hacker who use it to try and exploit a vulnerability, another hacker will rewrite part of the code and make it better, more stable, and more secure. Heck with Microsoft source code out there, Windows could one day be a stable, secure platform for people to migrate to instead of from
I'm a supporter of open source, but "forced open source" by cracking developers' computers and making their data public is just unethical. These people were real black hats; IIRC, they wrote cracking programs for their private use, specifically to crack Valve --- every sysadmin's worst nightmare. I hope crackdowns like this will get more prominent media attention in the future.
"Everyone here at Valve is once again reminded of how much we owe to the gaming community."
As a show of appreciation, how about taking the not so difficult step of porting HL2 to the Linux platform? I could understand if the game was written completely in DirectX, but it supports OpenGL which is fairly portable from one OS to another. Oh well... wishful thinking...
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
(standard mythical man-month rant elided)
Bottom line: more people at this stage == bad idea.
You might be right. But I wonder if the leak might not have caused a lot of chaos at Valve as well. I can imagine angry speeches from bosses, IT staff getting fired etc as a result of the crack. They may have had to realign much of their organization to have a stronger security focus. Certainly plain old delays are common in the gaming industry, but it seems also quite plausible to me that the leak may have played a part.
Prison rape is not a joking matter. Really. Suppose your brother had been raped in prison. Suppose you had been?
No, its not. Its not even funny.
Freeman, if anything, is a reference either to slavery or the 'Dune' series. There's no real relationship with the idea of a free game or intellectual property theft.
What might have been ironic is if the game were entitled "Unstealable" or something, but even that would be a stretch at best.
"Stumble before you crawl"
Considering that a large portion of the money they will make from all of this will be the licensing of the underlying engine, no. Turning it into OSS would not only destroy their chances to make some *real* money off of the engine, it would also mean throwing years of work and untold sums of R&D money to the wind.
Besides, there's no reason for a company like Valve to give away what is obviously worth a (perhaps not so) small fortune on its own. Now, maybe if their R&D work on the engine had come for free, *then* they could justify open sourcing it all. But, until the cost of developing such an engine approaches $0, don't expect anything like that to come any time soon.
That green slime had it coming.
Anything taken, copied, downloaded and such without the owners permission is taking something you have no right to. That is Theft, plain and simple.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
when they had no realistical hope of meeting the deadline(a deadline that they should have set and met 2 fucking years ago anyways).
The first the general public knew about the existence of Half-Life 2 (beyond a few rumours) was not long before E3 last year, a bit over a year ago.
Everyone's a security expert when it's somebody else's computer system that been broken into. Can you honestly say you've never done anything that might have potentially allowed a determined individual access to your private network?
The original Half-Life was over a year late; that year transformed the game from a probable also-ran to being something memorable. Yes, it sucks that the sequel is delayed too, but I'd much rather they had the guts to go against what they've said and fix the problems they obviously saw in what they were creating.
People are endlessly complaining about games being rushed to market, with horrible gameplay bugs or terrible hardware requirements, necessitating a series of patches to make the game halfway playable. I gather a good deal of what Valve has been up to is playtesting the game, making sure it's worth playing and is as good as they can reasonably make it. Weren't there complaints recently about the savegames in Thief 3 being broken? Perhaps that's the sort of thing they're trying to avoid.
Then there are claims of 'scripting' in the leaked demos. Believe it or not, some things have to be scripted. Decent AI might get a simulated soldier to behave realistically and evade or attack the player at appropriate moments, but higher-order behaviours (like, say, breaking a door open) need to be scripted. It would be impressive for a human player to instantaneously figure out all the interactive aspects of a map, let alone a computer-controlled enemy. The scripting for such complex behaviours needs a lot of work to take account of many different possiblities, and it's obvious that Valve didn't include all of them in the demonstration map. But it's not as if the whole lot was faked, like the E3 2000 Halo demonstration...
I've done a bunch of single-player mapping for Half-Life. One of the hardest things is the scripting - not the obvious, scripted sequence stuff, but the behind-the-scenes mechanics which makes the world come alive. AI works for the moment, while scripting is needed to set the scene, and to make the enemies more than simplistic automata. AI drives the scripting, and scripting drives the AI.
But then, everyone's an armchair expert, and AI can do everything, release dates are always reached, and networks are impervious. I'd like to see these experts create a game...
There's really no way they could sit on a game for nine months reworking the code to break compatibility with potential cracks for the leaked code. It's neither that long of a project, nor an justifiable use of man-hours.
After all, you have inside knowledge that people working on the project would have, and you just happen to know how long reworking all of Steam from scratch due to its leak would take, not to mention redoing Half-Life 2's network code.
Seeing as how Counterstrike is such a bastion of non-cheating, there's no way Valve is taking a long time making sure the net-based Steam client is up to snuff after a source code leak on the Internet!
Thanks for enlightening us, Miss Cleo.
They probably just rounded up people who happened to have the source code on their machines (ratted out by friends/enemies, etc.) and asked them where they got it. If they couldn't name names, they were further scrutinized. If they can't name names (practical joke gone awry?) have the "capacity to commit the crime" (ie, they're techies) they get charged. Follow the names that were named. Repeat until the number of people you've arrested sounds impressive.
This makes great headlines and eases the PHB's nerves, but doesn't really solve anything. The original perpetrator may get away with it scott free, even.
Just inventing details...
i don't understand why xen was unpopular! i sure liked it! no seriously. it was cool, the bouncing around and the healing thingy.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Hm.. there is no such thing as intellectual property theft, more like
copyright infringement.
The problem here is not that someone stole some CD or could break into some computer, but that the code was distributed.
There would have to be such a thing as intellectual property, from which its legitimate owner could be deprived, in order for theft to happen.
I can see a reason for a lengthy delay here. Say they were almost done coding the entire thing. Now, they get cracked, someone takes their source, and distributes a few copies.
Can this code be deemed secure without a full audit of all the code? Could the crackers have reasonably included a backdoor in the program?
If they were able to include some malicious code in HL2, and Valve were to distribute it without checking every last line, that would not only be a PR nightmare, but a rather serious security risk for their customers.
Now, this may not be difficult, they could go to their last backup (if they have a recent one). They'd still have to rewrite quite a bit of code, which also takes more time.
Not to mention the time it takes to lock down what appears to be a fairly insecure network before continuing (so it doesn't happen again during development).
I can see how something like this could knock back the project a month or two easily. If they're already behind schedule, this just makes things worse.
To interpret "guy in the street" (or "pedestrian") word meaning, we must compare with commonly accepted uses of the word.
Here are two sentences that are widely acceptable uses of "steal" regarding intellectual property:
- "He stole my invention"
In both cases, it is implied that something similar has happened: the victim was working on a project, and was spied on by another person, who went on to publish that idea and claim it as his/her own (preventing the actual author from getting credit for the work). "He/she stole my $INTELLECTUAL_PROPERTY" is an accusation of plagiarism, not theft."She stole my song"
And the Half-Life 2 incident never included any attempt to claim authorship of that code.
comes down to "taking stuff without paying".
And then you get into what "taking" means. Ask a pedestrian if something has really been "taken" if the victim still has it... no, that's not "taking". It's more "taking a copy", or even just "seeing".
So it becomes "seeing without paying". And the street guy will think "Oh, I see stuff on TV all the time, and never pay"
The debate would be improved if people argued with the *message* of what was being said, not the *wording*.
It's the MPAA/RIAA/BSA that causes that problem by using by basing their argument on that wording: "Stealing is obviously wrong. Copyright infringement is actually stealing. So copyright infringement is wrong too".
Reminds me of the logic of a certain US president... "Terrorists are obviously evil. You guys are actually terrorists. So you are evil too"
I just hate the fact that when developers do get behind schedule, everyfuckingbody jumps at them. Maybe Valve should just be more like idSoftware, with the motto of "It'll be finished when it's finished." That way, they won't have any annoying ass gamers bitching and starting hate crimes against them when they miss a release date. I just think all developers should be like that. Besides, so what if they miss a release date? As long as they are taking their time and make an awesome game, I'll be happy. Sure, I'd want it to come out faster, but I would drop that need over the chance that the game would be improved if kept in development longer. Look at Enter the Matrix... they rushed to hit the release date, missed it, rushed some more.. and made a very shitty game.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
How is it different?
Valve still has the code, the music companies still have their audio.
How on earth is there a distinction? Because one needed another illegal means to get the files, while other it just downloading?
If you call one theft, you have to call the other theft.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
I'm sure the thousands of lawyers in 'intellectual property' classes, not to mention the lawyers who practice in it, would disagree with you.
Someone either broke physically into their building, broke electronically into their servers, or illegally duplicated a legal copy (which is defined by law as theft), so no matter what Valve had something stolen from them.
Next time you want to make a snide comment about the lack of 'intellectual property', you do me a favor and suggest at the same time why any programmers should be paid. Is it for their labor? Then no programmers should ever have 'rights' to their code, right?
"Stumble before you crawl"
It stands to reason that the people that rape others in prison are there for violent crimes to begin with (i.e. actually should be there.
Even if you removed all the people who "shouldn't be there" (exactly who that should be is a different discussion), you'd still have the problem of the violent criminals raping each other. Before you say "but they deserve it!" remember these things:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
7. What moron thinks there's such a thing as 100% security?
8. What moron thinks you can ship software faster just by hiring more people?
9. Maybe the 'retarded' programmer was actually trying to do his job and get the work done as soon as possible, and not reading bugtraq all the live long day or modelling attack trees so he wouldn't get owned.
10. Cut Valve some slack. They are the victims here, despite what some might think.
You misunderstand. People who claim that there is no such thing as IP theft don't live in the same world as us; yes, the laws are the same, and they can still be fined or jailed for doing what they claim can't be done, but the thing is they just refuse to believe.
Such people don't have to think about earning a living as a programmer because they either can't do it in the first place, or would never be hired if they could - issues with reality are a significant drawback in most employer's eyes. And these nuts would never sign the confidentiality agreement anyway.
It's sort of like believing Benny Hinn can cure your blindness. Getting caught is the same as walking off the edge of Benny's stage and breaking your neck because you can't see.
valves code wasn't published, and to get it they had to hack (well trick) valve to get it.
I would be the charges laid on the hackers would not be theft, corporate espionage, hacking, copyright violations, and such.
Downloading music is much diffrence as its published, someone is offering you a copy (witch is why downloaders are kinda safe and uploaders are not)
Also the money lost by each act is diffrent, vavle has taken a BIG hit in the $$ department because of the "theft", how much (if any) money the RIAA and co lose when a song is copied is debatable and might be a gain.
That is why poeple get all up in arms about P2P being called tehft, but when it comes to valve and sounce code theft they tolerate and join in in calling it theft, its much more like theft and it did cause damage to valve in many ways, unlike P2P.
and it STILL isn't theft, it is a multitude of other crimes, but NOT theft at all.
if this was theft, there would be no such charge as corporate espionage. because all corporate espionage is is "stealing" information and ideas.
Neither is theft. One is copyright violations, the other is corporate espionage/hacking/copyright.
Big difference.
Mp3's are already ready for public consumption. The public already has access to the song, be it on the radio, a cd in a store, in a friend's car, whatever. By downloading that song you are getting a copy of the finished product that many others already have.
Source code, however, is definitely not in a form for public consumption. Nobody should have the source code unless they're part of the project.
Stealing the source code would be analogous to stealing the band that makes the music, not the finished product.
band:mp3::souce code:binary
Can someone please tell me why anal rape is so funny to Americans?
Sexual assault is now a major component of the US criminal justice system. The understanding is that the strongest prisoners will rape the others. It's an unspoken additional punishment that law-enforcement winks at.
This is related to the way that the Iraqi prison scandal got started (the US MP who was court martialed was a New Jersey prison guard in civilian life, remember). Of course, in Abu Ghariab the prisoners didn't start on their own, and needed some prodding to get the idea...
Imagine being raped in the arse repeatedly for "Stealing" some source code...
Or for growing marijuana... no, it's not fair, is it?
There's a powerful argument - something found on a popup-farm on the Intarweb!!!111!!!1
But you forget - in accessing Valve's systems the thief rendered questionable the integrity of the code. Valve couldn't use it for some time until it had been checked. The thief did have posession, in that only the thief knew whether it was trustworthy or not. Valve had to waste valueable resources finding that our for themselves. Or maybe you feel they would have just said "looks like it's all there! let's ship!"?
What moron allows an email to install a keyboard sniffer on his computer. Anti-virus and patches take care of a lot of that. Not to mention the network guys should have caught that one quick.
What?? A/V patches wouldn't do anything if it was custom written. And how the heck are network admins going to catch a few tiny URL posts (assuming the logger sent packets via port 8000) in all the traffic a big corporation generates.
I mean, seriously... the moron may not even have had a good email client that let him know something was running-- and that is ignoring the various overflow bugs that could have been exploited.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
To build on this point - I've got a coupon for Half Life 2 that came with an ATI video card. That coupon is about 7 or 8 months old, as is the (at the time bleeding edge) Radeon 9800. I'm jacked that I'm waiting for a game I've paid for is not in my hands. I'll be even more ropeable if the video card has ANY troubles with the game at all, but thats another story.
:-).
Serves me right I suppose.... repeat after me boys and girls, never pay for something that is not available yet. Preordered games fall into the same category.
Ah well, I guess Far Cry will tide me over
This isn't a proper analogy. Stealing the source to the game is more like stealing the master tapes for a music track. A closer comparison for downloading an mp3 (a finished product) would be downloading the game (a finished product.) The fact that the source code included copy protection measures only compounds the problem.
harmonious design
I swear this isn't flamebait!
How come in Slashdot discussions about music/film piracy, we get hundreds of posts from people arguing that piracy isn't theft, it's "sharing". But in this thread, everyone's talking about how the source code was "stolen".
I am just as bummed about HL2 being late as anyone, but what I don't get is why so many people are ATTACKING the developers. They are making a game to sell. Don't you think they want to release it as soon as possible? They announced a release date last summer. It didn't happen. GET OVER IT!!! They don't owe anybody anything except a good product when it ships. If people don't buy it, because they have lost interest, fine. Valve doesn't make as much money, and probably takes steps to prevent this type of thing in the future. My guess is everyone who is bitching about it will buy the game, and be totally blown away. Do you think they will eat a little crow when the time comes? NOPE. They will just be bitching about the next thing.