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Valve Interview Helps Reveal Details Of HL2 Code Theft
Thanks to The Guardian for its article providing further details on the arrest of the Half-Life 2 code thieves, with Valve's Gabe Newell explaining: "Through conversations with this individual, [we] had convinced him to fly out to us in Seattle for a job interview. The plan was changed so German authorities would do the arrests on German soil." These facts seem to coincide with allegations that the Phatbot trojan writer also stole the Half-Life 2 code, leading to "Axel G"'s arrest in May by German authorities following FBI tips. Although unconfirmed, one can also presume the previously mentioned smoking gun to be an "incriminating information" packed IRC log, revealing the source of the intrusion as the webservers of a wearable computing firm with links to Valve, on a machine likely housed in the same physical location as the Valve offices, explaining the hacker's comments that he gained entry via "a PC in Valve's net, that wasnt directly controlled by Valve."
The news is now some minutes old and still no "funny" or interesting post. No "first post" either. Shame on you, Slashdot Readers, shame on you!
:p
IAAL
The hackers slashdot id was 0 ;-)
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
from one of te articles:
Valve is preparing to sue the hackers for damages, while working towards an end-of-summer release date for Half-Life 2 - widely considered the most anticipated shooter in PC gaming history
finally! i can put this high-end laptop to some use...
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
http://geocities.com/common_chaos/another_log.txt
I couldn't get around the lameness filter, so there is a link for as long as the bandwidth holds out.
I wonder how exactly they would have come onto this :
Scenario :
Gabe : 'Ok, well, im really pissed off you hacked our network, and released HL2 online... BUT.... you seriously look like a good coder... So how about working with us on HL3 ? uh ? uh ? '
I liked the lies that Valve started issueing when the theft occured, saying that HL2 was delayed because of the code theft. Then later they admitted the theft had nothign to do with the delays. I think they just told us that so the gaming comunity would get pissed off that we didn't get our HL2 on time and go after the thieves ourselves. Not a bad plan until you realize that gamers are lazy...
Valve offered them a battle they had no chance of winning... ...rather an anticlimax...
...but did anyone else see it as underhanded that Valve lured the source code thief into a trap by promising them a job?
I'm not trying to say that what the theif did wasn't illegal or that his actions are justified, or even that they deserved a job at Valve, but it just seemed to me like sort of a shady thing to do. I'm sure there have been occasions where "hackers" have been offered jobs as security advisors/consultants for the organizations they exploit. Even though the thief isn't the smartest individual for actually following up on Valve's "offer", he didn't necessarily have any reason to believe otherwise.
Eh, maybe I'm just too trusting and naive. I was just curious to hear anyone else's perspective on this, though.
--
Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
This seems like a good place to point this out. No one here has a problem with using the term "code theft" for when the people got hold of a copy of the Half Life 2 source code, but they will scream bloody murder if someone says "music theft" in reference to illegal music downloads. What an outrageous double standard!
I see. Since you don't produce music to sell, "The owners haven't been deprived of it. It should be enriching the public domain anyway. Actually, they're stealing from me by not releasing it to roam free across the creative landscape!" But since you do produce code to sell, "They're destroying the value of the code and taking my ability to sell it for profit now. They are taking money away from the hard work I put in to it."
If you've gotten this far, maybe you are a thoughtful moderator, rather than having marked me Troll or Flamebait already. Digital music / digital game code--they're both just bits in the bucket, so choose one label and stick to it. Don't try to separate them so you can defend one and hate the other.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
Another tech job lost to a foreigner...
Lets throw a quick poll:
If you could suggest a course of action for valve at the time being that would be:
You should catch those pesky code thief thugs, their crimes cant go unpunished, justice shall prevail! even if they probably (and really) are from a country were "code thief" is not a crime we shall invade that country or something!
I dont care about the code thief! I have been waiting for hl2 since the stone age and I think you have a bigger responsability to the public than shielding in this as an excuse for not releasing a game you have hyped us about so much for such a long time!
SIT YOUR FAT ASS IN THAT CHAIR! GET SOME COFFEE TO KEEP YOU AWAKE AND START CODING LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW! NOW!
Option D would Involve scorting key valve employees at gun point to their workstations until a gold candidate is produced. Thats a bit harsh so is out of the poll. although could be considered in the future.
Results may vary.
Mod me as your heart pleases
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
Including the original text to beat the lameness filters "Valve offered them a battle they had no chance of winning... ...rather an anticlimax..."
I know I stand firmly on the "artists's rights" sides of both debates. Since I make my living as a software writer, it'd be more than a little hypocritical of me to
Like I was saying...
Downloading music from Zazaa while demonizing somebody else for stealing source-code from Valve is intensely hypocritical. So I don't do that (download music off the Net).
Anybody who makes their living off of creative work (art, programming, music, science) will, if they think about for a minute, realize that illegal file-swapping represents a real threat to their financial well-being.
Having said that, I expect the vast majority of Slashdot readers are not actually working programmers, despite the "New for Nerds" tagline of the website. Based on the comments you'll often see attached to discussions on Slashdot, the majority of these comment authors are students, or just folks that like to play with their computers as a hobby. Having never had a financial interest in a creative work, they're probably not as aware of the contradictory nature of their positions.
Or they're just jerks...
-Mark
Having accessed Valve's server through a security-bypassing loophole in Windows, the hackers were able to download an early and hugely incomplete version of Half-Life 2 and post it on the internet for downloading via Usenet
So it's a Windows problem! Yet another company who got screwed by choosing MS products. I say add Microsoft to the list of people at fault.