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Valve Interview Helps Reveal Details Of HL2 Code Theft

Posted by simoniker on from the who-what-where dept.

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."

5 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. Re:My question is... by Hank+Chinaski · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
  2. can't wait.. by ForestGrump · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
  3. Re:another_log.txt by MachDelta · · Score: 3, Funny

    Actually, a 25kb text file on a free google account (3gb/mo), should be good for over 120,000 hits, unless I fucked up my math (quite possible, I was never a math geek). Yes, this is Slashdot, but this is Slashdot gaming. I don't know if 120,000 people will even see the headline, much less bother to follow the links to a text file. :P

    And hell, if the thing goes down, shitty webhosts for this sort of thing are free and plentiful. :)

  4. Flying out for a job interview ? lol by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 5, Funny
    "The risk of being caught prompted the primary instigator to contact Newell. He admitted hacking into Valve's server, but denied any role in the theft, instead naming those responsible for distributing the stolen code. "We now had three independent ways of confirming this primary instigator and, through conversations with this individual, had convinced him to fly out to us in Seattle for a job interview"

    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 ? '

  5. I see.... by john_sheu · · Score: 1, Funny

    Valve offered them a battle they had no chance of winning... ...rather an anticlimax...