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."

Comments

Re:My question is...

[Hank Chinaski]

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

another_log.txt

[commonchaos]

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.

Flying out for a job interview ? lol

[88NoSoup4U88]

"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 ? '

Re:Maybe I have a skewed sense of ethics...

[GeckoX]

No, not even a little bit.
Really man, how dumb would you have to be to accept such an offer for an interview? Dude got his just due to greed.

Simple really, move along.

Code "Theft"?

[silicon not in the v]

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.

Yeah right.

[AzraelKans]

The only news we have about HL2 these days is that Gabe Newell and his team are still personally helping in catching the "code thief" no beta testing, no network testing, not even a damn stress test of the steam server has taken place. Yet a lot of people still buy it when they say "Half life 2 is coming this summer!" yeah sure the same day we find those really well hidden weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.-

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