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Halo Reach Leaked To Filesharing Sites

Posted by Soulskill on from the somebody's-getting-sued dept.

Stoobalou writes "What appears to be the full version of Bungie's Halo Reach game has turned up on a number of file sharing sites. The hotly-anticipated multi-player shooter had been hosted on a private area of the Microsoft Live site in order for journalists to preview the release, but Microsoft has admitted that a security breach has meant that pirates have been able to bypass personal download codes given to writers. Disk images of the game are now appearing on a number of public torrent and P2P sites as well as on popular NZB aggregators and Usenet binaries newsgroups." The game isn't due to be released until September 14th. Microsoft is said to be "aggressively pursuing" whoever grabbed the files without their permission.

9 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Long end of the stick. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "What appears to be the full version of Bungie's Halo Reach game has turned up on a number of file sharing sites. The hotly-anticipated multi-player shooter had been hosted on a private area of the Microsoft Live site in order for journalists to preview the release, but Microsoft has admitted that a security breach has meant that pirates have been able to bypass personal download codes given to writers. Disk images of the game are now appearing on a number of public torrent and P2P sites as well as on popular NZB aggregators and Usenet binaries newsgroups."

    Whew! I'm sure glad we lengthened copyright to prevent something like this.

  2. Does this mean... by Majik+Sheff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can redeem my Gamestop super exclusive unlocked shiny armor of orgasmic distraction early too?

    I despise software that is deliberately broken. If publishers want to make some extra sales by rewarding preorders I'm fine with it, but after a few months the items should be available to everyone. I paid for the thing, I should not be prevented from using all of the features.

    --
    Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
  3. 'aggressive' waste of time by postmortem · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Unless they cut power to all XBOX owners, I don't see how you can stop known leak on internet in 2010. Better spend money and resources elsewhere. Release it few weeks earlier?

    1. Re:'aggressive' waste of time by d3ac0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, if you RTFA, the attackers used a vulnerability in the website hosting the code to break in and BYPASS the journalist login feature. So technically, no reporters are gonna get sued since none of them did anything wrong.

      Let's be honest, the real problem here was that MS was using the "Security by Obscurity" model to hide the test code site. It even says ITA that it was a "secret" website. (As if a website could EVER be secret for long, especially one connected to Microsoft.) The fact that anyone at MS still thinks that security by obscurity is wise reveals that despite all of the improvements in Win7, There is an ingrained culture in MS that still doesn't get it.

      --
      Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
    2. Re:'aggressive' waste of time by HungryHobo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      that's why reading the robots.txt files for sites can sometimes be fun.

  4. Well, this just proves it! by billsayswow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is why everyone releases games for the console these days. Everyone pirates PC games, but no one can pirate for the consoles...

    1. Re:Well, this just proves it! by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A PC doesn't have to be modded to work with pirate software, a console generally does. This alone ensures that piracy will never be even remotely as prevalent on consoles as it is on PC's.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  5. Re:Better go after those pirates by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What? I hate piracy, my friend. Those thieves steal from future versions of the author/business that created the product. But, really, how can you not see how competition between businesses is stealing potential profit? When someone goes to one business to buy a product instead of going to another business, the first business is stealing from the other business because the other business could have had more profit (remember, future profit is being stolen) if the person went to their business to buy the product, instead.

    Also, I'm sure glad that you agree with my point of view about piracy being evil, instead of thinking I was being sarcastic and then simply bashing my argument without even commenting on what was logically wrong with it. Good thing you didn't do that.

    We have to stop these injustices, my friend. After all, copying something is stealing because it steals non-existent profit from the developer (the future version of the developer), just like businesses steal non-existent profit from each other when they compete. We can't allow this to happen. Something must be done.

    --
    Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  6. Re:bypass personal download codes??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "injust" isn't a word, idiot...

    Oh... well, it's in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged dictionary along with a lot of other arrangements of characters that apparently aren't words either.

    you are NOTHING.

    Ah, that's what we were waiting for!