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Hacker Who Stole Half-Life 2's Source Code Interviewed For New Book (arstechnica.com)
"Can you love a game so much you must take its sequel?" asks Ars Technica, posting an excerpt from the new book "Death By Video Game: Danger, Pleasure, and Obsession on the Virtual Frontline."
At 6am on May 7, 2004, Axel Gembe awoke in the small German town of Schonau im Schwarzwald to find his bed surrounded by police officers bearing automatic weapons... "You are being charged with hacking into Valve Corporation's network, stealing the video game Half-Life 2, leaking it onto the Internet, and causing damages in excess of $250 million... Get dressed..." The corridors were lined by police, squeezed into his father's house...
Gembe had tried creating homegrown keystroke-recorders specifically targeted at Valve, according to the book, but then poking around their servers he'd discovered one which wasn't firewalled from the internal network. Gembe spent several weeks discovering notes and design documents, until eventually he stumbled onto the latest version of the unreleased game's source code. He'd never meant for the code to be leaked onto the internet -- but he did share it with another person who did. ("I didn't think it through. The person I shared the source with assured me he would keep it to himself. He didn't...")
Eventually Gembe contacted Valve, apologized, and asked them for a job -- which led to a fake 40-minute job interview designed to gather enough evidence to arrest him. But ultimately a judge sentenced him to two years probation -- and Half-Life 2 went on to sell 8.6 million copies.
Gembe had tried creating homegrown keystroke-recorders specifically targeted at Valve, according to the book, but then poking around their servers he'd discovered one which wasn't firewalled from the internal network. Gembe spent several weeks discovering notes and design documents, until eventually he stumbled onto the latest version of the unreleased game's source code. He'd never meant for the code to be leaked onto the internet -- but he did share it with another person who did. ("I didn't think it through. The person I shared the source with assured me he would keep it to himself. He didn't...")
Eventually Gembe contacted Valve, apologized, and asked them for a job -- which led to a fake 40-minute job interview designed to gather enough evidence to arrest him. But ultimately a judge sentenced him to two years probation -- and Half-Life 2 went on to sell 8.6 million copies.
So let's venerate them! Because we're smrt like that!
Game? Gembe? EditorDavid being retard or battling autocorrect?
At least they were kind enough to let him get dressed first.
The hacker's actions were a crime both in Germany and the United States. The crime is partly in the jurisdiction of the United States because it was against an American company. Normally it's pretty straightforward to extradite someone given the evidence. It was a courtesy for the FBI to notify German authorities of the plan and provide them with the evidence. I don't see any way the actions of the German authorities were justified to prevent the hacker from being charged and standing trial in the United States. This is a pretty straightforward application of how international cooperation between law enforcement agencies is supposed to work, yet Germany didn't let that happen.
Can we talk about that? Someone guessed Gabe Newell's password, downloaded some files, leaked them to the internet, and the response to this was to send a small army of heavily armed stormtroopers with automatic weapons to take him into custody with an absurd display of force.
That should be the real story here. We've gone past "corporate personhood" and into "corporate godhood", we're treating people whose only crime was potentially costing a fantastically wealthy corporation some pitiful percently of their quarterly profits the same way we treat active shooters and terrorists in the middle of an attack.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
He should have just paid the $250M in damages instead of going to a court.
"The person I shared the source with assured me he would keep it to himself. He didn't..."
Well duh.
Hacker stills: 7/10
Social skills: 0/10
The Game contacted Valve - it had a built-in 'call home' feature...
"You are being charged with hacking into Valve Corporation's network, stealing the video game Half-Life 2, leaking it onto the Internet, and causing damages in excess of $250 million..."
Can't stand how companies attach such arbitrary bullshit numbers to this kind of thing. Two-hundred and fifty million dollars is literally just a number some person with great self-interest in picking a huge exaggerated number pulled out their ass with no way to quantify in any realistic manner.
TFA says:
"But there were concerns about the ongoing access that Gembe had to Valve's servers and the potential damage he could still cause. So the FBI contacted the German police in order to alert them to the plan."
Not much of an expert here, but they talked to him for 40 minutes, asking him about the details of the breach, which he apparently was willing to explain in detail and they couldn't shut him out?
I've often thought that the modern perception of "intelligence" is merely the ability to not find it necessary to look at the bigger picture. This is what leads to something like:
contacted Valve, apologized, and asked them for a job -- which led to a fake 40-minute job interview designed to gather enough evidence to arrest him
Your average person wouldn't be so fucking stupid, but because all his brainpower was dedicated to his little ego trip, he had no time left to process the likely outcome of voluntarily coughing up all the evidence to your victim.
Germany does not extradite its citizens (with very limited exceptions). It's in the constitution. Germany extraditing a German citizen to the US is about as straightforward as introducing a blanket ban on guns in the US - not gonna happen.
Especially not in a way that they can trace you.
The urban legend is as old as the one about the hooker asking the John whether he's a policeman and if he is he has to answer truthfully. He doesn't. Likewise, nobody is going to give you a job for hacking them.
Think about it: One of the key requirements when working for someone in such an environment is trust. He has to trust you that you will not sabotage his project, that you will not steal his project, that you will not allow others to gain access to it. All things that you would have the ability and means to if you wanted.
Why the hell should he trust you after you already showed you are not trustworthy?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Eventually Game contacted Valve" - who is Game?
I guess you could view probation as a hypothetical jail sentence...
Eventually Game contacted Valve, apologized, and asked them for a job...
Takes a lot of fantasy to read it that way
Can somebody please get on with making HL2Ep3, since Valve doesn't seem to give a f*** about it?
(then again, it's not like you need the source for this. Just get the team that remade HL1 as "Black Mesa")
He actually thought Valve would give him a job after this stunt. He was on a call with them while they traced his location. What a winner! The German officials said he was lucky he didn't actually go to the US for a job interview as his sentence could have (would have?) been much much worse.
Dont be stupid...
Giving it to someone random on the internet and trusting them. Contact the company.... All of the above is incredibly stupid of you are a hacker.
Dear kiddies, rule #1 - keep your mouth shut.
Rule #2 - if you want to talk about something, see rule #1.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Eventually GEMBLE contacted Valve, apologized, and asked them for a job"
My mouth is still hanging open. Some people really, really have no idea how this world works.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
No, it does not. The common definition requires taking something away so that the original owner no longer has accessed to it.
No, it doesn't. Stealing means taking something that does not belong to you. If you steal my ideas, you've stolen them.
You are basically saying "I don't believe intellectual property is property, and I will redefine the language so that in the way I use it it is not property."
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/steal?s=t
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
First he steals the source code.
Then stupidly leaks it to the world.
He 'feels bad' about it and says 'I'm sorry.
Then he has the unmitigated gall to ask them for a job? How fucking stupid can one person be? 'Hey, uh... I know I robbed your house and all, but do you want to give me a job? I love your stuff.'
This fucktard deserves a spanking. Two years probation is NOT adequate.
I see cop math is not limited to the USA.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
In addition to their DRM and agressive marketing (though not as bad as EA), they not send armies because someone spotted an inept flaw in their security systems. They should have kept their assets more secure (ideally offline if possible). instead they try to make an "example" and all they accomplish is confirm they are complete asses. How sad. The only thing sadder, are the politicians who appear to bend over backwards for these corporations. At least the judge seemed to have a more object head than everyone else. But come on..someone committing a white collar legal violation, whose poor judgement merely resulted (potentially) in a minor profit loss, apologies for his folly, and they gets military grade German troopers at his house?!? Come one. I'm proud to say I have never supported Valve(steam) and anyone here who this this is excessive force should not buy anymore games via Steam. GOG.com has plenty. It's costs a little more there, but at least you know you can feel better about whose business you support. Vote with your mind, heart, and dollars.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
These theoretical damages were clearly based on pre-release speculation. However, most charges are also based on theoretical damages long before any evidence of actual damage. The video game went on to do better than its prequel which suggests damages were minimal. Why can prosecutions in America occur faster than the actual production of evidence (sales numbers)? It is like a prosecution finalizing its arguments before the DNA can be sequenced so it can be excluded.