20,000 Steam Accounts Disabled

The Steam Users Forums (thanks Shacknews) announces that Valve called shenanigans on approximately 20,000 Steam user accounts yesterday, and has disabled access to them. Word is: "The method used was extremely easy for Valve to trace and confirm, and so there is no question that the accounts disabled were used to try and illegally obtain Half-Life 2." The post goes on to describe the circumstances under which Steam accounts will be revoked, as well as avenues to follow should you feel your account was banned erroneously. They also go on to debunk what has become the popular myth that they released a bug to the warez circuit to entrap pirates:
Valve did not put out any kind of fake key or fake warez or hack instructions to trap people. The hack came from the "community" as do they all.
View : : :
232 Replies. 12 pages. Viewing page 5.
Newer [  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  ] Older
152.
 
Re: This isn't the first time....
Nov 24, 2004, 01:10
Re: This isn't the first time.... Nov 24, 2004, 01:10
Nov 24, 2004, 01:10
 
Well, Batman,

Have you ever heard of the interconnectness of all things? Pretty much anything you can talk about is the same thing as everything else because the only thing we can really talk about is the Primal Urge which led the Nothing to become Something, and hence, here we are.

Also, no matter what you think your favorite color is, you're probably wrong because any condition that can exist does exist. So over in Universe 13, your favorite color is yellow, but two Universes over, your favorite color is teal.

Get over it. sTeam rules. And I mean that literally.

LOL!

This comment was edited on Nov 24, 01:11.
151.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 24, 2004, 01:04
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 24, 2004, 01:04
Nov 24, 2004, 01:04
 
How did it wake 51% of the population up maplebob? I was all for the war in Afganistan but not Iraq. The funny thing is the Midwest was somehow scared by 9/11 what the hell is there to destroy there? Hell New York voted overwhelmingly Democraticly but how can that be the most likely target for terrorist attacks vote for the supposedly weaker canidate. Hell democrats are prowar too, as Clinton dropped way more bombs then Bush Sr, but they like having a reason to do so besides shear petiness.

The funny part comes when you think about the guise under which we went to Iraq considering they had nothing to with 9/11. If we really wanted to go to war with Terrorism we would invade Saudi Arabia but they actually have an army that could combat our shrinking military and not to mention ties to our big businesses as they own 7-8% of the oil industry. Ever since Lebanon, Israel has been stooping to more and more terrorist like levels but once again we would not fight them as they could bite back and they are basically our one buddy in the middle east.

So basically instead of waking up 51% of the country all that occured was fear being put into the populace through media spinning.

Tangent: This fucking bipartisanship has got to end both sides are just shades of genericism to get the mass vote. What is scary is the fact that technically Bush is the best the Republicans have to offer as they selected him out of all others to represent the party:D.

PS. Just had to format so i have no spell check.
"Choice and Consequence." Gareth 'Section8' Davies on the key ingredients of an RPG.
150.
 
This isn't the first time....
Nov 24, 2004, 01:02
This isn't the first time.... Nov 24, 2004, 01:02
Nov 24, 2004, 01:02
 
....that it has occured to me that it doesn't matter what anyone says here, someone else knows more, better, bullshits better, etc.

I could post my favorite color, and someone would reply saying that it isn't my favorite color, and that another color is because I am a n00b.

This is a gaming post about Steam, and it has gone into algorithms about passwords and political bullshit.

good lord people. Just because Blue gave us the option to post, doesn't mean everyone gives a shit about your opinion (mine included).


149.
 
Re: Here's how it will play out...
Nov 24, 2004, 00:42
Re: Here's how it will play out... Nov 24, 2004, 00:42
Nov 24, 2004, 00:42
 
MableBob QUOTE:> But it is an interesting stufy in the rise of a police state...And the hurrahs will keep coming, but now out of fear that they could be next.


Do you frequently spy black helicopters hovering in the skies above your fortress? Pink elephants, perhaps?

No, just some guy in a van across the street named nin.


*************
* Warhawk *
*************

Stay close to the candles. The stairway can be... treacherous.

Have I lied to you? I mean, in this room? Trust me, leave that thing alone. - GLaDOS

Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away? - Ripley
148.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 24, 2004, 00:01
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 24, 2004, 00:01
Nov 24, 2004, 00:01
 
Most terrorism can't be fought by taking away civil rights or anything, totally ineffective. But the fact that it happens gives some people a sense of security (something is being done!) ... others get mad about it.

Well, so far, nobody's civil rights were taken away in the war on terror, 'cept maybe some terrorists.

But to fight this war properly, the first thing we should have done on 9/12/2001 is to nuke Mecca.

If they're still coming after that, you target the second most holy site in all of Islam, and so on and so on.

The war on terror is largely a war of symbolism for them. They thought taking down the !! twin towers would destroy our virilty, our potency, but all it did was was wake about 51% of the population up. And for now, that's good enough.

But believe me, this, you take away their symbols and they fold like a house of cards. Like bees without a queen.

147.
 
Re:
Nov 23, 2004, 23:59
Re: Nov 23, 2004, 23:59
Nov 23, 2004, 23:59
 
False. It is not more secure. Dictionary attacks include those characters in the attack. Try again. A dictionary attack does not mean going through Websters looking for a password. It means going through a precompiled list of all known character combinations of length X. It is computationally prohibitive to do this for long passwords (PasswordCharacterSet^PasswordLength) because you have to store the password and the corresponding hash (for the fun times when you have their .passwd file).

Let's calculate how much disk space it would take to store all possible 5 character passwords (let's pretend we live in an ASCII only world since most software doesn't support unicode passwords). 255^5 = 1078203909375*5 characters to be precise.
However most passwords don't let you have all 255 characters either. It's probably closer to 96 characters. 8153726976*5.
So 37.96875 GB of data. This increases exponentially with each character added. It's good to *allow* as many characters as possible to force people to include them in their dictionary attacks, but having a password that contains them does not necessarily make it more or less secure.

It might keep your little brother out, but not someone who's actually trying.

I recommend a minimum of 8 characters in your password (even using just a-zA-Z and [space] works out to 53^8 or 283.12 TB of combinations minimum.

146.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 23, 2004, 23:50
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 23, 2004, 23:50
Nov 23, 2004, 23:50
 
rock climber,

I won't scream if we get a terrorist attack, it's a fact these things happen, and they should be delt with in the right way.

In my own point of view is, that most problems are best solved by solving the cause, rather then the symthoms.

Most terrorism can't be fought by taking away civil rights or anything, totally ineffective. But the fact that it happens gives some people a sense of security (something is being done!) ... others get mad about it.

Fighting terrorism has always been, a matter of good (human based/infiltration wise) intelligence. Taking away rights from the 99,9999% of the people who would never ever think of doing a terrorist act isn't the right way to go.
But .. this is abit offtopic here ofcourse

145.
 
Re: Ironic
Nov 23, 2004, 23:50
Re: Ironic Nov 23, 2004, 23:50
Nov 23, 2004, 23:50
 
They can keep out the pirates but they could care less about keeping out the cheaters. Remove the cheaters and people will have a reason to play online and purchase your product.


Amen.


144.
 
Ironic
Nov 23, 2004, 23:44
Ironic Nov 23, 2004, 23:44
Nov 23, 2004, 23:44
 
They can keep out the pirates but they could care less about keeping out the cheaters. Remove the cheaters and people will have a reason to play online and purchase your product.

http://forum.ramanon.com
143.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 23, 2004, 23:41
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 23, 2004, 23:41
Nov 23, 2004, 23:41
 
Yeah, great idea! (note: sarcasm) Since they're concerned with their game not making them any money, they should spend all their money on development, and then just not sell it! Wonderful plan!

It was a simple, modest proposal, and that was all. One possible solution to a problem that is such a concern to Valve, they've decided to alienate their customer base.

If they didn't want absurd suggestions, they shouldn't have imposed absurd solutions. I have only been following Valve's lead.

142.
 
Re: Bummer
Nov 23, 2004, 23:37
Re: Bummer Nov 23, 2004, 23:37
Nov 23, 2004, 23:37
 
If morons keep promising that they'll never play another Steam game again, I swear I might just play nothing BUT Steam games from now on. Seems like a good way to keep the riff-raff out.

Kinda like Darwinism for online play.

141.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 23, 2004, 23:35
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 23, 2004, 23:35
Nov 23, 2004, 23:35
 
My question is.... WHERE THE HELL SHOULD WE PUT IT?

I vote Hollywood!

140.
 
Re: Perspective is a good thing..
Nov 23, 2004, 23:34
Re: Perspective is a good thing.. Nov 23, 2004, 23:34
Nov 23, 2004, 23:34
 
So what Professional, by your logic companies should just forget software security and *hope* people will pay for it out of the kindness of their hearts, since hacking will always be happening?

Software protection is a numbers game. They KNOW it will be cracked by a certain (small) percentage of the people out there. What they are doing is LIMITING "casual" software theft. It keeps the general public from ripping them off, and increases the percentage of people who actually pay for it. No software developer expects to have 100% hack proof software the same way no network administrator expects to be 100% secure from hacking. The idea is to LIMIT the illegal activity, and it works great to that end.

If we follow your line of logic then we migh as well do away with ALL security, because nothing is truly 100% secure.


---
http://www.oceas.com/SpreadFireFox
This comment was edited on Nov 23, 23:37.
--
He cut the possum's face off then cut around the eye socket. In the center of the belt buckle, where the possum's eye would be, he has placed a small piece of wood from his old '52 Ford's home made railroad tie bumper. Damn, he misses that truck.
139.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 23, 2004, 23:32
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 23, 2004, 23:32
Nov 23, 2004, 23:32
 
"But it's not fair, other people are playing," yeah, by following the company's rules.



I'm sure this sounds good on paper, but I'll bet if analyzed, it would turn out that a proportionatly higher percentage of the 20,000 live in Broward County FL then anywhere else on earth. Except maybe France.

I mean, people who can't figure out how to poke a hole in a bit of paper sure as heck aren't going to be able to install h-l 2 and so they need special help.

Valve should immeadiatly dispatch its sTeam shock troops to the area!

Okay, on a serious note, I think the whole point of Valve and sTeam and Half-Life 2 is to search out and destroy the real Gordon Freeman, being that he is the only one who can stop them.

What better way to try to locate and nutralize him? The one person who can destroy Valve and all that Gabe Newell has worked for?

Obviously, some sort of mind control is at work with sTeam and H-L2 and this Freeman, whoever his is, has vowed to stop it. But every second delayed means Valve's army of crazed zombie fanboyz grows and grows.

Maybe the delay of the game last years was Freeman's doing?

I mean City 17 is so obviously Valve nd their logo with valves inserted into various places in the head, the mind, to control the mind. I think the splash screen has the valve in the eye, because they wan't to control all you see. Then there's another one with the valve in the back of the head somewhere, a symbol that they can open your mind and crawl inside anytime it pleases them.

The real life Freeman is probably Gabe Newell's good twin.

Maybe Gabe himself was at one time the "good twin" and he was undercover at MS when Bill Gates "got to him" and as punishment, sent him off to start Vavle where the only game he can make over and over is the story of his attempt to stop MS and the gray man is Bill Gates!!!!!!!!

138.
 
Re: Perspective is a good thing..
Nov 23, 2004, 23:27
PHJF
 
Re: Perspective is a good thing.. Nov 23, 2004, 23:27
Nov 23, 2004, 23:27
 PHJF
 
Software piracy is no different than drug dealing. There is *no way* to prevent it. The hacker will *always* find a way.

This is all just wasted effort...

------
“The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn. Ok?"
Steam + PSN: PHJF
Avatar 17251
137.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 23, 2004, 23:25
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 23, 2004, 23:25
Nov 23, 2004, 23:25
 
scorpius,

Since you used the example of terrorism.....

It's people like you who will be screaming bloody murder at our government if we DO get attacked by terrorist again, because they didn't "do enough" to protect you. But when this "protection" start to impose on your life, you don't want them any more. WHICH IS IT GOING TO BE?

Just like you, I believe the "ideal" solution would be increased security, without affecting our civil liberties. But how does that work? Show me a situation where security is increased without creating new limits.

Oh, and I'm soooo sorry that it makes you feel like a criminal to have to use a more secure system like Steam. God forbid you get your little feelings hurt. Hell, maybe it hurts the feelings of the criminal stalking your neighborhood that you have a locked door in his way. Maybe you should let him on in so you don't hamper is freedom to rip you off or kill your dumb ass.

This reminds me of something else that pisses me off...

I live in Nevada where the government is proposing the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste dump out in the desert. People here are fighting the hell out of this thing because they don't want the waste dump in Nevada. My question is.... WHERE THE HELL SHOULD WE PUT IT? In every state they try to put this stuff the people freak out and do whatever they can to block it. Everyone wants the god damned power from the nuclear plants, but no one wants to take responsibility for the WASTE it creates. You don't get it both ways. Welcome to reality.



---
http://www.oceas.com/SpreadFireFox
This comment was edited on Nov 23, 23:28.
--
He cut the possum's face off then cut around the eye socket. In the center of the belt buckle, where the possum's eye would be, he has placed a small piece of wood from his old '52 Ford's home made railroad tie bumper. Damn, he misses that truck.
136.
 
Perspective is a good thing..
Nov 23, 2004, 23:24
Perspective is a good thing.. Nov 23, 2004, 23:24
Nov 23, 2004, 23:24
 
I've worked with two software companies. Both of them used illegal software on a daily basis. Does that mean that Valve does? No. But I would bet the farm that if you looked at every pc used at Valve, you'd find something that wasn't quite kosher. Does this mean that Valve\Vivendi\whomever doesn't have the right to protect their investment by any legal means they see fit to implement? Absolutely not. They are perfectly within their rights to use cd-keys, require disk authentication, and whatever legal means to ensure their software isn't stolen. They are perfectly within their rights to ban users who have obviously engaged in software piracy. On the other hand, any user who is wrongly banned has every right to sue. A user stands to lose what they paid for the game - around $50 US. Valve\Vivendi stands to lose millions. I'd have to side with the big boys on this one.
But let's keep this in perspective. Stealing software is wrong, and if a person is charged and convicted, they will be punished. But to state that software piracy is the moral equivalent of murder is just plain stupid. I suspect that if only those who had never pirated any software---EVER, were allowed to post, this thread would be a whole lot shorter, and many of the people coming down so self-rightously hard would be oddly silent.
______________________________________________
Dual P5 4.75 GHZ, 5 GB QDR5600 RAM, GF\Radeon 107900 XT Hybrid 528 mb video card, 10 650 GB Hyper SCSI3 HD's in a RAID 15 array. Platinum\Aluminum alloy case w\ liquid Nitrogen cooling.
135.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 23, 2004, 23:20
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 23, 2004, 23:20
Nov 23, 2004, 23:20
 
My post generated so many stupid replys so very quickly... sigh (one reply and then I'm dropping this):

The same way you should blame the terrorist if your civil rights are taken away?
I wish sometimes people would think.

The ends don't justify the means, people accept measures being taken for e.g. preventing piracy, but sometimes you can go too far.

The ends don't justify the means?! You make this registration thing out to be such a hardship. You end up sacrificing 30 mbs of HD space for Steam, logging in and authenticating ONE time, and then playing in offline mode (if it bugs you this much).

As for your civil rights anecdote, give me a freaking break. Are you expecting the ACLU to come defend your right to unprotected software? Is your very way of life being threatened by activation? This is hardly as serious an issue as the degradation of civil liberties in Our Modern World.

I think Beamer pretty much took care of Squirrel's hamfisted attempt at analogy, so I'll move on to MapleBob's post:

Maybe if Valve is so afraid of being ripped off, they should work on the games but just not release them.

Yeah, great idea! (note: sarcasm) Since they're concerned with their game not making them any money, they should spend all their money on development, and then just not sell it! Wonderful plan!

Bottom Line: This activation hardly inconveniences you. The spyware you are infected with every time you attempt to pirate a game (in retalliation or however you justify it) is a much greater threat to your computer use.

Quit whining, send a few packets to Valve, then go into offline mode. You shouldn't be using an internet connection anyway, it probably compromises your (apparently ridiculously high) standards of security and privacy.
I eat pasta!
134.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 23, 2004, 23:11
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 23, 2004, 23:11
Nov 23, 2004, 23:11
 
it's the manager's, for being a fucking paranoid bigot. You can't blame the gun for the shooter's actions.

Poor analogy.

This is more like a store having closed circuit surveillance. The big difference is the store manager was watching only you, while the store with CC cameras is watching everyone.

Much like civil liberties is a poor analogy. You can just not patronize the software company. You make yourself heard without stealing. "But it's not fair, other people are playing," yeah, by following the company's rules.

133.
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting?
Nov 23, 2004, 23:08
PHJF
 
Re: Man.. why do people keep posting? Nov 23, 2004, 23:08
Nov 23, 2004, 23:08
 PHJF
 
lol@20,000 people

------
“The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you learn. Ok?"
Steam + PSN: PHJF
Avatar 17251
232 Replies. 12 pages. Viewing page 5.
Newer [  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  ] Older