C'mon people, cut this shit out.

Its like celebirty gossip without the celebirties. "Ohh, I wonder what so-and-so will say!", "Oh man, Gabe has such bad security kekekeke"

Valve must be really pissed right now but I'm wondering how bad this really is. OK, this sucks. This sucks for Valve and while I'm not too bothered about HL2, I've a lot of respect for those guys. Now, how will this impact things?

The CD-Key code is available so any cracker worth his salt can create any number of CD-Keys. Problem? No. This code is about a month old (or so someone slashdot said). The game is a couple of months away from release. No CD-Key that validates on the leaked code will work, that's beyond doubt.

Licensing - big money nowadays, although there is a lot of players at present (D3, UT Warfare, Lithtech, renderware, even Q3 and others). Still, big money. Will companies use it? Not in it's current form. If Valve get a sniff of copyright infringement, they'll be racing to their lawyers faster than the speed of sound because they'll want a high profile, big money victory (which they'd probably easily get) to disuade future attempts. What will happen is some developers will use ideas - graphical stuff, AI etc but nothing huge. Will they gain a lot from this leak? Yes. Will Valve loss a lot from this leak? I doubt it. I doubt anyone can take enough so that they'd decide against licensing Source (what an ironic name now) because of the legal issues. I'm sure HL3 will be considerably more advanced than HL2 so I can't see HL3 being hugely impacted. However, it will probably be somewhat impacted as this leak will bring a number of developers up to speed and some of them might stay up to speed. I doubt this will be significant compared to what HL2/HL3 will make Valve but still, it's something.

Warez - this is the source source, not the game. No data files = no game. Useless for gamers.

Cheating - this is the big one. This code leaked is at least 2 months away from the final code and builds with multiplayer cheats in will be useless. However, security through obscurity is a major part of gaming security as the server doesn't have the resources to do as much as we'd like. If people can see all around the source, that security will be gone. In the next month or 2 or 3 or 6 this will be changed as much as they can but I doubt they can change that much without delaying the game.

I think this will impact online cheating. It won't be huge and, frankly, I can't see online cheating in HL2 ever not being an issue so the damage is limited but that doesn't make it much better. I don't think this all sucks for Valve or for us as much as it would appear but it still sucks.

Cheers,
Quboid

Wouldn’t a firewall have stopped stuff without permission accessing the internet?

I can't wait to see what Penny Arcade will make of this! Maybe they'll make Gabe out to be a babbling moron... oh ah wait a second...hehehe. AH well thats what you get, stilly Gabe, blaming it on outlook, when in doubt call MS out.

BTW, Hump, nice one

I wonder how many "security holes" would be found in Unix/Linux etc. if they had 90% market share? Could it be that Windows is "less secure" simply because so many people use it, thus making it a very high profile target?

My personal experience with Linux in particular is that it is by far the easiest OS to hack, mostly because it's such a pain in the ass to keep up to date.

I always find it funny that the slashdot crowd jumps on MS immediately for not knowing some crack in the OS/software suite, instead of jumping on the asshole hackers that are responsible for the crime, and yes it is a crime.

Hacker logic taken to your house:
"I just threw the brick through your front window to show you it could be done. You shouldn't have glass windows, they are too easy to break. I'm a hero, not a crook!"

One thing for sure, anyone caught with a copy of this source code will probably have the law come down on them like a ton of bricks.

I think hackers will be few and far between in a few years, the laws are changing, anyone hacking now seems to get 3 years just for switching on their PC. Corporate hacking can get up to 15 years

Alright people, calm down.

1. I don't see why this should delay the release at all. Its not like someone destroyed the source-code. They just copied it. How does that affect Valvle? The delay was most likely (I'm guessing like 99% likelyhood) not caused by this, and neither will any future delay (if there are any), so just relax.

2. This didn't "destroy 5 years of work by a team of 30 poeple" or whatever. As I've said, the original source-code is still intact. So, it really wasn't that damaging to Valve.

3. This likely won't affect any potential licensing of Source for future games. No one will release a commercial game with pirated source-code. What it could do, and I hope it does, is allow people to use the Source engine for their own freeware projects. I have long been of the opinion that free-ware and independent games are at a disadvantage simply because they have to use crappier graphics engines, so they can't compete with the AAA games. If this changes that situation, all the better.

4. I don't think this really shows that Valve is incompetent or anything. If the CIA can be hacked, so can Valve. If someone is out to hack you, and they've got enough computer skills, there's not much you can do to stop them.

____

Aside from the sheer scope and importance of this, I don't think it will have any real-life consequences, or any negative ones anyway.

Hopefully Steam is robust/adaptable enough to deal with the cheating threat this poses.

As a side note- to all that were quick to blame Steam for the delay of Half-Life 2, I reiterate: frequently the situation is alot more complicated than what it looks like from the outside. Again, I'm not saying Steam wasn't a factor, but there seem to be other issues as well...

As for those that are blaming Valve devs for (using Windows/using Outlook/not cleaning their entire network), that is ridiculus. Would you blame a murder victim for their own death, because they forgot to lock the door? It might be unwise, but I think the blame lies soley on those people that are (fanatical/immature/obsessive) enough to hack Valve.

The Internet is full of stupid people... never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
-_- ...

get used to it...
it only gets worse from here on in!

http://www.humanburger.com

why are you morons carrying about like a bunch of infantile degenerates?

I especially detest those assholes who write their posts in either italics, caps or end their sentences in ten billion exclamation points.

Children, listen, everything will be alright, your game will be in your sweaty palms shortly. Considering that I'm writing this to 20 and 30 something year olds, this is especially sad.

Yes, Valve/Gabe is using some "unsecure" software; but are they really to blame ??? IMHO the real culprits are some assholes which have nothing better to do, than to hack the pc's of other people. Think this is cool ?? Think again; if you have so leet skills then do something useful with that; not destroy others people work/property. //But of course it's easier to kill someone than to save someones live with a heart op.// Why don't they program their own game/net-application/whatever if they are soo cool. This secures them much more acknowledgment than such shit. This world is making me really sick. If I would be god I would start from scratch...experiment "mankind" failed lomg ago.

--------------------------------------------------
everyone who finds a spelling error can keep it and use it as a base for his own errors

20$ says Nvidia or someone/ones working there are behind or involved in this somehow.

Pentium 4 2.4B 533 FSB
I850EMD2
512mb 40ns Rdram
Radeon 9700pro 330/330
Win Xp

I doubt it will cost them much in licensing...

If any company used the leaked engine in an actual game, they'd be sued within an hour... and it's not really something that can be hidden well

The danger here really is the potential for cheating/hacking that'll be impossibly hard to prevent...

But more than that, I'm sure it's just really disheartening

DCOMBOBULATOR!!!

I tell people that Outlook, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer are bad things to be running on your computer, but many people seam to ignore me.

From what I can tell the Outlook family was so badly written you could drive a fleet of cruise liners through it even with every security patch installed. Personally I use Netscape 4.8 Mail and am moving to Mozilla Mail probably soon and haven't had any problems with viruses. Of course I almost never run any EXE, COM, or VBS files I get in my inbox unless I know for sure they are safe. Also, unlike Outlook, you can't get around having to click on the file to run it.

Now I know that IE is the most used web browser right now, but it's still very dangerous. There are at least 2 well known bugs that people can use to do anything they want on your computer. Now for the most part you do have to go to their web page for them to do this to you, but still, just having the ability for some one to make a malicious page scares me.

Then you get those banner adds. Can anyone say Gator? The add comes on, a message box pops up with a yes or no, most people I bet click the Yes thinking just get this box out of my way. What if some one hijacks one of these adds and puts a virus in? What if Gator or one of these other spy ware programs has a security hole in it. I've never had a problem with this using Mozilla. IE, I've had to fix too many people's computers because of this.

As for why they use Windows, most of the people with PCs run Windows, whether you like it or not, that's where the most money is for the gaming market right now.

i know im using windows!!!
its all go can use for games, what the fuck else am i going to do!
I said , "the wretchid filth on all our machines!", need anymore clearification?
The fact that its a monopoly is the reason there is nothing else... and that my friend, is the real crappy part! Cuz the program SUCKS MAJOR ASSHOLES!!!

http://www.humanburger.com

Thats what they get for trusting microsoft...
Windows is the wretchid filth on all our machines, making them all run like shit and crash all the time...
we must rise up and disemember bill gates!

I must say, I always wonder just what percentage of people who say things like this are running Windows themselves. I'll wager it's about 90%. Is it cool to badmouth Windows, but still use it?

Myself, I'm dual-booting Windows XP Pro and Red Hat Linux 9. It's getting more and more to the point where the only reason I have Windows installed is for games. That and it's a handy fallback in case I cock something up in Linux

Don't be ignorant. The vast majority of the industry and the world uses Windows.

Back in the box Linux-boy.

You know, ive always wondered about this, why if you have a super secret piece of software/data keep it on a computer thats connected to the net? Maybe im just niave or something, but surely u would keep youre work network seperate from the outside world? and then it wouldent matter how good the hackers are, unless they can get a signal to spark from the socket thru the air and into a comp then they are not getting in,..

I read something about this kind of thing on everything2.com
There was a node about something called a "Ten finger interface" which basically means just what you said - that two networks are utterly separate. There is no physical connection between the two. Anything that needs to be done between the two networks involves your ten fingers reading output off one machine and using it as input on the other, or vice versa.

ahahha....

Thats what they get for trusting microsoft...
Windows is the wretchid filth on all our machines, making them all run like shit and crash all the time...
we must rise up and disemember bill gates!

http://www.humanburger.com