***Gabe Newell needs our help, HL2's source is in the wild.***

This is a serious matter, please spread this information to people you think
can be of assistance.

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days
for me or for Valve.

Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.

Here is what we know:

1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my
email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email
server versus my travel schedule.

2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on
executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on
my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.

3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my
webmail account.

4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at
Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in
Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of
RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen
anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of
denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't
know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.

What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this
down. I have a special email address for people to send information to,
. If you have information about the denial of
service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details.
There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in
IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.

We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community,
and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these
problems than this community.

Gabe


__________________
Gabe Newell

Well, a few points:
1. This is only the HL2 engine source code. It is useless without all =
the textures/artwork/scripts/levels/etc so no game has been leaked.
2. HL2 engine source code can only be useful to cheat coders. Big f..ing =
deal, this is only a game, not a financial transaction support system.
3. This is Valve's intellectual property true, but what use is it to =
other game makers? Noone in their right mind will risk a certain, swift =
and devastating law suit by copying even parts of this source. This =
would be a financial suicide.
4. Mabbe someone will take a look at this code and figure out how to =
make it run faster on Nvidia cards. I betcha theres something like "if =
(nvidia_card) run_slow =3D true; else run_slow=3Dfalse;"

So chill...

"iggy" wrote in message
...

Well, a few points:
"1. This is only the HL2 engine source code. It is useless without all the
textures/artwork/scripts/levels/etc so no game has been leaked."

I'm sure Valve is relieved to hear that only their engine source code has
been compromised, the very essence of the game. Thank god the textures,
which are just modified snapshots are safe and secure. Why don't you drop
Gabe a personal note, in case he's not aware of how lucky he and his team
are.


"2. HL2 engine source code can only be useful to cheat coders. Big f..ing
deal, this is only a game, not a financial transaction support system."

I'm glad you think this only benefits cheaters, and only on-line play has
been compromised, so that fair players who do not like having to suffer
through game-wrecking shenanigans are the only ones inconvenienced.


"3. This is Valve's intellectual property true, but what use is it to other
game makers? Noone in their right mind will risk a certain, swift and
devastating law suit by copying even parts of this source. This would be a
financial suicide."

Since it is out in the open, the secrets are no longer secret, and now the
opportunity for modifing their hard work, with no compensation to the
content creators is present, where it wasn't before. I'm glad you have so
little respect for developers, and so much more for the free distribution of
all content. Next time you do a day's work, allow me to take credit for it,
and get the financial benefit. If you complain or disagree, I'll just refer
you back to this post. I suspect you have never created anything of value,
therefore haven't a notion as to the worth of said construct.


"4. Mabbe someone will take a look at this code and figure out how to make
it run faster on Nvidia cards. I betcha theres something like "if
(nvidia_card) run_slow = true; else run_slow=false;"

So chill..."

You sir, are ignorant and flippantly dismissive of the dollar values
involved, and suffer from an intellectually incomplete understanding of the
currrency of intellectual property and the fruits derived therefrom. In
order to end this on the same note you did let me just say: Get a clue.

Derek Wildstar left a note on my windscreen which said:

This is a serious matter, please spread this information to people you think
can be of assistance.

Anything which says spread this info I'm suspicious of. It's the first
smell of something not quite right.

Ther is nothing about this on the Valve site. Why isn't this reported
there?

Not saying it's definatly a hoax but I'm inclined to think it is.
--

Stoneskin

[Insert sig here]

On Fri, 3 Oct 2003 10:08:31 +0100, Stoneskin wrote:

Not saying it's definatly a hoax but I'm inclined to think it is.

I think its the real deal, it would have been refuted by now if it
wasn't, and it was quoted by Gabe himself on the halflife2.net forum.
--
Andrew. To email unscramble & remove spamtrap.
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim messages to quote only relevent text.
Check groups.google.com before asking a question.

"Stoneskin" wrote in message
t...
Derek Wildstar left a note on my windscreen which said:

This is a serious matter, please spread this information to people you
think
can be of assistance.

Anything which says spread this info I'm suspicious of. It's the first
smell of something not quite right.

Ther is nothing about this on the Valve site. Why isn't this reported
there?

Not saying it's definatly a hoax but I'm inclined to think it is.

IGN are running the story, I'd say thats pretty official.

spamtrap@localhost wrote:
I think its the real deal, it would have been refuted by now if it
wasn't, and it was quoted by Gabe himself on the halflife2.net forum.

Maybe Gabe's account has been pirated ?

--
XandreX
/I'm that kind of people your parents warned you about/

Derek Wildstar wrote:

5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at
Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in
Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of
RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen
anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).

That's what happens when you live dangerously. They could have installed
a firewall, they could have updated their antivirus's definitions, they
could have patched Outlook, they could have not used Outlook too.

They have enough work to do for a living, to add challenges like that.



What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this
down.

The UT2003 engine code source IS available on UT2003's website. Valve
could do the same. Well, they didn't want to. So what ?



--
XandreX
/I'm that kind of people your parents warned you about/

spamtrap@localhost left a note on my windscreen which said:

Not saying it's definatly a hoax but I'm inclined to think it is.

I think its the real deal, it would have been refuted by now if it
wasn't, and it was quoted by Gabe himself on the halflife2.net forum.

After I posted this I found the Gabe posting you mention. Certainly
adds alot of validitidy to it, I agree.

I find it pretty negligent and downright stupid to have critical stuff
like this on an internet enabled PC.
--

Stoneskin

[Insert sig here]

I suspect you have never created anything of value,
Only partly true, I have created nothing of value to You, but alot to =
people that matter to me.

therefore haven't a notion as to the worth of said construct.
False, I've a pretty good notion as to the worth of said construct =
(wow); nothing of value was said in the said construct and thus the said =
construct is worth nothing.

You sir, are ignorant and flippantly dismissive of the dollar values
involved, and suffer from an intellectually incomplete understanding =
of the
currrency of intellectual property and the fruits derived therefrom. =
In
order to end this on the same note you did let me just say: Get a =
clue.

Wow again, aren't we eloquent. Oh, the verbage and the smoothness... Mr. =
Wildstar (LOL) Are you a law student?

This is so good I've got to do it again

You sir, are ignorant and flippantly dismissive of the dollar values
involved, and suffer from an intellectually incomplete understanding =
of the
currrency of intellectual property and the fruits derived therefrom. In
order to end this on the same note you did let me just say: Get a =
clue.

Mr. Wildstar (LOL) even though I've been humbled by you and your so =
obviously deep understanding of the currrency of intellectual property =
and the fruits derived therefrom, You're the one, pardon my french, who =
needs to get a F...ing clue Mr. Wildstar (LOL)