Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Garibaldi Biscuit]

This whole situation is a mess. And it's the most depressing gaming news I've heard all year. I'm surprised there's been such a lack of a reaction to this on NTSC-uk, even if it is only a console-based forum.

I think the reason a lot of people haven't commented is that, like me, they just don't know what to say. I feel like someone has punched me in the stomach, I also feel ashamed that anyone would abuse a community friendly developer like Valve in this fashion - all it took was one person, or a very small group of people, to ruin the most anticipated gaming release in a very long time, and why? Simply because they could, because they have nothing else in their lives, because doing so probably provides the only rush of power they've ever felt in their sad, pathetic little existences.

I really do feel bad for Valve, prob not exagerating it to say that it feels as though someone has rung me up and told me a mate had just been severely beaten up for no reason, I only hope they don't lose too much money out of this and can keep things from unravelling.

Whoever did this, I hope you're happy. The entire world now despises you, and wants to slice you open and use your entrails as party streamers, not quite the effect you were after I'll wager?

[Papercut]

I think the reason a lot of people haven't commented is that, like me, they just don't know what to say.

agreed, I couldn't think of anything worse that could happen to a game as highly anticipated as this.

what can Valve do? release quickly and hope they combat hacking with patches, or hold back and beef up security while competitors sift through their code? No good solution to an impossible situation.

then theres the whole did they/didn't they stuff with ati/nvidia optimisations. Theres all sorts of nda fall out that could occur from this, with technologies licensed from other companies.

My personal feeling is that they should get the game out of the door pronto and issue many, many patches. they might have to put steam on hold to do that though.

[Spatial]

Taken from Shacknews and Planet Halflife, further info from Gabe Newell

1) We've taken our network connection down to pretty much a minimum. We're still finding machines internally that have been compromised.
2) The suite of tools that the attacker was using included the modified version of RemotelyAnywhere (basically a Remote Desktop-style remote admin tool), Haxker Defender (a process, registry key and file hiding tool), the key logger, and various networking utilities that allowed them to transfer files (compressors, NetCat, and FTP). We also are pretty sure they were sniffing our network to gather passwords and other information. Haxker Defender includes a file system driver that allows an attacker to have stuff on your machine that is invisible, unless you do something like mount the drive under another OS that has NTFS support.

We have determined one way of detecting some infected machines, which is using a connection viewer to detect connections to anomalous hosts external to our network.

We still don't know their entry method.

3) In general, the community has been remarkably swift at tracking down the sources of the leak. What would be most helpful now are IP addresses of the people who were responsible for the intrusion or for the denial of service attacks.

4) Also, please continue to send in URLs of websites hosting the source code. We've been contacting people and asking them to take it down.

5) There's anecdotal evidence that other game developers have been targeted by whoever attacked us. This hasn't been confirmed. We've been providing other game developers with more detailed information about the exploits and evidence of infiltration.

6) We're running a little bit blind with our network shut down, but it seems like some of the press has picked up the story. I've been fielding calls from the mainstream non-games, non-technical press.all day. Hopefully they will get to report shortly what a mistake it is to piss off a whole bunch of gamers and get them hunting you around the Internet.

For any information related to this, please send it to [email protected], or you can always send to [email protected] as well.

From the rumblings on certain boards and what not, it seems that they've got a pretty good idea who's done it and are well under way to getting the bastards !

Number 5 is a disturbing point, but goes to illustrate how cocky some of these little ****s actually are.

What were they planning next ? The latest build of Doom 3 ?

Gabe is still maintaining that the leak isn't the cause of the delay. However it'll mean they'll all have to work five times as hard between now and launch date to repair the damage that they can.

And then there's still the whole point of the fact that all their hard work has been exposed for all to see

But on an upside ( if there is one ) doesn't it mean that we may not be seeing a mediocre first person shooter for a while ?

All developers have to do is use Valve's hard work and viola - something half as good ( sorry ) as Half Life 2 - which will still mean its pretty great !

I'm joking of course, while they can't copy it direct it'll give them ideas of where to start improving / implementing their own code, and you have to question if this will raise the bar for a lot of unreleased games[/code]

[nips]

But on an upside ( if there is one ) doesn't it mean that we may not be seeing a mediocre first person shooter for a while ?

All developers have to do is use Valve's hard work and viola - something half as good ( sorry ) as Half Life 2 - which will still mean its pretty great !

I'm joking of course, while they can't copy it direct it'll give them ideas of where to start improving / implementing their own code, and you have to question if this will raise the bar for a lot of unreleased games[/code]

If the leaked information is anything like Bullet Time then - DAMN!

I'd hate for loads of other games to play similar to Half-Life 2. If I wanted a game that did play like Half-Life 2 I'd play Half-Life 2.

I really hope that the Mother ****er who did this gets hunted down so I can cut his mother ****ing teeth out! Chamone!

[Vaipon]

You can bet that this will be the last time a developer *ever* gets their source-code nicked before it's publically released. I can hear the Network Security Consultancy firms rubbing their hands together already as developers start to panic.

Shame they had to learn the hard way, but Valve really should of been more careful. If Gabe Newall suspected a breach prior to the attack (as he has stated), he should of done a bit more to investigate.

[choddo]

When is someone who gets bitten like this going to sue those incompetent ****ers at Microsoft? It does sound like their network security was a little bit lax.

Really bad news, but to be honest, the coding techniques wouldn't stay exclusive or secret for long. The good thing for valve is that they have the people who created it in the first place. 2 years from now, they'll still be ahead of everyone else.

Will be very interesting to see if the huge gaming community who is pissed off by this manages to find & turn these assholes in. Big distributed effort, kind of like seti@Holmes*

Chods

*I'm sorry.

[g-funk]

When is someone who gets bitten like this going to sue those incompetent ****ers at Microsoft? It does sound like their network security was a little bit lax.

Hehe, people always manage to blame MS for anything that ever goes wrong.

[Super Stu]

To be fair, they do appear to make it easier for the above sort of thing to happen. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a "hax0red?! teh tough!" clause in their EULA these days.

[g-funk]

To be fair, they do appear to make it easier for the above sort of thing to happen. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a "hax0red?! teh tough!" clause in their EULA these days.

Totally agreed, but there incompetence is well documented so to have your most imortant work on a machine that has these "holes" is crazy.

[Tom Salter]

Will be very interesting to see if the huge gaming community who is pissed off by this manages to find & turn these assholes in. Big distributed effort, kind of like seti@Holmes*

Apparently they've got many many leads, it'll take them a while.

Stu - wouldn't surprise me, you seen how long they are?

[Ish]

I'm one of those who've hesitated to say anything - because like Garibaldi Biscuit I'm unsure what to say.

I've got very mixed feelings about it to be honest.

I'm gutted that its happened and Valve have my sympathies - its dreadful that there are people in this world with such a lack of respect for others. And I hope the person (people) who did this are caught, hung, drawn and quartered.

But on the other hand it sounds like Valve have been somewhat lax in there security. There IP and there livelihood is (largely) contained within there source code and they've not protected it adequately. Simple as that.

Hence the mixed feelings.

And yeah - as a previous poster said - if they can't protect there own IP can you trust them to protect your credit card details over Steam (rewritten or not)? I'm thinking not... But then I think games companies should stick to what there best at - developing games.

And as for it being "Microsoft's fault"... my god... Is anything not?

Microsoft's security problems are well documented. True. But then... there are alternatives. There is a choice. Particularly for network type software.

[Adam]

I've just played Half-Life 2. Albeit a crusty custom map with only 3 textures, the physics were in tact! It feels exactly the same as HL1, even looks the same. The source code was all compiled and you can now run the game just with no sounds/textures/properly designed levels etc. I took a few pics:

The menu (not official, someone made that also) + console, same as Steam.
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A map called qazwmp.bsp. see that big black ball on the right? that zooms around the level and if you get in its way it'll knock you aside There are purple blocks witch shatter when you knock into them:
Image

1 Block shattered, loads of chickens go all over the place. Yep chickens.
Image

Shattering all the blocks, as you can see the back ones fade away after a second or two:
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This is a load of black objects dumped into water. You can't tell where the water is though 'cause it wasn't textured. You can see some of the splashes still in black.
Image

This is a pic my cousin took of multiplayer. Those other chickens are actual players not just objects lol. He found a texture to replace the purple on the blocks found in my pictures.
Image

pretty interesting eh? If I find anything else I'll post about it. Wouldn't surprise me if someone is already working on sounds, weapons and more textures already

Edit: Changed pictures to links

[Concept]

...

[H-Man]

I'd rather not see any 'HL2' stuff till it's released.

[choddo]

No thanks Adam, and I hope you've reported the site you download it from to Valve?