posted
The news just broke that the Half-life 2 source code was leaked. That means that the entire unencrypted guts of Half-life 2, Team Fortress 2, and other projects is out on the internet, available to all.
Here's the announcement from Gabe Newell. Basically, this means that any game built on VALVe's technology can be cheated, hacked, and imitated undetectably with very little effort. There is also heavy speculation that this will push back the Half-life 2 release date even further as the dev team performs massive rewrites.
This is a sad, sad day, but Newell has asked the fan community to assist in tracking down the perpetrators. They're already hot on the digital trail left by these guys, and I personally am expecting arrests and serious jail time. VALVe has potentially lost millions of dollars on this, and someone MUST PAY!!
posted
But, but, but... shouldn't that be free? Shouldn't the code be in the public domain? Shouldn't people be able to freely trade whatever they want over the internet? The game companies have *so much* money and charge *so much* for each game, surely it won't hurt them that we get free copies... maybe it'll even make them lower prices on games!
posted
Heh heh Leaking source code is a little different from pirating games, and both are definitely more serious than MP3 trading.
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posted
This is true. Kinda like getting hit by a train is a bit worse than getting hit by a moped. Then again, I'd just as quickly step out of the way of both.
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posted
If it were available under a proper GNU license, then yeah, that would be a good thing.
Unless we're talking about microsoft, in which case it would also be a good thing.
As for who has money and who gets hurt, it really depends on whether we're talking about a publisher or a developer. Developers I'd worry about, most publishers I could care less about.
Publishers front the money, and in exchange they rush the game through development, pander to the largest possible audience without worrying about quality, and generally do all the shit that hollywood producers do to ruin the movie industry and screw people, that the RIAA does to screw music makers and the people who love music, etc.
As for hackers and cheaters in terms of gameplay, yeah, I agree. They're a pain in the ass.
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quote: Gabe Newell Managing Director Valve Software
Registered: Jul 2003 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, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com . 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
It would be nice if they could trace this.
Edit: I realize this is the same that was linked to, just posting here for the lazy or for the folks like me for whom that page was/is really slow (on cable no less).
posted
Jesus, that sucks. Sigh. As you may have noticed, I'm not a fan of large companies, but Valve has always been true to its fans. Thats why half-life is the best modded game in existance. Why can't people like this aim at microsoft?
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posted
Wolf, why would you want them to aim at MS? Do you think that it would help stem the tide of viruses/exploits that you see? Do you think that it would "force" MS to make a better OS or something?
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posted
I have seen that sort of thing a lot, especially on gaming websites. For some reason a lot of people (especially gamers from my experience) get crazy loco over game piracy and such, but will openly discuss their pirating the latest version of Windows or Office or some other MS program.
posted
No, my point is that if they feel this need to be destructive, it'd be nice if they aimed it at someone who could use a little chastising. I didn't say it was right in any case.
However, Valve seems to be a decent company who's purpose is as much to make a good product as it is to make money.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has a clearly expressed desire to subjagate the world.
So, I'm ok with microsoft getting nailed. Valve getting nailed makes me angry.
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posted
As far as I'm concerned, this has nothing to do with intellectual property. Rarely is source code explicitly copyrighted -- of course an implicit one applies as per the Berne Convention, but I have doubts whether it could hold up in court. Why? The answer goes straight back to the Constitution: IP was established to promote the distribution of art and knowledge (for a fee if desired), which would eventually enrich the public domain. Game binaries and the packaging etc. that accompany it clearly fall into this category, but you'll never find the source code registered in the Library of Congress. As such, it's much closer to a trade secret, which courts have repeatedly ruled do not retain IP protection.
What is plain to see is a case of breaking & entering with malicious intent, and most significantly, of fraud. These offenses have been in the criminal statutes for a long, long time, and (unlike, say, DMCA's anti-circumvention) deserve to be. Lock the thieves up.
...but it's unlikely you could implicate an average Joe in a crime for downloading a now-available copy. This would be analogous to reading the Coke recipe, assuming it got published somehow (legitimately or not). Once the cat is out of the bag, U.S. law says "tough luck" -- and I agree.
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posted
US law does not protect trade secrets, true, but most states do have laws protecting trade secrets.
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posted
*Gets Mack's Stick* *Hands it to Mack* Let's kick some hacker's butts.
Richard, I have to admit that I'm not very knowledgable when it come to copyrighting source code, but I've never heard that before. Can you explain, or have link a website or something?
posted
"Leaking source code is a little different from pirating games, and both are definitely more serious than MP3 trading."
Geoff, leaving aside the fact that you work for a game company, why is pirating a game more serious than pirating music?
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posted
Because you can't play games over the radio.
I'm sure it isn't much different, but I always felt that the game companies were on my side. I never felt that way about the music publishers. Posts: 2523 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
Hobbes, it's a principle I made up Ask Microsoft whether their source code is copyrighted and they'll say "yes," but when I reflect on the situation I don't think standard IP doctrine applies. Saxon has a good point, although I don't feel like looking up (1) what state Valve is in (2) what the laws are there. Regardless, the issue regarding the original perpetrators is pretty cut & dry.
Naturally, I too am awaiting Geoff's response Certainly we feel more moral attachment to friendly game developers than the arbiters of evil RIAA contracts, but the answer should be more substatial if it's to hold up...
[ October 02, 2003, 10:30 PM: Message edited by: Richard Berg ]
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posted
Another reason game piracy and MP3 trading are two different things.
Most musicians make their money from concerts, t-shirts, etc. This means that the more people hear their music and like it, them ore money they're going to make, and so most musicians...those who are actually musicians and not glorified producers...want their music to be traded. Point in cases, bands like Offspring, who tried to put their songs up for download and got sued by their publisher. Why? Because the publisher is the one who makes the money from the cd's.
Heres the rub. With file sharing technology available, publishers are now obsolete. There is nothing so dangerous as a rich man whose source of wealth is obsolete. Because he will do anything to retain what he no longer deserves.
There are many routes that people can take so that musicians can make the money they deserve and people can listen to the music they love. Problem is, we have to change some lawas that benefit some rich people, and thats something that doesn't happen often or easily in this country. See eff.org for details
Now, in terms of games, we have the same sort of issue, but now the developers, who are still getting screwed by publishers, only make their money by game sales. Thus, it really does hurt them to pirate their games.
As a side note, copy right was only intended to last for 7 years, which makes a lot of sense, because the copyrighter can make their money and then the public can benefit from the knowledge. The fact that it now lasts almost indefinitely is a direct result of the evil of disney and the American corporation.
Posts: 54 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
That's only a slight difference though, Hobbes. I think it could hardly be said to be too signficant.
One might say it's more 'serious' even if not more 'wrong' than sharing mp3s because game-sharing would be much more damaging to the game industry than mp3 sharing will be to music artists. Designing games take a lot more of a massive effort than writing a song does.
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posted
Better point. I can't really say much more because my fan just gave my right index finger a massive cut. But basically, yah, I agree with Geoff about this, mp3s may not be right but programs are much worse. (Sharing them that is ).
posted
How many of those of you who've participated in Photoshop contests have registered, paid copies of Photoshop? Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Why the hell would someone steal this? It's not like they can sell it for any amount of money. It's just so they can cheat better. Man, there are a bunch of lame-ass bastards out there who need their mouse wrist's broken.
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posted
Well I used Photoshop Elements (which I got for my Birthday ), but Purdue has bought a whole bunch of Photoshop 7.0 liscneces that you can use via internet acess which is pretty cool. I've done it with AutoCad and MatLab but I haven't tried Photoshop yet.
posted
In general technical innovation is not protected by copyright. In fact, ideas in general are not copyrightable. Copyright protects the specific words used in a writing. Now, until relatively recently, in order for a work to be copyrighted the author had to register two copies with the Library of Congress. Since the US accepted the Berne Convention, though, pretty much everything is copyrighted as soon as you write it (even your grocery lists).
Software is a tricky phenomenon in terms of copyright and patent. In general the author of the work in question is given copyright, except that the author can give the copyright to an external agency, and this is done very frequently in the music and film industries. The publisher becomes the author, for all intents and purposes. Since pretty much all companies in technical enterprise require their employees to sign over all rights to any intellectual property they develop while employed (often even when not on company time and when not using company resources), the company owns the code. And you could make an argument that since code consists of alphanumeric characters, it is written, and is therefore copyrightable. But, as I said, usually technical IP is not protected by copyright, but by patent. This is because the same monopolistic rights given to an author in order to encourage him to write would give an unfair advantage to a company that could maintain that monopoly for so long. I believe that copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 60 years. I'm not sure what happens in the case of corporate copyright ownership. But just imagine how hard hit the software industry would be--an industry where a six-month advantage can mean millions--if monopoly rights were given that lasted for the life of the coder plus 60 years, for a total of as much as 120 years! But software patents are not very common, and are a very controversial topic, mostly due to the fact that many people believe that even patents last too long for software and that software would develop much more quickly in a completely open environment (see "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric S. Raymond)
So you can see that intellectual property rights as pertaining to software are tricky, to say the least.
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The original length of a copyright (or a patent, or both, but I've heard this argument, and feel fairly safe in using it) was only meant to be 7 or 8 years.
Its been extended largely due to the efforts and money of the Disney Corporation, who don't want anyone to be able to watch mickey mouse without paying them exhorbinent (sp, badly) amounts of money.
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posted
No, the original 1790 Copyright Act in the USA gave copyright for 14 years, but it has been expanded many times since that. The most recent copyright expansion to life plus 60 is more due to the combination of international pressure to join the Berne Convention in addition to domestic companies clamoring for protection overseas.
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posted
Since this is turning into a general copyright thread, I officially disclaim responsibility if this turns into an essay...
qkslvrwolf, the entertainment lobby is evil all right, but the first 1790 statute was not 7 but 14 years, renewable to 28. (Even the original British Statute of St. Anne, c. 1710, wasn't much shorter.) I'm all for returning to the original term, of course. Incidentally, some argue for loopholes: for instance, do you think the 1992 AHRA compromise was a good one? I didn't from the beginning -- SCMS stripping being merely an excuse to ratchet up the price of newly demarcated "professional" gear -- but hopefully the subsequent removal of lawsuit indemnity and the fact that not a dime of the "royalties" ever saw an artist's pocket will convince you.
Meanwhile though, the argument you give here isn't exactly compelling. After all, game developers can sell merchandise if they really want. If you consider that impractical, surely you'd agree a speaking tour could be lucrative (I think some have already explored this option). Does that make it more acceptable to download cracks?
Hobbes, lots of people share lossless audio. (Artist-sponsored bootlegs being the most common, though that's neither here nor there.) Would that make it as bad as pirating games? I think many people would still say no, but with no good reason offered yet. What if it turned out that mp3s were lower quality than tapes used to legitimately* time-shift radio? Does that make them ok? I posit that this has little to do with the issue. It will probably be a significant discriminant when more online distribution methods begin to compete, but Title 17 is quite blind to quality.
No solution here really targets the core issue. Bob inadvertantly hits on the sticky part of a digital work's ontology -- the word "steal" has little meaning in this context -- but even the ephemeral nature of code doesn't in itself justify or incriminate an action. In short: does owning a copyright give you the ability to restrict** distribution? I think it does. It's just not clear that Valve can seek copyright protection for something they never intended to distribute in the first place.
What if you believe you have a moral obligation to shove the industry toward a more modern structure? (Radical as it sounds, I find this opinion 100% valid, and implore anyone who doesn't to read the now-famous articles on salon.com about how the underpinnings of borderline-illegal contracts, extortion, and payola shape the life of the average artist.) Don't buy RIAA discs, obviously. But don't redistribute their music, either, says I -- to extoll the benefits of sharing while secretly hoping it leads to the destruction of the old model is intellectually dishonest, and if you truly believe in said P2P virtues (I do), counterproductive. Turn off commercial radio. Point and laugh at the faux lesbians on MTV. ****'m.
In other news... Buy from independent labels on Amazon and CDBaby (checking the list of course). Go to local concerts. Share their music with friends next door and online alike. And by share, I want the original meaning: word of mouth about what you like and why, not just an FTP server named "download this." Have fun.
A closing remark on piracy in general: it's a pity our language doesn't better reflect the difference between a poor student downloading Mathematica for class and a shady character on a NYC street corner hawking Hong Kong-vintage Madonna CDs. One can argue semantics all day long, but ultimately the former person is harming Wolfram not at all (and perhaps working toward becoming a professional -- paying -- user) and the latter is directly diverting funds from Warner Bros.' bottom line. Talking an economic impact of online filesharing in the billions of dollars makes wonderful headlines, but ultimately it's like the corporate equation of "stealing" with infringement. Once you sift through the fluff the real criminals are actually pretty easy to target, and just as with Valve, they're criminal in more ways than the NET Act would have you believe.
More generally, there's a reason copyright and criminal law didn't intersect for the first 288 years of their coexistence. Some would argue that the Internet made it a necessity, but I'd argue there was a much greater compelling interest in the early years. When printing presses were owned by a select few, the balance of power between publisher and artist was at its most skewed. The entire reason copyright was founded was to help correct this imbalance. Saying that it wasn't good enough, in this age where everyone can be a publisher for $5/mo, is quite a slap to those who struggled to provide us with the culture we enjoy today.
*Remembering however that ALL unlicensed copying constitutes infringement. "Fair Use" is an affirmative defense whose 4-way test may be considered when a case is brought to trial, not an exemption from the rest of the Title. Only judicial precedent can accurately determine its scope, but most would agree that time-shifting falls into this category, recalling for example the 1984 Sony Betamax case.
**Point one: note I did not say "prevent." To make an aside that's actually relevant to the original thread, I believe holding back publication of a work violates the implicit contract in Article I section VIII: you get a temporary monopoly in return for sharing arts and science. I brought up the LoC in my last post because traditionally, registering a copyright involved placing your work there in the public view, just as authoring a patent gets its contents irrevocably published on uspto.gov.
A poignant case I came across just over the weekend involved a recent composition we sang in the Duke Chorale. It was originally a setting of a Robert Frost text, but immediately after it was completed the Frost estate revoked the derivative rights. This particular piece was saved by a poet-friend of the composer's agreeing to write new verses in the exact meter, but the principle set me aghast: what if Schubert had been similarly restricted by Goethe (who was not exactly a fan)? What if Arthur Brook (or hell, Plutarch, had proto-Disney gotten their way with infinite terms) could have put a creative hold on Shakespeare? The artistic world would be infinitely poorer. Luckily, in the scientific community the "open-source" (if you will) paradigm of patents and journal articles is well entrenched, even if there's more profit-mongering than I'd like -- if you doubt this, thank God the math folks never thought to charge every time you use a theorem...
This doctrine in question also (for me) disambiguates some areas people consider grey, e.g. the capture and redistribution of TV shown over public airwaves and never released to DVD. I say it's like trademarks: don't use, you lose. Yet were this principle to be put in force it would clear require the provision for case-by-case review, since on one hand content holders could "release" their offerings priced at a million dollars, and on the other vendors of derivative works might not add enough creative content to justify legal protection prior to the freedom they're promised when the work becomes public domain.
Point two: note I did not say restricting "access." Don't be fooled by any industry rhetoric that makes you believe copyright can (much less was intended to) restrict access. The concept of public libraries far predates dear St. Anne, and is in no way superceded by modern IP. You can borrow CDs as often as you like; you can remember the songs to the best of your ability; you can even write them down; you just can't sell your scribbles, until the copyright expires.
Nor should you be fooled by "music licenses:" if software licenses are said to have virtually no legal precedent, as many like-minded people do, then music licenses have absolutely none. A distribution service that claims you may only stream (not download) their sounds, or a scheme that only gives you X listens, is at the sole mercy of its technology. Breaking it may be an anti-circumvention offense until the evil DMCA is repealed, but it is not copyright infringement. In fact, were I to amend Title 17, even before striking out the DMCA provisions I'd add this disclaimer on so-called digital rights management: any DRM scheme that does not automatically cease when (1) the copyright duration is completed, or (2) the user requests a use that a majority of a U.S. Circuit Court would deem fair, shall not be eligible for copyright protection. Encouraging the encryption of the arts and sciences*** will irrevokably harm our cultural heritage when the keys are inevitably lost by advancing technology and the general march of time.
There, you have the succinct version of my views on copyright, in no particular order. Don't even think about asking for the long one ***I actually believe that ALL encryption not involving nuclear submarines is bad, but that'll have to wait for another time.
[ October 03, 2003, 02:27 AM: Message edited by: Richard Berg ]
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Ok, so obviously lots of people spoke while I was composing myself, but in general they're correct.
Since starting work in the industry I've had to think a lot about software patents (most of my bosses had a few plaques on their wall). Despite being quite the free-information type, I don't think I'm opposed to them in principle. The problem is the way the USPTO is granting them willy-nilly. It's gotten to the point where you can patent the ability to type "foo", or like the now-famous John Keogh in Australia, the wheel.
Meanwhile, it's comparatively difficult to get a patent annulled when prior art exists, as it should. Thus everyone is trying to patent as many things as possible, as preemptive protection if nothing else. Even when a company can lay true claim to an idea, the way standards are adopted in the computer industry don't lend themselves to cross-licensing, as is commonplace among CPU and RAM manufacturers. What the hell is one supposed to do in the face of Amazon's 1-click patent?
Edit: and q, in some ways you make me apologetic, because having been on the receiving end of countless long threads (which I assume a thread becomes given a giant post) I know it's tought to jump in. Do you try and pick one point to respond to and not get your say in on the others, or pick it apart quote by quote to the detriment of everyone else's debate? Sorry for putting people in that position.
[ October 03, 2003, 02:38 AM: Message edited by: Richard Berg ]
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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In general I agree with you, and thank you for elaborating so cogently on the subject.
A few things:
Copyright as I understand it does have to do with restricting distribution, especially, but not limited to, distribution for profit. If it doesn't address distribution, how can it possibly protect the author's rights?
Additionally, you mentioned that the entire reason that copyright was founded was to help balance the power between a multitude of artists and a minority of powerful publishers. And this does seem to be the case in continental Europe where copyright springs from a moral rather than an economic basis. But copyright in America is far more rooted in English common law and the Statute of Anne (as you pointed out) than Continental law, and much of what drove copyright in England was the Stationer's Guild desiring to maintain their monopoly.
Regarding your second post, I'm not terribly clear on what you mean by cross-licensing. Could you elaborate a bit? But as far as standards are concerned, what I've seen for software, especially related to the internet, is at least somewhat similar to hardware standards, such as those generated by organizations such as the IEEE or PCI-SIG, etc. The governing body, where there is one, generally creates a committee to draft a standard which is then released for comment by the rest of the members. In the case of PCI-SIG, this is basically any engineer who wants to be a member. The main difference that I see is that things like Internet RPCs are not generated by a formal committee. Still, the review process is similar.
I think that the idea of a temporary monopoly on technical innovation is as readily adaptible to software as any other type of innovation, but the problem is that software changes so rapidly. How long do patents last? Isn't it 17 years? In an industry where major paradigm changes can occur in a single year, or less in some cases, a 17-year monopoly could cripple the mobility of the industry. Add to that the fact that basically anything seems to be patentable these days (i'm sure you know about patent #6,368,227, the swinging on a swing patent) and I think we have a problem. The concept of patents is a good one, but I think it needs to be overhauled to take into consideration the modern pace of innovation.
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posted
I think these links might show why someone would want to do this to valve. link 1 link 2 link 3
Also here is something from tomshardware.com that I found interesting
quote: I also almost forgot the world's No. 1 philanthropist Gabe Newell, who came down from Olymp to enlighten us with the real deal about NVIDIA chips. Ah, well, thanks for so much clarity, honesty and benevolence! God bless steamy Gabe and innocent ATi, who finally taught us that NVIDIA is actually sponsoring Al Quaida. We were hardly surprised when we heard that NVIDIA's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has been seen hiding Saddam in his back yard.
That can be found here. Please read the other links first as that will help you understand why Gabe might have said those things.
Oh yeah, the hackers can burn in hell.
Posts: 190 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I believe you misread my point. In short: restrict distribution = yes, access = no; elaboration = above.
You are right that I was misleading about the origins of copyright. The quasi-moral laws enacted in Europe do predate St. Anne, but did not hold the influence over English common law that my italics implied. Nonetheless, I think my exegesis of the U.S. Constitution suffices to establish the root of American copyright.
I don't think we disagree on software patents. I think they're far preferable to, say, EULAs (not that they're interchangeable, just making a point). Thing is, I'm even more worried about the expense of a prior-art lawsuit than about the incompetence of the patent office. Allowing robust challenges to patents solves the incompetence issue better than any lawyers the USPTO could hire, but as it stands it's cheaper for anyone without a Microsoftian bankroll to pay a fee to a patent holder than to file a suit. It's this environment that forces companies to patent things left & right in the first place, lest they be stuck with a license fee every time they want to turn on a computer.
Cross-licensing is basically bartering of patents. Micron comes up with a way to increase RAM density and Infineon figures out how to manufacture it smaller; they trade knowledge. This is common in several hardware areas, but RAM is the most complex since there's a standards body (JEDEC) -- everyone who joins automatically agrees to cross-license with the others, basically ensuring that memory sticks are compatible with each other. Meanwhile, agreements between say Intel and AMD have kept the x86 platform compatible merely because they've individually chosen to cross-license a few technologies along the way. Most interesting are things like the Intel-Rambus alliance where Intel agreed to require Rambus RAM in all its high-end motherboards for 3 (?) years in return for access to their tech. Of course, Rambus stole most of said tech from JEDEC, but that's another story...
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posted
Back on topic, I think some perspective is in order...
Assuming you're not fellow software developers, let's try to get a grip on how long it would take to parse through a huge, foreign codebase. One that's undoubtedly highly optimized (99% of the time at the expense of readability, FYI); with coding standards entrenched over the many years Valve's dev team has been in place; that arrives without any documentation other than in-line comments (read: no design layout).
How long? Not as long as writing it, but on the same order of magnitude. Longer if you're constantly looking for secret little gems in which the magic of Valve supposedly lies (insert rolleyes), and longer still if you're trying to appraise and reuse the general framework.
Valve knows more than I do, of course, but if the concern that's motivating them to delay HL2 is merely thwarting cheaters, I think they're making a mistake. I'm not a gamer anymore, but there have always been cheaters and there always will be. Reward your legitimate customers by saying "screw them."
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posted
I absolutely agree, although mainly because I can't wait any longer for the game j/k. Seriously though, you make a good point.
Posts: 190 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Before everyone posts more frowny-faces, here's an even more optimistic viewpoint:
quote:You can't copyright ideas. There would be nothing illegal in reading their source and using their methods, unless those methods were patented.
I think this is a good thing for games. Lots of people have just been exposed to possibly great new ways, or some horribly wrong ways, of coding whatever their software does. This influx should help lots of other game programmers along in development, and hopefully make things better. Valve may lose money, but who cares? They shot themselves in the foot. Survival of the fittest! Now the world has their ideas, so all is not lost. It's just spread around. Think Marx, or more appropriately, Robin Hood.
I wouldn't go this far since I have an affinity for Valve's work -- although I have yet to see a concrete explanation for how exactly they have "lost" their multimillion-dollar investments -- but it's a solid POV if you're able to be more detached from the situation. Robin Hood et al. stand on their own (rather starkly, no doubt), but I'll touch on the foot-shooting:
All the rage on the techie sites is where the blame lies. Microsoft making buggy software? Microsoft not forcing patches strongly enough? (obligatory frivolous lawsuit) Stupid developers? Incompetent IT staff? Poor management in balancing the concerns of each?
I probably give it away in my phrasing, but I put the blame squarely on the latter personel. We software guys like the CVS to be readily accessible 24/7. Coupled with (sometimes rightfully) thinking they run the place, they can cripple even the best administrators when the admins want to move dev boxes off the main network or spend a day regression-testing a patch. This is where the Guys In Charge(tm) should step in. FWIW, they are now the guys who will be eating their collective crow whenever those evanescent losses kick in.
Even WRT cheating, I wouldn't get too worried. They've had 5 years to improve the network code; hopefully they came up with a protocol such that even source access can't break it. After all, crackers would have access to packet sniffers and disassemblers regardless.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: I absolutely agree, although mainly because I can't wait any longer for the game j/k. Seriously though, you make a good point.
Alas, I can't go 5 minutes without making an ass of myself. I just barely started a thread(in the wrong forum) which already existed and thus had to delete it, and now I have agreed too hastily and must recant(well I guess I can still say that you made a good point). Another link to the INQ - SORRY
quote: While the source code does not include the full game, the source code of the engine can be examined to create exploits in the game. Speculation is running rampant about Steam’s ability to detect hacks, but finding work-arounds with the source code is much easier than trying to decipher compiled information.
There are also components to the source code that reveals new weapons, and work already completed on several mods. While some people might think, "big deal", there is a high stakes game happening this fall with several prominent titles vying for the gamers dollar. This is a painful blow to Valve. µ
It appears that Valve isn't just delaying the game to prevent cheating.
Am I the only one who thinks I am talking kinda...wierd.
Posts: 190 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Looking at my previous post, I'm ready to claim that Microsoft : crackers :: Valve : cheaters.
So long as MS is making a good faith effort to ship a stable, secure OS and patch each hole as it's discovered, I can't lay the blame on them for network breaches. Building some cheat prevention into HL2 might make their $50 product more compelling, but ultimately the responsibility lies with users.
It's harder to be vigilant about cheaters than it is to set up a firewall, but on the flip side it's much easier to justify playing private games than it is to unplug the Net. I haven't gamed in ages, but from what I can tell the landscape is still very social: you're not missing much if you only play with friends (local ones over LAN, distant ones on restricted servers). Naturally tournaments and such are exceptions, but they also provide their own security. In all, my gamer buddies don't seem to enjoy cheat-capable games any less than uncracked ones.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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I'm not sure I understand the second half of that quote. Will people not buy the game now that they know there are new weapons Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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I think they are saying there are weopons in the source code that are for games based on the engine, not for H2 itself, of course my brain shut down about 6 hours ago so I am honestly not sure that anything I have posted has made sense. (I am completely serious about this, please tell me I'm not the only one who has had this feeling)
Posts: 190 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I'm inclined to think that MP3s take money from a faceless company. Sharing video games, on the other hand, takes money from the creators themselves.
Valve, especially, does not deserve this.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Leaking source code is a little different from pirating games, and both are definitely more serious than MP3 trading.
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