Credit Card Details Stolen. Are You in Danger?

[Vegeta897]

is that amazes me is the appauling behavior of Halflife2.net in this situation. clearly they are here to serve the interests of valve and not the consumer. the information was published by various other news outlets, so it wasn't secret, or confidential, it and holding out posting this information until AFTER the investigation was complete put readers of Halflife2.net and users of steam at risk. clearly the bandit got cc info.

I'm in agreement here. Miccy's story provides all the reason for fear that anyone should need. Plenty of other sites have posted the story as soon as they could. I don't know why hl2.net waiting this set amount of time. Why now? Is there something special that happened? Well we know the reason they waited, because they cared more about Valve's dignity (which doesn't even matter because it was already all over the internet) than the risk of user CC info. :thumbs:

 

[Ennui]

This forum is based entirely around the games that Valve has made. Have some respect or GTFO. They've never given us any reason not to trust them completely when it comes to matters like this.

 

[Jintor]

This site is more closely linked to Valve than most other sites, which probably explains more.

 

[Ennui]

This is mind blowing to me. to the guy i quoted, the article says " He only had card details of Steam Cyber Cafe owners."

if he can get that, he can get anything. your not safe anywhere. i had my number stolen, and the bank said the theives will get your number, get some hotel key cards, and generate credit cards they can use at self checkout stations.

Wrong. Read up. Valve's statement says that Cybercafe accounts were compromised and that it was not connected toSteam itself. Normal steam users' info is not stored, as far as I know, assume, and can reasonably conclude, and even if it is, it would be stored within Steam, which was not breached. What exactly are you trying to do with that second paragraph? I don't see what relevance your paranoid feelings about insecure credit cards have here.

I would absolutely love to see what it is that makes you feel it is 'clear' that the hacker got non cybercafe credit card information given that Valve has explicitly stated that it was limited to that. The only people that need to worry about this are Valve, the FBI, and Cybercafe subscribers.

Furthermore, Vegeta, we are not alone in declining to post news about this - HL Fallout and PHL both knew as well, and I'm sure others along with them. Also, our reasons had less to do with Valve's dignity and more to do with not spreading misinformation. Surely you must realize, in all of your omnipotence and infallibility, that we require real sources of information in order to post news? Known anti-Valve illegal hackers / nosteam types are not remotely credible to post here, as evidenced by the fact that he was BLUFFING. And yes, obviously our relationship with Valve is a factor, because we respect them and would rather not be responsible for needlessly damaging their reputation, because if we had posted this two weeks ago before knowing the details that it was a 3rd party management system rather than Steam itself, the ensuing speculation would have been both extreme and harmful, which wouldn't necessarily be repaired by mere correction of facts later.

 

[DuB]

I'm in agreement here. Miccy's story provides all the reason for fear that anyone should need. Plenty of other sites have posted the story as soon as they could. I don't know why hl2.net waiting this set amount of time. Why now? Is there something special that happened? Well we know the reason they waited, because they cared more about Valve's dignity (which doesn't even matter because it was already all over the internet) than the risk of user CC info. :thumbs:

Just maybe it was in order to not create anymore unfounded panic, by releasing a rumor based entirely on 1 private persons boastings.

Also this way you get a more entire story.

Rather than getting: "OMG panic, panic! Helpz0rs your credit card is h4xed"

You get: "Kid pretended he had peoples CC info. Kid was lying."

Further, the people here at hl2.net aren't stupid... they know that everyone will have picked up on the story somewhere else... and that's precisely it... the rumor story is all around the net, so why add another rumor story to this site...? You want those kind of rumors, go read Kotaku or something. The "special thing that happened" is that Valve released a statement - hence the timing of the story
I guess a lot of people just enjoy the drama of internet rumors...

[ed]People would have bitched if hl2.net would have released the story saying that they reported false information and created mass panic and they bitch if they don't.
So actually people enjoy internet rumors and bitching it seems.

 

[Asknoone]

I'm in agreement here. Miccy's story provides all the reason for fear that anyone should need. Plenty of other sites have posted the story as soon as they could. I don't know why hl2.net waiting this set amount of time. Why now? Is there something special that happened? Well we know the reason they waited, because they cared more about Valve's dignity (which doesn't even matter because it was already all over the internet) than the risk of user CC info. :thumbs:

I don't have time to write a long explanation on why you are wrong in every way, shape and form but I felt the need to post this so that everyone can know that what you've put there is a steaming pile of shit that no one should take with any credibility. Keep your unsubstantiated crock to yourself please, and spare the rest of the forum.

 

[Kadayi]

Vegeta I'm sorry but you're accepting two unsubstantiated statements as facts and making a correlation out of them that just doesn't hold up under close scrutiny. Sorry but so far we've seen nothing to support the Hackers declaration of having Steam user CC details, and nothing to support the notion that Miccys parents CC fraud is a direct result of it.

Simple truth of the matter is, if the guy stole the card details to hire hookers, then he's a complete tool to shoot his mouth off about it over the internet. You do this sort of thing either for infamy or financial gain, you can't achieve both without ultimately ending up in a jail cell. If I was Miccy I'd look closer to home for the source of his parents CC fraud.

As for conspiracies about Valve's behaviour, you need to get it out of you're head that Valve are a living entity (with human agendas of dignity and shame) and realise that they are in fact a company bound by the same laws and process as any other. A crime has been committed and naturally there is a period of investigation before statements can be released (same with the Source Hack).

 

[Vegeta897]

Ok, I never actually stated anything that wasn't true as a fact in my post. I'm simply wondering aloud, given Miccy's story. I know I don't know all the extra info that you officials have, obviously, so I encourage you to disregard me if you know I'm wrong, which you have. I was a little out of line and I'm sorry, I guess it's unnecessary panic I'm (failing to) create.

A crime has been committed and naturally there is a period of investigation before statements can be released

Apparantly statements WERE released because this story was on the internet for a while before this date.

Rather than getting: "OMG panic, panic! Helpz0rs your credit card is h4xed"

You get: "Kid pretended he had peoples CC info. Kid was lying."

I like how you give the opposing approach the voice of a 12 year old CS player. This really helps illustrate a fair understanding of the situation.

I don't quite understand how Smash's post makes sense. Right in the title he says "Credit Card Details Stolen"
Then he says nobody is at risk. How does that work? You say they weren't stolen in this thread, but the title seems to be incorrect. Or there should be a question mark after it.

Also lol:

 

[Ennui]

Stolen... from Cybercafe owners. Which there are none of here. In fact, I'm probably the closest person here to that situation because I work at a LAN where we subscribe to the Cybercafe system (with the CAS server and everything). Notice that I'm not peeing my pants and screaming. Normal Steam users, which defines every non-pirate on this board, have nothing to worry about. DuB chose to make the former approach sound immature and stupid because frankly that's all it is, reactionary and sensationalist, which is exactly what would have happened comparatively to now if we had posted the news. Also, 'statements' refers to an official statement from Valve, not a forum post from the hacker. Do you even know what's been going on? As people who help run the community we have access to no more information than you do, but apparently the difference here is that we've actually read all of it.

 

[-smash-]

is that amazes me is the appauling behavior of Halflife2.net in this situation. clearly they are here to serve the interests of valve and not the consumer. the information was published by various other news outlets, so it wasn't secret, or confidential, it and holding out posting this information until AFTER the investigation was complete put readers of Halflife2.net and users of steam at risk. clearly the bandit got cc info.

Please, provide evidence to support your case. Otherwise, shut up.

 

[Asknoone]

smash don't even stoop so low as to reply to polyguns; it's a terrible waste of time.

 

[Seagull]

omg conspiracy!!1oneon

 

[Solver]

I may be totally off, but my guess would be that the Steam database doesn't even store the full credit card numbers of most customers. I think that, when buying through Steam, you have the option of making it remember your CC info. If you don't check it, though, my guess would be that the database only stores the last 4 digits of your CC number, which are then used for verification/confirmation purposes if required. After all, Steam is a purchase/delivery service, not a subscription service, so I don't think there's any need for CC numbers to be kept.

 

[Insano]

smash don't even stoop so low as to reply to polyguns; it's a terrible waste of time.

Indeed, just point and laugh.

Point and laugh.

 

[sn1p3rs1x]

Well, there goes all those players threatening to sue VALVe...

 

[function9]

Hmm, well I had my CC info stolen back in 2003 and I never purchased anything off Steam. Guess this guy must've got my number off Steam somehow, he must be really good.

 

[polyguns]

Please, provide evidence to support your case. Otherwise, shut up.

"Halflife2.net has known about this supposed hacking situation since the day the alleged hacker, MaddoxX, first revealed on his website that he had broken into Valve's extremely sensitive customer information base, and threatened to release thousands of customer credit card information. But because the story was not 100% solid, we felt no inclination to reveal to the public of the matter because speculation on something of this magnitude would have been devastating to Valve in their early stages of investigating the issue - We only notified Valve directly of the situation.


don't be a tool. I already cited my sources.


see, thats the difference between news, and towing the line. sometimes, you post news, even if its bad to the people you worship. news channels will often do that. its a benefit of the doubt situation.


there are issues with posting improper information, but considering other sites posted this news, and hl2.net didn't, its not one of those situations. when hl2.net got the news, it tipped off the corporation, but left its customer base, those who come here, out in the cold as far as information goes.


telling kids there information isn't safe online isn't a bad thing. people need to be more intelligent about their selections and protecting themselves. i learned it the hard way, a number is really easy to let out there.


im stick by my opinion. a community news site should look after the community number one. if this was the steam forums, i would have a totally different perspective.


so whats wrong about what i said? please be specific or shut up :cheers:



eh, sorry, i take it all back. Im applying too high of standards. this is a mod site and i need to keep things in context. just games.


keep posting mod news and ill be happy.

 

[§amW]

"

there are issues with posting improper information, but considering other sites posted this news, and hl2.net didn't, its not one of those situations.

telling kids there information isn't safe online isn't a bad thing. people need to be more intelligent about their selections and protecting themselves.

Just because it is all over the internet doesn't mean it is real news.

That second paragraph has nothing to do about why a site should not maintain the integrety of it's own information. Just because pple should be wary about information on the net doesn't mean that websites should not be responcible for the information they post.

Those are two things i find stupid (err... i mean wrong) about what you post.

 

[Ennui]

there are issues with posting improper information, but considering other sites posted this news, and hl2.net didn't, its not one of those situations.

I think you're forgetting that we are the largest independent HL2 fansite there is. Our siblings (the other big HL community sites) like PHL and HLF didn't post it either.

We are not a small website.

 

[polyguns]

Just because it is all over the internet doesn't mean it is real news.

That second paragraph has nothing to do about why a site should not maintain the integrety of it's own information. Just because pple should be wary about information on the net doesn't mean that websites should not be responcible for the information they post.

Those are two things i find stupid (err... i mean wrong) about what you post.

was ANY credit card information compromised? from what i gathered, there was. it was minimized by someone as saying its only cybercafe owners (though im sure they don't think its a small deal)


thats the issue. ive had my number stolen, and used. its ****ing scary, but it happens, happens all the time. it can happen to valve. valve is just a bigger target for hackers evidently. they like to target them.

and i think its newsworthy fer shizzle.


and i never said hl2.net was a small site. i was saying general real news sites posted it.

 

[Beerdude26]

thats the issue. ive had my number stolen, and used. its ****ing scary, but it happens, happens all the time. it can happen to valve. valve is just a bigger target for hackers evidently. they like to target them.

It happened to VALVE, but VALVE didn't store the credentials. Very important fact there.