Divided, Cheaters Stand

[rec]

A shock post from one of the industries most despised and well established cheat developers, who we know only as Joolz, has taken a stand, backing the Valve team. Joolz has made a public announcement about his feelings on the recent source leak, expressing his disappointment in fellow comrades...

I will say one thing. Whoever did this has gone a 'step to far'.

Writing cheats is one thing. Reverse engineering out how to write them is another. But, breaking into a company to steal the code is not on. I work for the software industry myself, my sympathys are with the Valve team...

...if you know who did it... let them know on [email protected]. I know we cheat/wreck their game. Without them, there is no HL/CS/HL2, is there?

This highlights just how seriously this situation has been adopted by community members. When cheaters stand up against their own, morals come to light even under these circumstances.

To whomever it was behind this crime against a company that has supported us over the years better than any other before them; it looks like you're on your own. It's only a matter of time before you're caught, and you will be.

 

[Stormy]

well said

 

[himself]

hopefully, hopefully.

best wishes to valve :|

 

[ph34r t3h cute]

Well said yes, but I dont think it will make whoever knows anything own up.

 

[Smittins]

"It's only a matter of time before you're caught, and you will be."

With the FBI on the case, I wouldn't count on it.

 

[Tropico]

Originally posted by Smittins
"It's only a matter of time before you're caught, and you will be."

With the FBI on the case, I wouldn't count on it.

hehe

No but we do hope they are caught ,enough is enough.
5 years of hard work could be easily destroyed in 5 minutes it´s just not on.

 

[WaSwAt]

aah luckely Joolz is on our side... im happy to hear that he actually was (and still is) an enemy of the cs anti-cheat community
Well said 'Joolz', we need all the help we can get

POST EDITED

 

[GoLiatH]

Joolz is a high ranked cheat coder in the hacker community but you should know that it is thousands of cheaters making hacks for cs & hl. But Joolz is brave to stand up for himself in this case and i personal think its more like a "[my g0t]" thing i hate those twats.

 

[InsaneFool]

*gets his Bounty Hunting gear ready*
Personally I would like to track down every one of those people that did that...and punch them in the groin until their noses bled.

 

[rec]

InsaneFool, according to your last post, you really are exactly that.

Punch them in the groin... until their noses bled. Hey, whatever gets you going.

 

[Nuclear_Gerber]

That sure will hurt...Take some pics will ya

 

[Jasco]

?

 

[Ghost Freeman]

When a hacker takes a stand against other hackers, that shows how much people care about Valve.

 

[Wesisapie]

I think i'm going to make a shirt, like those "I shot JFK" shirts.. except mine will be "I stole the HL2 source code"

in a few years, i wonder if they will exist...

 

[Apos]

It's great that Joolz is standing up for this. Too bad his sense of morals is so entirely self-centered that he only has sympathy for Valve either because he enjoys hurting them and our community in HIS way, or because his wouldn't want anyone stealing or ruining HIS work. This is a guy whose main known occupation is to wreck other people's fun. I wish there was more we as a community could do to stop these people, leakers and cheaters all. In the end, they're all the same, no matter what they posture.

 

[Obz]

This doesnt deserve a front page. The guy is a cheat. He wrecks our game. Positive or negative his views shouldn't be publicized like this.

 

[Jasco]

Maybe other cheaters will follow him? That cant be all negative.

 

[Tork]

Who cares what he thinks , hes still a cheater. couldnt care about this joolz character, once a cheat always a cheat thats how I look at it.

 

[Obz]

hes just as bad as the guy that stole the source code.

DOWN WITH THIS NEWS ITEM!!!

 

[Mountain Man]

I'm not sure how to take this. The guy tries to draw some sort of moral line between reverse engineering software and wrecking the online experience for others and stealing source code. Either practice is damaging and immoral, so while this guy seems to be taking the moral high ground, I'm not exactly sure what that high ground is. I mean, just look at his conclussion! He says, in essence, "It's wrong to steal the source code even though we create cheats and wreck the game anyway." Huh?

Frankly, this stunt really makes cheaters and script kiddies look bad. I think this guy is just trying to distance himself, but I'm not buying it.

 

[killahsin-[CE]]

well there is a difference between makign cheats that ruin a players experiance yes, and breaking into a company stealing their software, and releasing its source to millions of people online. Knowing that it could quite possibly destroy the company as a whole.

although i hate cheaters with a passion, i do agree there is a slight difference.

 

[[reS!] blAke]

hrhr

ok, maybe he is a cheater, but i think he seriously tries to increase the moral... if you are a cheater and you read this, i think you will open your mind and stand behind valve...
maybe he's a cheater, but he's still human and has still feelings... so, i think that could help us a little bit

 

[aocab`Ace]

Originally posted by Apos
It's great that Joolz is standing up for this. Too bad his sense of morals is so entirely self-centered that he only has sympathy for Valve either because he enjoys hurting them and our community in HIS way, or because his wouldn't want anyone stealing or ruining HIS work. This is a guy whose main known occupation is to wreck other people's fun. I wish there was more we as a community could do to stop these people, leakers and cheaters all. In the end, they're all the same, no matter what they posture.

Haaang on just a second here ...
'Joolz' Isnt hell bent on wrecking everybodys lives, He makes cheats because he is he is a hacker with nothing else to do, and its his way of telling valve to get their act together.
The last version of VAC (Which valve pay to make) he had cracked in no time ...

He has said this before, he is quite happy to "Swap sides" and report exploits he finds back to valve for fixing 'IF HE GETS THE SUPPORT OF THE COMMUNITY'.
Infact from what I hear he is about to start working for 2 ANTI-cheat organisations, so he will be making the gaming world such a better place

So be a little considerate and dont judge people just from what you hear, most people dont know anything about him and just consider him a random script kiddy who just wants to **** the game.

 

[Smittins]

Joolz is pathetic - he says he made cheats for the challenge, while freely admitting cheats are a lot easier top code than effective anti-cheat solutions.

 

[Smittins]

p.s. it made the BBC news!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3162074.stm

 

[aocab`Ace]

Thats right hes looking for a challenge and he is likely going to find it in ANTI-cheat starting soon .... Where he will help valve more than anyone could ever know.

 

[Neilhead]

Cynical viewpoint...

I know most people posting here will probably slaughter what I write but i'll stick to being the devils advocate on this occaision

Is this really why HL2 is being delayed or is this a 'stunt' to increase the profile of HL2 & gain back some respect for Valve?

Given the recent negative publicity concerning the delay to HL2 launch date are Valve/Vivendi looking for the sympathy vote from a cheesed off HL community?

If this is reality, then hopefully the person will be caught although he must be a muppet to post the code on the net! He'll get caught one way or another.... :sniper:

 

[DrEvil]

Originally posted by rec
InsaneFool, according to your last post, you really are exactly that.

Punch them in the groin... until their noses bled. Hey, whatever gets you going.

That actually made me laugh out loud.

 

[JohnDoe]

Inside

Newbie here. Not really that much into gaming, valve, cracking, hacking or whatever. So I'll consider this a view from another perspective. Now, ever since I heard the news about the leak, I've been reading the forums here on halflife2.net, with great interest. First of all, Valve has my deepest symphaty, because this is an act of cowardness and envy from what I can see. I don't really know jack-sh** about hacking, although know enough to accept the posibility of hacking someone through Microsofts various securitybreaches and holes. But are the posibilities of an inside job totally out of the picture? I mean this is how most games, movies and applications are leaked out on the warez-scene. Someone from the inside (shopclerk, programmer or whatever) gets a copy home, copys it and there you go.

So. Not knowing anything really about Valve, or how many people working there, I'd just wanted to get some feedback on this theory.
Flaming, criticism or opinions on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Melov]

:dork:

 

[aocab`keyser]

hmmmmm

 

[Neilhead]

Just spoke to my brother, he's a developer. He said the following (which is what I assumed the practice would be!):

1. Don't use MS Outlook..
2. Don't put your source code on any PC's linked to anything external
3. Create a user with access permission but a password on things put on the internal network. Keep the original on your own PC.

There are probably other controls, but he's not saying anything more. I hope this helps...

 

[Gtwy]

Or you can just make the machines that have the games unhackable: unplug the ethernet connection.

 

[A-KO]

Well, it's nice to see someone with enough professional courtesy to put out an official stance and wording on the position. Like many others, I'm sure he wouldn't want his code jacked from him like that, especially when we're talking about something so large as this.

I doubt that it will ruin Valve Software. After all, no commercial game will be able to use the code without first purchasing the license, so they're all in the clear there. The only way a company could get around this is to look at the code and 'mimic' its functionality. Though I doubt any larger company would go and do this (id software, Gearbox, any other major game development team) simply out of courtesy. I would hope

This does put a hurting on all of their new technologies that they were hoping to highlight about the game, since so many people will quite literally know how it all works, but there are going to be the millions that don't. So it's still all gravy to the rest of us.

As for delaying the game, I bet this is definitely going to delay the game. The game was already delayed to the 'holiday season', I doubt we'll see it before Christmas now. But that depends, but I'm sure currently all efforts are being spent on making sure everything is secured down before going back to work on the code. I'm sure this is also a heavy demoralizing event within Valve, but they cannot give up on the game, there are still so many of us that are dying to see this vision come to life.

With such a large operation, I'm sure the asshole had to have slipped up somewhere. They will catch him, and when they do, he's going to get what he deserves. This is a HUGE CRIME. This isn't just any sort of hack-creation, this is Intellectual Property Theft, this is the whole 9 yards. It's just as bad as if someone went in and stole all of Microsoft's Windows sources and released them to the net.

I wouldn't sit here and place the blame on Microsoft just yet. The fact is, these things happen. No matter what software you use, unless you know every bit of it in and out, you're not going to plug up every security hole. With the platform they're developing for, they have no choice but to run Microsoft Windows. So don't go "should've used Linux" yadda yadda. I'll say it again as I've said it before, systems are only as secure as you want to put the effort into it.

You can't expect everyone or everything to be perfect. I think the best way to circumvent this from ever happening again with keeping the same level of involvement with the community, would be to install 2nd computers in everyone's office right next to their current development PCs. All development PCs will be linked to an internal network, while the other PCs will be online. Development PCs will not have an outside link to the network. And they simply should compile and run things like demos, and burn them onto CDs or DVDs to transfer them over to the other PCs.

This would keep their sanity as well as security. It's the safest bet.

I hope they just don't go haul off and never communicate with us anymore, which would royally suck

And for those that think this is some sort of conspiracy? Are you out of your damn minds? NOBODY AT ALL would *ever* release their source code like this prior to the shipping of the game like that. NEVER. That's just bad overall. I'd immediately remove this thought from your head.

 

[JohnDoe]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And for those that think this is some sort of conspiracy? Are you out of your damn minds? NOBODY AT ALL would *ever* release their source code like this prior to the shipping of the game like that. NEVER. That's just bad overall. I'd immediately remove this thought from your head.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't know if this was for me, but a conspiracy was not really what I had in mind.. Simply an untrue servant of the company for some reason. Just a thought...

 

[re-tort]

heh..shooting myself in the foot.

:dozey: well i'm probably going to be chewed out by about 70% of you people for saying this. But I understand Joolz morals, no matter how messed up they are. And before you start barking, understand that I hate cheaters just as much as the rest of you, but here goes nothing.

It's one thing to create cheats, from flaws in code. Even though cheaters ruin good games, with games like halflife.. where each server can be regulated by it's maker, admins can get rid of cheaters they don't want playing. However, breaking into a self-reliant company, that has been bringing us great games, and stealing part of their source code for an unreleased, greatly anticipated game, is beyond wrong. For what harm you do with the leakage, will harm anyone.. and can only be regulated by valve, and valve alone, as to what extent it hurts the community.
I am extremely puzzled as to why anyone would do that to halflife2, which, has been/ and still is a greatly anticipated game. Probably even by the hacker himself. All the leakage could possibly do is delay the game even farther. Which noone wants to have happen. Especially in a community full of as many computer - literate people as this one, that just has to be one of the most idiotic ideas.

 

[Mountain Man]

Originally posted by A-KO
After all, no commercial game will be able to use the code without first purchasing the license, so they're all in the clear there.

Not exactly. A programmer could learn a hell of lot just by looking at code. Say a developers is having a problem with, say, their AI routines. A quick peek at how Valve solved a similiar problem could be all they need to inspire their own solution.

It's the loss of 5 years worth of research and developement that is most damaging to Valve.

 

[-[PM.enigma]-]

Joolz Roolz

I for one stand behind Joolz 100%. I completely agree with him on this being a completely ridiculous thing to do. Some background:

I belong to a clan of "hackers" and cheaters. If you truly want to know who we are and what we believe in, then take a step to our site at www.planet mayhem.org and check it out. Click the "about" link and you will see.

For a summary, we are a group of extremely talented CS players whome also like to have fun on the side. We do not hack in leagues, nor do we support those who do in their endeavours. We do not believe in hiding the fact that we cheat either.

I am not here to get into an argument on the legality of cheating, nor am I going to get into a moral arguement as to which is the lesser of two evils. I am here to lend my support for Joolz in his statement. I am also here to state that what was done is an egregious thing to have happenned. That kind of thievery stoops below any morals.

Our community stands behind Valve in this attempt to locate the originators of the theft and leak. One thing everyone needs to consider is that it may not have been cheaters who stole the code. I don't know all of the details and haven't heard anything from Valve stating there was a "calling card" of any sort identifying cheaters as being the culprits.

There are many reasons one could use the source code, many things that can be done with it. Blaming the cheating community without knowing all the facts is poorly met.

 

[aocab`Ace]

Umm can you not advertise cheat sites in here ??

Also to who compared this to someone theoretically stealing all the windows sources and posting them on the intenet, its sorta different.
Cause people actually care about valve and HL2

 

[A-KO]

Mountain Man:

Of course, and that is damaging. But I would hope that out of respect larger developers would not do that, but after all, we are human. Valve can count on that happening.

But in all honesty, is that really so bad? Half Life 2 is impressive indeed, and years ahead many other games.....But I wouldn't see it as bad for us consumers if someone else mimicked their AI routines. This is a blessing for the community, and a nightmare for Valve. But after all, Valve is just a game company, and game companies have been shoving more and more time into the "Engine" than the game itself, which is kind of disappointing.

For their sake, they better hope that Half Life 2 is more than just super flashy video effects and is a superb game that lives up to the original (personally, I didn't think the original was all that great overtop Quake 2).