Its going to be a while b4 we get hl2.

Interesting thread. I can see why mayro is worried, esp if the established method of distribution isn't changed for the release of HL2 / CS:S. Lets hope that whatever security holes VALVe have are plugged before the release.
 
hurmm this is the most confusing post i have read
im sure valve are aware of every single bug or error in steam seeing as they have built it, and been working on it for years.
they arnt goin to be dumb enough to preload files which can easily be played before the release date. i mean this is hl2, 40 million $, 5+ years work

my grammar might not be the best, but i try my best to make it understandable, other people should try the same
 
A few things..

1) Pre-loaded GCF files *ARE* missing critical files needed to run the data. If you EVER tried to extract Condition Zero or Codename Gordon when they preloaded, you'd of seen they didn't function properly once extracted.

2) CZ and HL2 are entirely different games running on entirely different engines. Do you know why CZ is theoretically easy to crack and get working illegally? It's running on the HL engine. The same engine that every game on Steam is currently running. This means that it's built upon old netcode, that had VGUI2 slapped on it to make it work with Steam. Naturally, an older, perhaps poorly updated engine to Steam is not going to be as secure as an engine built entirely with Steam in mind (hence Steam being the backbone of HL2).

3) Warez before release. This always happens. A gold copy WILL leak from the factory no matter what you try to do about it. It happens with all the triple A titles. Warez is inevitable. Single player will be cracked. Multiplayer MAY be cracked, but chances are, it won't run on Steam. Atleast, if it is cracked on Steam, it should be patched to disallow this soon after. LAN/emulated Steam is very plausible, I mean, if people can emulate an MMORPG server (WoW Alpha), then I see no reason why Steam can't be emulated.

So.. anyhow, stop worrying. Preloaded GCFs are missing crucial data to run properly. Warez is inevitable. And CZ is running on an engine as old as dirt (hence vulnerability to being cracked/hacked/etc).
 
Like MrD said, a preloaded but not yet unlocked *.gcf is encrypted with a 128bit key.
You won't ever get that decrypted before it's unlocked...

But after it's unlocked you can simple unpack the *.gcf.
 
i am confused as well.
i bought CZ a while back and enjoy it every day... it would be sad to see pple not paying a thing and playing it freely.. :(
 
raise your hand if your getting sick of release date/rc/gold/beta/pre-load speculation
 
This was confusing... but I dont think that we need to worry too much. Im sure Valve knows about the exploits for CZ and they are working on them, and have made sure that the same things cant happen for HL2. I personally dont think there is anything to worry about. Like shuzer said, warez and hacking is inevitable, but I believe that Valve and steam have more control over that than any other game company.
 
I've just checked up on this, and I can't believe VALVe is still letting people play CZ illegally on Steam with this age-old exploit. I heard about the very same method when CZ was released.

Sickening :x On the plus side, it's not the actual game. It won't update, and it won't give people access to the CS:S beta. However, reviewing the method in which this is accomplished, it won't be able to be accomplished with HL2.

It also does not relate in the slightest to preloaded GCF files. As stated earlier, they're set up in a way which does not allow users to extract functioning games.
I think HL2 and CS:S will be fine, as far as not functioning online with Steam is concerned. As I said earlier, piracy of SP is inevitable, sadly :(
 
The preloaded data is encrypted, as other people have said. At a conservative estimate, they'll use at least a 128 bit key. That means there are 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 possible keys. The only way to find out which one it is, as far as I'm aware, is to brute force it. Try each key, one by one, until you try a key and the data comes out as something other than gibberish.

But even when it's unlocked, there's the .exe to deal with. It's tightly coupled in with Steam, and will simply refuse to run unless you have Steam running, and Steam says you're allowed to play, which means entering a CD-Key, or buying it online. Cracking the engine to not use Steam is really impractical, it's not an easy job at all. You'd have to reverse-engineer the whole Source-Steam interface, and it'd be horrendously tough.
 
On a more down note I was just over at gamespy reading this article http://www.gamespy.com/articles/533/533436p1.html if you go to page 3 i believe they talk about doom3 and HL2 release times...its seems that most of the gamespy staff are going with a release date of sometime next year for HL2...now thats there opinion but i wonder why a biggy like gamespy would lean more towards a 05 release date? :eek:
 
Yes I read that as well...
I can only guess that Gamespy is Wrong!
Or at least I hope they are wrong...

Still the RC should just about be done, we will know within a week (assuming if Valve tells us) if everything is on time and if Vivindi has a RC in their hands....
 
mayro said:
As you may have heard or noticed gabe posted a nice little thing over at hl2world... Now.... When you say something like what he did its almost the worst thing you can say to people that the only reason they crack games and such is for the thrill of doing it or just doing it becuase someone sas they cant.

The reason i bring this up is that their has been some "weird" problems with people playing games on steam that they didnt buy..... It wasent public knolage untill gabe made his statement and info like that as you may have guessed spread like wild fire. Im guessing that it wasent a DOS attack but more like valve shuttings its servers off from the shear amount of people downloading and playing CZ with steam. Valve has known about people being able to unpack their GCF's for a whyll now and im guessing gabe made his comment for when the CS:S beta comes out to see if they can hack a new format that im hopeing that they have been working on for a whyll.

This brings me to the point of this thread. It was 16 days a few days ago when he sent the email saying 16days till most big bugs will be gone. Their suggested release canidate was comeing on the 30th. These are all great news... Would you release a game on a service that you know as soon as you preload it for people that you would have people playing it? I think not...

Gabe or valve if you guys read my thread... PLEASE change from what ever way you are doing the files now and make it so we dont have half-life 2 out the same day as the preload, im guessing if people can install the game like that, then they wont care about getting banned and im really hopeing that CS:S doesnt get a OGC hook if you know what i mean :(
Click to expand...


I don't have the time this matter reguires obviously cause I don't understand a thing about it. And please, at least check your spelling the next time you post. :upstare:
 
iamaelephant said:
Is that the actual number of keys, or did you pull it out of your ass?
Click to expand...

64, 128 and 256 are the most common encrpytion types these days. it didn't wonder out of any asses
 
he meant was that long number that he posted, the actual number of different key combination for a 128-bit encryption?
 
kevinb456 said:
he meant was that long number that he posted, the actual number of different key combination for a 128-bit encryption?
Click to expand...

Yes. 128 bit encryption is 2^128 or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 possible combinations.
 
kevinb456 said:
he meant was that long number that he posted, the actual number of different key combination for a 128-bit encryption?
Click to expand...

Try it. With a key that consists out of 128 bits, the possible number of keys is 2^128 which is 3,4028236692093846346337460743177e+38
 
lol epsi seems to know wot hes on about he aint pulled nothing from his arse, at least i hope not :s
 
Shuzer said:
mayro, you're on crack.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more Shuzer. I can't even understand what you are trying to say Mayro...
 
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