Leaked build transmitting IP's to NSX.VALVESOFTWARE.COM?????

[The Dark Elf]

how many of you with it have tried playing it in multiplayer. And how many of you can then say you know _exactly_ what information its sending out?

Fact is, it may be scaremongering, or it may be true, it might have been put in there for this specific reason, or it could have been in there for debugging info for Steam and is simply doing its job, which would now double as finding who's got it.

Granted their unlikely to go after everybody.. but think about it. Who's IP's will be the first to have been sent back, those who stole it themselves of course, in the rush to see it running I doubt they (the thieves) would have gone to the trouble of looking for such lines of code, and its been made clear they went online to try multiplayer, pretty easy to track down who did it I'd say, if the OP is telling the truth of course. As for everyone else who's IP's they have.. Too much hassle doing anything with those, as many will likely be kids who's parents don't even know what they did was theft. the most Valve would probably do is block those IP's from Steam, but even thats unlikely

So yeah, if the OP is telling the truth, then its just those first few IP address' that were sent back after the theft. Their the ones they'll want to talk to, not some 12 year old from Ohio playing on dad's computer

 

[MoJo|Night]

Right I think this is complete cobblers and anything else in this post is complete conjecture.

Firstly, how many of the people running this hl2 beta have steam installed for cs etc?

I dare say quite a few. Zone alarm won't send you an alert for anything going through steam since you've already allowed it access. You'd have trouble spotting it in logs amongst cs traffic etc.

Secondly , the types of people who are willing to use this beta and look at the source I dare say are potentially the type of people who are likely to try hax out in future on hl2 and are frankly the types of people hl2 can survive commercial without. It would be nice to have a database of those people in advance if needed.

Rough guess, in the next 2 year I think HL2 might sell 2-3 million copies. Most of those will be purchases from Wallmart or Tesco or EB. Those people are where the money will come from and the people who buy from those sources are not the people who read these forums and are not the sort of people to install hacks or play leaked betas.

So that code for hl2 which was leaked may well store a lot of information in the registry, or in steam or somewhere unexpected and send it the next time steam is run or something. No-one has had a chance to look through all that code yet, trust me. And crucially if you're the type of person who is willing to look at the code and/or play the leaked content you are a potential hassle to the mass market sales of hl2 multiplayer etc in terms of hacking but you are not a commercial necessity to valve. You are commercially expendable and legally you have no god given right to play hl2 when it is released, why jeopodise that now by playing an unfinished version of the game and potentially ruin your chance to play the finished article.

 

[Shuzer]

Originally posted by arial
Whoever has a copy of the game and a firewall such as zonealarm will know for sure if this is true I would suppose. If it tries to connect to the net zonealarm will popup and ask permission for this file to be able to access the net.

The only time it asks for access permission is when you click on Create Server, choose a map, and click start.. obviously that's just so the server can be published and someone could join your game

Launching the beta, it doesn't ask for internet access, only when creating a server.. makes you wonder where it sends the server data, though

 

[Netherscourge]

Any Firewall will defeat that. I doubt the original hacker isn't aware of that.

However, I'm sure there are a ton of greedy, morons d-loading and playing the beta without a firewall and not even realize their IP addresses are being logged by Valve.

Pretty soon Vivendi will be issuing Subpoenas... RIAA anyone?

 

[Buckyfg]

Originally posted by MoJo|Night
Right I think this is complete cobblers and anything else in this post is complete conjecture.

Firstly, how many of the people running this hl2 beta have steam installed for cs etc?

I dare say quite a few. Zone alarm won't send you an alert for anything going through steam since you've already allowed it access. You'd have trouble spotting it in logs amongst cs traffic etc.

Secondly , the types of people who are willing to use this beta and look at the source I dare say are potentially the type of people who are likely to try hax out in future on hl2 and are frankly the types of people hl2 can survive commercial without. It would be nice to have a database of those people in advance if needed.

Rough guess, in the next 2 year I think HL2 might sell 2-3 million copies. Most of those will be purchases from Wallmart or Tesco or EB. Those people are where the money will come from and the people who buy from those sources are not the people who read these forums and are not the sort of people to install hacks or play leaked betas.

So that code for hl2 which was leaked may well store a lot of information in the registry, or in steam or somewhere unexpected and send it the next time steam is run or something. No-one has had a chance to look through all that code yet, trust me. And crucially if you're the type of person who is willing to look at the code and/or play the leaked content you are a potential hassle to the mass market sales of hl2 multiplayer etc in terms of hacking but you are not a commercial necessity to valve. You are commercially expendable and legally you have no god given right to play hl2 when it is released, why jeopodise that now by playing an unfinished version of the game and potentially ruin your chance to play the finished article.

Now thats a true case of fear mongering and random speculation right there, People will do what they want man, Personally I feel for valve alot but adding gas to the fire is not helping anybody. I'm sure the People who have downloaded it will only get a buggy game nothing more nothing less.

Dont get me wrong, as a level designer and mod maker, I DO NOT condone warezzz at all.

 

[h00dlum]

actually that was the first thing comming to my mind when i saw that the beta was steam based..I haven´t used the beta but if u login with steam im pretty sure Valve can track u suckers up..

 

[Tlaloc]

so what if they can track you? They would go after the people distributing it not the people downloading it.

 

[BlackMesaDude]

i hope its true

 

[Netherscourge]

Originally posted by Tlaloc
so what if they can track you? They would go after the people distributing it not the people downloading it.

Well - if you look at it from a Bit Torrent point of view, you are essentially obtaining and distributing the Files simultaneously.

And there is no protection from the law in either case. All Valve/Vivendi would have to do is prove the file is on your HDD or that at one time it was on your HDD - it's stolen property in either case.

People think that the RIAA can't touch MP3 downloaders - only people who have their HDDs open up to the internet. That's not true at all. The RIAA just has an easier time showing federal judges several Gigabytes of MP3s on certain people's HDDs - makes thier case look alot stronger.

 

[D33]

Originally posted by nsxownzme
And you guys actually think valve would go after everyone?

The RIAA did. People think they're so annoymous on the internet with their firewalls and so forth. It's kinda amusing.

 

[Gunner]

D33 that analogy is worthless here. The RIAA has power, Valve on the other hand has nothing.

And H00dlum:

"if u login with steam im pretty sure Valve can track u suckers up"

The only suckers I know of are the ones working at Valve.

 

[Rufus]

ROFL

At first I thought this might be real because back when Black & White came out something similar happened and some people actually got supenas. Anyway, I was wondering what nsx.valvesoftware.com might be, so I did a domain lookup:

; <<>> DiG 9.2.3rc4 <<>> nsx.valvesoftware.com
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 41373
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;nsx.valvesoftware.com.         IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
nsx.valvesoftware.com.  28595   IN      A       64.81.178.5

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
valvesoftware.com.      49872   IN      NS      ns2.valvesoftware.com.
valvesoftware.com.      49872   IN      NS      nsx.valvesoftware.com.
valvesoftware.com.      49872   IN      NS      ns1.valvesoftware.com.

Ok, so it's a real address and actually exists, but look at the bottom. The authority section lists what name servers respond for this, and guess what, NSX is a DOMAIN NAME SERVER. And yes, if you ask it domain questions it answers. So unless they have a very strange server setup where it both answers DNS and logs stuff, this is comlete BS.

 

[MoJo|Night]

"Now thats a true case of fear mongering and random speculation right there, People will do what they want man, Personally I feel for valve alot but adding gas to the fire is not helping anybody. I'm sure the People who have downloaded it will only get a buggy game nothing more nothing less."

Yeah it may be scare mongereing but you need only be scared of the mongering if you have done something illegal. And at the top of my post I did state that I don't actually beieve it.

p.s.
Is there a verb to monger?

 

[corpheous]

Does it matter? You're a complete moron if you're downloading that "alpha" leaked release. It was compiled by someone who's obviously quite intelligent and knows a lot about networking and coding. This leads me to believe that just about ANYTHING could be inserted into the code and you wouldn't notice.

If you read it, remember that he created CUSTOM TOOLS just to hack into Valve. I'd hate to be the fool that downloaded the game thinking it's even remotely safe.

P.S. This ain't fear mongering, fear monger my ass, this is called common ****ing sense.

 

[The Dark Elf]

yeah but there could be debug code in there that the thief didn't spot or didn't recognise as harmful that could send detailed info elsewhere, if there's so many lines of code and so many extra's and stuff in the leaked source it could well have it. And it does stand to reason a WIP will have more debugging and checking stuff than a regular version. And compiled files with debug stuff in are always larger than they normally should be..

Thing is, we just don't know, it could well be a load of cobblers, or it could be true, but I still say if it is true then only those IP's and details that appeared at the start will be of real interest to Valve and the authorities. Too much hassle going after the end users with lawsuits and jazz like that, maybe emailed cease and desist's but its unlikely anything serious, many will be too young to prosecute anyway, and it'll tie up the legal system and waste too much time and money it just wouldn't be viable. Kinda like stopping a flowing river by stopping it where it ends instead of stopping it at the source (no pun intended

 

[Gunner]

Originally posted by corpheous
Does it matter? You're a complete moron if you're downloading that "alpha" leaked release. It was compiled by someone who's obviously quite intelligent and knows a lot about networking and coding. This leads me to believe that just about ANYTHING could be inserted into the code and you wouldn't notice.

If you read it, remember that he created CUSTOM TOOLS just to hack into Valve. I'd hate to be the fool that downloaded the game thinking it's even remotely safe.

P.S. This ain't fear mongering, fear monger my ass, this is called common ****ing sense.

You're delusional and talking out of your ***

 

[Bossman]

Obviously this looks false, but its still gonna work if it is false, which is scare people from downloading it, still gonna put a doubt in your mind if it is false.

...

 

[Mountain Man]

I'm seeing a lot of people here putting an undue amount of faith in software firewalls.

 

[corpheous]

Originally posted by )[eVo]( Para
You're delusional and talking out of your ***

I read the news just the same as you. Does it suddenly warp in front of your eyes? Cause I just stated the facts, denial doesn't make you look any better than the person who hacked Valve.

 

[Gunner]

Get a grip Corpheous. C'mon snap out of it. No really.

 

[Tlaloc]

it's so easy to streamline a keylogger or whatever into a .exe

corpheous has a point. obviously most people dont know much about network security, so what stops this guy from changing a few things here and there. Valve said they were ddos'ed before the stuff was stolen. This guy needs more computers to ddos. What better way?

 

[Bridger]

couldn't it be posible that once valve realized they were getting hacked, they created a version of HL2 that they *wanted* the hacker to steal? Sort of bait to keep him away from the real thing? Also bait to lead them to the person who's behind all this? A leaked pre-beta build that is mostly unplayable wouldn't be a big loss to valve, and if it lead them to the people behind the hacks, it would probably be worthwhile.

 

[Necro]

Originally posted by Apos
This shouldn't be so easily dismissed. Remember: the game was ALREADY designed to do this: to log you in with Valve's servers to look for new content and get authentication and verification of resources. So it's certainly possible this is part of the compiled source, and Valve is currently scratching their heads trying to figure out if they really want to track down all these now proven warez thieves or not. They'd be perfectly within their rights to do so.

Let's be clear: by "leak" all we mean is that stuff leaked out of valve. It doesn't mean that Valve leaked it. If Gabe is to be believed, it was very much deliberately stolen by an unknown outside party: an insider wouldn't need to hack into anyone's systems to get anything.

that was only if you activated your hl2 account on steam, they said you could play sp without steam.

 

[MoJo|Night]

A fine theory bridger but if that were the case I think they would have left the havoc stuff out, unless it's out of date havoc stuff which was put in as a dummy as well.

 

[spitcodfry]

Valve would do no such thing as monitor fans...they're after the perps who took the material---not those who acquire it from them. It would be a waste of their resources and time.

 

[Gunner]

Originally posted by Bridger
couldn't it be posible that once valve realized they were getting hacked, they created a version of HL2 that they *wanted* the hacker to steal? Sort of bait to keep him away from the real thing? Also bait to lead them to the person who's behind all this? A leaked pre-beta build that is mostly unplayable wouldn't be a big loss to valve, and if it lead them to the people behind the hacks, it would probably be worthwhile.

Are you mad? do you realize that no one on God's green earth would even consider doing so even under the influence of crack? Jesus.

"A fine theory"... Have you all gone mad?

 

[coolUK007]

No problem you play it OFF LINE. No connections to the net whatsoever....

However, HL2 build incorporates special instructions which run in buffer that send incrypted messages to the Pentagon...

 

[Mountain Man]

The hacker using the stolen beta to initiate a widespread denial of service attack is a distinct possibility.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Why is this thread still open and not deleted?

 

[Punisher2003]

Originally posted by Mr. Redundant
HALF LIFE 2 ISNT DELAYED!!!!
sept 30th is the release date. nuff said

What planet are you living on? Even Valve said it is not being released Sept 30th.
AND
You posted this AFTER Spet 30th!!! Where is the release?

 

[Mountain Man]

I have a feeling he was being sarcastic.

 

[sPaG]

Originally posted by )[eVo]( Para
What the fudge can you do with an IP adress? absolutely nothing. Unless you find the correct ISP and pressure them to give personal info/details about their customers. Now that sounds awfully familiar: RIAA tactics. This is a Software company they don't have the power.

I made a nice post directed at you and anybody else who is as ignorant as yourself.

You can read it here.

 

[Wilson502]

u can use cybereraser if u d/led the beta to be safe, as it will make the deleted data unrecoverable

 

[inevident]

firstly, valve didn't anticipate their source code and content to be leaked. Secondly, someone with ZA already said HL2 only sends requests when you start a server. Thirdly, paranoia is unhealthy.

 

[Gunner]

Originally posted by sPaG
I made a nice post directed at you and anybody else who is as ignorant as yourself.

You can read it here.

go read my reply you dolt.

 

[Wilson502]

i agree spitcodfry valve wouldnt do that to their fans as only that would tarnish their image, they probably realize thats THOUSANDS OF PPL HAVE it. It would be a waste of resources and time. Anyhow, i didnt want to play it much, i just wanted to see how it runs on my computer, it doesnt run to bad on a geforce 3 with a p4 2.4 at 1024x768.

 

[NSPIRE]

honestly, i highly doubt that this is true... it could be possible, but i'd have to concur that it's nothin' more than a fuggin' rumor *sigh*

 

[Montag]

Just a random thought about this... Maybe vavle should keep a running log of every IP address that plays multiplayer before the official game release. Then they should place a permanent ban on any downloaders instead of pursuing criminal actions. Maybe that would dissuade more people from trying the beta. And it would make me smile too

 

[SirMcNugget]

If they go after the average person who downloaded the game, they will only hurt themselves.

 

[EinsteinsBrain]

It's an interesting discussion isn't it?

I agree with everyong that says that Valve would be crazy if they went after the average person that uses a stolen version of the game.

I also feel that they could have a legal leg to stand on if they against better judgement choose to do so...

Something to think about before you download the game... Are you willing to take the consequenses of your actions taking into account that the likleyhood of beeing caught is small?