Official Halflife2.net "We're going gold monday..." Annoucement

[Icarus]

Some hours ago a thread was posted at HL2Fallout.com that claimed Half-Life 2 will be going gold on monday. HL2Fallout.com has decided to accept this as truth without clear confirmation from Valve. [br]
[br]
Due to concerns we at HalfLife2.net have over HL2Fallout.com not being able to pinpoint the IP of the originating post at this time, and because of Valve's past issues concerning security, we have decided to adopt a more conservative stance, since we do not want to futher harm done to Valve's reputation if this claim is false.
[br]
HalfLife2.net will not treat this as the absolute truth until we can get confirmation directly from Valve. Pending that, it will be treated as mere speculation.[br]

 

[The Monkey]

Good, wait for confirmation from Valve. It's probably just fake.

 

[HL2Mangler]

oh my

got pwnt?

 

[Annihilator_91]

Wait for final confirmation!!!:bounce:

 

[madca7`]

hmmm :/

 

[askrouz]

I really hope this is the real thing :afro:

 

[IchI]

Gabe is Gabe from Valve on the hl2fallout forums. He always gives information on the website before it happens.

 

[bgesley426]

http://fluxclan.com/pub/HowsThis.jpg

WHY do I get these dispatches of these emails BEFORE they are posted in the thread that they originate from? I subscribe to the Info From VALVE ONLY thread and I get an email whenever someone posts something new but 9 times out of 10 my email comes before the post is even in the thread itself

 

[Munro]

http://fluxclan.com/pub/HowsThis.jpg

WHY do I get these dispatches of these emails BEFORE they are posted in the thread that they originate from? I subscribe to the Info From VALVE ONLY thread and I get an email whenever someone posts something new but 9 times out of 10 my email comes before the post is even in the thread itself

That post was deleted as it's a fake email.

 

[EVIL]

It never hurts to wait for final confirmation

It would have been nice to have done so before I send my question to gabe with a nice congrats in it

 

[Bing_Oh]

Cooler heads prevail...glad to see that you guys are waiting for a legitimate confirmation from Gabe or Valve before contributing to the frenzy over what is, right now, nothing more than a rumor.

 

[Lucifer]

Cool! *puts party hats back to closet and take hanky for just in case*

 

[Mr Bond]

Our server is having a horrible time under the load so I'll repost the explanation here...

After a close scrutiny of Gabe Newell’s account history on the forums, we've come to the conclusion that the gold post is a fake. While we can't be 100% certain at this stage, all indicators point towards someone hacking the forum account. That said, all Gabe's previous posts on these forums are quite legitimate.

We apologize for the confusion and will be investigating further. Theoretically, an IPB forum account should be very difficult to hack. Well, that was the theory at least. We'll keep you updated.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Our server is having a horrible time under the load so I'll repost the explanation here...

Thanks for the confirmation Mr Bond. Shame it wasn't real though

 

[Kangy]

Yep, it's confirmed fake.

 

[Iced Sun]

Like I expected something else...

*gets out shotgun and goes hackerhunting*

 

[Maxi]

Well, it was too good to be true anyway.

 

[Munro]

I’ve got a quick question for you Mr Bond. Why was that post by “Gabe Newell” allowed to stay on the forums and reported on by your news team without confirmation that it was true and your belief that it could very well be a fake?

Right now you’re stating “all indicators point towards someone hacking the forum account”. If that’s the case you shouldn’t need bothering to call Gabe for confirmation, you’ve got the answer yourself and you should let every site that got this news from you know.

 

[[RDH]MastahFrag]

100% fake, stated in the hl2fallout news page.

i don't know what to think anymore.

 

[Dr0ndeh]

i'll wait till an email from the man himself proves/disproves this.

 

[Mr Bond]

The reason why the post's integrity was not questioned immediately is because every post up till then was legitimate.

When Gabe first signed up I made sure we got proper confirmation before calling his account official. Since then, I've made periodic checks of the account's posts to assure their authenticity. You know how forum accounts work, they are not easily hijacked. Right now I'm thinking someone either a) guessed his password or b) somehow accessed our database and cracked the (near) uncrackable MD5 encrypted password. For example, even I could not access his password if I wanted to. You have to admit, the chances of someone managing either of these things is very remote (but not that remote, I guess!).

Just because the IP address was different didn't mean I could call it a fake right away. Gabe had already used 3 different (and confirmed legitimate) IPs to make his posts.

The small time delay was because I wasn't home for the first couple of hours after the post was made. Soon after, I started checking up on the IP address and the IP patterns used for his account and updated with my conclusions as soon as possible.

Even now we're not 100% sure -- waiting on some sort of word from Valve.

 

[un0x]

100% fake, stated in the hl2fallout news page.

i don't know what to think anymore.

not 100% :frog:

 

[spamdog]

Does valve know about this yet?

I want some confirmation, one way or another!

 

[Neutrino]

Does valve know about this yet?

I want some confirmation, one way or another!

Of course they don't. It's 3am over here on the West Coast.

 

[eAi]

Surely the point of MD5 is that its uncrackable? MD5 is just a hash. That means that either the forum software has an exploit (sql injection/whatever) or Gabes been hacked... We need to wake Gabe up quickly before the rumour machine goes mad... Whats the location of the IP?

eAi

 

[Revisedsoul]

cheer up lads. he could be posting form his house assuming gabe doesnt live at valve

 

[spamdog]

cheer up lads. he could be posting form his house assuming gabe doesnt live at valve

I believe it.

If it was hacked though: Great prank.

 

[[RDH]MastahFrag]

ok it wasn't 100% sure, but why is NOW all the fuss about another IP when the IP is know to differ from the original, and keeps original?

true: the IP used is not always single one. this may give the intention it IS from Gabe.

false: its sleeping time i hear over at VALVe. he wouldn't be coming out his bed does he?

 

[Tork]

a) guessed his password or b) somehow accessed our database and cracked the (near) uncrackable MD5 encrypted password.

Isnt there a way to check how many times the person typed in the password before they got in ? Some forums allow you to make a number of trys before it locks or something, they could have used a brute forcer and got in but again isnt there like logs of how many times they tried to enter the password before finally entering? Like you said MD5 encryption is near uncrackable. Im now starting to believe that it was really gabe that posted this but ill just have to wait and see.

 

[lans]

Why don't we wait for monday. I just send basically an email to everyone at valve asking if this is true or not. We'll see.

 

[madca7`]

The news is already at the biggest german / (european?) Pc-games Print mag.
www.pcgames.de
www.gamestar.de

 

[wormstrangler]

"I have great doubts.

Who the hell predicts _when_ they're going gold and gives an 'offical statement'

Valve wouldn't even know themsevles. During the testing phase they would send RC after RC to their publisher, in this case Vivendi. Vivendi then review each one and say "fix this, fix that" until VIVENDI is happy. Not valve. So this means Vavle are predicting when Vivendi will be happy with their current RC?

Doesn't make sense."

A post I made in another forum before it was the post was found to be a certain fake. Now I'm doing the 'told you so thing'

There was no way this could have been real. Don't know why everyone got so excited.

 

[BlackMesaDude]

Why am I not suprised ?

 

[Sporky]

So is the slightly snarky tone of this newspost going to be fixed then?
Since HL2 Fallout have sensibly put up a rather large caveat as soon as Mr Bond was able to check the details that would seem reasonable.

I do't think it reflects very well on this site as is. Makes us look bitter or something. :|

 

[Tork]

Yeah its not hl2fallouts fault for all of this, could have happened to anyone if it does turn out to be a fake.

 

[Neutrino]

So is the slightly snarky tone of this newspost going to be fixed then?
Since HL2 Fallout have sensibly put up a rather large caveat as soon as Mr Bond was able to check the details that would seem reasonable.

I do't think it reflects very well on this site as is. Makes us look bitter or something. :|

Agreed. It's not a very nice news post and seems to intentionally try to put hl2fallout in a negative light.

 

[kurly]

fooled me
i'm turning in. you guys, keep the truth coming.

 

[Element Alpha]

This is so frustrating.

I really hope Gabe just made that post when he got home after the meeting discussing gold status. That would maybe explain the different ip? I hope.

And if this is a fake, then to the account hijacker, I say to him:

Putain de salau de fils de putte de ta race va te faire sucer par un cannard espece de crotte de chamau moustiqueu en chaleur.

 

[gh0st]

heh its on gamespy's front page.

 

[BigNamek]

It's a good idea that they changed the post. As much as I want to believe that it is going gold on Monday, when I read the post I had my reservations.

BigNamek...