D
Deficite
Guest
Yes I agree with you there. But the AI chapter ought to be kinda big..and so should the "3D Engine" chapter
What I mean is that we probably won't be seeing anyone trying to create a game by stealing the code.
Yes I agree with you there. But the AI chapter ought to be kinda big..and so should the "3D Engine" chapter
What I mean is that we probably won't be seeing anyone trying to create a game by stealing the code.
G
gloryofbach
Guest
Many games develepers who were thinking of using Source after seeing the released videos now not touch the SOURCE engine with a barge pole.
Source is now tainted goods, compromised to the extreme, and a few months of patching work does not change this. This will hit Valve in the pocket very hard.
So apart from the suing issues by partner developers, Valve now has to worry about rivals taking last minute ideas out of its source code and including them in games released before HL2 comes out, the security issues and now lost revenue from developers holding off licensing Source indefinetely. I really feel for Gabe as yesterday was possible the worst day in his life.
Source is now tainted goods, compromised to the extreme, and a few months of patching work does not change this. This will hit Valve in the pocket very hard.
So apart from the suing issues by partner developers, Valve now has to worry about rivals taking last minute ideas out of its source code and including them in games released before HL2 comes out, the security issues and now lost revenue from developers holding off licensing Source indefinetely. I really feel for Gabe as yesterday was possible the worst day in his life.
H
Hanta Swe
Guest
Very nice Post, and the starting post, gave me an insight of what can be reality, good for me, who only PLAY games, too much.
Not knowing even a little bit about coding and stuff.
When i was 12 and got a c64, i thougt programming was boooooring, and i still do, but now i at least know what the big damage could be,
Thx again mate,
Not knowing even a little bit about coding and stuff.
When i was 12 and got a c64, i thougt programming was boooooring, and i still do, but now i at least know what the big damage could be,
Thx again mate,
Thadius Dean
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i just hope this doesnt make gabe loose trust in the community. i mean, no one would bend over like he does for us.
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Stigma
Guest
There isn't any gentleman agreements in the software industry (or in any other bussiness either for that matter). THe source code is copyrighted, and thus it is completely illegal to copy any parts of Valve's source, or even look at it.
However... It is incredibly much easier to see how someone else did it, then make something similar, than to do it all by yourself from scratch. Code _will_ undoubtably be stolen, modified and used by competitors without any real risk of beeing exposed. After all, as long as the code isnt obviously copied, they are in the clear, and Valves HL2 is a premium piece of technology to mimic...
My condolances to Valve, one of the last reamining "god guys" in the game software biz.
-Stigma
However... It is incredibly much easier to see how someone else did it, then make something similar, than to do it all by yourself from scratch. Code _will_ undoubtably be stolen, modified and used by competitors without any real risk of beeing exposed. After all, as long as the code isnt obviously copied, they are in the clear, and Valves HL2 is a premium piece of technology to mimic...
My condolances to Valve, one of the last reamining "god guys" in the game software biz.
-Stigma
D
Doc Brass
Guest
Very nice post gloryofbach. So much speculation going around regarding this whole thing, a person can start to get confused. You've laid it all out nicely and dug right to the core, in my opinion. I only hope that it's an easier fix for valve and not quite as bad as you say it is/could be. Why people would do this sort of thing is baffling. I'm interested to see how things play out in the coming days.
D
droper
Guest
gabe did drop the ball on this one its a lesson learned. He just wasn't carefull enough and he was too good to people for his own good. I just hope he can turn this lemon into lemonaide. Catching the guy will most likely do nothing to help them with the opening of their source, the damage is done.
They have to start thinking ahead as to how they can turn this around. I wish people would start coming up with solutions to this new problem valve has, rather then all this criticism and angry hot air.
They have to start thinking ahead as to how they can turn this around. I wish people would start coming up with solutions to this new problem valve has, rather then all this criticism and angry hot air.
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gloryofbach
Guest
Thankyou for the kind comments.
I hope awareness of the seriousness of this issue may help the community band together, help find the culprits, and hopefully make a serious example of them so this kind of theft does not happen as easily in the future. After all there are many of us, and I expect the culprit is working alone, and will probably already have bragged about this stunt on the hacking circuit.
IMHO it is only a matter of time before he is caught.
Sadly in the mean time, what was looking a sure fire masterpiece for gamers worldwide, may be in serious danger, from lawsuits, or internal problems in Valve as a result of the chaos caused by this fiasco.
I want to play Half life 2 just as badly as everyone else here!!!
I hope awareness of the seriousness of this issue may help the community band together, help find the culprits, and hopefully make a serious example of them so this kind of theft does not happen as easily in the future. After all there are many of us, and I expect the culprit is working alone, and will probably already have bragged about this stunt on the hacking circuit.
IMHO it is only a matter of time before he is caught.
Sadly in the mean time, what was looking a sure fire masterpiece for gamers worldwide, may be in serious danger, from lawsuits, or internal problems in Valve as a result of the chaos caused by this fiasco.
I want to play Half life 2 just as badly as everyone else here!!!
N
NeoK
Guest
:dozey:
Who cares all the games will be as perfect like hl2 ore even be better ?
Who cares all the games will be as perfect like hl2 ore even be better ?
Good post. As a programmer I kinda already knew what to expect, got to say I would not mind now if Valve delayed HL2 an extra year to set there stuff straight and improve the source engine compared to the leaked version, just so it can be secret again.
Out of all the things that could have caused the delay, this was probably the least expected and worst possible scenerio that could have happened. For this I really do feel sorry for Valve, and hope the culprit is brought to justice.
Out of all the things that could have caused the delay, this was probably the least expected and worst possible scenerio that could have happened. For this I really do feel sorry for Valve, and hope the culprit is brought to justice.
Joneleth
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Yes, unfortunatly when companies take a more informal approach toward their fans, stuff like this can happen.
Hopefully Valve doesn't turn into a corporate giant like Blizzard, and practically ignore their fans. Valve is great because they don't mind e-mails from fans or even fans randomly stopping by their offices for a tour.I'm sure this Source release will have consequences, but like I've said before, I don't know if they're as bad as the initial poster makes them out to be. And just for credibility's sake, I'm a software developer.
indocomplexity
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Originally posted by budgie55
yeah we may have got a decent OS and this may never have happened in the 1st place
/end light hearted humour
you know... it actually happened once, someone was getting the source of windows, but they got caught half way through. if he got it all and got away with it... we may have all been using linux today.
D
djdabaer
Guest
I just want to take a second and thank you for this very informative thread. I am not a programmer, as a matter of fact, I am a networking geek. But I found this thread very informative, and educational. This thread is the reason I joined here, so...
Thanks
Thanks
C
ComCray
Guest
hmm.. I also think they should check out who brought it out in the open in the first place; doesn't nessesarily have to be the same person as the hacker.. The hacker didn't gain anything from this, it did not even boost his reputation as a hacker, the prime reason why most haxorz do what they do.. The hacking on itself is nasty buisness but would've been contain-able to a certain degree. Untill the ****wits posted the source on usenet, obliterating any chance of valve striking a deal with/getting their hands on the actual hacker.. If this is true, then the guy(s) who brought it out in the open are the ones which should be burned the most IMO since they actually made the damage irreversable..
I vehemently belive this to be the case. This was a serious hack and no serious hacker would spoil his scoop by just posting it on usenet.. I guess he should be carefull in chosing his friends in the future.. he defenetly forgot/wasn't able to capitalize on this
No reputation boost by bringin it out under his haxor name
No deals with valve (might have earned him some serious bucks if played out well)
Not being the first one to bring out hardcore game cheats
etc etc..
what a loser.. we all lost here.. everyone involved.. bah
I vehemently belive this to be the case. This was a serious hack and no serious hacker would spoil his scoop by just posting it on usenet.. I guess he should be carefull in chosing his friends in the future.. he defenetly forgot/wasn't able to capitalize on this
No reputation boost by bringin it out under his haxor name
No deals with valve (might have earned him some serious bucks if played out well)
Not being the first one to bring out hardcore game cheats
etc etc..
what a loser.. we all lost here.. everyone involved.. bah
D
Doc Brass
Guest
So are things then, mostly irreversible at this point? I'm hearing "the damage has been done" more and more and am assuming that there really is no quick fix for this. I also agree that finding the ponce that started this whole mess, is somewhat of a moot point at the moment. I mean, absolutely he should be punished, but again, the damage has been done, right?
Dedalus
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good post gloryofbach, very enlightening for those who need it.
i'm also a developer, and we were considering using Source for our next project, we'd sorted out the details, been in touch with valve about a limited SDK and when we'd get it etc, then WHACK, it's now open source. now we're not sure what to do.
when i read this i felt sick to the stomach, not only has it delayed development on my game, it'll probably seriously delay the most important game of the past 10 years.
if this was a professional job, then i'm assuming he distributed to numerous contacts in the warez community who in turn distributed it again (much like drug trafficking). so it will be very VERY difficult to trace it back to the (probably) one person who did the deed. the best that can be hoped for is that people take it off their servers, take it off their hard drives and start stamping out any trace of it. that is someone elses heart and soul out there and you have no right to have it.
i'm also a developer, and we were considering using Source for our next project, we'd sorted out the details, been in touch with valve about a limited SDK and when we'd get it etc, then WHACK, it's now open source. now we're not sure what to do.
when i read this i felt sick to the stomach, not only has it delayed development on my game, it'll probably seriously delay the most important game of the past 10 years.
if this was a professional job, then i'm assuming he distributed to numerous contacts in the warez community who in turn distributed it again (much like drug trafficking). so it will be very VERY difficult to trace it back to the (probably) one person who did the deed. the best that can be hoped for is that people take it off their servers, take it off their hard drives and start stamping out any trace of it. that is someone elses heart and soul out there and you have no right to have it.
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Sunchild
Guest
Am I missing something here?
OK. I know I'm gonna take a lot of heat for this, but I don't see anyone else making this point, so here goes:
I think at *least* fifty percent of the blame for this incident falls on Valve. I would argue that it is downright *negligent* to keep the entire source code on an Internet-accessible machine, esp. one that has Outlook on it. Yes, it was wrong to steal the source. But it was *even more wrong* to make the source vulnerable to an attack. I don't know if Valve was being niave or stupid, but I really don't have much sympathy for them--unless there are circumstances that I don't know about. As far as I'm concerned, if you put your valuable intellectual property on a machine running Outlook with an active ethernet connection, you are negligent, and have failed in your *duty* to protect your valuable intellectual property from misappropriation. You create the risk of losing the entire commercial value of your upcoming product, you suffer the consequences when that happens. If your business is entirely dependent on IP protections, you better have your security tight as Hell. You can blame the hackers, but you have to blame Valve, too.
Normally, Valve could argue that the source was a trade secret. The problem Valve has is that trade secret protection is waived under the law if the owner of the trade secret fails to adequately protect the proprietary information. I think you can see where I'm going here. There's a good argument that there is no trade secret protection if you put the freaking source on a machine running Outlook.
That leaves copyright protection. I can only imagine how much fun it's going to be when Valve has to sue all the reverse-engineered versions of HL2 for copyright infringement. Not only is that going to be a waste of everyone's time and *lots* of money, it's not going to stop the copies and derivative versions.
Anyway, I'm just rambling on and speculating. You shouldn't take any of this as if it were legal advice. I'm not your lawyer or anyone else's on this board--I'm just throwing out some rules of law that are interesting to this discussion.
I hope you all are able to resolve this in a way that makes everyone happy and that involves the least amount of lawsuits/killings possible.
Cheers.
OK. I know I'm gonna take a lot of heat for this, but I don't see anyone else making this point, so here goes:
I think at *least* fifty percent of the blame for this incident falls on Valve. I would argue that it is downright *negligent* to keep the entire source code on an Internet-accessible machine, esp. one that has Outlook on it. Yes, it was wrong to steal the source. But it was *even more wrong* to make the source vulnerable to an attack. I don't know if Valve was being niave or stupid, but I really don't have much sympathy for them--unless there are circumstances that I don't know about. As far as I'm concerned, if you put your valuable intellectual property on a machine running Outlook with an active ethernet connection, you are negligent, and have failed in your *duty* to protect your valuable intellectual property from misappropriation. You create the risk of losing the entire commercial value of your upcoming product, you suffer the consequences when that happens. If your business is entirely dependent on IP protections, you better have your security tight as Hell. You can blame the hackers, but you have to blame Valve, too.
Normally, Valve could argue that the source was a trade secret. The problem Valve has is that trade secret protection is waived under the law if the owner of the trade secret fails to adequately protect the proprietary information. I think you can see where I'm going here. There's a good argument that there is no trade secret protection if you put the freaking source on a machine running Outlook.
That leaves copyright protection. I can only imagine how much fun it's going to be when Valve has to sue all the reverse-engineered versions of HL2 for copyright infringement. Not only is that going to be a waste of everyone's time and *lots* of money, it's not going to stop the copies and derivative versions.
Anyway, I'm just rambling on and speculating. You shouldn't take any of this as if it were legal advice. I'm not your lawyer or anyone else's on this board--I'm just throwing out some rules of law that are interesting to this discussion.
I hope you all are able to resolve this in a way that makes everyone happy and that involves the least amount of lawsuits/killings possible.
Cheers.
T
Theunage
Guest
hiho ^_^
Your not the only one, I registered on the forum today also on basis of gloryofbach's post. Let's keep this tread as informative as it is!
On-topic:
As for possible solutions to this problem:
first: The source-code has been leaked so the technology is on the street. Valve has just given the world 5 years of their hard work for free...
Best to acknowledge this fact and try figuring out a way to deal with the Hl2 release.
1)Valve could never release the game, thereby keeping the resources away form the public. -> result:
-Not all of valve code may be understood / copied without the proper resources.
-lots of angry people. (including me)
-No income for valve & vivendi based upon gamessales.
2)Valve could rewrite huge parts of the source to prevent multiplayer-hack-madness. -> result:
-delayed game, but when it'll release there's a better chance of a quite hack-proof game / steam-system.
-still al lot of people would be pissed by the delay.
3)Valve could release the game asap. Thereby showing the world they believe they got the upcoming game-hacks under control. -> result:
-direct release of the game.
-lots of upcoming patches to prevent hacks wasting the multiplayer.
-It'll be a gamble on how much the hacker-groups are capable of.
Maybe u can find more 'solutions', if so please respond in this tread!
-a Valve supporting gamer.
G
gloryofbach
Guest
Dedalus, I agree completely.
Now forgetting all the legal issues, and technology theft issues, from a point of view that the fans are interested in, ie when (or will) HL2 get released, I have been thinking whether there is a quick fix for this. By quick I mean 3/4 months
The threats to Valve seem to be:
1) Any single player CD key authentification mechanism that may have been planned is now completely compromised, prompting a warez free for all on release. I anticipate this will take not so long to fix, but it is a hassle.
2) Any Steam multiplayer CD key authentification mechanism, as well as payment detail and personal details transmission methods may be compromised as Steam source code seems to be included in the source leak. I anticipate this will require some reworking of steam, and due to the already mentioned Steam bandwidth issues and the heavy p2p work required, I am sure this will push HL2 into 2004, if steam remains integral to its release, which Valve seems intent on.
3) For me, by far the biggest problem is shoring up the multiplayer code to prevent exploits and hacks. This is a big enough problem when a popular multiplayer game is released conventionally, with hacking groups releasing packages within days/hours of release. Now that this build of HL2 is public domain, the multiplayer part of HL2 has more holes than a fishnet stocking. I am not just talking about wallhacks and aimbots, I am talking about potentially allowing a malicious person access to your computer which you are playing HL2 multiplayer, if this is proved to be due to HL2 multiplayer security holes, Valve will be sued all the way to Xen. I am afraid that they will need to add abstraction layers to the current multiplayer code if they are to disguise its operations now that the leak has happened. This can only reduce multiplayer/game performance and may push the game beyond early 2004.
Valve is a relatively small team, and this is a relatively huge problem. I wonder how they will cope?
Now forgetting all the legal issues, and technology theft issues, from a point of view that the fans are interested in, ie when (or will) HL2 get released, I have been thinking whether there is a quick fix for this. By quick I mean 3/4 months
The threats to Valve seem to be:
1) Any single player CD key authentification mechanism that may have been planned is now completely compromised, prompting a warez free for all on release. I anticipate this will take not so long to fix, but it is a hassle.
2) Any Steam multiplayer CD key authentification mechanism, as well as payment detail and personal details transmission methods may be compromised as Steam source code seems to be included in the source leak. I anticipate this will require some reworking of steam, and due to the already mentioned Steam bandwidth issues and the heavy p2p work required, I am sure this will push HL2 into 2004, if steam remains integral to its release, which Valve seems intent on.
3) For me, by far the biggest problem is shoring up the multiplayer code to prevent exploits and hacks. This is a big enough problem when a popular multiplayer game is released conventionally, with hacking groups releasing packages within days/hours of release. Now that this build of HL2 is public domain, the multiplayer part of HL2 has more holes than a fishnet stocking. I am not just talking about wallhacks and aimbots, I am talking about potentially allowing a malicious person access to your computer which you are playing HL2 multiplayer, if this is proved to be due to HL2 multiplayer security holes, Valve will be sued all the way to Xen. I am afraid that they will need to add abstraction layers to the current multiplayer code if they are to disguise its operations now that the leak has happened. This can only reduce multiplayer/game performance and may push the game beyond early 2004.
Valve is a relatively small team, and this is a relatively huge problem. I wonder how they will cope?
A
AcneBrain
Guest
Bravo!
gloryofbach, I felt I should register on this forum just to say GREAT JOB on the post. It kept my interest even with ADD
gloryofbach, I felt I should register on this forum just to say GREAT JOB on the post. It kept my interest even with ADD
Llevar
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I think that we can definitely forget about playing hl2 any time soon. They will most likely need to spend on the order of months on damage assessment and then at least that much on fixing the identified problems and even then they will be extremely vulnerable because breaking is that much easier than making.
Valve has lost huge on this on so many levels it is hard to conceive of all the reprocussions this will have on the company, the industry, and the gamers. I wouldn't be surprised if this will completely sink Valve.
I doubt that they will have to face lawsuits from 3rd parties as they have followed the licensing agreements and NDA's. The information was stolen and if valve can prove that they were not negligent they have nothing to fear on that end.
However, this surely means multimillion dollar losses for Valve and companies that provided Valve with their APIs. I'm not sure what the exact contents of the source are but if, as they say it's the complete source tree then in addition to actual game code there will be source for all 3rd party APIs, as well as Valve's in-house development tools. Who needs to buy the Havok engine if all they have to do is rejiggle some variable names, change around some parameter passing and they have a fully functional physics engine that took dozens of people years to develop and probably costs hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to purchase. And the thing is that noone can claim its not theirs because firstly, companies usually make sure to not expose their source code to third parties, and secondly its not based on any secrets or anything because it's just physics laws that they rely on.
Also, as someone pointed out, noone will want to license Source now for their games because its tainted and this is a HUGE loss for Valve because Source was going to be the next engine that every company who cannot afford to develop an engine would use. This could quite possible put Valve under because even though hl2 will sell a zillion copies when/if it comes out most of the money will be made by the publisher. Valve would only make a good dollar through Steam sales and engine licensing. Given that the engine would surely sell for a few mil a pop Valve is in a complete shithole now financially.
Other things of note would be that Valve's anti-piracy and anti-cheating strategies are probably completely exposed now. It is also rather naive to think that this will only affect the future release of hl2. What this really means is that the security of all of valve's products up to date has been compromised. They have surely reused a tonn of code from hl for hl2 and now this code is also exposed so before hl2 comes out get ready for some serious hacks for the current steam framework.
The only possible benefit of all of this, and this is at a huge loss to Valve, is that all of the homegrown game developers now have access to a rich library of gaming algo implementations that they would have no way of getting their hands on and would take them years to implement on their own.
Lastly, Valve is unique in that the development of hl2 was a self funded effort and that I believe just came to an abrupt end because I don't think that they will be able to sustain the development financially any longer.
Sad.
Valve has lost huge on this on so many levels it is hard to conceive of all the reprocussions this will have on the company, the industry, and the gamers. I wouldn't be surprised if this will completely sink Valve.
I doubt that they will have to face lawsuits from 3rd parties as they have followed the licensing agreements and NDA's. The information was stolen and if valve can prove that they were not negligent they have nothing to fear on that end.
However, this surely means multimillion dollar losses for Valve and companies that provided Valve with their APIs. I'm not sure what the exact contents of the source are but if, as they say it's the complete source tree then in addition to actual game code there will be source for all 3rd party APIs, as well as Valve's in-house development tools. Who needs to buy the Havok engine if all they have to do is rejiggle some variable names, change around some parameter passing and they have a fully functional physics engine that took dozens of people years to develop and probably costs hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to purchase. And the thing is that noone can claim its not theirs because firstly, companies usually make sure to not expose their source code to third parties, and secondly its not based on any secrets or anything because it's just physics laws that they rely on.
Also, as someone pointed out, noone will want to license Source now for their games because its tainted and this is a HUGE loss for Valve because Source was going to be the next engine that every company who cannot afford to develop an engine would use. This could quite possible put Valve under because even though hl2 will sell a zillion copies when/if it comes out most of the money will be made by the publisher. Valve would only make a good dollar through Steam sales and engine licensing. Given that the engine would surely sell for a few mil a pop Valve is in a complete shithole now financially.
Other things of note would be that Valve's anti-piracy and anti-cheating strategies are probably completely exposed now. It is also rather naive to think that this will only affect the future release of hl2. What this really means is that the security of all of valve's products up to date has been compromised. They have surely reused a tonn of code from hl for hl2 and now this code is also exposed so before hl2 comes out get ready for some serious hacks for the current steam framework.
The only possible benefit of all of this, and this is at a huge loss to Valve, is that all of the homegrown game developers now have access to a rich library of gaming algo implementations that they would have no way of getting their hands on and would take them years to implement on their own.
Lastly, Valve is unique in that the development of hl2 was a self funded effort and that I believe just came to an abrupt end because I don't think that they will be able to sustain the development financially any longer.
Sad.
C
ComCray
Guest
too late, it's allready been spotted on p2p networks.. we all know what that means..
D
Doc Brass
Guest
1). Do you think Valve will decide to release only the single player aspect of the game while they continue to work on patching up the multi side. If this were to happen, they would also have to release the game conventionally, meaning not through Steam, possibly patching steam/multi in the coming months.
2). Would releasing the Single player portion give the all of the remaining "missing" files that anyone trying to piece together a warez version using the "open Source" out now, would need?
2). Would releasing the Single player portion give the all of the remaining "missing" files that anyone trying to piece together a warez version using the "open Source" out now, would need?
Z
Zer
Guest
Nostradamus
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very good and clever post, covering all points.
Im personaly, glad that some of the more respected of some of the big warez sites, are very much against this, and are stating and example, that this is not meant to be warez(not sure if i can say this?)...anyway, i just hope people realise that this is as important as it is.
as i wrote another place, this is like if someone went into you home stole your baby or raped you littlesister, os something alon those lines..this is not acceptable..argh im so pissed
/me goes to do something drastic and unclever.
Im personaly, glad that some of the more respected of some of the big warez sites, are very much against this, and are stating and example, that this is not meant to be warez(not sure if i can say this?)...anyway, i just hope people realise that this is as important as it is.
as i wrote another place, this is like if someone went into you home stole your baby or raped you littlesister, os something alon those lines..this is not acceptable..argh im so pissed
/me goes to do something drastic and unclever.
So why not just release the game and abandon steam?
So long as hackers cant get into peoples machines - their dreaming if any game can be cheat free or warez free.
It won't be long before someone release a test level based on this source code. They might aswell get it out the door and see what happens?
So long as hackers cant get into peoples machines - their dreaming if any game can be cheat free or warez free.
It won't be long before someone release a test level based on this source code. They might aswell get it out the door and see what happens?
kanette
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Does anyone know why hacker give away the source?
keeping it himself means more of cash for him.
so..
I suspect that they hacked more than 160 megs and keeps other part secretly to himself either for ransom or for his own potential profit.
keeping it himself means more of cash for him.
so..
I suspect that they hacked more than 160 megs and keeps other part secretly to himself either for ransom or for his own potential profit.
G
gloryofbach
Guest
1) No. Valve will not release HL2 in pieces. Multiplayer always has been integral to HL2 and if you release a game that is the sequel to the game that spawned the most popular multiplayer game in history, without multiplayer, people will be confused and angry. Heck I'm confused enough with the three different versions that were going to be released (BTW forget about a collectors edition, they have more pressing issues, this will be shelved), as well as the steam options, and that was when everything was coming out at the same time.
2) The HL2 source code going public domain, in my opinion is irrelevant with regards to single player pirating. Pirates do and will continue to strip copy protection from games hours after release. The more serious issue is the online CD key authentification mechanism. If this isn't robust, thousands of legitimate users may be locked out of multiplayer due to a keygen made from knowledge inside the source code leak.
BTW am watching the ATI press video, Gabe doesn't look too good on it, probably the pressure was already beginning to tell! Great presentation though.
C
ComCray
Guest
p2p network control
I've got an idea how to help Valve with some damagecontrol.
That the sourcecode is currently hitting the p2p networks is not a surprise but probably a nightmare for Gabe and co. Though the damage is allready done its still possible to try and contain the spread through conventional internet ways, not so with the p2p networks..
Now, not so long ago I read about this scheme from the RIAA in which they sortof "contaminate"/cripple popular downloads to make them unusable. Every time such a crippled version is downloaded makes getting a complete, uncrippled version of said file more improbable, to the extend that at a certain point p2p networking becomes more a pain then a boon.. sortakindalike..
The idea was that they'd take a song, leave the header and first one or two blocks (?) intact but the rest would be just noise or otherwise garbled data. The file would look, feel and smell the same as the real deal for the p2p browsers but due to the nature of the p2p system soon a lot of files become unusable..
I haven't got a clue how to go about with this, I can only remember admiring the tactic after reading the article.. Anyone out there with know-how and material to do such a cripple job on the hl2-source.rar? I'd gladly host/share it (and similair jobs on similair files) as would A LOT of people with me I think. The idea is not to have malicious code in it to crash a downloaders computer, can't blame them for being curious, but to cripple the (still) few original .rar's out there.. a serious crc-error would be sufficient (I think)
Your thoughts?
#edit: now I think about it, a whole storm of fake-source-code and related stuff MIGHT just cloud out the original or at least saturate the interest in it to a more containable level.. (I yhink most people just give up after 10 or 20 mistaked downloads).. how can we generate bait like this?
I've got an idea how to help Valve with some damagecontrol.
That the sourcecode is currently hitting the p2p networks is not a surprise but probably a nightmare for Gabe and co. Though the damage is allready done its still possible to try and contain the spread through conventional internet ways, not so with the p2p networks..
Now, not so long ago I read about this scheme from the RIAA in which they sortof "contaminate"/cripple popular downloads to make them unusable. Every time such a crippled version is downloaded makes getting a complete, uncrippled version of said file more improbable, to the extend that at a certain point p2p networking becomes more a pain then a boon.. sortakindalike..
The idea was that they'd take a song, leave the header and first one or two blocks (?) intact but the rest would be just noise or otherwise garbled data. The file would look, feel and smell the same as the real deal for the p2p browsers but due to the nature of the p2p system soon a lot of files become unusable..
I haven't got a clue how to go about with this, I can only remember admiring the tactic after reading the article.. Anyone out there with know-how and material to do such a cripple job on the hl2-source.rar? I'd gladly host/share it (and similair jobs on similair files) as would A LOT of people with me I think. The idea is not to have malicious code in it to crash a downloaders computer, can't blame them for being curious, but to cripple the (still) few original .rar's out there.. a serious crc-error would be sufficient (I think)
Your thoughts?
#edit: now I think about it, a whole storm of fake-source-code and related stuff MIGHT just cloud out the original or at least saturate the interest in it to a more containable level.. (I yhink most people just give up after 10 or 20 mistaked downloads).. how can we generate bait like this?
R
Red Devil
Guest
Wow, talk about OpenSource. Sheesh! I guess somebody took "The Definitive HL2 Source to heart.
It doesn't matter in the least though. We're *all* going to buy the game when it's released, so no worries, mate. The only thing it's going to do is make for killer mods which will spur even more people to reward you for all of your efforts.
And besides, everybody knows Half-life has a very long half-life, right? ;-)
Cripes, those hackers are going to get a reaming from the FBI. I'll bet half of them play it.
It doesn't matter in the least though. We're *all* going to buy the game when it's released, so no worries, mate. The only thing it's going to do is make for killer mods which will spur even more people to reward you for all of your efforts.
And besides, everybody knows Half-life has a very long half-life, right? ;-)
Cripes, those hackers are going to get a reaming from the FBI. I'll bet half of them play it.
V
vhold
Guest
This is probably going to be a very uncommon opinion, but.. I usually try to find the bright side of things..
It makes sense to me that anybody in a position to license it like you and others may be more likely to license it then ever..
If your main concern is that its too easy to cheat against now, thats probably already being addressed.
The way I see it is that people sitting on the fence right now wondering if they should license the Source engine could sneak a bit of a preview at what they'll be dealing with, and from all the comments on how well its documented it would seem that they would get a fairly favorable impression. I know its totally illegit but I think its probably already happening.
Also, licensing Source most likely gets you a lot of cooperation from Valve on new features, developer assistence, and basically access to their overall talent, things that you can't exactly steal.
C
ComCray
Guest
Llevar (and others): It's like with rabbits. After they've managed to multiply are you going to say "ah, we're too late, let them go, lets see what the future brings" and let the population out of control? no, you immediately take measures ensuring it doesn't. The fewer copy's of that code around the better (for valve, let that be said). some of that 1% might lose the file(s) in one way or another (I can think of some scenario's) Some of that 1% might not actually have it. Getting it should be all but impossible if not a tedious job.
As for the hardcore group which can actually use it and have it allready? yeah, lets hope there be some pretty kick ass mods out there.. but why going for "just" a kick-ass mod when you got enough of the source to build your own kick-ass game..?? Mods keep Half-life umm.. alife.. not other games..
As for the hardcore group which can actually use it and have it allready? yeah, lets hope there be some pretty kick ass mods out there.. but why going for "just" a kick-ass mod when you got enough of the source to build your own kick-ass game..?? Mods keep Half-life umm.. alife.. not other games..
