Valve take action against piracy

[Asuka]

Very nice job Valve.

 

[MrD]

Bare in mind it looks as though they've only disabled accounts that have collectively had wrong or multiple CD-keys entered and fake credit card details.

I think some of you are over reacting in the sense that Valve aren't all of a sudden going to ban your account because someone else has nicked your CD-key or because you enter it wrong. They'll instead look for this as evidence of people that may have been trying to crack the game, but will also gain more evidence from other happenings on the account (e.g. wrong CC, different CCs, different CD-keys etc.)

True perhaps, but forgive me for being sceptical. I run a fansite for a game that makes use of user-based voting. Not in the same league as credit card fraud i realise, but still some people try to cheat it (by voting their own creations). Despite all kinds of IP logs and whatnot it is still very difficult to be "sure" you've caught someone. Even after checking the suspected accounts by hand.

Now step in Valve. Their games are several orders of magnitude more popular. I cannot picture them checking the accounts manually, unless there are a lot less than i imagine. Which leads me to think they run some kind of script. A script based on numbers and patterns. *shivers*

 

[Chris D]

Well I would imagine that automated reports are generated. For example on their end Steam is programmed to send a report to say that User A has tried to purchase a game with the same credit card that User B has tried to purchase a game with. Or User A attempting to enter a fake CC or CD-key etc.

They're obviously not gonna check 2 million accounts, but there will be automated processes that lead into them manually checking certain ones.

A lot of companies I've worked for have similar things. Firstly it saves them having to check every single account for fraud and secondly, it saves them from getting egg on their face doing it this way because it won't be the automated system that bans them

 

[Camon_Draconis]

haha!! my friend got his account closed! I told him that i was playing cs:source without him and he about cried!!

 

[Chris D]

haha!! my friend got his account closed! I told him that i was playing cs:source without him and he about cried!!

Did he get the cracked version of CS:S then?

 

[Camon_Draconis]

Did he get the cracked version of CS:S then?

yep. oh well, thats what he gets! :farmer:

 

[Chris D]

yep. oh well, thats what he gets! :farmer:

Hehe, unfortunately I can't have any sympathy for him at all

 

[PriNcE oF SpAcE]

I wonder how many people they got nailed? there are tons of un-populated servers at the moment(normally it's hard to find a free spot)

 

[Robinhood_01]

That is the first forum post ever which made me burst out into roaring laughter. That guy is such a knob and I LOVE the way the Valve guy responded

 

[Rygir]

they should charge him with credit card fraud

No, they shouldn't. From the information that was given you can't exclude that he merely tried to purchase something online and used his (perhaps recently) expired card, or just mistyped a couple of times. Granted, 11 times is quite a lot, but perhaps he thought the same way of steam as some other people around here and persisted that not he but steam was at fault (continuing to retry a couple of times).
Another, slightly less harmless, possibility is that he was just randomly guessing credit card/CD-key information. You can hardly call that fraud.... "innocent children" often just try their luck (eating anything that fits in their mouth if you're not carefull).
Another possibility mentioned elsewhere in this thread is that his key was taken by someone else and he just kept trying.

I hope they email their ISP and get their internet account shutdown too.

Really now... Maybe they should shoot him in the foot, cut of his hand, put him on every blacklist on the planet, tattoo "BIG FAT STEALING MONKEY" on his forehead, take all his money and give it to bill gates or some other randomly undeserving person, and possibly after letting him live for 10 more miserable years put him in jail some more, then end his misery with a lethal injection.

What's that saying again? Always treat another person the way you would like to be treated yourself.

And another one : He who is without sin, cast the first stone.

(This lengthy reply seemed only suitable after so many thoughtlessly bashed someone, who still CAN be innocent - as evidenced by the few who posted on his behalf)

"Valve 1 - 0 pirates"

Doesnt it stand 1 - 1? Cuz the pirates had their games for free until now.

flrian 1 - 0 rest of board

Other stuff : As Gorgon pointed out, the real stuff is still out there. Then again, I'm happy enough if script kiddies get nailed.

Parrot of doom : Yup, you can cut the hypocrisy (sp?) in here with a knife...(the knife from that fast movement cheat thing )

Wotan's story of the sent CD key : I would be happier if in the land of Valve the customer support was a little more sturdy. This is just one of those (truly heartbreaking :imu: ) stories.

MrD : *nods*

NB : I definitly hate cheaters and those who get fun out of the misery of others.

Just thought of a prime example : The police [as a metaphor here] ISN'T always at your side - cfr The Combine....

 

[staddydaddy]

hahaa taylor sherman is such a bad ass. I love that guy.

For some reason there was a conflict with my 2 cd keys hl and CZ and I posted a well written trhead and he personally fixed it. I <3 him

 

[Ansur]

Just awesome, its nice they're not afraid to lock these keys.

 

[Frash]

And so does everyone believe an obviously faked forum post on the Steam forums to set an example.
I can't understand you guys don't see its tricked.
Lets face the facts
1) Sherman had amazingly much details, if the database records EVERY detail like this, the servers must be monsterservers. Its like a chart and I dont believe VALVe takes the time to make a chart for people who pirated, a BETA (Which are mainly free, look at MS Windows 2k3 RC and Norton 2k4) while they are in the middle of developing the most wanted game of the year 2k4.
2) Have you heard ANYONE in your direct envoirement about getting locked out? Or even in the comments here?
3) The thread was locked quickly. Why? God knows, VALVe appearantly doesn't want replies but keep in mind there no other threads. Nowadays its easy to make a second account with proxies and ask what happened. Well I haven't seen the threads, and you know how CS kids whine when Steam is down and such.
so it would be worser if their account was locked out.
4) Sherman appearantly suddenly knows about the exploit, but does not fix it. Instead that he starts to scare of exploit users in general, with the information they are being monitored. Very smart move of him, because this covers all cracks. Clients dont know what is monitored and whatnot.
5) Sherman behaved different in general. Normally he is more calm and polite. Suddenly his character changes and he challenges 11 year old CS warez kids.

Since the biggest part of the Steam CS community is fueled by kids, they will actually be very scared about this.

I am not yet another VALVe basher, I actually like VALVe but this is obviously a story with a hidden background. VALVe will not beat piracy. Microsoft said XP is uncrackable. One day before the release it was cracked. Just look at RIAA how desperate they are with their scare off actions. KaZaA and Bittorrent is widely represented and they need to use another tactics. The ancient "fear-is-power" technique and I do have to say its a smart move of VALVe, I might have done the same.

 

[FISKER_Q]

And so does everyone believe an obviously faked forum post on the Steam forums to set an example.
I can't understand you guys don't see its tricked.
Lets face the facts
1) Sherman had amazingly much details, if the database records EVERY detail like this, the servers must be monsterservers. Its like a chart and I dont believe VALVe takes the time to make a chart for people who pirated, a BETA (Which are mainly free, look at MS Windows 2k3 RC and Norton 2k4) while they are in the middle of developing the most wanted game of the year 2k4.
2) Have you heard ANYONE in your direct envoirement about getting locked out? Or even in the comments here?
3) The thread was locked quickly. Why? God knows, VALVe appearantly doesn't want replies but keep in mind there no other threads. Nowadays its easy to make a second account with proxies and ask what happened. Well I haven't seen the threads, and you know how CS kids whine when Steam is down and such.
so it would be worser if their account was locked out.
4) Sherman appearantly suddenly knows about the exploit, but does not fix it. Instead that he starts to scare of exploit users in general, with the information they are being monitored. Very smart move of him, because this covers all cracks. Clients dont know what is monitored and whatnot.
5) Sherman behaved different in general. Normally he is more calm and polite. Suddenly his character changes and he challenges 11 year old CS warez kids.

Since the biggest part of the Steam CS community is fueled by kids, they will actually be very scared about this.

I am not yet another VALVe basher, I actually like VALVe but this is obviously a story with a hidden background. VALVe will not beat piracy. Microsoft said XP is uncrackable. One day before the release it was cracked. Just look at RIAA how desperate they are with their scare off actions. KaZaA and Bittorrent is widely represented and they need to use another tactics. The ancient "fear-is-power" technique and I do have to say its a smart move of VALVe, I might have done the same.

1) Yes they do have a database

2) Not really, but i could probably check, remember these were probably done manually, as according to the database, which takes a lot of time.

3) When you know the other answers this one isn't needed to be answered.

4) Valve also knows of the bittorrent system, which haven't been implented yet, regarding steam, it has way less priority than their other products. (I think only a couple of people are coding on steam actively(3 or so))

5) I've seen Sherman "react" like that many times. Both in public threads and private messages.

 

[The Mullinator]

I don't see why Valve wouldn't record all of that information. Obviously they know that people would be trying credit card fraud so it would make perfect sense for them to record this information.

People here don't talk about it here because they are smart enough to know that if their account was banned due to credit card fraud that they really should keep their mouths shut.

Its no surprise the thread was quickly locked, it was never going to go anywhere and it wouldn't matter if it was posted here either because it would still have been quickly locked. No surprise and no argument from me about why it was locked.

It also doesn't sound like an exploit to me either:

I don't think Taylor or I said anything about any kind of "easy little exploit by IP". I think the message was more about repeat key theft attempts and repeat credit card fraud attempts.

So it doesn't sound like there is even an exploit to fix.

I don't see why it is so unreasonable for him to come out and start "challenging" people when it comes to things like this, obviously people that attempt credit card fraud piss him off and so it only seems normal for him to act like that.

It also seems perfectly reasonable to me why they would attempt scare tactics, if it isn't an exploit in steam so you can't do anything but try and scare users from commiting credit card fraud in the future.

 

[Ansur]

1) Sherman had amazingly much details, if the database records EVERY detail like this, the servers must be monsterservers.

Not at all, if they only record frauds.

 

[Frash]

Hey I am not saying VALVe handled wrong but its just a mix of facts that make it a weird story. I try to light up the other side.

 

[jonbob]

Are they even allowed to say that sort of thing on a public forum?

 

[Radcliff]

Pfft. Banning by IP doesn't help. Being a computer tech, I could think of a thousand ways to get by a simple IP ban (provided that's the only identifier they use). If they really want to ban him, they'll have to use more than that.

If I'm mistaken, and that's not the only identifier they use, please disregard this post.

The stupid laws in the US do not really protect companies like Valve. It really blows goats. I say contact the FBI and have him do some time with Bubba. Piracy costs us honest consumers as well, and I'll be darned if I'm going to voluntarilly cough up money I could've saved, thanks to some punk trying to impress his friends. The same goes for the source code hacker. Valve is too soft on these people.

 

[Radcliff]

No, they shouldn't. From the information that was given you can't exclude that he merely tried to purchase something online and used his (perhaps recently) expired card, or just mistyped a couple of times. Granted, 11 times is quite a lot, but perhaps he thought the same way of steam as some other people around here and persisted that not he but steam was at fault (continuing to retry a couple of times).
Another, slightly less harmless, possibility is that he was just randomly guessing credit card/CD-key information. You can hardly call that fraud.... "innocent children" often just try their luck (eating anything that fits in their mouth if you're not carefull).
Another possibility mentioned elsewhere in this thread is that his key was taken by someone else and he just kept trying.

It was 18.

11 invalid CD-Keys, 7 false CC#'s. Coincidence? I think not.

It's like me saying I didn't counterfeit anything when I had counterfeiting equipment set up in my basement with my fingerprints all over it. What do you think everyone's going to believe?

 

[FISKER_Q]

Pfft. Banning by IP doesn't help. Being a computer tech, I could think of a thousand ways to get by a simple IP ban (provided that's the only identifier they use). If they really want to ban him, they'll have to use more than that.

If I'm mistaken, and that's not the only identifier they use, please disregard this post.

The stupid laws in the US do not really protect companies like Valve. It really blows goats. I say contact the FBI and have him do some time with Bubba. Piracy costs us honest consumers as well, and I'll be darned if I'm going to voluntarilly cough up money I could've saved, thanks to some punk trying to impress his friends. The same goes for the source code hacker. Valve is too soft on these people.

It was not banned by ip, but by account.

The ip was mentioned because they used it to be sure that the same person posting was the same person doing the fraudulent tries.

And using the ip isn't halfbad either. The nature of DHCP will try to give you the same ip, if you try to renew.

First when it has been expired, and you haven't taken a new ip, and someone else took your old ip, you will get a new one.

 

[Radcliff]

It was not banned by ip, but by account.

The ip was mentioned because they used it to be sure that the same person posting was the same person doing the fraudulent tries.

And using the ip isn't halfbad either. The nature of DHCP will try to give you the same ip, if you try to renew.

First when it has been expired, and you haven't taken a new ip, and someone else took your old ip, you will get a new one.

Banning by account is even worse. The person can just make a new account like they did before. At least when you ban an IP, you have some hope, because the IP may be static, and he doesn't seem to be good enough at computers to know about certain issues.

Anyways, about the IP issue, I'm talking about logging off and logging back in on 56k, or simply turning the modem off and back on on broadband. Every time I turn my modem off and back on, it gives me a new IP. ISP's are starting to switch to dynamic IP's, and I'm guessing it's so people don't go starting servers when they don't really want them to. You have to pay extra for the static IP. That's the way my ISP is, and I do believe many others are using this system.

 

[Radcliff]

Wow, I think I may have helped with this.
On tuesday I sent a detailed email to Gabe showing how people could register with fake CD keys and pay using fake Mastercard numbers.
Then yesterday I just get a simple email from Gabe, no subject line just this:


Maybe I helped

edit: the link where the information was to do this was also removed.

Good job if you did.

 

[Radcliff]

Oh, and I must also congratulate Valve for their eagle eye, you guys are the greatest. Half Life 2 is only gonna be around 50 bucks on most of the websites I've seen, and that is quite reasonable, when you consider how 5 or 10 years ago the original Half Life came out, and I paid 60 bucks for that, and the graphics were pretty "blah-blah" by today's standards. Clearly Valve is *trying* to be good to us by lowering the price of their games, the least we could do is not pirate. Pirates shall walk the plank!

This is a great victory indeed. For both Valve and their consumers.

 

[FISKER_Q]

Banning by account is even worse. The person can just make a new account like they did before. At least when you ban an IP, you have some hope, because the IP may be static, and he doesn't seem to be good enough at computers to know about certain issues.

Anyways, about the IP issue, I'm talking about logging off and logging back in on 56k, or simply turning the modem off and back on on broadband. Every time I turn my modem off and back on, it gives me a new IP. ISP's are starting to switch to dynamic IP's, and I'm guessing it's so people don't go starting servers when they don't really want them to. You have to pay extra for the static IP. That's the way my ISP is, and I do believe many others are using this system.

Since it's an account ban it will force him to buy all games again. In the long run that's not profitable.

 

[thelastname]

Does anyone have a link to the actual post that was used in the pic at the start of this post?

 

[NeoNight]

:cheers: gg. lol or ng (no game) in his case :rolling: