The Boy Who Stole Half Life 2 - The Source Code Leak

[Lad Stankfoot]

Interesting article from eurogamer about the leak of Half Life 2 in 2003 and the hacker who cracked it, Axel Gembe.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011- ... -2-article

Gembe's malware crimes, while undeniably exploitative and damaging, were crimes driven by a passion for games rather than profits.

His favourite game of all was Half-Life. In 2002, like so many fans of the series, Gembe was hungry for details about the forthcoming sequel. That's when he had the idea. If Gembe could hack into Valve's network, he might be able to find something out about the game nobody else knew yet.

A socially awkward loner who had endured a tough upbringing, he would gain status in the community of gamers he had adopted as his family by offering up such insider information. It was worth a try.

"I wasn't really expecting to get anywhere," Gembe says. "But the first entry was easy. In fact, it happened by accident.

"I was scanning Valve's network to check for accessible web servers where I thought information about the game might have been held. Valve's network was reasonably secure from the outside, but the weakness was that their name server allowed anonymous AXFRs, which gave me quite a bit of information."

[mR.MouseR]

Haha, I remember when that happened. People were tweeking out, but of course valve just delayed the game, and came out with an even better product.

[joe]

lol even better

hl2 was shit

[Jason]

You're shit.

Anyway I read this earlier today, that shit is crazy.

[Neelpos]

Blah blah I'm Joe oh what's that highesst rated FPS of all time?
Pff, it's shit. Gon' go play TF2 OH FUCKING SNIPERS WHY DOES YOUR CLASS EVEN EXIST.

[joe]

interesting article

hl2 was shit though srsly. don't tell me about ratings, millions of people love Two and a Half Men, doesn't make it good

[Neelpos]

Why don't you like it?(note: "not BF2142" is not a valid reason)

[joe]

eh doesn't matter and off topic

[Django]

interesting article

hl2 was shit though srsly. don't tell me about ratings, millions of people love Two and a Half Men, doesn't make it good

Hey, you're not alone on this

[prolix]

you couldn't pry HL2 / source from my cold dead lifeless fingers

the story was a little lacking in the first and the tech demo argument is valid, but the episodes fixed all that IMHO

[CaptainTripps]

Joe be trollin....again

Cool Story Lad

[Nightwolf]

Joe be trollin....again

Cool Story Lad

Dont insult the mighty Joe, he has all the answer. They are backed up with sciences, and facts.

[joe]

just expressing my opinion, not trying to make other people mad. learn the difference.

nightwolf, you're a stupid douchebag. that's backed up by science.

[mR.MouseR]

Lol @ Joe.