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Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

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Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#91

Post by elb2020 »

danielheath wrote: post #15
dabeledo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the same way that you can steal secrets

When I copy your secrets, you no longer have secrets - just information that someone else also has. When I copy your code, you still have the code.

If you steal my secret code, then I no longer have secret code.

The question is whether the secrecy itself has value. I may perceive that it does, and you may conveniently perceive that it doesn't.

It's a dubious mindset, to believe that it's your own call to decide whether something should be of value to someone else.

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#92

Post by permo-w »

rvba wrote: post #77
DonHopkins wrote: post #61

It reminds me of when unsuspecting thieves accidentally stole a container of Iridium-192 used for industrial radiography from a lab in Mexico, and were eventually arrested and taken to the hospital to be treated for radiation burns. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-32332271 The FBI should keep an eye on hospitals for anyone showing up with burning bleeding eyes and a swelling itching brains and melting fa…

How is this connected to stealing source code of a computer game?

It’s a joke. EA = bad. Reminds me on the kind of comments that are ubiquitous on reddit, which is one of the main reasons I left there.

It’s witty and not dull, but does it bring any value to the discussion? I’d say not really

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#93

Post by madflame991 »

jokoon wrote: post #66

Not really sure what this changes for the games released. I would say very little, in a way bad advertising is advertising which is good advertising. It might reveal some part of the scenario or features, and put pressure on the teams, but other than that, who really cares? Fans will talk about it, and that's only what this is. Maybe competitors might get an insight on what games are planning to be, but I doubt that…

Was thinking the same - companies are extremely protective of their source code. How many games out there truly have unique/interesting/hard tech in them? I can think of Spore; I can think of a handful of rendering engines, maybe Stalker, Wow of course but not many more than that

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#94

Post by superjan »

mlatu wrote: post #3

"steal"... it's still there, no?

If you mean that it annoys you that any kind of copyright/IP violation is described as ‘stealing’ then I share your sentiment. This is a real crime though, and most people call this stealing.

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#95

Post by m12k »

miav wrote: post #52

There have been multiple attacks like this and it seems the stolen code is usually made public in the end. I presume people will look at it and reuse some concepts and I wonder if this could lead to the technical state of the industry becoming better as a whole.

In general the problem in the game industry isn't that people don't know better ways to structure their code, but that they are under extreme pressure to ship and get absolutely no time to refactor.

Between GDC presentations and published computer graphics papers, the game industry is actually quite open about sharing its best ideas.

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#96

Post by permo-w »

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #87
miav wrote: post #52

There have been multiple attacks like this and it seems the stolen code is usually made public in the end. I presume people will look at it and reuse some concepts and I wonder if this could lead to the technical state of the industry becoming better as a whole.

I don't think EA has any tech that's sufficiently advanced over something like Unreal Engine, which is already source available. It's at least not perceptible in the games they publish.

Maybe I’m being naïve, but that seems naïve. EA is a very well-funded and complex company with a lot of fingers in a lot of gaming pies. To assume that none of their code is cutting edge or advanced seems unlikely

I could be entirely wrong though

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#97

Post by acomjean »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #73

My son interviewed at a gaming company that put two machines on everybody's desk. One connected to the internet for web/email and the other on a separate air-gaped network for development. I wonder if this will become the norm.

Thats how it was in the defense business. Our radar software was not on the internet.

It makes things a little harder because reference aren’t available easily, and people didn’t read they’re email as frequently, but it was ok.

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#98

Post by jart »

lrem wrote: post #80
maybeOneDay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you clarify what you mean by identity please?

I never put on my gaming computer things that I use to identify myself with important entities: - Banking. - Insurance. - Main Google account. - SSH keys. - GPG keys. - Pictures of any important documents. - Digital copies of any important documents. Basically: the moment you start installing games on a computer, assume it makes its contents world read/writeable.

Can you link to any examples of this happening in the past? Like oops I installed The Sims and Starcraft and now my C:\ drive is on Shodan. With mobile games that sort of thing probably happens all the time since mobile apis are designed to let apps do it. But I'd be surprised if something like an EA game was responsible. The worst I've heard so far is a bug where Steam will `rm -rf` your home directory because Valve doesn't understand UNIX.

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#99

Post by whiddershins »

toyg wrote: post #82
whiddershins wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If value is transferred by force, this is theft.

But there is no way to ascertain if value has actually been transferred. It's just fingers in the wind. EA could sell their games tomorrow and make exactly the same money they would have made before the hack.

Thise entire line of reasoning is reaching, it is rationalization for unethical behavior.

Stop justifying poor behavior. Just stop. Trust me, your cognitive dissonance will reduce, and life will overall get easier.

Re: Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools

#100

Post by [deleted] »

simion314 wrote: post #50
ReptileMan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is much simpler solution about cheaters. Local servers to play on lan. Many games came with them.

And other alternative is allow non official servers, then you can rent a server for yourself and invite your friends or make it public but you have the admin rights and options to configure it (like reducing the grind). The multiplayer part of some games made the single player section worse, because of the drastic anti-cheating measures.

[deleted]
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