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The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

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Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#41

Post by sillysaurus3 »

FiloSottile wrote: post #33
codexon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel sorry for malware writers. They are not oppressed and deserve what they got. And this guy also stole people's software keys. If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route.

> If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route. Let me guess: you are a US citizen, or anyway live in a country where developer positions abound. Well, not everyone is. Some people live in small towns where the cool programming positions are adapting invoice management software for small businesses. Also this was before Freelancer.com, be…

Some people live in small towns where the cool programming positions are adapting invoice management software for small businesses.

That's a legitimate programming job. Cool software rarely makes money. Cool software that makes money (game development) doesn't pay very much.

Then you stumble upon a IRC channel and a world of challenges opens in front of you.

A book is far more challenging, because in an IRC channel you're a fish in a small pond. Eventually you grow to be the biggest fish, or forever limit yourself to being small. What a book can't give is peer recognition. But peer recognition is a vain motive, and vanity is rarely lucrative. A book also can't answer questions, but you can use IRC or a website like stackexchange for that.

If anyone reading this has personal experience flirting with blackhattery, please carefully consider what you're doing and why you're doing it. (And if you'd like someone to talk to, please feel free to shoot me an email. I'd like hearing about your experiences and your thoughts.)

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#42

Post by EdwardDiego »

FiloSottile wrote: post #33
codexon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel sorry for malware writers. They are not oppressed and deserve what they got. And this guy also stole people's software keys. If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route.

> If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route. Let me guess: you are a US citizen, or anyway live in a country where developer positions abound. Well, not everyone is. Some people live in small towns where the cool programming positions are adapting invoice management software for small businesses. Also this was before Freelancer.com, be…

> Don't judge if people are oppressed (or better, repressed) if you have never been, please, either because at that age YOU had the occasions or guidance, or because you hadn't that curiosity or talent.

Nice justification of criminality. "But I was bored and talented!"

Oh dear, who are we to stand in the way of your genius then?

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#43

Post by dsuth »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #42
FiloSottile wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route. Let me guess: you are a US citizen, or anyway live in a country where developer positions abound. Well, not everyone is. Some people live in small towns where the cool programming positions are adapting invoice management software for small businesses. Also this was before Freelancer.com, be…

> Don't judge if people are oppressed (or better, repressed) if you have never been, please, either because at that age YOU had the occasions or guidance, or because you hadn't that curiosity or talent. Nice justification of criminality. "But I was bored and talented!" Oh dear, who are we to stand in the way of your genius then?

Nice black-and-white view of humanity. I felt for this guy, because it could easily have happened to me, and my upbringing was probably a paradise compared to his.

Especially in the case of juveniles, we (as a society) should be understanding of minor indiscretions, and look to guide kids onto a better path. Thankfully the German justice system seemed to get that.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#44

Post by nitrogen »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #42
FiloSottile wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route. Let me guess: you are a US citizen, or anyway live in a country where developer positions abound. Well, not everyone is. Some people live in small towns where the cool programming positions are adapting invoice management software for small businesses. Also this was before Freelancer.com, be…

> Don't judge if people are oppressed (or better, repressed) if you have never been, please, either because at that age YOU had the occasions or guidance, or because you hadn't that curiosity or talent. Nice justification of criminality. "But I was bored and talented!" Oh dear, who are we to stand in the way of your genius then?

A pragmatic approach to the situation might suggest that reward is a better deterrent than punishment in these cases.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#45

Post by HeroesGrave »

onewaystreet wrote: post #26
ahuth wrote: post #4

I'm not condoning breaking into the network and stealing source code, but what financial damage did this cause to Valve? The article repeatedly refers to financial damages, but I'm not sure how that is.

The game was delayed a year because of the hack.

It said it was delayed by a year before the hack.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#46

Post by ago »

codexon wrote: post #6
deftnerd wrote: post #2

It's stories like these that's inspired me to start up a new project at oppressed.me. I'm trying to compile a list of hackers and hacktivists that have been imprisoned in order to let the internet easily send them correspondence. I'm also going to ask publishers for donations of older copies of technical books to send them. A lot of hackers are just kids that make a stupid mistake. During their time in jail, their sk…

I don't feel sorry for malware writers. They are not oppressed and deserve what they got. And this guy also stole people's software keys. If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route.

I agree that what I did was bad, but to say that it takes no talent is just wrong. In fact some of the things were more challenging than anything I've come accross at any of my jobs (programming embedded device firmware, test automation and realtime graphics) in the last 10 years. And no, I couldn't find even a "boring" programming job where I lived. Of course I tried, I tried a lot. Really, you have no idea what kind of shithole the place I grew up at was for programmers. Still, that doesn't excuse what I did, and I'm sorry for it.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#47

Post by codexon »

FiloSottile wrote: post #33
codexon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel sorry for malware writers. They are not oppressed and deserve what they got. And this guy also stole people's software keys. If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route.

> If they were talented coders, they could've found less destructive ways to make money. But he decided to go the greedy route. Let me guess: you are a US citizen, or anyway live in a country where developer positions abound. Well, not everyone is. Some people live in small towns where the cool programming positions are adapting invoice management software for small businesses. Also this was before Freelancer.com, be…

> Also this was before Freelancer.com, before code.org.

This was in 2004, 3 years after the dot com bubble burst and was getting rosy again. Everyone and their mother's with a blog were making hundreds a month.

Programmers have been peddling shareware since BBS days.

Are you really calling Germany a 3rd world country?

> Some people live in small towns where the cool programming positions are adapting invoice management software for small businesses.

So why is this not legitimate work?

> Often too much skills and too little to do to start. Then you stumble upon a IRC channel and a world of challenges opens in front of you. Don't judge if people are oppressed (or better, repressed) if you have never been, please, either because at that age YOU had the occasions or guidance, or because you hadn't that curiosity or talent.

This is a pretty arrogant statement. Many programmers don't program malware not because they aren't smart enough, they don't do it because it is socially unacceptable and they don't have a criminal mind.

If you feel the need to "learn" about security, don't exploit, trojan, or ddos my server. Do it to your own computer.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#48

Post by EdwardDiego »

dsuth wrote: post #43
EdwardDiego wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't judge if people are oppressed (or better, repressed) if you have never been, please, either because at that age YOU had the occasions or guidance, or because you hadn't that curiosity or talent. Nice justification of criminality. "But I was bored and talented!" Oh dear, who are we to stand in the way of your genius then?

Nice black-and-white view of humanity. I felt for this guy, because it could easily have happened to me, and my upbringing was probably a paradise compared to his. Especially in the case of juveniles, we (as a society) should be understanding of minor indiscretions, and look to guide kids onto a better path. Thankfully the German justice system seemed to get that.

> Nice black-and-white view of humanity

I don't have a black and white view, I just don't buy "I was bored and clever" as a justification for breaking the law.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#49

Post by ago »

ahuth wrote: post #4

I'm not condoning breaking into the network and stealing source code, but what financial damage did this cause to Valve? The article repeatedly refers to financial damages, but I'm not sure how that is.

Valve claimed it to be $250 million. German police made fun of that figure, they believed someone added a few too many zeres.

Re: The boy who stole Half Life 2 source code (2011)

#50

Post by ago »

MisterMashable wrote: post #8

This was an amazing and somewhat sad story. How's Gembe doing today? Based on his near adoration of the Valve developers, it would be fitting if he worked in the gaming industry. Maybe he could set things right by helping to make Half-Life 3?

I worked programming fire alarm systems for a while, embedded device programming and test automation. Now I started doing realtime graphics in Bejing. Working on using the Kinect to do gesture input on presentations on really big screens. Like Powerpoint on steroids.
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