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Valve's response here seems exceedingly harsh. This kid went of his way to reach out to Valve and apologize for what he did, because he felt guilty. Valve's response was to forward his message to the FBI and organize a sting operation. I realize he broke the law, but only because he wanted to play Half-Life 2. It was done out of love for what Valve themselves created.
It's honestly insane how a company can just claim this cost us X without a shred of evidence. I very much even doubt this cost Valve a single dollar. In fact it would not even surprise me that this helped sell Half-Life 2. The game that some people where willing to risk years of jail time to get it a month earlier. Can't get better marketing then that honestly.
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When I was in high school, in the Before Times[1], a guy who ran in my hacker circles broke into the school system's mainframe and gave everyone he liked straight A's. He was, of course, caught -- but the school system really did hire him after he graduated, as their IT security guy. [1] This was before the internet, before there were laws specifically about this sort of thing, and before the public started mistakenl…
I broke into some systems at my high school, and got hired jr/sr year at my school district. Their issue was a permission misconfiguration in AD, and allowed me to do all sorts of things like adjust the backgrounds for all the computers in the district I thought it'd be an interesting entry into tech jobs, specifically around microsoft AD, which was something I never got to really play with enough at home (licensing,…
I figured it could go both ways: either my career as IT student was over, or they would thank/praise me for it. I figured it wasn't worth the risk.
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Sure, to be clear, I also think Valve's response was over the top. Conspiring to extradite a foreigner, as a private corporation, is straight out of cyberpunk fiction. Axel's a very lucky person, all things considered. If he had been held liable for Agobot's staggering DDOS/theft/remediation costs many in this community might otherwise think it fair.
This is an habit with USA to try to extradite in a trap attempt, suspected « hackers ». This happened to Gaius, in late 90th, for impersonating US president on the hacked White House pabx. This happened to Casper/leader2 connecting to a shell of military US server after someone on IRC asked him to kee the connection alive. Back in the day cyber force of USA were fighting for budget, and having hacker arrested and jud…
I had to look it up, but it's Dmitry Sklyarov [1], who worked for the russian-based ElcomSoft, which was known for selling all sorts of DRM cracking programs.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd.
Valve's response here seems exceedingly harsh. This kid went of his way to reach out to Valve and apologize for what he did, because he felt guilty. Valve's response was to forward his message to the FBI and organize a sting operation. I realize he broke the law, but only because he wanted to play Half-Life 2. It was done out of love for what Valve themselves created.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an habit with USA to try to extradite in a trap attempt, suspected « hackers ». This happened to Gaius, in late 90th, for impersonating US president on the hacked White House pabx. This happened to Casper/leader2 connecting to a shell of military US server after someone on IRC asked him to kee the connection alive. Back in the day cyber force of USA were fighting for budget, and having hacker arrested and jud…
> Anyone remembering this Russian guy arrested straight from plane when he landed in USA going to make a talk to defcon ? I had to look it up, but it's Dmitry Sklyarov [1], who worked for the russian-based ElcomSoft, which was known for selling all sorts of DRM cracking programs. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd .
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It’s crazy. How is it any different than the CCP luring Americans over to China and throwing them in prison for posting distasteful content online? The CCP and the FBI have different values, but it’s entirely the same concept.
There's some differences: 1. He would the right to a public trial, there'd be free press coverage. 2. He'd have the right to a lawyer. 3. There wouldn't be political interference in the trial. 4. The majority of Chinese people that this happens to are political prisoners. I.e. they critisized their government. This guy commited a crime that is recognised in both the USA and Germany, there's no argument about that.
The treatment this individual would have suffered and the mal-incentivized justice system in the US where high profile cases and large $ amounts make great news headlines and careers for junior-level agents splashing across the ticket taper screens of 24-hour news networks and social media feeds is awful. But the social agenda as spoon fed top down isn’t deliberately aimed at the outcome this kid would have faced in the US.
That outcome would have been kafkaesque but still just a product of shitty incentives at various socio-cultural levels. That would have made him an outlier, one of a few dozens of individuals abused in this way. Horrific, yes, and to be held up against progressive values of freedom as absolute failures of our systems to function properly. Exemplars of how our ostensible values sometimes— and maybe often— fail to be realized in action and fact. And even how there are still lurking undercurrents of more systemic problems that must be uprooted and dealt with.
But these failures are a whisper compared to the deliberate and overt and systematic, unflinching and unabashed abuses that occur elsewhere. Uyghurs in China are an obvious but too often ignored example.
All too often a false equivalency is made between the two ends of the spectrum, not to mention the gradations in between. In many ways it’s a paradox of freedom that we in the west are only able to be vocal about the outlier hypocrisies of our countries because we have the freedom to do so with significantly less fear of life-changing consequences.
It is… I don’t know, ironic? Tragic? Certainly inconvenient… but the exact freedoms we have in more progressive countries allow us to amplify our outlier failings on these issues to the point that more oppressive nations can use that as rhetorical ammunition and propagandistic cover for their own more deliberate and massively scaled efforts in further deliberate extremes of such efforts.
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yeah that is just "let's throw random numbers to victimize ourselves even more". I don't think a lot of people downloaded the unfinished source code, compiled it, played the game and never bought the conplete game. The worst that happened were people making memes with some 3d and graphics assets which didn't cost anyrhing to Valve. Quite the opposite it was free advertising.
> The game didn't run on my computer. I made some code changes to get it to run in a basic form without shaders or anything, but it wasn't fun. Some people might have tried, but that doesn't sound like it was a great gaming experience. If it ran at all.
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> 4) don't destroy other people's hard work, it's not nice. Destroy.. how? The game still exists, Valve still owns it.
Not only they own it but their entire gaming position with Steam is thanks to Half-Life 2 forcing everyone to download it (and pretty much everyone hated Steam at the time).