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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)

#91

Post by Bahamut »

psykotic wrote: post #77
Bahamut wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? After 1 1/2 years in web development I am making significantly more than all of my game developer friends (even 2x some).

I'm going on personal knowledge and IGDA salary surveys. What part of the industry are your friends in? I should maybe have mentioned that the growing F2P, casual, mobile segment bears little resemblance, economically and otherwise, to what I would consider the traditional AAA game industry (which may eventually go the way of the dodo).

I have friends in various parts of the industry - F2P, AAA, mobile, and indie.

The consensus amongst my friends in game development is that it doesn't pay well for the amount of work they're doing, but it's what they enjoy doing so they're willing to tolerate it.

I should also mention that I am a bit of an anomaly - I'm an AngularJS expert, which seems to be in extremely high demand right now. I'm making around $160k (including stock compensation), and I may have even lowballed myself in salary negotiations.

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

#92

Post by ago »

zaroth wrote: post #86
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 think the system did quite well with Gembe all things considered... The judge sentenced him to two years' probation, citing his rough childhood and the way he had worked to turn his life around as considerations when it came to deciding on the relatively lenient punishment. The arrest at gunpoint sounds quite dramatic, but then again they let him stop for coffee and a cigarette on the way out, so this is not the ty…

You're completely right. The police were nice to me, probably because I was very cooperative. The team was about 15 people from the LKA, including the head of the cybercrime unit. I did cause a bit of a scare when I reached for the kitchen knife to cut some bread, but they quickly realized I didnt want to stab anyone. Of course I knew that I was far better off being in Germany than anywhere else, so I wasn't worried much. Overall I'm quite satisfied with how it went for me, even though it would be 4 years until the trial where I had to report to the police 3 times a week. I had the opportunity to turn my life around and get a good job. If I got put into jail neither me nor society would have been better off considering I paid a lot of taxes in the meantime and haven't done anything criminal since.

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

#93

Post by sillysaurus3 »

Bahamut wrote: post #91
psykotic wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going on personal knowledge and IGDA salary surveys. What part of the industry are your friends in? I should maybe have mentioned that the growing F2P, casual, mobile segment bears little resemblance, economically and otherwise, to what I would consider the traditional AAA game industry (which may eventually go the way of the dodo).

I have friends in various parts of the industry - F2P, AAA, mobile, and indie. The consensus amongst my friends in game development is that it doesn't pay well for the amount of work they're doing, but it's what they enjoy doing so they're willing to tolerate it. I should also mention that I am a bit of an anomaly - I'm an AngularJS expert, which seems to be in extremely high demand right now. I'm making around $160k…

Wow, thanks for the salary datapoint! Do you live in a high cost of living area like California, New York, etc (anywhere it costs $2k/mo for a 1 bedroom) or a less expensive area?

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

#94

Post by orbifold »

k00pa wrote: post #83
ahuth wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the leak cause major portions of the engine to need to be rewritten? Seems more likely that it was a convenient excuse.

Major parts needed rewrite to not make it so easy to develop cheats for the game. If the hackers would have the source, they would not even need to reverse engineer the engine to build their aimbots/wallhacks.

That does make zero sense.

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

#96

Post by nailer »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #48
dsuth wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An odd position, as you're well known for hiring someone to break into TriOptimum and remove ethical constraints for the Sentient Hyper Optimised Data Access Network.

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

#97

Post by atmosx »

jakejake wrote: post #89
FiloSottile wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I should stress I'm speaking about young people. Peer recognition is critical when starting at that age. Also careful consideration is not exactly common. I'm in no way alleging that it is a reasonable way to go for a mature professional, but I acknowledge the charm it has for the young high-schooler that is being "taught" Excel at school and being told not to fiddle with that weird black terminal. These boys…

It's a kinda strange thing. Before the digital age kids like myself just did not have access to many things that could get them into so much trouble. I caused my share of mischief when I was a kid, just like most boys will do. Probably the worst tools I had at my disposal were eggs or snowballs to throw at cars. The opportunity for me to reach out from my bedroom and cause damage to a multi-national corporation or go…

I wonder what % of HN people never made anything illegal, like:

    * Hack into a remove computer server/friends PC.
    * Broke a WEP/WPA wifi network to gain access
    * Performed MiTM to see what kind of data can sniff
    * Performed brute-force dictionary attack without being asked.
    * Shared illegal digital material with friends
I feel it's about ~ 3%.

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

#98

Post by atmosx »

The guy is extremely lucky for getting into the hands of the German police and because of his nationality.

I think that if he wasn't German, but from another 'major' or 'minor' EU country, Austrilia and many others he would have been extradited at no time to the US.

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

#99

Post by atmosx »

TwoBit wrote: post #95

Valve didn't use password hash salting? That seems borderline ridiculous. Pretty much the only way he could have broken the hashes is if this is so. Valve's use of SourceSafe at the time is another black mark, though not related to the security breach.

The only take-away here is that it's better to pay for a third party to secure your network, or a have a small team (2-3 guys) doing the administration/security-audit properly. I can't blame developers for not being security experts.

Developers != System Administrators != Security Experts

ps. The most important part however, are the developers, without them the other two groups wouldn't exist. :-)

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

#100

Post by icebraining »

jakejake wrote: post #89
FiloSottile wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I should stress I'm speaking about young people. Peer recognition is critical when starting at that age. Also careful consideration is not exactly common. I'm in no way alleging that it is a reasonable way to go for a mature professional, but I acknowledge the charm it has for the young high-schooler that is being "taught" Excel at school and being told not to fiddle with that weird black terminal. These boys…

It's a kinda strange thing. Before the digital age kids like myself just did not have access to many things that could get them into so much trouble. I caused my share of mischief when I was a kid, just like most boys will do. Probably the worst tools I had at my disposal were eggs or snowballs to throw at cars. The opportunity for me to reach out from my bedroom and cause damage to a multi-national corporation or go…

You probably didn't have access because you didn't look for it. A kid with the right mindset and a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook or similar could cause a lot of panic and draw a lot of attention.

The difference is not access, it's the inherently nonviolent nature of digital. It's easier to get a kid to care about not hurting others than about not hurting an abstract legal entity like a company.

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