The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2.

This right here is the greatest comment ever:

I wonder what we would find if someone leaked the source code for Half Life 2 : Episode 3. ...probably just an empty file with one comment -

//game goes here eventually.

Huh. Never figured it would just be some shy awkward kid.

Nice to see he did a turnaround afterwards.

I swear, if I somehow become a movie director, this is the first thing I'm gonna make.

It's nice that he seems genuinly sorry for what happened.

I'd pay to see that dude.

WTF ignore this fail.

edited 21st Feb '11 12:44:47 PM by NONAMEGIVEN

Still, sending a rifle-armed team at some hacker seems like Disproportionate Retribution to me.

@Medinoc: Well, the hacker did get into a corporate network, so he could presumably get into another one (if his lovable, yet very horribly misguided love for Valve didn't get in the way).

Also, since Outlook was a bit of a vector in this, I wonder if Mircosoft patched it.

Why are all the crackers so clever but so fucking dumb?! WHY

^^Probably, but Sasser caused a lot of damage, and they thought that he'd committed an international crime... actually he did.

edited 21st Feb '11 12:51:57 PM by Tzetze

^Because in the real world, Evil is Stupid.

Or, rather, Smart AND Stupid. Smupid.

edited 21st Feb '11 1:00:01 PM by RocketDude

Blocked on my school network. Can someone give me the rundown?

@Tzetze: Because the capacity to be obsessed to a ridiculous degree with a single subject in no way aids an individual's ability to show common fucking sense.

edited 21st Feb '11 1:26:18 PM by Miijhal

Rhetorical question is rhetorical

Blocked on my school network. Can someone give me the rundown?

1. Kid likes Half-Life
2. Kid gets hacked in World Of Warcraft, instead of raging, finds hacker and asks how it works
3. Kid becomes hacker
4. Kid wants to see how HL 2 development is going
5. Kid breaks into servers and gets a copy of the source
6. Kid sends it to some other idiot who puts it up as a torrent
7. CRACKDOWN
8. I sowwy cat

@Tze: I think it was Warcraft III, actually.

So, what makes it an international incident and necessitated the need for armed persons?

^^Oh.

^It's international because he's European and broke into an American server. The guns were overkill, I was just saying.

The armed guys was REALLY neccesary?

I mean, its only a leak :P

Did you, like, not read the post a few posts up about breaking into a corporate network?

"Oh sure I comitted an international crime but I did it for the love of gamez!"

Nice find. I always wondered what happened to him. It's kind of surreal that a guy only a year older than I pulled that off.

So the passwords were blank, not "GabeNewell"? Wow.

Also, why the hell was this even on the Internet for the kid to download?

edited 21st Feb '11 8:24:23 PM by deuxhero

Because Corporates are silly. They apparently believe that all their machines have to be on the internet.

@Color Printer: Regular agents armed with pistols are enough anyway. Why send a freaking SWAT team for some kid in a basement?

I understand it was related to the suspicions of complicity with Sasser (which did a lot more damage), but still, it strikes me as a bit much.

edited 22nd Feb '11 12:04:11 AM by Medinoc

Wow...talk about Minor Injury Overreaction.

Imagine if he also got a hold of one of the employees t-shirt as well, then they'd have to whip out the heavy artilleries to match!