13 ms·

The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2

401 points by twidlit 16y ago

jcw 16y ago
I'm happy to see that, while he did something wrong, because he was honest and openly remorseful throughout, he ended up not going to prison. The cops even seemed cordial, they let him get breakfast and a smoke. I wonder how differently things would have played out if he lived in the US.
- podperson 16y ago
  I think the German police clearly thought he was not going to get justice from the US (hence the remarks about how lucky he was that they got him before he got on the plane) and saved him from falling into the FBI's trap.
  - atourgates 16y ago
    Considering the rash of "OMG the police barged into my house, shot my goldfish and raped my star wars collection" type stories I've been hearing, is it safe to assume that the German police are quite a bit more sensible than their American counterparts? The whole experience sounds rather civilized. The police let Gembe get dressed, eat breakfast and smoke a cigarette before bringing him down to the station. And when he confessed, his punishment was 2 years in probation. I somehow doubt his experience with the FBI would have been similar.
    - thomasz 16y ago
      > is it safe to assume that the German police are quite a bit more sensible than their American counterparts? It depends. Gun ownership isn't nearly as common in the US, so they can safely assume that a 17 year old blackhat won't pull a gun on them. On the other hand, I've seen a ~4.9 feet tall girl getting knocked unconsciously with a Mp5 during the eviction of a squat. In 2003, a schizophrenic in custody was beaten to death by officers in Cologne. They were sentenced from 12 to 18 months in probation. In 2005, Oury Jalloh burned to death in a holding cell in Dessau while being tied with handcuffs to a fire-proof mattress at his hands and feet. In 2008, Josef Hoss was beaten to a bloody pulp by a special unit after his arrest. He is irreparably crippled. He later recieved 30,000€ for compensation.
      - burgerbrain 16y ago
        The difference between Germany and the US? Those types incidents are uncommon enough that you can remember individual occurrences.
        Dylanlacey 16y ago
        ANYWHERE you get people whose jobs are power-over-others based, you'll get fuckwads taking those jobs to feel powerful. Then abusing those jobs for the same reason. It has nothing to do with the nation and everything to do with the nature of people and policework.
        ars 16y ago
        Oh come on, they are quite rare in the US as well, and the US is a LOT larger than Germany.
        psykotic 16y ago
        > Oh come on, they are quite rare in the US as well, and the US is a LOT larger than Germany. Yes, if "a LOT larger" means 3.5x larger. Germany has 82 million inhabitants and is the most populous country in Europe.
        true_religion 16y ago
        A lot larger as in landmass. People pay attention to what goes on in their geographic area, regardless of its population. For example, a beating in California isn't going to be as troubling to a resident in Vermont. They'll simply say "different state, different police force". On the other hand, a beating in Berlin is going to trouble someone in any part of Germany.
        noibl 16y ago
        Believe it or not, Germany is also a federal republic with distinct regional differences. Germany doesn't even have federal policing.
    - die_sekte 16y ago
      Germany neither has a War on Drugs nor a meth problem. There have been highly criticized raids in Germany, but there are fewer raids per capita in Germany, and in Germany police-citizen interaction is less violent (no automatic assumption that that driver that was just pulled over is armed, for example).
      - burgerbrain 16y ago
        "War on Drugs nor a meth problem" You say that as if the first does not cause the second. America's 'war on drugs' is the cause of the problems, not an excuse.
  - billmcneale 16y ago
    Please. Do we need any more anti-US rhetoric here? I see no reason to believe that he would have been treated differently by the FBI, and besides, he would probably have been extradited right back to Germany.
    - danssig 16y ago
      You don't appear to be aware of what's going on in the US right now. I would also suggest reading what pg has to say about identity (and keeping it small).
      - borism 16y ago
        link?
        GFischer 16y ago
        http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html About considering you part of something: "..There is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you."
- ryandvm 16y ago
  No kidding. I would love to hear Gabe Newell's take on this article. That kid was a hairbreadth away from spending half a decade in a federal pen. That had to be a hell of a "whew" moment he had in that police station.
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- Semiapies 16y ago
  The cops were "cordial" after rousting him out of bed while pointing automatic weapons at him. In other words, they armed up and stormed the residence of a suspect of a non-violent crime. That sounds pretty standard for the US, and for the same reason indicated by the instruction, "Get out of bed. Do not touch the keyboard". SWAT-style tactics are rarely about any actual belief that the suspect has weapons and is likely to resist arrest, but about violently (sometimes lethally) subduing a suspect who might destroy evidence and impair the prosecution's case. And, of course, the overtime pay for SWAT work in many US jurisdictions. Don't know how that works in Germany.
  - basugasubaku 16y ago
    On the reddit thread, the guy says that was inaccurate and they were actually "really nice" in waking him up. http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_stole_halflife_2_fascinating_article/c1hp9ov http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_st...
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      Hmm! I wonder what that's about. Thanks for the information.
- ars 16y ago
  Things would have been exactly the same in the US. The stories that get all the publicity are the bad ones which of course leads you to think that's all there is. But by far most cases end up exactly like this one. Judges LOVE honesty, and so do cops. If you are honest and open with them you get a far milder punishment than someone who won't talk. I've seen it in so many case reports. Judges are trying to figure out what kind of person you are. If you are open and honest they figure you made a mistake, but are basically a good person and thus don't need much punishment. On the other hand someone who won't talk is assumed to have a more negative mindset. I don't mean to suggest that not talking is taken as evidence for guilt - guilt is established separately and is not based on your cooperation. But the punishment for that guilt varies depending on your behavior in court and to the cops. A lot of the advice on the internet about not talking to cops etc is aimed at avoiding guilt. And it may work. But it utterly ignores the second half, which to me seems almost as important, and that is punishment.
  - jessedhillon 16y ago
    > Judges LOVE honesty, and so do cops. Traffic tickets are not even in the same league as the kind of offenses that we're talking about here, but if they are any indication then I have to agree. I've gotten out of my last three traffic stops by simply telling the cop exactly what I did: driving in the HOV lane without a passenger, rolling through a stop sign, and doing 40 in a 25. These people -- law enforcement and the court -- get jerked around all day by people who insult their intelligence with bullshit stories. It must be refreshing to hear someone clearly admit what they did with no attempt to evade responsibility.
    - Tomis 16y ago
      Now you've ruined it.
jarin 16y ago
Glad to see it had a relatively happy ending. At the risk of repeating a tired Internet cliche, I think the leak may have helped Half-Life 2. If the project was already months behind schedule and had a year before a GM build would be ready, having the source code leaked may have given hardcore gamers reassurance that the game was actually coming along and would be finished at some point. Of course, there's also the newsworthiness and buzz coming from the leak itself.
- twidlit 16y ago
  Now if someone would only leak Episode 3/Half-Life 3...
  - Uchikoma 16y ago
    I have the suspicion - no, deep deep creepy fear that engulfs your heart - that E3 will become the next Duke Nukem. This might push me into insanity.
    - dspillett 16y ago
      I suspect Duke is one of the reasons for the complete lack of E3 related announcements so far this year. That and their own Portal 2. They'll not want a "coming next year" annoucement about E3 to be wasted by it being overshadowed by the big things being released in the next few months. Hopefully there will be an announcement later in the year, during one of the release dry spells. Though you could be right, we've already been waiting for E3 twice as long as E2.
- enneff 16y ago
  How does reassuring hardcore gamers that the game is actually being made help Valve? Do you think they would have boycotted the biggest game of the decade simply because it was released late? Seriously... how did this help Valve? I know everything worked out well in the end, but the leak did somewhat spoil the game for a lot of people. I certainly didn't appreciate it at the time.
temptemptemp13 16y ago
I'd really like to hear Gabe's side to this story.
- abossy 16y ago
  Agreed. I remember reading about this years and years ago, and I thought Gabe Newell said the resolution was that they flew him to the U.S. and arrested him as he de-boarded his plane.
jasonjei 16y ago
Considering that he's been sentenced and assuming he has served the term of probation, if he were to set foot on the US, could he be tried and sentenced again, or does Double Jeopardy protect him even if he already had proceeded through the German court system?
- true_religion 16y ago
  Double Jeopardy doesn't protect you from being tried in multiple jurisdictions. An American example is the "D.C. Snipper" who was charged in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. to maximize jailtime and possibility of conviction.
  - kd0amg 16y ago
    Was that all for a single crime, or did each trial cover separate instances?
    - true_religion 16y ago
      They were treated as seperate instances since the crimes were committed against people in X jurisdiction. That's applicable in this case as well since the Valve folk are in the US jurisdiction.
      - kd0amg 16y ago
        If the instances were partitioned between those three jurisdictions, then it isn't really an example of avoiding double jeopardy limitations by changing jurisdiction.
        true_religion 16y ago
        Right, I guess what I'm getting at is that neither case (the one in the article and the one I mentioned) was about Double Jeopardy because the police could partition the crimes to different jurisdictions. Legalistically, its correct but ethically it means that police can try you multiple times so long as they narrow the jurisdiction on the first attempts. For instance, a car chase that crosses multi-jurisdictions can result in multiple trials (and consecutive sentences) even though its really just one offense.
sathyabhat 16y ago
Site's down, text-only Google cache view http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:T1eI3Z60_yMJ:www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-the-boy-who-stole-half-life-2-article%3Fpage%3D1+http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-the-boy-who-stole-half-life-2-article%3Fpage%3D1&hl=en&gl=in&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:T1eI3Z6...
ztan 16y ago
I found the story to be quite tragic. This kid really saw the people at Valve as his heroes. Valve knew this and totally abused of that fact. They tricked him and was planning to hand him to the FBI, despite the fact he was (still is) their biggest fan and that the leak was accidental. I would have really hired him if I was in Gabe's position. He had both passion and skills. I think he would make an awesome YC applicant if he directed those to creating a web startup.
- twidlit 16y ago
  Considering how good Valve is making fanbases, the number of hackpplicants would then be untenable.
  - ztan 16y ago
    As far as I know he was the only one who have succeeded in not only hacking in, but also not being traced back despite all of Valves efforts. (They even got the FBI involved.) How many of the "hackpplicants" can you say the same about? The only reason Valve even knew who did it was because he came forward to them. He admired Gabe and his team so much that his dream is to join them. All of this indicate to me that he would make an awesome employee. I have little doubt that he would have poured his heart and soul into the company had he been given the chance. In fact that is the main reason why I found the story to be so tragic.
    - twidlit 16y ago
      My point is it would encourage more people to apply by trying to hack into the company's networks instead of just creating impressive mods, Valve is a game dev/platform company after all not a network security one.
      - ztan 16y ago
        Ahh, I see. Point taken. I would still hire this passionate kid and put him on the network security team. I would then make a public announcement about how the job you get depends on what skill you demonstrate. Which should be the way it works anyways. If you want to join us as a game developer then you need to demonstrate your game developing passion and skills. Either through creating mods with our SDK/platform or writing/creating your own from scratch. However if you want to join us as a network security expert then you got to beat this kid we just hired! =P
l0nwlf 16y ago
I wonder why Valve didn't offered him a job. He was naive but talented and passionate about gaming.
- mey 16y ago
  Valve maintains systems that contain sensitive financial information, sensitive internal IP, and a whole library of external IP from other publishers. This wasn't a script kiddie pulling things off bit-torrent, this was an elaborate penetration into a corporate network. If I was in Valve's position, I would blackball him from working there because he couldn't be trusted, and the damage he caused. Damage caused was at least time spent cleaning up his mess in their network. Conversely it sounds like Valve had a very weak security setup in their network.
  - sukuriant 16y ago
    I haven't the faintest clue about how accurate the sort of story I'm about to use as a counter-point is, but what about capable hackers that succeed in breaking into government servers then being given a choice to either work for said government organization, or go to jail for a very long time? Assuming those sorts of cases actually happen, how is this any different?
    - protomyth 16y ago
      A lot of those stories are more in the realm of folklore, and the agencies that are said to have offered such choices have "alternate choices" for reduction in personnel than a private business has if the arrangement doesn't work out.
    - mey 16y ago
      Probably thinking of something like http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/01/72515 http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/01/7251... and if memory serves me correctly, he was eventually caught shuffling credit cards that they captured back out for a tidy profit.
- T-hawk 16y ago
joelhaasnoot 16y ago
Story reminds me of the book "Cuckoo's egg" by Clifford Stoll
- cschep 16y ago
  great story!
tkahn6 16y ago
I'm impressed by the shear amount of knowledge the kid had. Especially at the age that he did it.
- moe 16y ago
  I also found it hard to not sympathize with him after statements like this: "My bot used the same vulnerability in the LSASS service that his did, except it didn't crash the host system, so I guess they thought I gave him the exploit code. Of course I denied this and told them that I never write such shoddy code." He doesn't come across like a criminal mind to me. Don't blame an 18yr old kid for naively crossing lines he shouldn't. Blame the million dollar company for not securing their assets against 18yr old kids.
  - epo 16y ago
    Yet another know-it-all blaming the victim. There is no magic immunity which accrues from being 18, the kid knew what he was doing and wilfully committed criminal acts.
    - moe 16y ago
      Thanks for the ad hominem. It would have been more plausible if you didn't claim to know better than the know-it-all in the next sentence ("willfully"). If you really want this discussion then perhaps take into consideration the nature of the crime and try to recall your own youth (you've once been 18, too, right?). I'm not saying he doesn't deserve a slap on the wrist. It's however beyond ridiculous to try and charge him with virtual 9 figure damages - potentially sending him to jail and ruining the rest of his life. The more interesting question is who was charged for criminal negligence - or at least fired - at Valve over this? This is the more interesting question because curious and slightly naive 18yr olds are a natural law. They will always be around, and there's strong evidence that deterrence does not work very well against them.
  - khafra 16y ago
    It's possible for a criminal to have pride in his craftsmanship.
Scaevolus 16y ago
I liked this quote: "For some reason they thought there was a connection between me and Sasser, which I denied. Sasser was big news back then and its author, Sven Jaschan, was raided the same day as me in a co-ordinated operation, because they thought I could warn him. "My bot used the same vulnerability in the LSASS service that his did, except it didn't crash the host system, so I guess they thought I gave him the exploit code. Of course I denied this and told them that I never write such shoddy code."
bluesnowmonkey 16y ago
Am I the only one who thinks what he did was not only criminal but morally wrong, and that he deserved to go to prison for a long time? I realize that everybody likes to call themselves a "hacker" because they can program a computer, but this is an actual black-hat hacker. There are bad guys in the world and he's one of them. He wrote malware. He stole source code and gave it to the world. And this wasn't some evil corporation he was trying to bring to justice for its crimes. This was Valve. All they do is make cool games for the world. It's incredibly difficult work and they do a fantastic job. What kind of asshole do you have to be to shit all over them like this kid did?
- icarus_drowning 16y ago
  No, you aren't. And what I find galling about the article is how they go out of their way to use sympathetic language in describing him. Just one example: "Gembe's malware crimes, while undeniably exploitative and damaging, were crimes driven by a passion for games rather than profits." I understand that it is important to explore his motivations, but the way this is phrased (in particular what seems to be an attempt to contrast the boy's "passion" with Valves lust for "profits") is pretty terrible. I don't think his "pure" motivations matter at all-- what matters is that he chose to steal the property of Valve and make it available to others. Whether Gembe meant for it to end up on the internet doesn't matter when it ends up on the internet. I see a lot of comments on this that are sympathetic to the kid, and while I understand that feeling, I think a more sensible look at the situation demands that you feel sorry for him because he brought this upon himself, not because he was any kind of "victim". I'm glad to see that he was able to get on with his life, and I probably don't agree with what U.S. authorities would like to have sentenced him to had they gotten ahold of him. But that doesn't make him the persecuted hero that so many people seem to think he is. And that doesn't mean he shouldn't have done some jail time either.
  - __david__ 16y ago
    > in particular what seems to be an attempt to contrast the boy's "passion" with Valves lust for "profits" Wow, did you read the same sentence I did? They weren't implying Valve had a lust for profits, they were indicating that Gembe wasn't motivated by profit. I think you're reading way too much into that particular sentence. > I see a lot of comments on this that are sympathetic to the kid, and while I understand that feeling, I think a more sensible look at the situation demands that you feel sorry for him because he brought this upon himself, not because he was any kind of "victim". I see the comments here differently--I don't think anyone thinks he's strictly innocent, I think people are sympathetic because he was looking down the barrel of the American Corporate Legal System™ and only narrowly escaped. I understand Valve's anger at having their stuff ripped off and published around the internet and if I were in their position I might have the same outlook. But, having the gift of 20/20 hindsight, we can see that it didn't actually affect them negatively in any tangible way. Half-life 2 was released and overwhelmingly successful and there are no game engines with stolen Valve code stealing licensing profits from them. So I am sympathetic to the fact that he escaped any jail time because in the end what he did didn't matter. 2 Years of probation seems perfectly appropriate.
linuxhansl 16y ago
Unless it is a small project and works without a dataceter the sourcecode itself is useless. Yet, so many people believe that there is actually any (usable) value in the source code alone. I flunked (thank god) an interview with a company once that ended up going belly up. The capital came from angel investors (mostly lawyers). When they ran out of money they locked everybody out of the premises (even though all their stuff was still in the building) for the fear somebody would take the source. This was 6 or 7 years ago.. To this date these lawyers still sit on their precious source code.
jrockway 16y ago
Automatic weapons were pointing at his head and the words "Get out of bed. Do not touch the keyboard" were ringing in his ears. Would they really have shot him in the head if he touched the keyboard? My guess is no.
- stuhacking 16y ago
  Would you take the chance? My guess is he'd receive a sharp blow from the butt of the weapon to the back of the head had he shown any attempt to deviate from their instructions.
chaosmachine 16y ago
I was in a similar position once, many years ago, in the early days of the web. I had managed to get parts of the source code to a popular online game (no real hacking here, they left a tarball in an open directory I stumbled upon), and being a foolish young kid, I decided to brag about my insider knowledge of unfinished features on a website. A few weeks later, the company contacted me with a job offer... they just needed my name and address to start sending me checks. Fortunately, I wasn't that dumb.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Nice. I guess whoever lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is getting a few extra bucks a month now.
- shadowpwner 16y ago
  Out of all the ways they could have caught you, a job offer? That's hilarious.
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- yalurker 16y ago
  As a counter anecdote, there is a CS lecturer at my alma mater who actually did get a job directly due to taking code (a physics simulator I believe) from some company's server. He was careful to end the story by reminding students that things have changed a bit since his youth, and what he did would be multiple felonies now.
Tichy 16y ago
What I don't get is why the police had to wake them up with a gun pointed to his head. Is this standard procedure for hackers, or criminals in general? Is it because some time ago it was decided that hackers are terrorists? Suppose I cheated on my taxes (which I would of course never do, but I think many people consider that fair game), would the police also wake me with a gun pointed at my head?
- RyanHolliday 16y ago
  Well, Mitnick was kept in solitary because they were afraid he could start a nuclear exchange if given access to a phone. I think a bit of paranoia is common procedure for hackers because what they do seems like magic to most people. As for the taxes, that's entirely dependent on your behavior. There have definitely been stand-offs between tax protesters and armed law enforcement personnel.
incently 16y ago
Great attitude, almost civil-disobediencesque.
eordano 16y ago
Oh! So it was real? I remember downloading a file called "HL2 Source Code.rar", long time ago, from eDonkey network. Never payed enough attention to it, thinking it was a fake!
oemera 16y ago
What I learned from this is: Never trust any of your friends or family when you have such important things in your hands. You know in everyone of us is this little devil and if you have something which is important you can earn something with it (money or even credit in the community) there is a good chance that people will go the devil way. I even would consider saying I even DON'T trust myself on such important and valued things!
JacobIrwin 16y ago
End of page two: "The cat was out of the bag," says Gembe. "You cannot stop the internet."
mukyu 16y ago
In the reddit thread ( http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_stole_halflife_2_fascinating_article/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_st... ) he* has answered some questions. * I'm not actually sure it is him, but he is plausible enough.

401 points by twidlit 16y ago

jcw 16y ago

I'm happy to see that, while he did something wrong, because he was honest and openly remorseful throughout, he ended up not going to prison. The cops even seemed cordial, they let him get breakfast and a smoke. I wonder how differently things would have played out if he lived in the US.

podperson 16y ago
I think the German police clearly thought he was not going to get justice from the US (hence the remarks about how lucky he was that they got him before he got on the plane) and saved him from falling into the FBI's trap.
- atourgates 16y ago
  Considering the rash of "OMG the police barged into my house, shot my goldfish and raped my star wars collection" type stories I've been hearing, is it safe to assume that the German police are quite a bit more sensible than their American counterparts? The whole experience sounds rather civilized. The police let Gembe get dressed, eat breakfast and smoke a cigarette before bringing him down to the station. And when he confessed, his punishment was 2 years in probation. I somehow doubt his experience with the FBI would have been similar.
  - thomasz 16y ago
    > is it safe to assume that the German police are quite a bit more sensible than their American counterparts? It depends. Gun ownership isn't nearly as common in the US, so they can safely assume that a 17 year old blackhat won't pull a gun on them. On the other hand, I've seen a ~4.9 feet tall girl getting knocked unconsciously with a Mp5 during the eviction of a squat. In 2003, a schizophrenic in custody was beaten to death by officers in Cologne. They were sentenced from 12 to 18 months in probation. In 2005, Oury Jalloh burned to death in a holding cell in Dessau while being tied with handcuffs to a fire-proof mattress at his hands and feet. In 2008, Josef Hoss was beaten to a bloody pulp by a special unit after his arrest. He is irreparably crippled. He later recieved 30,000€ for compensation.
    - burgerbrain 16y ago
      The difference between Germany and the US? Those types incidents are uncommon enough that you can remember individual occurrences.
      - Dylanlacey 16y ago
        ANYWHERE you get people whose jobs are power-over-others based, you'll get fuckwads taking those jobs to feel powerful. Then abusing those jobs for the same reason. It has nothing to do with the nation and everything to do with the nature of people and policework.
      - ars 16y ago
        Oh come on, they are quite rare in the US as well, and the US is a LOT larger than Germany.
        psykotic 16y ago
        > Oh come on, they are quite rare in the US as well, and the US is a LOT larger than Germany. Yes, if "a LOT larger" means 3.5x larger. Germany has 82 million inhabitants and is the most populous country in Europe.
        true_religion 16y ago
        A lot larger as in landmass. People pay attention to what goes on in their geographic area, regardless of its population. For example, a beating in California isn't going to be as troubling to a resident in Vermont. They'll simply say "different state, different police force". On the other hand, a beating in Berlin is going to trouble someone in any part of Germany.
        noibl 16y ago
        Believe it or not, Germany is also a federal republic with distinct regional differences. Germany doesn't even have federal policing.
  - die_sekte 16y ago
    Germany neither has a War on Drugs nor a meth problem. There have been highly criticized raids in Germany, but there are fewer raids per capita in Germany, and in Germany police-citizen interaction is less violent (no automatic assumption that that driver that was just pulled over is armed, for example).
    - burgerbrain 16y ago
      "War on Drugs nor a meth problem" You say that as if the first does not cause the second. America's 'war on drugs' is the cause of the problems, not an excuse.
- billmcneale 16y ago
  Please. Do we need any more anti-US rhetoric here? I see no reason to believe that he would have been treated differently by the FBI, and besides, he would probably have been extradited right back to Germany.
  - danssig 16y ago
    You don't appear to be aware of what's going on in the US right now. I would also suggest reading what pg has to say about identity (and keeping it small).
    - borism 16y ago
      link?
      - GFischer 16y ago
        http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html About considering you part of something: "..There is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you."
ryandvm 16y ago
No kidding. I would love to hear Gabe Newell's take on this article. That kid was a hairbreadth away from spending half a decade in a federal pen. That had to be a hell of a "whew" moment he had in that police station.
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Semiapies 16y ago
The cops were "cordial" after rousting him out of bed while pointing automatic weapons at him. In other words, they armed up and stormed the residence of a suspect of a non-violent crime. That sounds pretty standard for the US, and for the same reason indicated by the instruction, "Get out of bed. Do not touch the keyboard". SWAT-style tactics are rarely about any actual belief that the suspect has weapons and is likely to resist arrest, but about violently (sometimes lethally) subduing a suspect who might destroy evidence and impair the prosecution's case. And, of course, the overtime pay for SWAT work in many US jurisdictions. Don't know how that works in Germany.
- basugasubaku 16y ago
  On the reddit thread, the guy says that was inaccurate and they were actually "really nice" in waking him up. http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_stole_halflife_2_fascinating_article/c1hp9ov http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_st...
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    Hmm! I wonder what that's about. Thanks for the information.
ars 16y ago
Things would have been exactly the same in the US. The stories that get all the publicity are the bad ones which of course leads you to think that's all there is. But by far most cases end up exactly like this one. Judges LOVE honesty, and so do cops. If you are honest and open with them you get a far milder punishment than someone who won't talk. I've seen it in so many case reports. Judges are trying to figure out what kind of person you are. If you are open and honest they figure you made a mistake, but are basically a good person and thus don't need much punishment. On the other hand someone who won't talk is assumed to have a more negative mindset. I don't mean to suggest that not talking is taken as evidence for guilt - guilt is established separately and is not based on your cooperation. But the punishment for that guilt varies depending on your behavior in court and to the cops. A lot of the advice on the internet about not talking to cops etc is aimed at avoiding guilt. And it may work. But it utterly ignores the second half, which to me seems almost as important, and that is punishment.
- jessedhillon 16y ago
  > Judges LOVE honesty, and so do cops. Traffic tickets are not even in the same league as the kind of offenses that we're talking about here, but if they are any indication then I have to agree. I've gotten out of my last three traffic stops by simply telling the cop exactly what I did: driving in the HOV lane without a passenger, rolling through a stop sign, and doing 40 in a 25. These people -- law enforcement and the court -- get jerked around all day by people who insult their intelligence with bullshit stories. It must be refreshing to hear someone clearly admit what they did with no attempt to evade responsibility.
  - Tomis 16y ago
    Now you've ruined it.

jarin 16y ago

Glad to see it had a relatively happy ending. At the risk of repeating a tired Internet cliche, I think the leak may have helped Half-Life 2. If the project was already months behind schedule and had a year before a GM build would be ready, having the source code leaked may have given hardcore gamers reassurance that the game was actually coming along and would be finished at some point. Of course, there's also the newsworthiness and buzz coming from the leak itself.

twidlit 16y ago
Now if someone would only leak Episode 3/Half-Life 3...
- Uchikoma 16y ago
  I have the suspicion - no, deep deep creepy fear that engulfs your heart - that E3 will become the next Duke Nukem. This might push me into insanity.
  - dspillett 16y ago
    I suspect Duke is one of the reasons for the complete lack of E3 related announcements so far this year. That and their own Portal 2. They'll not want a "coming next year" annoucement about E3 to be wasted by it being overshadowed by the big things being released in the next few months. Hopefully there will be an announcement later in the year, during one of the release dry spells. Though you could be right, we've already been waiting for E3 twice as long as E2.
enneff 16y ago
How does reassuring hardcore gamers that the game is actually being made help Valve? Do you think they would have boycotted the biggest game of the decade simply because it was released late? Seriously... how did this help Valve? I know everything worked out well in the end, but the leak did somewhat spoil the game for a lot of people. I certainly didn't appreciate it at the time.

temptemptemp13 16y ago

I'd really like to hear Gabe's side to this story.

abossy 16y ago
Agreed. I remember reading about this years and years ago, and I thought Gabe Newell said the resolution was that they flew him to the U.S. and arrested him as he de-boarded his plane.

jasonjei 16y ago

Considering that he's been sentenced and assuming he has served the term of probation, if he were to set foot on the US, could he be tried and sentenced again, or does Double Jeopardy protect him even if he already had proceeded through the German court system?

true_religion 16y ago
Double Jeopardy doesn't protect you from being tried in multiple jurisdictions. An American example is the "D.C. Snipper" who was charged in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. to maximize jailtime and possibility of conviction.
- kd0amg 16y ago
  Was that all for a single crime, or did each trial cover separate instances?
  - true_religion 16y ago
    They were treated as seperate instances since the crimes were committed against people in X jurisdiction. That's applicable in this case as well since the Valve folk are in the US jurisdiction.
    - kd0amg 16y ago
      If the instances were partitioned between those three jurisdictions, then it isn't really an example of avoiding double jeopardy limitations by changing jurisdiction.
      - true_religion 16y ago
        Right, I guess what I'm getting at is that neither case (the one in the article and the one I mentioned) was about Double Jeopardy because the police could partition the crimes to different jurisdictions. Legalistically, its correct but ethically it means that police can try you multiple times so long as they narrow the jurisdiction on the first attempts. For instance, a car chase that crosses multi-jurisdictions can result in multiple trials (and consecutive sentences) even though its really just one offense.

sathyabhat 16y ago

Site's down, text-only Google cache view http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:T1eI3Z60_yMJ:www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-the-boy-who-stole-half-life-2-article%3Fpage%3D1+http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-the-boy-who-stole-half-life-2-article%3Fpage%3D1&hl=en&gl=in&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:T1eI3Z6...

ztan 16y ago

I found the story to be quite tragic. This kid really saw the people at Valve as his heroes. Valve knew this and totally abused of that fact. They tricked him and was planning to hand him to the FBI, despite the fact he was (still is) their biggest fan and that the leak was accidental. I would have really hired him if I was in Gabe's position. He had both passion and skills. I think he would make an awesome YC applicant if he directed those to creating a web startup.

twidlit 16y ago
Considering how good Valve is making fanbases, the number of hackpplicants would then be untenable.
- ztan 16y ago
  As far as I know he was the only one who have succeeded in not only hacking in, but also not being traced back despite all of Valves efforts. (They even got the FBI involved.) How many of the "hackpplicants" can you say the same about? The only reason Valve even knew who did it was because he came forward to them. He admired Gabe and his team so much that his dream is to join them. All of this indicate to me that he would make an awesome employee. I have little doubt that he would have poured his heart and soul into the company had he been given the chance. In fact that is the main reason why I found the story to be so tragic.
  - twidlit 16y ago
    My point is it would encourage more people to apply by trying to hack into the company's networks instead of just creating impressive mods, Valve is a game dev/platform company after all not a network security one.
    - ztan 16y ago
      Ahh, I see. Point taken. I would still hire this passionate kid and put him on the network security team. I would then make a public announcement about how the job you get depends on what skill you demonstrate. Which should be the way it works anyways. If you want to join us as a game developer then you need to demonstrate your game developing passion and skills. Either through creating mods with our SDK/platform or writing/creating your own from scratch. However if you want to join us as a network security expert then you got to beat this kid we just hired! =P

l0nwlf 16y ago

I wonder why Valve didn't offered him a job. He was naive but talented and passionate about gaming.

mey 16y ago
Valve maintains systems that contain sensitive financial information, sensitive internal IP, and a whole library of external IP from other publishers. This wasn't a script kiddie pulling things off bit-torrent, this was an elaborate penetration into a corporate network. If I was in Valve's position, I would blackball him from working there because he couldn't be trusted, and the damage he caused. Damage caused was at least time spent cleaning up his mess in their network. Conversely it sounds like Valve had a very weak security setup in their network.
- sukuriant 16y ago
  I haven't the faintest clue about how accurate the sort of story I'm about to use as a counter-point is, but what about capable hackers that succeed in breaking into government servers then being given a choice to either work for said government organization, or go to jail for a very long time? Assuming those sorts of cases actually happen, how is this any different?
  - protomyth 16y ago
    A lot of those stories are more in the realm of folklore, and the agencies that are said to have offered such choices have "alternate choices" for reduction in personnel than a private business has if the arrangement doesn't work out.
  - mey 16y ago
    Probably thinking of something like http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/01/72515 http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/01/7251... and if memory serves me correctly, he was eventually caught shuffling credit cards that they captured back out for a tidy profit.
T-hawk 16y ago

joelhaasnoot 16y ago

Story reminds me of the book "Cuckoo's egg" by Clifford Stoll

cschep 16y ago
great story!

tkahn6 16y ago

I'm impressed by the shear amount of knowledge the kid had. Especially at the age that he did it.

moe 16y ago
I also found it hard to not sympathize with him after statements like this: "My bot used the same vulnerability in the LSASS service that his did, except it didn't crash the host system, so I guess they thought I gave him the exploit code. Of course I denied this and told them that I never write such shoddy code." He doesn't come across like a criminal mind to me. Don't blame an 18yr old kid for naively crossing lines he shouldn't. Blame the million dollar company for not securing their assets against 18yr old kids.
- epo 16y ago
  Yet another know-it-all blaming the victim. There is no magic immunity which accrues from being 18, the kid knew what he was doing and wilfully committed criminal acts.
  - moe 16y ago
    Thanks for the ad hominem. It would have been more plausible if you didn't claim to know better than the know-it-all in the next sentence ("willfully"). If you really want this discussion then perhaps take into consideration the nature of the crime and try to recall your own youth (you've once been 18, too, right?). I'm not saying he doesn't deserve a slap on the wrist. It's however beyond ridiculous to try and charge him with virtual 9 figure damages - potentially sending him to jail and ruining the rest of his life. The more interesting question is who was charged for criminal negligence - or at least fired - at Valve over this? This is the more interesting question because curious and slightly naive 18yr olds are a natural law. They will always be around, and there's strong evidence that deterrence does not work very well against them.
- khafra 16y ago
  It's possible for a criminal to have pride in his craftsmanship.

Scaevolus 16y ago

I liked this quote: "For some reason they thought there was a connection between me and Sasser, which I denied. Sasser was big news back then and its author, Sven Jaschan, was raided the same day as me in a co-ordinated operation, because they thought I could warn him. "My bot used the same vulnerability in the LSASS service that his did, except it didn't crash the host system, so I guess they thought I gave him the exploit code. Of course I denied this and told them that I never write such shoddy code."

bluesnowmonkey 16y ago

Am I the only one who thinks what he did was not only criminal but morally wrong, and that he deserved to go to prison for a long time? I realize that everybody likes to call themselves a "hacker" because they can program a computer, but this is an actual black-hat hacker. There are bad guys in the world and he's one of them. He wrote malware. He stole source code and gave it to the world. And this wasn't some evil corporation he was trying to bring to justice for its crimes. This was Valve. All they do is make cool games for the world. It's incredibly difficult work and they do a fantastic job. What kind of asshole do you have to be to shit all over them like this kid did?

icarus_drowning 16y ago
No, you aren't. And what I find galling about the article is how they go out of their way to use sympathetic language in describing him. Just one example: "Gembe's malware crimes, while undeniably exploitative and damaging, were crimes driven by a passion for games rather than profits." I understand that it is important to explore his motivations, but the way this is phrased (in particular what seems to be an attempt to contrast the boy's "passion" with Valves lust for "profits") is pretty terrible. I don't think his "pure" motivations matter at all-- what matters is that he chose to steal the property of Valve and make it available to others. Whether Gembe meant for it to end up on the internet doesn't matter when it ends up on the internet. I see a lot of comments on this that are sympathetic to the kid, and while I understand that feeling, I think a more sensible look at the situation demands that you feel sorry for him because he brought this upon himself, not because he was any kind of "victim". I'm glad to see that he was able to get on with his life, and I probably don't agree with what U.S. authorities would like to have sentenced him to had they gotten ahold of him. But that doesn't make him the persecuted hero that so many people seem to think he is. And that doesn't mean he shouldn't have done some jail time either.
- __david__ 16y ago
  > in particular what seems to be an attempt to contrast the boy's "passion" with Valves lust for "profits" Wow, did you read the same sentence I did? They weren't implying Valve had a lust for profits, they were indicating that Gembe wasn't motivated by profit. I think you're reading way too much into that particular sentence. > I see a lot of comments on this that are sympathetic to the kid, and while I understand that feeling, I think a more sensible look at the situation demands that you feel sorry for him because he brought this upon himself, not because he was any kind of "victim". I see the comments here differently--I don't think anyone thinks he's strictly innocent, I think people are sympathetic because he was looking down the barrel of the American Corporate Legal System™ and only narrowly escaped. I understand Valve's anger at having their stuff ripped off and published around the internet and if I were in their position I might have the same outlook. But, having the gift of 20/20 hindsight, we can see that it didn't actually affect them negatively in any tangible way. Half-life 2 was released and overwhelmingly successful and there are no game engines with stolen Valve code stealing licensing profits from them. So I am sympathetic to the fact that he escaped any jail time because in the end what he did didn't matter. 2 Years of probation seems perfectly appropriate.

linuxhansl 16y ago

Unless it is a small project and works without a dataceter the sourcecode itself is useless. Yet, so many people believe that there is actually any (usable) value in the source code alone. I flunked (thank god) an interview with a company once that ended up going belly up. The capital came from angel investors (mostly lawyers). When they ran out of money they locked everybody out of the premises (even though all their stuff was still in the building) for the fear somebody would take the source. This was 6 or 7 years ago.. To this date these lawyers still sit on their precious source code.

jrockway 16y ago

Automatic weapons were pointing at his head and the words "Get out of bed. Do not touch the keyboard" were ringing in his ears. Would they really have shot him in the head if he touched the keyboard? My guess is no.

stuhacking 16y ago
Would you take the chance? My guess is he'd receive a sharp blow from the butt of the weapon to the back of the head had he shown any attempt to deviate from their instructions.

chaosmachine 16y ago

I was in a similar position once, many years ago, in the early days of the web. I had managed to get parts of the source code to a popular online game (no real hacking here, they left a tarball in an open directory I stumbled upon), and being a foolish young kid, I decided to brag about my insider knowledge of unfinished features on a website. A few weeks later, the company contacted me with a job offer... they just needed my name and address to start sending me checks. Fortunately, I wasn't that dumb.

jrockway 16y ago
Nice. I guess whoever lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is getting a few extra bucks a month now.
shadowpwner 16y ago
Out of all the ways they could have caught you, a job offer? That's hilarious.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
yalurker 16y ago
As a counter anecdote, there is a CS lecturer at my alma mater who actually did get a job directly due to taking code (a physics simulator I believe) from some company's server. He was careful to end the story by reminding students that things have changed a bit since his youth, and what he did would be multiple felonies now.

Tichy 16y ago

What I don't get is why the police had to wake them up with a gun pointed to his head. Is this standard procedure for hackers, or criminals in general? Is it because some time ago it was decided that hackers are terrorists? Suppose I cheated on my taxes (which I would of course never do, but I think many people consider that fair game), would the police also wake me with a gun pointed at my head?

RyanHolliday 16y ago
Well, Mitnick was kept in solitary because they were afraid he could start a nuclear exchange if given access to a phone. I think a bit of paranoia is common procedure for hackers because what they do seems like magic to most people. As for the taxes, that's entirely dependent on your behavior. There have definitely been stand-offs between tax protesters and armed law enforcement personnel.

incently 16y ago

Great attitude, almost civil-disobediencesque.

eordano 16y ago

Oh! So it was real? I remember downloading a file called "HL2 Source Code.rar", long time ago, from eDonkey network. Never payed enough attention to it, thinking it was a fake!

oemera 16y ago

What I learned from this is: Never trust any of your friends or family when you have such important things in your hands. You know in everyone of us is this little devil and if you have something which is important you can earn something with it (money or even credit in the community) there is a good chance that people will go the devil way. I even would consider saying I even DON'T trust myself on such important and valued things!

JacobIrwin 16y ago

End of page two: "The cat was out of the bag," says Gembe. "You cannot stop the internet."

mukyu 16y ago

In the reddit thread ( http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_stole_halflife_2_fascinating_article/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_st... ) he* has answered some questions. * I'm not actually sure it is him, but he is plausible enough.