Subscribe to Shacknews or visit our front page for the scoop on all of your favorite games on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and PC/Windows.

Half-Life 2 Source Leak

Oct 02, 2003 4:16pm CST tags: Valve, Steam, Half-Life 2, Leak
In case you hadnt heard, the source code for Valve Software's Half-Life 2 has been leaked. Here's a statement from Gabe Newell via HalfLife2.net

Ever have one of those weeks? This has just not been the best couple of days for me or for Valve.
Yes, the source code that has been posted is the HL-2 source code.
Here is what we know:
1) Starting around 9/11 of this year, someone other than me was accessing my email account. This has been determined by looking at traffic on our email server versus my travel schedule.
2) Shortly afterwards my machine started acting weird (right-clicking on executables would crash explorer). I was unable to find a virus or trojan on my machine, I reformatted my hard drive, and reinstalled.
3) For the next week, there appears to have been suspicious activity on my webmail account.
4) Around 9/19 someone made a copy of the HL-2 source tree.
5) At some point, keystroke recorders got installed on several machines at Valve. Our speculation is that these were done via a buffer overflow in Outlook's preview pane. This recorder is apparently a customized version of RemoteAnywhere created to infect Valve (at least it hasn't been seen anywhere else, and isn't detected by normal virus scanning tools).
6) Periodically for the last year we've been the subject of a variety of denial of service attacks targetted at our webservers and at Steam. We don't know if these are related or independent.

Well, this sucks.
What I'd appreciate is the assistance of the community in tracking this down. I have a special email address for people to send information to, helpvalve@valvesoftware.com. If you have information about the denial of service attacks or the infiltration of our network, please send the details. There are some pretty obvious places to start with the posts and records in IRC, so if you can point us in the right direction, that would be great.
We at Valve have always thought of ourselves as being part of a community, and I can't imagine a better group of people to help us take care of these problems than this community.

Gabe

Important: Just to be clear, it's ok to talk about the leak and the possible implications, however we'll nuke you and your family if you even make the most slight clever hint of where to download it or even screenshots of it.
                                                          

Related Stories

  • GLaDOS Q&A

    1 Comment | Nov 01, 2007 12:07pm CST

    GLaDOS Speaks is an IGN interview with Ellen McLain, who is asked about her voicework as the Overwatch in Half-Life 2, the announcer in Team Fortress ...

  • Portal Q&A

    No Comments | Nov 01, 2007 8:44am CST

    There's a Q&A with Valve's Erik Wolpaw on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, asking the writer about his work at Double Fine and now Valve....

  • Portal Preview

    No Comments | Oct 03, 2007 9:47pm CST

    IGN has the latest Portal preview, offering impressions of the game launching next week as part of the Orange Box....

  • Portal Preview

    No Comments | Sep 25, 2007 11:20am CST

    bit-tech.net has been updated with a Portal preview, going hands-on with the first person puzzler which will be included with The Orange Box....

  • Gabe Newell Q&A

    No Comments | Aug 29, 2007 10:20am CST

    If Action Trip's Gabe Newell interview wasn't good enough, there's also one with Valve's head honcho on Eurogamer. The interview covers Episode Two, T...

  • Gabe Newell Q&A

    No Comments | Aug 29, 2007 9:55am CST

    Action Trip has been updated with a Gabe Newell Q&A which was conducted during this year's Games Convention. Topics include Steam, episodic content, t...

  • Half-Life 2: Episode Two Q&A

    No Comments | Aug 27, 2007 6:10pm CST

    Opening The Valve: The Gabe Newell Interview is a Game Informer article asking the Valve co-founder about Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Steam and more....

  • Half-Life 2: Episode Two Preview

    No Comments | Jul 20, 2007 9:21am CST

    Computer & Video Games has been updated with a preview of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. The article offers hands-on impressions....

  • Half-Life 2: Orange Box Preview

    No Comments | Jun 30, 2007 9:32am CST

    There's a Valve game blowout at Team Xbox, as they have previewed Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. Also available is this Portal ...

  • Steam Client Update Released

    No Comments | Jun 28, 2007 8:50am CST

    As noted on the Steam website, a Steam client update is now available. It offers a few miscellaneous fixes, including the ATI hardware promotion not b...