Well it looks like Valve has started to 'drop the hammer' or whatever you want to call it on people being naughty instead of nice when trying to get Half-Life 2 without paying for it. Here's the official word from Valve:

Yesterday, Valve disabled approximately 20,000 Steam accounts which had been used to try to access Half-Life 2 without purchasing it. The method used was extremely easy for Valve to trace and confirm, and so there is no question that the accounts disabled were used to try and illegally obtain Half-Life 2. Accounts also may be closed due to fraudulent activity in an attempt to obtain additional products for your Steam Account. This includes Credit Card fraud, theft of accounts you do not own and using cracked versions of Valve games. If you violate the Steam Subscriber agreement your account can be permanently disabled and you will lose any products registered to those accounts.

Also, a few myths floating around out there that need to be cleared up.

First, Valve did not put out any kind of fake key or fake warez or hack instructions to trap people. The hack came from the "community" as do they all. Second, the number of people who actually had bought HL2 and used the CD key cheat was VERY small. VERY small. Most people just tried to rip off the game and not bother buying it.