# Half Life 2 Source leaked **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 2, 2003, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144 "2003-10-02T15:53:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrot)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/21 "2003-10-02T20:07:58Z")
Well, [Planet Half-Life](http://www.planethalflife.com) has said that it is, in fact, true, but it’s not the full code. Specifically: > [@](#): > > no actual Half-Life 2 game content or art was included…downloading the source code will not enable you to play the game. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/22 "2003-10-02T20:16:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by carrot \* > \*\*Well, [Planet Half-Life](http://www.planethalflife.com) has said that it is, in fact, true, but it’s not the full code. Specifically: \*\* Missed that. ---
**Author:** ![carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrot)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/23 "2003-10-02T20:20:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by World Eater \* > \*\*Missed that. \*\* Well, they did kinda hide it by putting it right at the top of the front page like that. ---
**Author:** ![jamcracker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@jamcracker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jamcracker)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/24 "2003-10-02T21:02:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Isn’t HL2 supposed to be open source anyway? You know, so the mod-makers can make their mods? They don’t have to release the entirety of the source code to enable mod-makers to mod. Traditionally, they release a Software Development Kit (SDK) that provides interfaces to the various parts of the game engine. For a very simplified example, Valve doesn’t have to release the source of their physics engine, they just have to provide developers a way to create physical objects in the game world. I think the biggest impact of the source release is going to be cheating. Having access to the source ought to make it easier to write cheats, and having it early gives you a head start. Makes me think it’s more likely that there’ll be cheats released almost simultaneously with the gold release. (I haven’t read the released source, of course, so I’m just speculating.) ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/25 "2003-10-02T21:11:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by carrot \* > \*\*Well, they did kinda hide it by putting it right at the top of the front page like that. \*\* Oh shut the fuck up you orange piece of shit. First, that wasn’t up when I checked earlier this morning, and second, I looked under Half Life 2, which still says nothing. Try keeping your inane comments to yourself sometime, the world will be a better place. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/26 "2003-10-02T22:04:50Z")
Calm down there, World Eater… … … You big asshole… … ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/27 "2003-10-02T22:10:47Z")
I’m perfectly calm. Carrot has taken several potshots at me in the past that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/28 "2003-10-03T01:13:22Z")
> [@](#): > > _From Shalmanese_It appears that the CD authetication code is in there as well. Given that the covers have most likely already been printed, this is going to cost them major $$$ to reprint everything. That would explain the sudden push back of the release date and the confusion between Valve and their publisher. I’m guessing they would be implementing different authentication methods and hurredly trying to find ways of disabling online play for the hacked versions. Damn. I’m all for copyleft, but things like this really piss me off. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Sterra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Sterra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterra)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/29 "2003-10-03T01:34:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Una Persson \* > \*\*Who, how, and where, please? Some of us have very limited access from where we are. ☹ \*\* No idea. All I know is that they figured out who it was because of what version it was and what files it had on it. I don’t think that this is the reason they pushed back the release date though. The confusion between Valve and their publisher came way earlier before it was leaked. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/30 "2003-10-03T01:34:35Z")
This sucks, but I doubt it’ll have much impact on Valve besides the pushed back release date and possible redesign of the CD key mechanism. Remember when the Quake source was leaked? This is nearly the same, but it’s buggy prerelease code instead of a working post-release port. From what I understand (as I’m not a Half Life fan), Valve has been working around the clock to finish up HL2, so code that was swiped last month is going to be missing a lot of important changes. OTOH, the story of how it was swiped is interesting. Someone hacking into their email accounts and putting key loggers on their computers… sounds like a disgruntled employee. ---
**Author:** ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/31 "2003-10-03T09:01:49Z")
For the record, this is the FULL SOURCE CODE for Half-Life 2. However, it is ONLY the source code, no content. This means that, while you can compile the code and get a working copy of Half-Life 2, you’ll have nothing to DO with said working copy. No maps to play, no models to use, no audio to listen to, and no textures to look at. ---
**Author:** ![Reuben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/54ee81/32.png) [@Reuben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reuben)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/32 "2003-10-03T11:38:38Z")
There’s a semi-official statement from the head honcho at Valve software, Gabe Newell, here : [http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10692](http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10692) > [@](#): > > 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. For a while it was mooted that the statement was fake, but the [halflife2.net](http://halflife2.net) admins traced the poster’s IP right back to Valve so it’s almost certainly legit. It’s an interesting case, and it’s got me slightly worried that there might be some new as-yet-undetected virus/spyware around. My own office computer’s Explorer.exe is crashing about once a day (whereas it never used to). ---
**Author:** ![carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrot)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/33 "2003-10-03T12:35:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by World Eater \* > \*\*Oh shut the fuck up you orange piece of shit. First, that wasn’t up when I checked earlier this morning, and second, I looked under Half Life 2, which still says nothing. > > Try keeping your inane comments to yourself sometime, the world will be a better place. \*\* Eh, what? Calm down, dude. A little needling is no reason to fly off the handle. Second, when was I taking pot shots at you? Were you being an asshole? Was I being an asshole? ---
**Author:** ![Bubba\_Ray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bubba\_Ray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bubba_Ray)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/34 "2003-10-03T16:21:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by UncleBeer \* > \*\*Uh-huh. And when you forget to lock your front door, it’s okay if I swipe your telly? Idiot. \*\* Not it still makes you a criminal, but I wont cry a river for the guy who forgot to lock the frontdoor either. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/35 "2003-10-04T01:40:00Z")
> [@](#): > > …I wont cry a river for the guy who forgot to lock the frontdoor either. Even if it’s _your_ front door and telly? ---
**Author:** ![HanoNymus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ee59a6/32.png) [@HanoNymus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HanoNymus)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/36 "2003-10-04T03:22:29Z")
If it’s true, it’s really a sad thing. All that work. But i’m wondering if things are what they seem to be. Lately the buzz was that Valve was having trouble to meet the deadline, they already postponed it once. Who has to gain from this? If anyone will be using parts of the code and get caught, they’re gonna be in huge trouble. On the other hand, stories about HL2 are now all over the Net. It’s gonna be interesting to see the end of the story. The real consequences (if any) of the theft will emerge months from now, and by then this will be all but forgotten. Oh! I almost forgot - Doom 3 is also due soon. Interesting, interesting… For theories/scenarios/comments galore, you can go [here](http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=672968) ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/37 "2003-10-04T06:02:24Z")
> [@](#): > > but the [halflife2.net](http://halflife2.net) admins traced the poster’s IP right back to Valve so it’s almost certainly legit. Yes, but not because of any IP trace. We know it’s Gabe’s MB account because we gave him one. 🙂 * * * This is really heartbreaking. If it was just corporate espionage, that would be one thing, and the culprits could maybe be found and stopped and punished. But whomever did this decided that they also wanted to hurt and embarrass Valve as much as possible by putting it out in public where it can never really be taken away again. You can bet that the cheaters and exploiters are all merrily downloading and archiving copies of this to use in their next generation of of fucking up everyone else’s good time. This was a a hardcore attack on Valve. They took over entire systems within the Valve offices, stole passwords, ran keystroke capture programs. It was skilled, and it was nasty. The biggest suspects at this point has to be the cheater/exploiter community. In addition to being grade A assholes for a living, these people were mad as hell about Steam building in a means to permanently lock out people who abused the game. It very well could have crippled them. The only real thing they could hope for was something like this that would allow them to easily create proggies to intercept DLL info and scam themselves through Valve’s new security systems. The sickest thing about these slimeballs is that they obvious feel that they DESERVE things like Valve’s source and free access to ruin online gaming for everyone else. You don’t even have to have that many cheaters out there: once regular players are fearful of cheaters being out there, no one can trust anything and you spend the game worrying about getting killed by hacks rather than having fun. I hope they find whomever did this and flay them alive. Unfortunately, it’s too late to stop the damage this will cause. I just hope Valve can rise above it. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/38 "2003-10-04T09:23:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tranquilis \* > \*\*Even if it’s _your_ front door and telly? \*\* If someone cracked my box and stole important files, I’d be more pissed at _myself_ than at the cracker. More pissed by an order of magnitude. Why? Because I regard myself as an intelligent person who takes reasonable precautions. I regard myself as the kind of person who can be _trusted_. I know I make mistakes, but I don’t tolerate incompetence. And that would be a sterling example of my own incompetence. I’d still want the cracker tracked down and prosecuted, but I’d be more interested in a full account of how the break-in went down and which holes he seeped in through. ---
**Author:** ![SkyBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@SkyBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkyBum)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/39 "2003-10-04T10:09:10Z")
[Here](http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/28641) is the latest update from Gabe Newell that I have been able to find. > [@](#): > > Half-Life 2 Source Leak Update [Oct 03, 2003 : 07:40 pm] > > We’ve gotten some more details on the recent Half-Life 2 source leak from Gabe Newell for you guys to read here. I have verified that this is legit over the phone just to be safe. Here’s the latest: See above link for details… ---
**Author:** ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144/40 "2003-10-04T11:01:53Z")
Rumours are now flying that a [FULLY FUNCTIONAL, PLAYABLE BETA](http://hl2world.com/article87.html) of Half-Life 2 has been leaked. Damn, if this is true, Valve needs some serious love. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-life-2-source-leaked/205144.md?page=3)