Gabe Newell Speaks On Recent VAC Controversy

[SinisterGehe]

Alright the amount of hate radiated towards Valve and Gabe is getting absurd.
I think this is good, I like it at they are open at least - compared to some companies we know of.
So why all the hate? If Steam touched you the wrong way then stop using it and tell the an adult.
Stop flinging poo at him just because he is part of a successful company and is rich.

This is fucking absurd and disgusting to read.
I trust Valve - never an issue with them that I wouldn't been able to solve - at least with help of Finnish Customer Rights Agency who always clarify my rights and position. And they follow them Eu standards and laws (Because their European office is in Luxembourg they have to)

So I don't get the hate.

And no - do not reply me with your particular sob stories or sources of anger

 

[truckspond]

If this was a company like EA then I would be furious. But because Valve have actually been the ONLY company to build up so much goodwill by being so consumer friendly and NOT treating their paying customers like pirates but still reaping the benefits (They managed to turn RUSSIA - the piracy capital of the world into their largest paying market in europe! Just by actually providing a decent alternative to piracy!) I am willing to trust them on this.

They have built up a vibrant and thriving community around Steam and they have managed to keep a purely multiplayer game going since 2007 (Name one other multiplayer game that has lasted for almost seven YEARS and still has such a vibrant and growing community!) during which time it switched to the fairest free-to-play model around where you can experience ALL of the gameplay without paying a cent or waiting 24 hours before you can take a step and the playerbase is still growing to this day! (And before you ask: Trading =/= Gameplay)

Because of that I am not outraged.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I trust Valve because I know they are long term thinkers and they're ran by actual gamers. They understand the value of respect and loyalty among the customers and would be foolish to do something stupid to endanger that.

 

[JayRPG]

Valve asks for trust?

Are they kiddin', stupid or just cynical?

But I do take the explanation. It just means I'm uninstalling CSGO right now and will never play a multiplayer game again.

That is, honest to god, the biggest overreaction I have ever seen to something so-nearly meaningless in my entire life.

1. He actually said they no longer even use this protocol because there is already a work-around
2. Even if they were still using this... it really doesn't mean anything;
All it did was check your DNS Cache... your DNS Cache... meaning all it saw was a list of IP Addresses - The protocol would have a list of IP addresses known to be cheat DRM checks, it would look into DNS cache for one of the IP addresses and VAC ban you if it found one.

Having access to someone's DNS cache doesn't give even near-close to the amount of information people in this thread think it does. It's nothing but a list of IP addresses your internet connection has reached out to. They can't actually see what you're seeing, or what you're typing or what you are searching.. hell, if you really were on a porn site they wouldn't be able to tell what video you're watching - they could only see that you are on a porn site.

What could Valve possibly do with a vague list of IP addresses you've visited?

Not to mention "ipconfig /flushdns" before playing anything with VAC would mean they see literally nothing (unless you are web surfing while playing).

 

[MHR]

Got some real paranoid people 'round here. Valve is just tryin to keep cheaters out of your TF2.

People act like companies trying to find out stuff about you so they can figure out what brand of diaper your baby wants are going to cause 1984. It's ludicrous.

Solution: Hand out tinfoil hats in TF2 so nobody can police your dirty thoughts.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Ya guys do know that your web browsing is being tracked anyway? By at least 1 party at any given time? How do you think Google places those ads?

This isn't anything new, I don't know why there's an article about valve having done it briefly in the past as part of and anti cheating system designed to help YOU. As opposed to Google, which is doing it right now, primarily to make money. It isn't a matter of trusting Valve.

 

[42]

To be quite honest, I wouldn't mind GabeN having knowledge what porn I'd watch. Only because it'd be Half Life: Gordon Threesome.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Gabe, you need new glasses, that monitor is crazy

 

[Erttheking]

Just to clarify, how many people actually read the article and saw the bit where he said that Valve doesn't do this anymore? Because I don't think most people did that.

 

[putowtin]

Ya guys do know that your web browsing is being tracked anyway? By at least 1 party at any given time? How do you think Google places those ads?

Well said!

High horse people, get off it!
You only need to moan if you were cheating, your not so chill!

 

[AuronFtw]

'Trust us' is a line used by every corrupt company and government.

So, no, I won't 'trust you'.
Trust is EARNED, and they haven't earned it.

Erm... back up a sec. Valve hasn't earned your trust? The only company on earth to do DRM well and with an obvious intent *not* to fuck over customers in the process? Working over the years on improving various aspects of their distribution service (offline mode, the still-in-beta library sharing system, recently game tagging) to show that they're actually committed, in word and in reality, to the benefit of their customers? What would convince you that Valve is trustworthy, a hooker that comes over nightly? A free car? Shit, as far as game developers go, they're the least "evil" by far. Microsoft, EA, ubisoft and nintendo have been falling over themselves doing stupid shit that hurts customers, often for obviously malicious reasons (or in nintendo's case, just general incompetence). Valve thinks pretty far ahead, and they "listen to the community" for feedback.

If you've played literally any of Valve's games with developer commentary, you'd know they playtest almost to a fault - player feedback is used heavily, even while the game is being made. Community feedback is similarly used heavily for aspects of their services that affect the community. This isn't Origin, the "oh we want to copy Steam but do so for nefarious profit-mongering purposes and totally miss the point and never offer any good deals ever" DRM service. This isn't Microsoft putting nanny-cams on your consoles and attempting to require daily internet check-ins to be able to play offline games.

This is fucking Valve tweaking the security feature of their online multiplayer service. One that has performed amazingly well across a *wide range of games* keeping hackers, cheaters and botters to a minimum (or at least, far fewer than there would otherwise be) to keep online play fun for as many players as possible. If you seriously read his explanation about the third party crack programs being hardcoded to phone home for approval and only think "VALVE WANTS TO LOOK AT MY PORN!!!1111!!111111" then there's no real point in a conversation, cos you have no clue about the history of this company and would not trust them even if Jesus himself was their CEO.

 

[grey_space]

I not sure if half of you even read the post or understand what was said for that matter. -_-

Yup The amount of emotional knee-jerk reactions on this thread is truly astounding.

It's like everyone had an opinion on the subject before they even read the damn article.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Personally I couldn't care less because I have nothing in my history worth hiding. No dodgy porn sites, no anti government sites, no cheating sites.

And it also doesn't effect me or my computer in any noticeable way. What do people think Valve will do? Go on a mass Fraping? (Facebook raping, ie post inappropriate messages on someones else's Facebook account).

But I can see why people might get a little pissed off with this. Folks can be really protective when it comes to privacy, and often with very good reason. And what reason do they have to trust Valve like this? Besides the fact that as far as we know Valve hasn't done anything bad thus far.

 

[Sanunes]

Whenever a company says "trust us" I lose all trust. I understand why they are being secretive on what their software does, but this is my privacy and I don't have a Facebook page for more then messaging friends because I don't trust Facebook, I can't see why I should trust Valve with this.

so if a company would say "trust us, you dont want to drink battery acid", would you rather have a large or extra large cup?

since you know, you cant trust a company who says "trust us".



also, EL OH fucking EL, even in the article they say the protocol is no longer used, selective reading at it's finest!

Battery acid has warning labels all over it, Steam doesn't. Where did I say they were still using it?

 

[hazydawn]

Ever thought about you that YOU misused the trust of Valve and ALL the other gamers FIRST by starting to use CHEATS?

so yeah, a few among us games spoil the experience for everyone, thanks!

Get some skill or get lost.

What a load of horseshit.
Not as bad as the argument that any kind of restrictive and annoying DRM is justified by the people who pirate games,
but it falls into the same category.
You said it yourself, it is a relatively small number of individuals.

 

[Pigeon_Grenade]

i actually believe this Explanation to a point, i have seen Cheat Sites Asking for money to use there Stuff a few Times rummaging around for Mods.

the problem is the moment you ask for trust, is in fact the Time When some folks will stop Trusting you, though the fact he told Why the Code was there is also a telling fact of him trusting Us, you Really dont wanna tell people how your Anti-cheat works, cause then people will Do there Best to disable it- in some cases just to see if they can, in other cases to Stat Pad or Profit from it in some ways.

now some of the more advanced Cheat producers may have Bypassed it within days or hours, but its not as Easy to Remove it from a System, because it could Catch someone less knowledgeable or they could Exploit it Directly if they knew it was No longer There/ and or knew that valve Couldent use it anymore.

its gonna be a Mess Either Way and there will be some who will jump on valve for this

this was rather much longer then i intended, but i hope everyone has a good day

 

[MoltenSilver]

"We're only doing this to help"

You shouldn't trust it when the government says it, you sure shouldn't trust it when a corporation says it. Now, that's not to say I can demonstrate or prove anything said in the article isn't factual, and that may very well be truthful in all that valve does(or at the least what they intended, but we all know where good intentions can lead...). It's just you sure as hell shouldn't take these kind of statements without examination and critique

 

[Timmey]

This thread Jesus the amount of bullshit in here. CEO of a billion dollar company goes online himself to answer questions over fears about the way VAC works, and instead of people saying fair play thanks for explaining it etc, they decide to shit all over it.

Whilst not the most popular answer, if your unhappy with the way steam works, don't use it, problem solved.

 

[LordLundar]

I don't care about this, personally. I think Blizzard did something similar with World of Warcraft, and I didn't care then either.

Although after a quick google search, turns out they were scanning your computer for hacks, not necessarily your network traffic:

http://news.cnet.com/Game-players-say-Blizzard-invades-privacy/2100-1043_3-5830718.html

So yeah, I don't care.

Pretty much. Any online anti-cheat system uses something along these lines.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Understandable that Valve tries fighting cheaters. Although, wouldn't cheat DRM bypass a browser anyway, so someone who downloaded the cheat from a separate PC or dual-booted would be able to go undetected if they used browser history. Valves methods have to be monitoring you network activity for those key IPs. I'd trust Valve more that most companies, but anyone in Valve who thinks they could get away with snooping on someone could hijack VAC for their own nefarious deeds. I assume everyone in Valve are smart enough to realize that there's almost no chance even for the best computer wiz in the world to get away with it.

There are plenty of people picking apart every device they buy and code they download that nothing remains secret. That's why Valve and other developers are in a cat and mouse game with cheaters, and everyone knows Valve is doing something to their PCs. Sony and Ninty are at it with hackers for "homebrewing". And major retailers and banks are fighting credit card hackers and ID thieves. No company cares how much Asian bikini girl pics I've looked at today. I just watch out in case some virus installs a key logger or something no matter what I'm doing online. (I also try to block tracking cookies. Fuck most 3rd party cookies in general with Neptune's trident.)