Garry's Mod Pirates Get Stung

[Covarr]

How easy is it to obtain this ID number? My chief concern is that if someone figures out a way to get SOMEONE ELSE's number, they could fake the message and get that person banned. For example, I don't own Garry's Mod (yet), so if somebody pretended to be me on the Garry's Mod forums, and claimed to have the error message along with my ID, *I* could get in trouble for it.

This strikes me as a very dangerous form of antipiracy.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Now that is some clever detective work there. I tip my hat to Garry Newman. Also, those faces are just...just wonderful. XD

 

[Daemascus]

That is fantastic. Whose pathetic enough to pirate a $10 game anyway?

The same people who would pirate a 1 cent game.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100576-Who-Would-Pirate-the-One-Cent-Humble-Indie-Bundle

 

[Something Amyss]

I, on the other hand, find it all terribly amusing, and the pained squalling of those who got busted while seeking technical support for a game they illegally downloaded is just sweet, sugary icing on the cake of hilarity.

Couldn't agree me. Gary, my hat is tipped in your direction.

This was just pure brilliance.

 

[AugustFall]

Epic, I fully support this.

 

[LCP]

Excellent

*in Dr. Burns voice

 

[Scorched_Cascade]

While I don't like Gary himself (used to stalk his forums for community mods back in the olden days of gmod) this was both funny and useful and for that I take my hat off to him.

 

[mjc0961]

Big kudos to Garry for this one. I love it. I wish this happened more often instead of the kind of crap that EA and Ubisoft routinely pull.

I support this but do think that Steam should allow for some sort of review of cases where gamers claim they had a legit copy and were mistakenly banned.

Problem is, people who had a legit copy didn't get banned in the first place. Check the article again: the problem only occurs in pirate copies, and they already double-checked all the steam ID's to see if the person bought Garry's Mod or not before swinging the banhammer.

Anyone claiming they didn't do anything wrong is full of shit. It's like the Halo Reach rank resets all over again. What's that? You say you didn't cheat and your stats got reset anyway? They already know you cheated, shut up and start over.

 

[DTWolfwood]

my god they don't make pirates like they use to do they? when would you ever seek help from official sources when you have an illegal copy. thats just plain stupid.

Well in any case HAH! that is brilliant! Good work weeding out them idiots XD

Curious, do they get their steam account banned or just on the forums? Cause its really not a big deal if its just the forums <.<

No, they don't. Steam doesn't use evidence gathered from 3rd parties.

ah so this amounts to nothing more than a simple slap to the wrist until they find another cracked copy of Garry's mod.

guess its a moral victory XD

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

How easy is it to obtain this ID number? My chief concern is that if someone figures out a way to get SOMEONE ELSE's number, they could fake the message and get that person banned. For example, I don't own Garry's Mod (yet), so if somebody pretended to be me on the Garry's Mod forums, and claimed to have the error message along with my ID, *I* could get in trouble for it.

This strikes me as a very dangerous form of antipiracy.

P.S. Thanks

The person who generated the information had to willingly submit said information. From a technical standpoint that equates to perfect security while from a practical standpoint (as demonstrated with the reality of this case) such a mechanism is clearly open for exploit. For example, one could simply ask for it.

 

[Veloxe]

This has made my day, beautiful piece of work. I might have to go buy Garry's Mod now...

(I have been on the fence about it for awhile now)

 

[Monshroud]

Quite Epic. As long as Garry and the Steam folk have a process to review cases where someone may have been mistakenly banned, I have no issues.

Cookies to Garry!

 

[aashell13]

My question is what exactly is stopping these guys from pirating it again? They obviously have no compunctions against it.

presumably the loss of all the stuff they bought through steam.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Who's such a Cheap-State to pirate a £6 game?
Seriously, I mean, that's only about $11.

 

[millertime059]

ah so this amounts to nothing more than a simple slap to the wrist until they find another cracked copy of Garry's mod.

guess its a moral victory XD

Not entirely. Garry is a provably smart guy, this is an ingenious way to root out pirates. Now this method won't likely work the same way twice, but who's to say he couldn't do something similar in the future.

True degenrate thieving scum... I mean pirates, have a wide variety of smart people on their side too, and will likely find a way around this in the future, but it certainly has an effect on those pirates right now.